Wednesday 22 July 2015

upper and lower clapton (the guardian of the nunnery and his epileptic pekingese)

so following a walk up to norton folgate on sunday (then down to crossbones cemetery) - horsemouth decided to wander further afield. first up the canals (limehouse cut, three mills, river lea past hackney wick almost up as far as the anchor and hope - near where amelia and helen once lived thought horsemouth nostalgically) to howard's in stoke newington borders (er. upper clapton). and thence back down towards wapping to pick up some chillies from an anonymous friend. (from stoke newington borders (!), where horsemouth one lived, down queensbridge road (where brenna once lived), through haggerston park where horsemouth would read and sunbathe, past the nags head where he once lived (and further down just off vallance road too) and thence back home down cable street/ various cycle paths and the limehouse cut again. (see there's something circular to this journey - about 8 miles all told maybe a little more).



the canalside was practically solid boat all the way up - but the boat people were friendly - the cyclists less so (fucking cyclists). new blocks (with speckled brickwork and julliet balconies) sprouted out of the nilotic mud and the sites of old pubs. horsemouth stopped off at the filter beds - ruins when horsemouth first discovered them in 85 by climbing through a fallen down bit of the wall. now artful victorian ruins - if not quite well-loved enough to have a coffee shop.

the destruction of hackney continues but on his walk horsemouth observed more of the continuities than the transformations - the sunbathers in haggerston park looked the same (though where was the guardian of the nunnery and his epilleptic pekingese and his friends in 'the regiment'). the street-drinkers had their resident spot on the bench just by the pond. the epileptic pekingese had died many years ago - leaving him with just the wolf hound - when horsemouth met him again a few years ago (up by st.clement's) he had been forgotten - so many new people in the neighbourhood.

true horsemouth had picked a route that avoided the masses and the main shopping streets. he mistimed crossing the road and had to back up - the driver gave him the finger (ah that reassuring 'up-for-a-fight' hackney rudeness). back down to wapping - still the new estates but also reassuring poverty. horsemouth waited in a park. the youth played football in the sun. people rented out boris bikes . horsemouth could have been in barcelona.

Monday 20 July 2015

the gentle author / the gentle developer / the liberty of norton folgate


horsemouth: orange t-shirt, white shorts, near the 'save norton folgate ' banner
so horsemouth is back from saving norton folgate from rapacious development - he has the badge and the book to prove it. there may even be photographs. unlike the early days of 'demonstrations' (where one was merely arrested, roughed up a little for attempting such things) horsemouth and his cohort received a book from the hands of the gentle author (though you did have to queue for it - what is it with the british and queueing?). basically horsemouth was there saving a village of the architecturally minded posh from being evicted to make way for productive (empty) office blocks. of course if the proposal was to knock it all down to create entirely social housing horsemouth would have to support that instead.

horsemouth was there with merv (being mutinous, he announced he was there to 'stick it to the man'), max, samanta, niall. at one point merv pronounced that what was needed was a queue disruptor, when questioned as to what this might be he suggested a capacitor. there was then some discussion of the strange afterlife of old television sets and the fact that they can still give you a belt long after they've been switched off thanks to the large capacitors they contain. 'from hell's heart I stab at thee'.

the book is a good pleasurable book of photographs and commentary on the history of the seaside towns and its people. on the way up he bumped into andy coram at his antiques shop (fuck it people go buy some antiques people) but did not make it back as he'd promised.

cross bones cemetery with john crow - photo by max reeves
instead horsemouth wandered down to the crossbones cemetery with max through the sun-fried (and tourist infested) streets. there horsemouth met john crow and others dedicated to keeping this outcast graveyard open but to do so meant to do a deal with 'the man' (ok the Bankside Open Spaces Trust). horsemouth was most impressed with the pyramid of broken masonry dug up on the site and decorated with clam shells (once the food of the poor). the clam shells shone white in the afternoon sunshine. they have something on wednesday and thursday there.

thereafter horsemouth and max adjourned to the pub (the george). strangely two and a half beers merely succeeded in anaesthatising horsemouth. he had two beers the day before remember. eventually horsemouth and max staggered up to rejoin their lives.

Friday 17 July 2015

bastille day, st. swithin's day, the grand hotel abyss (st.louis blues)

and so down to new cross from deptford bridge past the site of the new cross massacre - calling in at the book depository (william morris the wood beyond the world, thomas hardy the distracted teacher and other tales - this one is for horsemouth's dad probably - 30p each, and two music books with annotations of blues - 50p each), then back via greenwich and halcyonandon (who are going alphabetical - horsemouth worries this will put prices up) failing to find the jefferies he saw last time but picking up a copy of lyubka the cossack by isaac babel (signet classic edition - one squid). nothing in emmanaus in chrisp street.

last night horsemouth jammed with andrew minty and then watched the grand hotel budapest - an engagingly light hearted piece of hollywood mitteleuropea, a kitsch caper movie/ comedy of manners lifted from the writings of stefan zweig. it was a pleasant enough way to pass the time.


earlier horsemouth had spent a little time listening to st.louis blues on youtube (the vocal version from boardwalk empire was the most helpful) and attempting to learn it from the music (in his usual 'next line up -it must be a 'd'' way').

horsemouth has neary a whole set of old time-y tunes that he could work up and play - paper moon. world on a string, (dance me) to the end of love, honeysuckle rose, la mer, les feuilles morts, the entertainer, darktown strutter's ball (part) and the reverend gary davis's slide tune talking bues - really horsemouth should just get on with it. grey day - horsemouth will go for a wander then try and learn some songs.

Wednesday 15 July 2015

the new london (welcome to the gernsback continuum)

horsemouth has been on holiday to the new london - he bagged an air b n' b flat in one of the new riverside developments online and departed from langdon park with his new luggage. he arrived on the monorail (having made use of the crossrail interchange at the wharf of canaries). almost immediately he was aware of having crossed over into the gernsback continuum but the moment of change itself was imperceptible. happy people strolled about in the bright enhanced sunshine appropriately dressed for the heat. some clutched iced lattes others almond croissants. a cooling breeze animated the trees - already the planting looked well set in. at night there was the hissing of automatic watering devices as horsemouth sat out on the balcony and posted up the photos of himself from the day to facebook (the selfie-stick was proving invaluable). opposite the orange helio oiticica panels changed colour as they cooled down through the thermal spectrum and still further away the aquamarine glass of a liam gillicked infrastructure project matched the evening sky.

the customer service was exemplary - and there were familiar brands all over the place.









 

 

every once in a while the magic would fade and horsemouth would find himself under a flyover beside a dusty main road or peaking through a hole in a fence at an abandonned building site covered in wildflowers. he would begin to feel anxious and lost but as soon as he was back in the carefully maintained and immaculately clean spaces he would begin to feel happier again and within minutes irrational enthusiasm would be bubbling up beneath his skin

the people were smiling but not overly friendly and a little less ethnically diverse than horsemouth remembered from previous visits (but then no-one would have had any reason to come to this part of town before). horsemouth has the strong feeling that he'd seen them elsewhere - the three graces clustered round a high-spec mobile phone laughing, there was a man out jogging, a chinese woman walking a small dog. nobody, horsemouth noticed, cut corners across the grass. jeans, t-shirts, shorts, summer dresses.

Monday 13 July 2015

'this is the way we used to do it' / the tedious do-gooding of the beautiful

grey morning. horsemouth supposes it is good for the plants.

horsemouth is back from seeing charlemagne palestine play at the barbican as part of the station to station 30 day 'happening' (together with a dude with a HUGE vintage moog to make drones on).

 'this is the way we used to do it' says charlemagne of the happening (this is what the audience want to hear) and of the avant garde 'happenings' (with edwin pouncey 'savage pencil' illustrating away next door) in his pre-concert talks. but it isn't, it's much slicker, with a much higher budget, and a purpose. when he isn't playing multiple HD projectors present and immersive film of the station-to-station happening and its imaginary train journey across the world (not just across america). there is gig footage of the inspired and inspiring and interviews with near permaculture-ists and smart people thinking deeply. beck (and gospel choir) ladies and gentlemen, patti smith, the dude from sonic youth... it is the tedious do-gooding of the beautiful (in HD).

that said horsemouth has to admit he really enjoyed the charlemagne palestine bits (and will probably go back for some other things).

there were 3 sets 1-2, 3-4 and 5-6.

set1 (1-2pm) - with len lye's tusaluva animated film.

it always begins small and gets bigger (and sometimes comes back down again) a young man with downs syndrome or some kind of autism appeared to get it best shaking his head vigrously and circularly at the great moment and huge subs coming from the moog. at maximum intensity charlemagne begins to play child's glockenspeils generating something between a snowstorm and a horror movie seemingly accelerating up into the heavens.

set2 (3-4pm) - requiem for the pets.

charlemagne shows some slowed down film of himself at a pet graveyard in france as he cavorts with two cuddly toys - he jumps, he rages, he howls with grief. initially it isn't clear what kind of graveyard it is - certainly not from the inscriptions - it is only when one looks closely at the photos on the headstones that one realises.

set3 (5-6pm) - coney island puppet show. slipping fading footage of a rollercoaster ride at coney island but first a canon and fugue sung by two cuddly toys. horsemouth thinks that it may work like this either the toys sing a set tune in which case if one is one note ahead the various effects result from that - similarly if the toys 'step' through a tune as pressed then those harmonisation effects can be achieved. and then back to the familiar organ drone to moog drone sturm und drang. it ends with the cuddly toys again, the canon and fugue and a 'goodbye'.

of the other art on display horsemouth took in olafur elaisson's 2013 connecting cross country with a line and a showing in a red gazebo of kenneth anger's invocation of my demon brother and lucifer rising (with the bobby beausoleil soundtrack). he liked the red pentagram seating and the fact that there's still something disreputable about kenneth anger's work. (mostly the satanism - horsemouth is a little sensitive to such stuff at the moment having watched both the devil rides out and to the devil a daughter recently). like much art the event appears to be favoured not just by the young and the beautiful but also by middle class parents (various degrees of beauty and well-dressedness) as somewhere safe to take their toddlers on a sunday - the anger had the advantage that the young would wander in and their parents would drag them out in terror.

Thursday 9 July 2015

the strange tale of the north pond hermit

horsemouth is back from leytonstone folk club where he saw stick in the wheel (london/ essex), vincent cross (USA) and gemma khawaja (norfolk badlands) in the company of john clarkson.

gemma khawaja horsemouth has seen before at sutton house - good (if short) set, nice voice, good playing. (https://gemmakhawaja.bandcamp.com/)

vincent cross (ireland-australia-ireland-new york in fact) played clawhammer and two finger banjo, and great mississipi john hurt and carter family style guitar and harmonica'd and troubadored and raconteered. (http://www.vincentcross.com/)

stick in the wheel are recording their album and it shows they're much tighter and much more organised, more care and thought has gone into the voicings. they've emerged re-energised. if horsemouth has a criticism it is that all the structures are strophic, i.e. repetitions without variations, key changes etc - this on its own is fine (it's what english folk songs are like after all) but when all the tunes are put side by side this becomes apparent. just a thought. horsemouth supposes that what he is really asking for is more fake variation.

today will be sunny horsemouth will go lie in the park and read a bit.

yesterday horsemouth wandered down to greenwich (well no in fact he took the seaside towns light tramway down - walked back up to the wharf of canaries and then got bored and took the tram back). he bought a 3CD box set of mid-period miles davis - nefertiti, sorcerer, filles de kilimanjaro ('that's a lot of miles' remarked the dude in record and tape - it's even more ron carter/ tony williams thought horsemouth). horsemouth also bought (in halcyonandon) a collection of maupassant's short stories and richard jefferies' hodge and his masters, the story of a farm labourer. jefferies was writing for the standard at the time (so his political opinions on farm labourers are quite reactionary) but he writes well. you remember wild london the collapse and re-wilding novel by jeffries that horsemouth was praising abut a year ago.

a friend is thinking of making a dub album - horsemouth has vigorously promoted howard for the job (vocals on a dub album?). he gets a lot done but he seems to have a fairly laid back working tempo. horsemouth (himself) is indecisive, x amount of weeks on holiday and he's still got nothing done. he'll jam with andrew minty one evening this week, howard finishes work in a couple of weeks (and then what - more recording?), he needs to get on with the harmonium thing with john clarkson (before he becomes an importer of canal boats).

Monday 6 July 2015

'we might be all we dream of, happy, high, majestical'

(shelley)

'at least we stood up today to angela merkel' - greek dude, streets of athens after midnight.

 but...

 grexit is the most likely outcome, greece will become the poster child for what happens if you try and leave europe, anybody thinking of following them will be persuaded otherwise by what we're about to see - just as the media have been (relatively) silent on greek suffering under austerity they will all of a sudden discover it anew as greece crashes out. horsemouth doesn't wish to state this so baldly for his greek friends but there it is. the critique of europe by tony benn in the 74? referendum is essentially correct - it's a bosses europe - the critique of the effects of the single currency on the margins (as enunciated by rightwing critics of it and little britain-ers) is essentally correct too.

 (remember 'black monday' and where soros made his money).

 'for the first time in eurozone history, people power has happened' says paul mason, to which horsemouth (the cynic) replies 'and that's why they've got to go...'
there's no unitary 'they' though - it's not entirely the same as here, where austerity has fucked the poor and the rich have made up their losses (at the expense of the poor) and this will continue - there the rich and middle will feel some pain from this. horsemouth doesn't think the greek left can hang on until there is a europe-wide movement against austerity capable of making the politicians want to eat the debt (and take it out of our taxes) - the ideal of europe and democracy (that syriza was relying on) has already fallen. 

horsemouth is also not convinced that the greeks will now have schools and hospitals and escape either
a) the worst of euro-austerity, or
b) get lightly treated under free-range austerity
- actually the question is, given the way things are going, will we ? -

but either
a) 'europe' buckles and does them a better deal (and the IMF and the owners of greek govt. debt get their money - erm. that would be the bankers) and austerity is rolled back in greece - I think this is very unlikely, but the great european trick so far has been putting off 'the moment of reckoning' (in the german sense of 'the bill please', similarly the very naturee of debt is to put things off) and pushing it all further down the road OR

b) grexit - greece escapes being the cornwall of europe (poor but pretty) only to be mercilessly farmed for debt issued at extortionate terms, devaluation, drachma or not - they could of course

c) go to russia...

horsemouth is not of course arguing that they should have voted YES.

there is some possibility of contagion to other european economies but I think the ECB will cover it - germany will get out its credit card put its arm round italy and go 'they're with us' UNLESS italy decide to have a tantrum about austerity/ lack of support over the migrants (in which case german politicians will problably take one look at german voters and go 'well fuck them then'). italy may be 'too big to fail' wheras greece isn't - greece can be sacrificed. but it can also be saved. the question is if the bankers don't have confidence in germany what will they have confidence in?

the best chance (for world economic meltdown) is china goes into economic meltdown while there's trouble in the eurozone and while something else scary and confidence sapping happens - a SARS outbreak etc.

it is not that the greeks have said we are not paying (fuck you bankers, fuck you eurocrats) - it is just that they no longer wished to be starved and watch their lives being destroyed, but it is in part this already and it can become this. but greece 'the workers state' in full grexit would not necessarily be a paradise for greek workers. and beyond that, and the arab spring and subsequent winter is my model here, this does not mean it is all destined to end happily.

horsemouth has erected his north face particle 13 tent inside his flat - it looks like wrinkley anish kapoor inflatible. he would like to thank his friends for helping him clarify his thoughts.

Friday 3 July 2015

'such flowers as the hares will not eat'

lady luxborough discusses her planting (1748).

at 10am horsemouth meets his drop to hand over vital photographs of an incriminating nature together with several back issues of the monkey-ona-stick housing co-operatives newsletter monkey-on-a-stick. today is cooler so far than yesterday that was a swelterer rather than a scorcher.

both tuesday and wednesday evenings horsemouth went round andrew minty's for a little play - green manalishi, the kingdon of heaven (is within you). horsemouth still has to put the effort in to learn the complicated bits of green manalishi.

last night horsemouth selected from his bookshelf alain the gods and read the introductory essay by the translator richard pervear- alain would set him self down to write two sheets of paper each day without revisions or rewritings (kind of like just a minute) a similar tactic is taken by the painter frank auerbach who if he is dissatisfied scrapes all the paint of the painting and begins again keeping only what works and trying again and again until he finds a way into the material. struggling to find the material's limitations - 'such flowers as the hares will not eat'.

there horsemouth has achieved re-incorporation and so should stop.

----------------------------------------

the next day he continued...

horsemouth is up late (9am) and the birds are singing. again he will try to write this without re-editing in the style of alain. richeard pervear's essay at the start of alain's the gods discusses benjamin's the storyteller essay - as books replace the spoken word that moment of verification between the storyteller and the listenener dies away (think how this works in ranciere's 'each one teach one' philosophy and pedagogy - where you can verify learning even if you do not understand the subject simply by asking questions and listening for inconsistencies in the replies). horsemouth should really sit down and compare these.

storytelling also crops up in rona edwards and monika skerbelis's 'I liked it, Didn't love it' subtitled screenplay development from the inside out - there they go round the office and tell you who reads what in film company, in an agency etc. what the forms look like. there are cursory nods to aristotle the poetics, carlo gozzi's the thirty-six dramatic situations (via geroges polti), the seven basic plots.

of the seven basic plots beasts of the southern wild is probably man against nature (sorry that should be person against nature) - it is a carnivorous eat or be eaten world waiting for the flood that shows lots of development in that horsemouth finds it unbelievably sentimental - already halfway to fantasy. perhaps he's not appreciating its naive  qualities - its parable like nature. it takes more than a somewhat unhygenic diet of seafood to convince horsemouth of social realism - but how does it compare with say the first series of treme where the effects of hurricane katrina are still present - via a ghost a lost body.

horsemouth listened to lutoslawski (but quietly in case the neighbours hear), nick lacy's tv music (tracks one and two together would make a good song horsemouth thinks, the others horsemouth is familiar with from his time in the snatch foster band), and tracks 3 onwards from alice coltrane's universal consciousness (the softer end of her output). he also read some newspaper review sections (saul bellow came from lachine - who knew) and glanced through stephen calloway's book on aubrey beardsley (like the script writing book one pound from emmaneus - the housing charity shop - and god botherers horsemouth writes somewhat ungenerously).

up at three mills green the grass was burned golden like corn - there were long shadows and sexy running girls.