kilvert is himself mail art

'went to london by the mid-day mail...' 

(it seems like kilvert is himself mail art)

(he means the midday mail train)

horsemouth is reminded of children being posted. 

thereafter kilvert stays with his brother at 68 westbourne park villas, meets friends, and goes to see lots of bad art.  he returns to clyro for the end of the month. 

end of the week - the birthday of harry everett smith, anniversary of live from the village vanguard again (1966), no bell-ringing for horsemouth. thursday 10am a zoom meeting with howard (but no beers as it is too early even for horsemouth). 

the week after we have a monday june the 1st which needs celebrating horsemouth would think. this does mean a saturday 13th (to which people will attach less importance). 

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partially written in the morning blogpost

here we have a partially written in the morning blogpost. horsemouth has just been out to feed the chickens. 

for the leigh folk festival the lower and main stage saturday and sunday have been announced that just leaves the old fisherman's chapel (where the sort of stuff horsemouth likes probably will be). 

yesterday a depressing listen. the IFS (institute for fiscal studies) reported on energy costs and the cost of  electricity is likely to remain high - this is because while renewables are effectively free once built the cost of building out the grid to get the electricity from where it is produced to where it is needed and to deal with the extra capacity required makes it inevitably more expensive. 

who should pay for these increased costs? this is the problem. 

horsemouth's predictions from 2020

'horsemouth would like to see cummings fall - all the rest are stupid tory boys incapable of sustained thought and keeping their nose out of the trough, left to themselves they will fail to exploit the decisive breach cummings has succeeded in making visible in uk politics. the tory boys will attempt to ignore it again and having unleashed these forces they will be consumed by them (result)...'

well this seems to (to horsemouth) to be what is happening. of course there is a future for the conservative party - as the coalition partner of reform.

at the local level horsemouth is intrigued by worcester council. he is interested the badenoch has forbidden tory councillors from joining anti-reform coalitions. reform must be left in to fuck things up (seems to be the strategy) and (simultaneously) be left in as preferred coalition partner. 

this may be an astute calculation. the likely coming reform-tory coalition may crash and burn (or at the very least not be capable of delivering) but, as long as they have taken care to look statesmen-like and vaguely competent in the offices they do hold, the tories are well placed to return to their former place as de facto party of government. 

if the political system becomes multi-party but the electoral system remains first-passed-the-post that will drive government back towards a majority two party form. if a variety of proportional representation is bolted on to the existing westminster structure then coalitionism will become established. 

what horsemouth didn't foresee is labour being outflanked to the left by independents and greens. he didn't foresee their collapse in office. all that remains to them is to cling on through the economic meltdown coming and try and look competent and statesmen-like until the 2029 election.

he doubts the power of any one leadership candidate (or indeed political party) to move the dial.  

the hottest may bank holiday on record

'I took the whole of the morning service and sermon for my father and he celebrated the holy communion...' 

kilvert's dad is a priest also. 

tomorrow kilvert is off to london. he will return on 29th may and then he is off to clyro (possibly for the last time he thinks). 

yesterday a year ago horsemouth was walking back from the only bus service that ran on a sunday near to his mum's house (the bus across to hay). he had been up to the wen to see soft white underbelly (aka. the blue oyster cult) with mike T. 

and most excellent they were too. 

bees in the flowers (the raspberry canes mostly). but not old style bees. instead a wider selection of bee like creatures. 

the black cat caught a slow worm and then (bored) abandoned it. a golden beast. horsemouth picked it up and put it back on the banking and after a while it slid away. hopefully it is ok after its mauling. 

there was a dragonfly also. 

from waxworks horsemouth is watching the ivan the terrible episode (more awesome set design and costumes and german expressionist acting). he read a bit of emil cioran's a history of decay (the usual moaning). sample moan;

'history - that indecent alloy of banality and apocalypse.' 

he read a little karl korsch as well. 

this morning horsemouth is up early (6.30am). he had left the windows open overnight to gather up the cold air and has now closed them and drawn the curtains to keep the cold air in the house. 

now to see if it works. 

all that good stuff (the grain of the voice)

kilvert is still in langley. 

having walked his brother to the railway station he finds the langley cricket team playing the first game of the season. 

so horsemouth watched the first tale from waxworks a paul leni german silent movie from 1924 (and most excellent it was too). the first tale features emil jannings as haroun al-rashid.  it's not going to win any awards for political correctness but the set design is amazing (in that german expressionist way). he will finish off watching it - next up ivan the terrible and jack the ripper (renamed spring heel jack to avoid hurting british sensibilities). 

horsemouth sat outside in the shade and read, mainly timpson's england a collection of odd buildings or buildings with odd stories attached. 

he listened to a dj talk about the women of free jazz and then followed it up by listening to some of the recommended music. 

'I like a good obvious flaw... cats purring, chairs creaking, slightly out of tune instruments... all that good stuff.'

horsemouth supposes it all comes down to roland barthes' the grain of the voice - music that is immaculately performed lacks character, it doesn't create the image of the person singing or playing. music with flaws does create that image. the ear catches on that flaw, grit, or grain.

an obvious flaw is productive - it tips the song into a new direction. a purring cat or a barking dog is just that. 

but conversely music  also has  background and foreground, and sometimes you want the performance to move to the background and become something in the service of the song as a whole, of the song as intended.

not everything has to be free jazz all the time.  

horsemouth came of age musically in an era of trying to make everything smooth, to remove accidents. people would attempt to interest him in eno's way of working 'honor thy error as a hidden intention' but it exposed him to risk. 

horsemouth is listening through to far future village band trying to understand the aesthetic of it better. because of recording limitations he cannot multiply his efforts by layering recordings. 

last night bats flying about. that hyperreal evening light (maxfield parrish). 

today another beautiful morning. a bank holiday. horsemouth is nearly done with his coffee.

'everything under the sky...'

'in this little book of travel is included everything under the sky...' 

- soryu (1694) postscript to the copy he made of the narrow road to the deep north.

today no kilvert. 

instead some mail art from rob lawson in far off riogordo

courtesy of the correos, the royal mail, and the tabac in rob's village.

a) a fantastic CD from rob  in a card sleeve. completed with;

b) press release and b-side handwritten note.

c) chapbook with text in the riddley walker style including a photo of rob and one of his homemade instruments

d) an invitation to join a mail art network

post-apocalyptic folk of the riddley walker (russell hoban) variety. a review to follow soon.

and soon a follow up CD including collaborations between rob and horsemouth's french cousin mâchoire d'âne.

horsemouth was intrigued by rob's list of influences for this project.

books

riddley walker (russell hoban) horsemouth has read. probably back in the squats of hackney in about 1985. when it was curiously on message. 

horsemouth would probably put in michael jefferies after london/ wild england as well. 

the 17 (bill drummond) horsemouth has not read. 

the death of grass/ the disaffection (john christopher/ james kelman) horsemouth has not read. but he's read a book by kelman. there's a thing with demotic and the recording of spoken language in non-standard forms as written text here that bears thinking about. that standardisation of language by print is very much  part of the national(ist)  project generating a national language (or so benedict anderson's imagined communities would argue). 

there's that tension between written and spoken language that you  find in claude lévi-strauss also. 

films/ tv

threads/ survivors - survivors was very important to horsemouth. to this he would probably add the changes and the good life, that whole GB75/ back to the land thing. the times themselves were apocalyptic and people looked to a kind of post-apocalyptic utopia/ dystopia of a folk horror-ish back to the land. 

music

only michael o'shea on this list means anything to horsemouth really.  

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yesterday morning an egg delivery (including nearly being runover by martin on the way there).  after that horsemouth collected some ashes from the great burning to put on the garden (good as fertiliser and good against slugs). 

yesterday afternoon. an egg delivery. 

today even warmer (apparently). horsemouth is up (he has his coffee). he has been out to feed the chickens (who seem to be off their food). he had the windows of his room open over night and has now closed them the better to try and keep the coolness in. in a bit he will close the curtains to keep out the sunlight. 

about a week of hot dry weather to come. should horsemouth add ballard's the drought to that list? 

birds dance / cats dance (and other travel sketches)

'they were written by a number of poets sitting together and writing alternately, and that each poem in the series was linked to the immediately preceding one...

the result was often a kind of kaleidoscopic beauty with infinite variety revealed to the reader in a slowly evolving movement.'

- nobuyuki yuasu in his introduction to matsuo basho's the narrow road to the deep north and other travel sketches

horsemouth has just heard rob's version of his and horsemouth's je te veux (erik satie). which he pronounces himself most satisfied with. more tracks to come from rob's far future village band. bird dance from seems very incredible string band to horsemouth (like something this song has no ending crossed with okinawan music).

horsemouth (once again) was hampered by his failure to put the work into understanding musical technology (in this case his laptop). this, together with the fact he was quite out of practice and had no click to work with meant everything he sent off to rob had an obvious flaw in the recording. 

in some ways these limitations suited the project (in some ways not). horsemouth will give it all another listen in a bit. 

 for kilvert the decision is made

'this evening I had a letter from mr. venables... saying he had decided not to resign the living of clyro until the end of 1872, and offering me £160 a year to stay on. I decided to keep to my former plans and to leave clyro at beginning of august.' 

soon (in any event) he is away up to liverpool.

yesterday afternoon the great burn (which horsemouth was dreading) but it all passed off successfully.

today an egg delivery. a beautiful morning.  

the garden/ things that are not the garden

no kilvert today (kilvert tomorrow). 

and then a pretty good run our through the end of may and the start of june. soon he is up in liverpool (what for horsemouth cannot yet say). 

in the same period the weather gets brighter, hotter, sunnier (about time).

the garden

horsemouth has planted out the sprouts. checked the beetroot. first flowers on the runner beans in the greenhouse. tomatoes doing ok. onions doing ok. peas doing ok (but possibly not enough of them). won't know how well the potatoes are doing until horsemouth digs them up. broad beans still a bit short. 

a tray of basil to separate out. the spinach is still doing well. the gooseberries (and the other berries) are on their way. the rhubarb is gigantic. 

a plan to 'refresh' some of the pots with asters. 

everything quite a bit behind where it was this time last year but then it has been cold. 

things that are not the garden

the sheep (and lambs) have been moved up to julie's. horsemouth has put the chickens to bed for the night (they were most disgruntled at being locked up so early).  

a beautiful day. being an idiot horsemouth spent most of it being anxious. he did some watering and planting to take the edge off it. 

having been to see an orchestral version of tubular bells his lift to the bell-ringing was off to see tim berners-lee at the hay festival. horsemouth therefore walked in (and if needs be he could have walked back). 

the bell ringing went well (horsemouth didn't let go of the rope). after the bell-ringing the pub. 

it's a beautiful morning

the foresters walk in chippenham

'as john cozens was mowing the lawn this morning he told me that the foresters were going to 'walk' in chippenham to-day and as this was a high day with them, they were going to have a waggon bowered with green in which would be a shepherd and shepherdess and some sheep or lambs. 

... we came back to cocklebury lane... and we soon heard the band strike up, drum and trumpets. from the sound the procession was clearly marching on langley...

first came two men on horseback riding like flour sacks and rolling heavily from side to side. they wore green coats with gold ornaments, white breeches, hessian boots and ostrich feathers in their caps. each bore a huge bugle and smote his horse with the edge of the sword.

after them walked gentlemen in black coats crossed with green scarves and bearing tall wands of office. then marched the band resplendent in a uniform of white, green and gold, followed by a wagon bowered in green branches...' 

horsemouth does not know if this tradition survives (or indeed what the hell it is about). 

yesterday

horsemouth played his contracted version of the riff from lam tooro  and realised he could get the cu-cu bird over it (whether this works or not it is not for him to say). he has attempted it so he can now hear it. in general his attempts to record the harmonium have been derailed by the microphone on the laptop/ the laptops processing capacity overloading as soon as it is shown a decently loud sound.

he tried playing and recording je te veux (erik satie) perhaps that will tempt people out. he tried various other things. hopefully he has done enough that it will all appear miraculously transformed. 

to be fair he also delivered the eggs to the crossroads and took the bin down the drive. (remind him to bring it back up tomorrow). 

today

he will have a look and see if there is anything he has missed that it would be useful to send. he has woken up with a slight headache. the coffee is doing it some good. greyish morning supposed to be better later on.