trial by bells (nous n'irons plus au bois)

yesterday was  a typical day in that horsemouth  was feeling anxious. 

he' d done the chickens. he'd done the abbey. he'd got the bin up from the bottom of the drive. he'd watered the garden and the greenhouse and done a bit of weeding. he'd pegged back the nasturtiums to give the other plants a better chance. 

he'd even been for a quick walk up on the common. 

ideally horsemouth would be able to go and drink without subjecting himself to trail by bells first (but hey-ho). 

but before that there was the locking up the abbey and getting the chickens in. he did some watering as well. 

yesterday a wren got trapped in the conservatory. it took horsemouth a while to shoo it out. eventually he succeeded because it flew into his open back-pack as a dark and safe space. 

musically horsemouth thinks nous n'irons plus au bois will work well (clapping and singing version). similarly he thinks there's a version of le chaland qui passe that could be done (because rob is a big fan of jean vigo and l'atalante). this he thinks is a guitar and vocal one. he's taken a look at learning the words and the chords. 

he should watch l'atalante again. his memory of it is that there is a tune other than le chaland qui passe that plays a similar role in the film and it would be good to get that in too if possible. 

so far he thinks the clapping and singing songs he has sent off to rob have worked well  - travailler c'est trop dur, j'ai vu le loup, mes bourons sont morts etc. largely because they work with the limitations of his recording setup

this is not  to say horsemouth's singing always sounds in tune but because it sounds authentically like it is not. 

the songs with guitar or harmonium have been a bit more problematic because horsemouth's laptop takes exception to recording anything other than the human voice and tries to filter it out as background noise as soon as possible. 

various other recording strategies (hambone, playing rhythmically on the banjolin, recording guitar  etc.) have not yet led to success (or perhaps they will but horsemouth just doesn't know it yet).  

next week it looks like a bit of a heatwave (before fizzling out at the end of the month). 

midnight horsemouth is back from the bell-ringing (and the pub afterwards). the bell-ringing has gone well (as has the pub afterwards). 

the morning a grey coolish morning horsemouth has been over to the chickens and put the milk in the fridge in the garage. in a bit down to the abbey. 

a variety of clouds

so horsemouth watched a lot of je tu il elle with spanish subtitles (and french dialogue at low volume).  he didn't at any point hear the nous n'irons plus au bois song on the soundtrack (as is claimed in various places).

jaques brel used a part of this tine in his anti-war song la colombe (later covered by joan baez)  - 

'nous n'irons plus au bois, la colombe est blessée.

nous n'allons pas au bois, nous allons la tuer.'

in  je tu il elle a woman rattles round her apartment. re-arranging the furniture, dressing, undressing, writing letters she won't send, living on sugar. and then she's off hitchhiking, the truck driver's tale of woe, then she's with the ex-girlfriend (who doesn't want her to stay). 

people (but closely observed). you can see the marguerite duras/ chantal akerman comparison. (the woman is chantal akerman).  

it's the morning

horsemouth is just back from feeding the chickens. 

an aphid crawls across the top of the laptop screen. (go away you silly beast! shoo!)

he should go get the bin from the bottom of the drive soon. this evening bells.  

a variety of clouds. a cool morning. he's probably excused watering. 

utopian and apocalyptic (je tu il elle)

yesterday (as will be and then not again) 

horsemouth's mum went to the doctors in ewyas harold. the community transport people came to get her at midday and brought her back for 2pm. it is a very useful service (and horsemouth thanks them profusely for it).

horsemouth is ok with the buses but  for horsemouth the walk back from the village is do-able (except at night in the dark perhaps). for his mum it is not.  so if anything goes wrong it is a bit of a worry.

later horsemouth walked into ewyas harold and back to pick up a few things (and then down to the abbey and back). three miles all told (three and a half by road). 

such are the vagaries of living in the countryside without a car. 

horsemouth on the hunt for french songs

he thinks he has one in nous n'irons plus au bois (we won't go again into the woods). this was a favourite of debussy (he lifted it a number of times for his own compositions). it is also (allegedly) in je tu il elle by chantal akerman (1974) (but horsemouth hasn't found it yet). 

he supposes he wants slightly naive medieval sounding ones rather than chanson and melodie sounding ones. there's le chaland qui passe perhaps. 

the sung stuff seems to work best with the sound recorder software (designed to record speech). horsemouth sings and claps to give a sense of time and lets rob fill in the musical instruments. 

perhaps try some wordless singing.

it is a mild and temperate morning in the wild. 

horsemouth has just been out to see the chickens and he has his cup of coffee. later he delivers the eggs to the crossroads. 

e.m. cioran and utopia

inspired by his conversation with maria zambrano cioran embarks on a two to three year reading project on utopia (and its pre-requisite apocalypse). perhaps this is  his least likely topic. 

who does he read?

hesiod, genesis, prometheus, vico, fourier, saint-simon, pelagius, robert owen, dostoyevsky, cabet, william morris, campanella, swift (gulliver's travels), saint john of patmos, condorcet, plato, and, of course, st. thomas more. 

horsemouth has a fair amount of utopian and apocalyptic literature. 

the true location of utopia

'I remember precisely the moment when, at the café de flore, I made the decision to explore utopia...'

- e.m. cioran, maria zambrano: a decisive presence.

it was his conversation with maria zambrano that encouraged cioran to start on 'readings extending over two or three years'. 

by the end of his readings cioran thought he had identified the true location of utopia and, with his wife, vanished into the brazillian jungle.

for many years he could be found every afternoon sitting in one of the main squares of utopia feeding the many stray cats of the quarter. he made few friends and found the cafe society uncongenial. after an initial phase of ordering him out to labour in the fields the courtyard committee decided to feed him and treat him as an honoured guest (despite the fact that utopia had no need of philosophy). they argued that his philosophy was so uncongenial it could only function to encourage the youth to work  and live as best they could within utopian society. 

cioran's wife found work as a teacher (again) and supported him until he succumbed to dementia. 

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horsemouth supposes that the main joke here is that notorious romanian pessimist cioran moves to utopia and finds it no worse than paris. in fact he replicates his paris life almost perfectly. in many ways utopia is no worse for him than the everyday world (beset as it is, in cioran's view, by utopic thinking). 

here horsemouth is being unfair. cioran's life in paris suited him well. he spoke the language. he could write in it. he could read in it, he had access to books and educated people.

whether he would have learned utopian is doubtful. 

yesterday horsemouth has been down to unlock the abbey and then he did a little weeding in the garden. 

in the evening a tv documentary on brexit. it is coming up to the tenth anniversary of the referendum.  

horsemouth missed most of it - he was away in porto having a wonderful european experience. this lasts until the evening of st.joao (or more particularly the morning after) when people start commiserating with him about the result. 

it is rare for horsemouth to watch tv (other than the news). the radio he is more partial to.  

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it's the morning. another beautiful morning here in paradise. in a bit he goes and unlocks the abbey. 

'j'ai vu le loup, le renard, le lievre..'

so this week.

today (when you read this). 

horsemouth will be on the abbey rota  for the week. opening up and closing the abbey. 

once in the morning. once in the evening. 

(he does like to feel useful). 

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from here on in a written in the morning blogpost

when horsemouth got up in the morning the chickens were there to greet him at the gate (he had forgotten to lock them up the night before). fortunately they were all there (none had been snaffled by a fox). 

horsemouth is very pleased with the way his recording for far future village band III has turned out (and indeed with the whole thing). it will be released on an unsuspecting world in about a week or two's time. keep an eye out for it. 

rob was asking horsemouth if he had any more crazed french songs and horsemouth had to say he'd think about it. j'ai vu le loup (which horsemouth had to start learning for this) was interestingly not the song horsemouth thought it was 'I saw the wolf (oh how scary)'  but rather 'I saw the wolf, the fox and the hare getting drunk/ singing / dancing (disreputable beasts that they are).'  horsemouth only sang the middle bit so that's all there is of it. 

similarly with travailler c'est trop dur - horsemouth recorded it in two parts and rob picked only the second part so it emerges as a fragment. 

meanwhile

it's a temperate morning here in the wilds. in a bit horsemouth will finish off his coffee and go to unlock the abbey. it has rained in the night so this deprives horsemouth of watering the garden task. 

david hockney/ joan didion/ grace jones as a child

such were the three people horsemouth and howard discussed in their zoom call.  

david hockey - well david was a northerner in the art world (this was his relevance to howard). he kept going and so you've heard of him. howard teaches his photography (not his painting). 

with joan didion horsemouth's work was cut out - but howard did have a copy of slouching towards bethlehem with him,  so horsemouth's task was made easier. notebooks - says didion and she pulls out a quote, and via the quote a scene, poolside in LA. later (years later) a re-encounter at sachs in new york. look at this. the fecundity of memory assisted.

horsemouth sang her praises. by the end he may have had howard convinced.  

it was howard who mentioned grace jones as a child (from a poem horsemouth believes).

here a photo from howard. in his back garden reading and writing (and drawing probably).

meanwhile back in the wilds in the day a wander up the hill to deliver the eggs (and then a wander down the hill to check the defibrillator at the village hall). later a walk over to the village shop for the hereford times and then a walk back. 

horsemouth missed a concert at the abbey. it would have required time and planning to get to it (and rapid sobering up after the zoom beers with howard). 

that was a mostly written the day before blogpost.

it looks like a nice day out this morning.

horsemouth has been out to feed the chickens and to open up the garage. whilst he was having a quick pee he saw the black cat (the beast is not inclined to be over friendly). 

et je prends mon violon...

 an entirely written in the morning blogpost

horsemouth could really do with getting up to the wen.

that said he has been fairly productive of late. he has made more music. (something he has been wanting to do for a while). he has emailed a contact about co-op stuff (though not the old communal endeavour but a new communal endeavour). 

he has heard much of the far future village band III. the fragment of la travailler c'est trop dur works particularly well. 

he will take a crack at j'ai vu le loup (a notorious french tongue twister) and at playing the riff from poor black mattie. 

he will also take a crack at recording a 3 against 2 rhythm. given the success of the clap and vocal tunes. 

it is strange to be dealing with this material after all this time. 

today a beautiful morning. horsemouth will wander the eggs up the hill at some point. perhaps a zoom call with howard. certainly some sitting out and reading.