'I would stand at the table and register in this celestial sort of ledger the innumerable little items which constitute a writer's book-keeping: dreams, plans of attack and defence, remembrances, titles of books I intended to write, names and addresses of potential creditors, obsessive phrases, editors to harry, battlefields, monuments, monastic retreats and so on...' - henry miller, preface to the air-conditioned nightmare.
horsemouth - a graduate of seaside towns university college (the one with the founder in a box), struggled hard for years with a sciences type degree before lunching it for the world of anarchist politics (if indeed such a thing ever existed). despite an unpromising start due to lack of any real ability and manifest efforts in the second year he left the institution largely defeated and with the confirmed belief of his own stupidity. to horsemouth, not knowing what he wanted to do, all he had to do was survive and not fail, and this he eventually managed (though not as well as he would have liked). but lets be honest about this - he finds it hard to write the word fail - he has rationalised it so that he can see the benefits of having done it.
partly today horsemouth wants to talk about education - he has met a true believer precisely at that point where social formation, the way forward to an organised life, is open before them.
this makes horsemouth to cast his mind back to his own time at universe-ity. horsemouth was forced to recognise his manifest lack of talent in the area he had chosen but the mental resilience that comes from bashing his head against the wall of his own stupidity has never entirely left him (nor the sheer determination necessary). similarly he has always been cautious over what can be said. in fact his determination, focus and single-mindedness is one of his key problems - when he is afraid to jump he often gets pushed.
he stepped off the yellow brick road and self-rusticated to hackney (which felt like a forgotten corner of the known world) made up of even more forgetable bits, and built a new life in the ruins. he liked the ruins (ably described in paul harrison's inside the inner city) and took great pleasure in the anonymity. horsemouth arrived just as the population stopped droping - as the city began to repopulate, as hackney became in effect the new islington (like jonathan raban's soft city but with lower rent)...
horsemouth has no great natural talents as a musician and he has not studied it hard enough - it has all been work - he has become good at what he does - but he has not been consistent in dealing with his weaknesses. indeed as one jazz musician remarked to him it's no good having weaknesses... (horsemouth did admire his focus at least).
yesterday horsemouth went to an exploratory jam with john clarkson (john playing harmonium -and if and when they can find enough batteries - omnichord - a kind of electric autoharp) - it went well - horsemouth is very hopeful. they worked on the devil song, walk on guilded splinters, fanfare.., (down by) riverside, and rain and snow (a little). the drones, the little melodies, it was all sounding good. previously john had remarked he liked a version horsemouth had worked out of a song denise taught him sleabh na gael (maybe) - that will be worth revisiting. later horsemouth went off up into the hills to babysit returning by car this morning.
he did some of his usual book-keeping when he does a project, keeping a list of possible songs, possible singers, spider diagrams of possible parts
No comments:
Post a Comment