can’t cheat karma (sometimes it snows in april)

...and sometimes it hails (nearly) in may...

horsemouth is back from walthamstow folk club. stick in the wheel were on good form (home turf so to speak for half of them, a mum and dad in the audience). they were relaxed there was even a forgot about dre joke and some discussion of karma (when you say your favourite song is the one your daughter doesn’t sing on).

but what about the other acts. there was a rendition of the twa corbies, and one of the musichall song the night I appeared as macbeth, a song about rolling freight up and down the river between southend and tillbury on TEUs (horsemouth hopes he’s got the terminology right - yes he has 20ft containers, 40ft containers -a song by jack forbes), another song re-imagined as musichall was the queen has the biggest council house I’ve ever seen. 

there was banjo (and only some discussion of deliverance), a song about drone strikes, a love song by (or was it for?) emma goldman, and a cover of prince’s sometimes it snows in april.



there’s footage of a prince gig from 2010 - it’s norway but they know all the words and they are singing along. it’s a catchy chorus - the people at the folk club picked it up almost immediately. today horsemouth works. tonight there is a meeting.

back from dahn sahf (and a proposal for a lazy sunday afternoon)

   
howard has been busy.

friends are back from portugal. horsemouth is back from dahn sarf. he went to folk synthesis, an event organised by nigel (formerly known as nigel of bermondsey), in the ruins of peckham. ok - no it was in a venue/ bar/ record shop in the basement of a warehouse minutes from the train station. there he met up with john clarkson and the fashionable youth sold him beer.

he saw;

the gentlefolk and a modular synthesizer making hawkwindish noises - nigel on dub bass, the others singing their way through a variety of folksongs of the shirley collins variety (which was pleasant), horsemouth had missed modular synthesizer, throat singing earlier (which he regrets).

the delta girls claimed house of the rising sun was recorded by the animals in 1963 (wikipedia says 1964 but anyway) horsemouth and john thought it was later. horsemouth identified the instrument being played as a dulcimer (it was not, it began with a c and was boat shaped if that helps anyone identify it). horsemouth liked the tunes (trance blues type things), the harmonica playing, violin and the percussion, he thinks (if he is honest) the lead vocal is a little thin and could ideally do with more backup. (he’d say this about himself if he was honest).

two of stick in the wheel nigel and the dude on modular synth made a kind of soundsystem murmuring and echoed vocals thing - ‘more reverb, more delay’ pleaded the singer.

katy with her nigel produced album struggled with monitoring, the sound out front was excellent. at last someone who is more of a polo-phile than horsemouth. the piano versus organ and moog (remember this is said to rhyme with rogue people) sounded excellent, if camel did concept albums about poland it would sound like this.

the friends who are back from portugal spent their last day in a fernando pessoa inspired wander round lisbon - horsemouth has fernando pessoa: the genesis of the heteronyms round here somewhere in which the non-eponymous poet multiplies himself into a whole movement of critics and commentators, poets and schools. jose saramago in his year of the death of ricardo reis continues the routine still further by having the poets return to lisbon in the order of their death

‘I found pessoa by accident, and have been for the last 15 years or so, for better or worse, fascinated by him, and his poetry. as you will realise, he was complex, so very complex that one could almost believe he wanted to throw up a smokescreen, and of course this he has done in many ways...’ 

so wrote jcr green in the special edition of his literary magazine prospice published out of portree on the isle of skye. (camden libraries- withdrawn - 20p)

robbie basho - duets and accompanists (and a choir) take two

the story so far; stung by a comment on nts radio, about basho being anti-social and so not playing much with other musicians, horsemouth went in search of the musicians basho had played with - he thinks the list goes something like this,

- the violin on  rocky mountain raga by Toni Talia Marcus
- the tabla player on robbie basho's roses and snow (from the album song of the stallion)- one William Wright.
- South Indian mridangam player Ramnad V. Raghavan who played on both of basho's albums zarthus and the voice of the eagle.
 - Susan Graubard – flute on tassajara from the Falconer's Arm I recorded in 1967.

these musicians he discussed in yesterday's post. in addition there are the following,

- Victor Chancellor - drone guitar on Eagle Sails the Blue Diamond Waters (horsemouth has been able to find out exactly nothing about him, any news gratefully received)
- Moreen Libet – viola, and Kreke Ritter – french horn, on Song for the Queen,  from Venus in Cancer.

on new llhasa new year's chorale from basho sings (early album on takoma - a very fahey title), we find quote unquote ‘THWAP---Supplied by Scooter Woodriff - harp guitar’. (about whom horsemouth has been able to find out nothing more).

plus oriental love song recorded in February of 1965 and first released on Robbie Basho's the grail and the lotus album was originally a song with words by Mary Koth an ex- new york schoolteacher. (about whom horsemouth has been able to find out nothing more).

he thinks this is Moreen Libet here (but it could just be  a popular name).

 - this just leaves the consortium choir directed by David Hogan on land of our fathers (hopi hymn)  from bouquet above.

David Hogan was a busy choir director, organist and composer, co-founder of the Walden School. In 1979 he moved to California to become director of music for the Consortium of the Arts, a school of continuing education which offers programs for children and adults in the San Francisco Bay area and Washington, D.C. He also served as music director for the Meher School, an innovative private primary school in Lafayette, California.

He died in the explosion that destroyed a TransWorld Airlines jet over Long Island, N.Y on July 17, l996.

robbie basho duets and accompanists (take 1)

encouraged (nay stung) by a comment on NTS's radio show on robbie basho hosted by throwing shade and robbie dawson (about basho being essentially solitary) horsemouth decided to investigate robbie basho's duets, musical collaborations and what had become of the musicians he played with.



he begins with the violin on rocky mountain raga by Toni Talia Marcus who studied Ali Akbar Khan, Pandit Pran Nath and has played with Ornette Coleman, Carla Bley's Jazz Composers Orchestra, La Monte Young, Tony Conrad, and Alan Sorrenti and David Jackson of Van der Graaf Generator (and worked with Van Morrison).  the best source on her is probably the german wikipedia article https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Marcus

in particular she plays on carla bely's tropical appetities 




she was a child prodigy (as the following clip makes clear) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Cl3-SUp_c



ALAS  horsemouth has been able to find out exactly nothing about the tabla player on robbie basho's roses and snow (from the album song of the stallion)- one William Wright. (any news gratefully received)

and so on..

both of basho's albums zarthus and the voice of the eagle feature South Indian mridangam player Ramnad V. Raghavan who'd also played with John McLaughlin (as part of shakti)  Ali Akbar Khan / L. Subramaniam and Maynard Ferguson (probably best known as the trumpet player who wrote the rocky theme music - no not eye of the tiger). this probably makes him the longest serving of any of basho's accompanists.

next up with Susan Graubard – flute on tassajara  from the Falconer's Arm I recorded in 1967 - now Susan Graubard Archuleta she's probably most famous for having been in an early improv folk ensemble called  the new age.

   

the provincial letters and the lesson of althusser

 


both blaise pascal and his sister jacqueline were jansenists attending services at the port-royal de paris convent from 1647. blaise certainly after his nuit de feu in 1654, his sister had become a nun at port-royal de paris in 1652 despite blaise’s opposition.

the jansenists were defeated and their enemies got to write history (though for a long time it was touch and go whether the jesuits would survive). wikipedia reports the jansenists as a protestant-type sect concerned with the vastly unfashionable doctrine of predestination - we are granted grace by god, some have enough grace to be saved and, for the rest, some for the fire, some for the ice. in these days of freewill you can hardly expect that to go down well.

what pascal’s the provincial letters does is take us back into this extinct debate and show us what the issues being debated meant then (it is in this regard that it resembles ranciere’s the lesson of althusser). the jansenists were beset on one side by the jesuits and on the other by the dominicans who could not themselves agree on the issue of grace - they modified the term until it was essentially meaningless (prevenient grace, effective grace, and sufficient grace - by which the jesuits held that the grace given you by god was enough to save you (it was just your decision not to be saved) and the dominicans held that it was not (without extra grace given you by god)). these differences were covered up to permit a unified front in attacking the jansenists.

arnauld (head jansenist) produced the quotations that he had relied upon from st. augustine - but that was not enough - the statements were only heretical in his mouth.

pascal undermines, confronts, juxtaposes, lays things out clearly, exposes the distortions of language and logic involved and above all does not succumb to anger but writes with an ironic distance. but it cannot prevent the jansenist’s defeat.

there are somethings, however,  lost to us in this tactic, for both blaise and jacqueline (and jansenism’s other adherents) 

 ‘ it meant for them a way of life, a set of people, a system of principles moral and spiritual... port-royal... (was)... a place where the catholic religion was lived out with exemplary piety by nuns who had forsaken the world in order to pray, not to argue, and by solitaries who only left their meditations to help in the school or to tend their garden.’ - introduction to the provincial letters by a.j. krailsheimer.

jacqueline was (like blaise) a prodigy - writing on the philosophy of education, the rights of women to that education, and freedom of conscience. she died after the defeat of the jansenists in 1661.

a problem, by definition, cannot be solved (‘the fucking trains are fucking fucked’)

‘if the wisest man would, at any time, utter his thoughts in the crude undigested manner as they come to him in his head, he would be looked upon as raving mad.’ - jonathan swift.

7th july 1987 ginsberg’s dad dies in his sleep - on the plane back ginsberg writes father death blues, the tune and the words come to him together. horsemouth notes the metaphysical turn in the lyrics ‘suffering was what was born’.


earlier ginsberg's guru trungpa had advised him to follow the path of murderer turned buddhist poet milarepa and just improvise spontaneously. (ginsberg attempts this with some success) earlier still in venice he meets ezra pound; ‘at seventy I realised that instead of being a lunatic, I was a moron.’ pound upbraids himself for having succumbed to the ‘suburban’ prejudice of anti-semitism. curiously both pound and ginsberg had put a lot of effort into helping other poets - this, how art is to be supported, was one of his central concerns (as lewis hyde writes in the gift).

earlier still in the lunatic asylum ginsberg hears the intensity the mad can bring to their speech. 

----------------------------
friday horsemouth was defeated once again by the railway system (‘the fucking trains are fucking fucked’ he remarked to himself while kicking the station fence) - this is bad news for if it cannot be relied upon that whole quadrant of seaside towns cannot be lived in and commuted from (or perhaps horsemouth should abandon his unreasonable expectation that he should arrive at work on time) .

the day before it had worked - maybe it only works at rush hour (and then collapses with exhaustion), maybe it works most of the week (and then falls over).

ginsberg phones burroughs to discuss his problems, ’a problem, by definition, cannot be solved’, says burroughs (horsemouth has 'improved' the quote).

on reading sunflower by blake (ginsberg)/ universal consciousness day (alice coltrane)

horsemouth dreamt of farmers and land (and black dogs). he’s reading a ginsberg biography (barry miles) at the moment.

ginsberg is reading sunflower by blake (and for us we know that means reading silently) when it happens - he hears blake’s voice reciting it,

‘it was like god had a human voice, with all the infinite tenderness and moral gravity of a living creator speaking to his son.’ with dream logic ginsberg realises he is the sunflower. ‘I suddenly realised this existence was it!... this was the moment I was born for. the initiation, the consciousness of being alive unto myself. the spirit of the universe was what I was born to realise... My body suddenly felt light... it was a sudden awakening into a totally deeper real universe than I’d been existing in... I had the impression of the entire universe as poetry filled with light and intelligence and communication and signals.’ 

ginsberg then begins to read o rose, thou art sick

‘as something that applied to the whole universe, and at the same time the inevitable beauty of doom.’ 

thirdly, and finally, he reads the little girl lost.


today is the anniversary of the recording sessions that produced the core of universal consciousness by alice coltrane, in particular the title track, oh allah, and hare krishna.

they are dead before they know it

horsemouth has finished the mill on the floss. life has kicked them hard (and everything they do seems to dig them in deeper) but then the town floods. water flows under the door, the current drives the boat away and the other characters out of sight. in a matter of a few pages they are dead. they are dead before they know it.
yesterday horsemouth went for a womble - up towards the greenway (as much of it as is open) and round back down hermit road and hermit road park and its mural dedicated to
daisy parsons suffragette and first female mayor of newham.

he plans a wander round with john later on today but first a spot of babysitting.

horsemouth struggled in the night to remember some of his dreams - but they have gone.

before he slept he read a little of george eliot’s journalism for the westminster review - the pieces are too short to allow her to stretch out, they are stuffed with quotes but under-developed, they have very decided (but not altogether successful) pay-off lines. fiction really is her thing. there are excerpts from her translations of feuerbach and david friedrich strauss. 

in a way it is a relief to finish mill - it is quite hard on the soul. on the other hand it is good to have this material reactivated in horsemouth - he always hopes there will be some progress with it. ok bath, babysit then a walk around.

end of month round up for march (a little late)/ british sumertime begins

gigs

 12/03 rantipoles, infernal machine, motown fire department

books

the survey of london (everyman hardback edition) - john stow (1598),
the portable twentieth-century russian reader - ed. clarence brown,
the feeling of things- adam caruso,
the acquisitive society - r.h. tawney,
a precocious autobiography - yevgeny yevtushenko,
instituta benjamenta - robert walser,
mill on the floss - george eliot (begun),
three critical pieces (from the penal colony) - franz kafka (translated clement greenberg),
introduction to idiom of the people - james reeves

films

a girl walks home in the night, penny dreadful (series 1), homeland (series 1), the man who knew too much, nana - jean renoir (silent), therese raquin (bbc 1979), dogtown and the z-boys.

events

visit utopia exhibition, howard puts up 2nd mix, DVD player dies, beers with marike, housing march, investigate the ailsa street development, second visit to the new london, feast of the annunciation (lady day), british summertime begins.