Tuesday, 30 August 2016
gigs, books, films, events august 2016
gigs
films possession, dogtown, 3.10 to yuma, M.
events
- micalef and various sun at night-ers (with max)
- nerija (with myk)
- electrophonic tonic (with tall simon, the myk and various)
- agota kristof - the notebook
- frankenstein unbound - brian aldiss
- the day of forever - j.g.ballard
- pleroma - hamacher (introduction)
- history and utopia - e.m. cioran
- the restoration of order - milan simecka (and his piece in communism the TLS reader - and bohumil hrabal's)
- theories and narrative -alex callinicos
- into unknown england - various 'social explorers'
films possession, dogtown, 3.10 to yuma, M.
events
- jam with double bassist and singer
- party at J and D's
- the duke (and after)
- departure of denise
- birthday drinks
- double drinks with howard
- brexit ad verulam
Thursday, 25 August 2016
several empty seats (horsemouth’s credibility is in shreds)
'We can't lift this block for any reason' (says facebook somewhat perplexingly)
horsemouth has been blocked from blogging temporarily (he presumes it's some glitch between an old copy of firefox and the mighty facebook. ah well. it's a hot day and horsemouth has very little to say anyway. he should go away and read more before he rushes to comment (and he can always do it on blogspot anyway). a friend has suggested it is all down to horsemouth's naughtiness - horsemouth is not sure what naughtiness he could have got up to your datamining lizard majesties bless bless bless your very beneficence and he would just like you to be aware how very very sorry he is.
the mail says horsemouth’s credibility is in shreds after he was seen walking passed several empty seats in first class despite not having a ticket for them. there were in fact many empty seats in first class but elsewhere povs were being glued to the outside of the train for their safety during the journey.
horsemouth eventually found a place sitting on the floor by a toilet - hunhh hunhh hunhh he’s sitting by a toilet said the media (anyone remember beavis and butthead).
as we all know (and repeat after me) there’s no such thing as overcrowding on trains.
last night horsemouth jammed with a singer and a double bass player (both very good) - he’d like to return and try it again, perhaps work up some repertoire. horsemouth is going to try to do some cleaning and tidying up before he goes while the heat is off (it should get sunny later). when he’s gone from here he’s temporarily broadbandless (kabelloslos) again.
after jamming (whilst consuming some wine and beer) horsemouth listened to a documentary about karen dalton - peter walker had the guitar she used to play.
the things horsemouth has got up to on his birthday list (continued)
2016 party at Eleonora's
.....
2009 volunteering his labour (then party at Jiska and Marike's)
2008 staff meeting then art exhibition with martin
2007 quiet night in
2006 Valencia
2005 Brittany (Johnny Denise, Dave, Claudia and Graham)
2004 birthday in park
2003 recording round Graham's
2002 with Tim in Brussels before going to New York and Montreal
2001 birthday in bar outside San Sebastian
2000 can't remember
1999 on holiday in Portugal
1998 in Windsor Ontario with Mike and friends (Montreal visit)
...
1995 birthday drinks with Andy, Sten and Denise. (probably the first one I have records for).
horsemouth has been blocked from blogging temporarily (he presumes it's some glitch between an old copy of firefox and the mighty facebook. ah well. it's a hot day and horsemouth has very little to say anyway. he should go away and read more before he rushes to comment (and he can always do it on blogspot anyway). a friend has suggested it is all down to horsemouth's naughtiness - horsemouth is not sure what naughtiness he could have got up to your datamining lizard majesties bless bless bless your very beneficence and he would just like you to be aware how very very sorry he is.
the mail says horsemouth’s credibility is in shreds after he was seen walking passed several empty seats in first class despite not having a ticket for them. there were in fact many empty seats in first class but elsewhere povs were being glued to the outside of the train for their safety during the journey.
horsemouth eventually found a place sitting on the floor by a toilet - hunhh hunhh hunhh he’s sitting by a toilet said the media (anyone remember beavis and butthead).
as we all know (and repeat after me) there’s no such thing as overcrowding on trains.
last night horsemouth jammed with a singer and a double bass player (both very good) - he’d like to return and try it again, perhaps work up some repertoire. horsemouth is going to try to do some cleaning and tidying up before he goes while the heat is off (it should get sunny later). when he’s gone from here he’s temporarily broadbandless (kabelloslos) again.
after jamming (whilst consuming some wine and beer) horsemouth listened to a documentary about karen dalton - peter walker had the guitar she used to play.
the things horsemouth has got up to on his birthday list (continued)
2016 party at Eleonora's
.....
2009 volunteering his labour (then party at Jiska and Marike's)
2008 staff meeting then art exhibition with martin
2007 quiet night in
2006 Valencia
2005 Brittany (Johnny Denise, Dave, Claudia and Graham)
2004 birthday in park
2003 recording round Graham's
2002 with Tim in Brussels before going to New York and Montreal
2001 birthday in bar outside San Sebastian
2000 can't remember
1999 on holiday in Portugal
1998 in Windsor Ontario with Mike and friends (Montreal visit)
...
1995 birthday drinks with Andy, Sten and Denise. (probably the first one I have records for).
Monday, 22 August 2016
all this crazy gift of time (witchi tai to)
horsemouth has survived his cough coughtend year and the fateful date is here. he is now free of it for another year (phew). he will be celebrating by going for a quiet glass of wine (at least that’s the plan) with someone who shares his birthday (he has already commiserated the other person he knows who shares his birthday). for all you astrologers out there he can’t imagine more different people.
tomorrow he will be tidying up D+C’s place then going for a jam with the next door neighbours.
horsemouth shares his fateful day with john lee hooker and claude debussy (and ladislav klima). on this date in a previous year revolutionary students burnt down the british consulate in china during the cultural revolution.
in previous years horsemouth has celebrated in the following fashion.
2015 - at his parents in the countryside (parents, brother, sister-in-law, and kids)
2014 - pub - the gentrifier's arms (martin, andrew minty, marike, antony, myk, john et al.) then balfron tower (eleonora etc.)
2013 - chateau bremen, failing to record a slide guitar part for dorothy (missed opportunity) then a few pints with howard at the sign of the owltopus (because the murder mile was shut).
2012 - bridport - torchlight procession, huge bonfire on the beach, band playing swords of a thousand men, rob, emma, kids and friends. on the actual day coffee at the cafe on the beach burton bradstock at the recommendation of a neighbour.
2011 - (solitary in pop(u)lar) voluntary labour (spey street) then beer and pizza
2010 - bridport then torchlight parade
2009 - volunteering his labour (sumner house). party at jiska and marike’s afterwards (brother ray, associated phoenicians)
... thereafter the record is lost in the mists of time (ie. it’s not recorded on this computer and horsemouth would have to search his physical diaries. assuming he wrote it down. horsemouth is not fond of his fateful days and tends to keep quiet about them.
yesterday horsemouth returned to his new domicile (briefly) to sleep for a few hours having babysat (to facilitate others birthday plans) then returned to the forest, met the neighbours (hence the arrangement for tuesday) and then went for a read in the sun up by the pond (a found copy of the times mostly).
Sunday, 21 August 2016
rolling in the deep
horsemouth rolls towards a significant date but this year it falls on a monday so its integrating power is diffused. as usual horsemouth is asailed by our songs and alike at early hours of the morning and by the lives he did not lead. to counteract this he has been keeping busy - feeding multiple cats, babysitting, though sadly not going out to a party like he’d planned (oops). horsemouth will be going for drinks round a friend’s house on the monday otherwise he will not be celebrating it in the particular this year.
horsemouth saw this yesterday - wharf of canaries jazz festival - excelent
(quite abdullah ibrahim-ish mostly in the horn chants). thanks myk.
photos have emerged of himself and john clarkson’s dolmen (or anda) hunting expedition north of porto in early july. it was a hot and humid day (it had just rained) and misled by a google maps link john and horsemouth plunged down the hillside and into the forest from a dirt parking lot just outside an amusement park - the dolmen remained elusive until reading the comments section of a ‘modern antiquarians’ website a description of how to find it was found - entirely elsewhere. (and so back up the hill our intrepid heroes went to the car and off they drove).
several miles later at a corner in another forest (lost again) horsemouth and john encountered a woman out walking - horsemouth asked for directions (in portuguese - well done horsemouth) but failed to adequately understand the reply (he’d have done better to try english) - they were in fact very close but instead hared off up the next mountain - from a boulder on its side they surveyed the verdant green.
another mobile internet search later they realised how close they had been at the previous corner. returning they found the path (and there - a mere ten yards off the road - it was). horsemouth and john began to document their visit with photographs (blurring the boundaries between to have or to be).
horsemouth put a blanket (ok a teeshirt) over is head and indulged in some ill thought out wailing and howling. across the road (and again hidden in the trees) were some hollowed out stone coffins from about AD 1000.
while bbc news yesterday claimed august the 20th as the date of the invasion that smashed the prague spring in 68 milan simecka (in his the restoration of order: the normalization of czechoslovakia) gives the key date as the 21st. of course this normalization (where people’s faith in politics was broken and they were encouraged just to pay lip-service to the new regime) was less an event than a long process of purges and denunciations in local parties. horsemouth forsees a similar programme to demobilise the corbynistas (but one without tanks this time).
horsemouth saw this yesterday - wharf of canaries jazz festival - excelent
(quite abdullah ibrahim-ish mostly in the horn chants). thanks myk.
photos have emerged of himself and john clarkson’s dolmen (or anda) hunting expedition north of porto in early july. it was a hot and humid day (it had just rained) and misled by a google maps link john and horsemouth plunged down the hillside and into the forest from a dirt parking lot just outside an amusement park - the dolmen remained elusive until reading the comments section of a ‘modern antiquarians’ website a description of how to find it was found - entirely elsewhere. (and so back up the hill our intrepid heroes went to the car and off they drove).
 |
| photos by john clarkson |
several miles later at a corner in another forest (lost again) horsemouth and john encountered a woman out walking - horsemouth asked for directions (in portuguese - well done horsemouth) but failed to adequately understand the reply (he’d have done better to try english) - they were in fact very close but instead hared off up the next mountain - from a boulder on its side they surveyed the verdant green.
another mobile internet search later they realised how close they had been at the previous corner. returning they found the path (and there - a mere ten yards off the road - it was). horsemouth and john began to document their visit with photographs (blurring the boundaries between to have or to be).
horsemouth put a blanket (ok a teeshirt) over is head and indulged in some ill thought out wailing and howling. across the road (and again hidden in the trees) were some hollowed out stone coffins from about AD 1000.
while bbc news yesterday claimed august the 20th as the date of the invasion that smashed the prague spring in 68 milan simecka (in his the restoration of order: the normalization of czechoslovakia) gives the key date as the 21st. of course this normalization (where people’s faith in politics was broken and they were encouraged just to pay lip-service to the new regime) was less an event than a long process of purges and denunciations in local parties. horsemouth forsees a similar programme to demobilise the corbynistas (but one without tanks this time).
Friday, 19 August 2016
‘politics, domain of pseudo-problems, breeding ground of the bad philosopher’
howard has been busy (horsemouth’s fellow in musicians of bremen). well he is on holiday - there’s another mix to be had.
horsemouth types this from the sofa of his second hideaway in the forest. he’s wearing an emergency jumper (the little orange north face fleece, good job he packed it). outside it is raining (something that hasn’t been seen in this part of the world for a while).
if all has progressed well the rubbish from outside his new house has been removed (or is being removed as horsemouth types this). they will not be able to remove the sofa (which has gone already). having fed the cats here at some point horsemouth will journey through the trees to feed johnny and denise’s cat. he can’t remember doing the final tidy-out at J and D’s but he must have done (he hopes). soon he will have to do the final tidy out here and then it is on to further adventures.
yesterday horsemouth was on a boat in the sun (he was on two boats actually) examining a cruising map of britain and the canal system (there’s a lot of it). again it was a kind of paradise - pretty girls in not that much clothing cycling past - the gentle rocking of the boats.
earlier he had jammed with andrew minty (he still feels a little constrained by being out en plein air - why anybody might be listening). andy has a plan to do some sea shanties - horsemouth has a number of suggestions.
before that horsemouth was reading the cioran in the back garden of the house (which house it was horsemouth won’t bore you with). cioran dreams of exterminating the over 40ies (logan’s run style), he denounces politics,
‘politics, domain of pseudoproblems, breeding ground of the bad philosopher’
Thursday, 18 August 2016
ruined utopia (between one book and another)
horsemouth had a plan to talk to you about two books (well three really) agota kristof’s novel the diary (and her autobiography the illiterate) and e.m. cioran’s history and utopia (in particular his musings on nationalism and democracy letter to a faraway friend.) he will have to do this largely from memory (and a few notes he made of more quotable passages - no he can’t even do this, he’s left his own diary at home) because the first and last books he has left at home and the third (the middle) book he has never read (only read about).
the diary ends with an afterward by slavoj zizek - he finds the twin boy protagonists of agota’s novel admirable - they are relentlessly honest and relentlessly ruthless and they ‘write’ (in their diary) a sparse stripped-down descriptive prose cataloging the(ir) horrors as they struggle to survive the second world war and perhaps bring a little justice along the way.
but the children are not meant to be wholly admirable - if they fail to participate in the xenophobic hypocrisy of their times, if they fail to acquiesce to the exploitation of the weak by the strong that society ( in times of peace and in times of war) requires hushed up, it is more because they are children of the book, of the idea, who have made the word strong within them and the flesh weak (by means of self-discipline).
it’s a theme probably better dealt with in j.g. ballard’s empire of the sun - here it is just a fantasy for an academic determined to inject some grit into the comfortable and self-satisfied world in which all passion has been spent and the fantasy of an exile in the west.
agota fled hungary in 1956 first to austria and then to switzerland, having survived the nazi occupation, the soviet liberation and the failure of the 1956 rising. in switzerland she found herself illiterate and struggled to learn french - eventually writing plays, novels and an autobiography (the illiterate) in it. just as her twins keep a diary recording their activities she emphasizes how much she was a reader, a child of the book.
e.m. cioran (from neighbouring rumania -a country under the domination of the hungarians at the time of his childhood) also learned to write in french - again it was a struggle,
‘how many hours, how many cigarettes, how many cups of coffee, just to write a half -decent sentence’ (here horsemouth reconstructs the quote from memory).
he too sees the savagery under democracy (he sees democracy as the result of the exhaustion of the political passions of youth rather than a positive achievement) - again we have an observer who can show us both sides of the division of europe and of political thought that structured the 20th century. on the one hand he sees an exhausted west (waiting for the next outbreak of passion to rise up from the depths - horsemouth is reminded of derrida writing on potocki - ok no, Patocka,
the twins survive because of their cruel grandmother (the witch as the locals call her) because she can grow food, and hoard it, and is smart enough to know that the liberators will come looting and raping and murdering. the twins also survive because they become harder, more evil and more determined than the 20th century.
it is a strange victory to be celebrating in the pages of the guardian (where zizek’s review first appeared) but that is the nature of the toleration under which we live.
horsemouth was never brave. but then conditions never consistently demanded it. yesterday he read (and snoozed) - hence this.
the diary ends with an afterward by slavoj zizek - he finds the twin boy protagonists of agota’s novel admirable - they are relentlessly honest and relentlessly ruthless and they ‘write’ (in their diary) a sparse stripped-down descriptive prose cataloging the(ir) horrors as they struggle to survive the second world war and perhaps bring a little justice along the way.
but the children are not meant to be wholly admirable - if they fail to participate in the xenophobic hypocrisy of their times, if they fail to acquiesce to the exploitation of the weak by the strong that society ( in times of peace and in times of war) requires hushed up, it is more because they are children of the book, of the idea, who have made the word strong within them and the flesh weak (by means of self-discipline).
it’s a theme probably better dealt with in j.g. ballard’s empire of the sun - here it is just a fantasy for an academic determined to inject some grit into the comfortable and self-satisfied world in which all passion has been spent and the fantasy of an exile in the west.
agota fled hungary in 1956 first to austria and then to switzerland, having survived the nazi occupation, the soviet liberation and the failure of the 1956 rising. in switzerland she found herself illiterate and struggled to learn french - eventually writing plays, novels and an autobiography (the illiterate) in it. just as her twins keep a diary recording their activities she emphasizes how much she was a reader, a child of the book.
e.m. cioran (from neighbouring rumania -a country under the domination of the hungarians at the time of his childhood) also learned to write in french - again it was a struggle,
‘how many hours, how many cigarettes, how many cups of coffee, just to write a half -decent sentence’ (here horsemouth reconstructs the quote from memory).
he too sees the savagery under democracy (he sees democracy as the result of the exhaustion of the political passions of youth rather than a positive achievement) - again we have an observer who can show us both sides of the division of europe and of political thought that structured the 20th century. on the one hand he sees an exhausted west (waiting for the next outbreak of passion to rise up from the depths - horsemouth is reminded of derrida writing on potocki - ok no, Patocka,
Jan Patočka).
on the other the ruined utopia of communism. utopia is closed off and no longer available.
the twins survive because of their cruel grandmother (the witch as the locals call her) because she can grow food, and hoard it, and is smart enough to know that the liberators will come looting and raping and murdering. the twins also survive because they become harder, more evil and more determined than the 20th century.
it is a strange victory to be celebrating in the pages of the guardian (where zizek’s review first appeared) but that is the nature of the toleration under which we live.
horsemouth was never brave. but then conditions never consistently demanded it. yesterday he read (and snoozed) - hence this.
Saturday, 13 August 2016
eternity (the alleglossary of the futureshock)
‘we steadfastly refuse to face such facts. we avoid them by stubbornly refusing to recognize the speed of change.’ (none of your accelerationism here - or perhaps the start of it)
horsemouth has been snoozing in the garden in the sun (ok he went down the market and bought another guitar tuner) and watching tv (x files etc. - he can’t work out how to use the dvd player yet). he’s probably been farting about on facebook too much. today is cooler and more cloudy - he will go for various walks.
is horsemouth one of those people who has reached his adaptive limit in terms of technology and has now begun to retreat from society into the forest? probably.
futureshock is a strange book (and a little dull) - perhaps the strangest things about it are the literary texts that serve as structuring metaphors.
karel capek’s the war with the newts - humanity teaches a species of newts to speak, they employ them in commercial enterprises and under the sea for warfare, the newts revolt and sap out and gradually sink most of europe.
ray bradbury’s fahrenheit 451 - the decline of the book (yet earlier we are told we are going through a publishing boom and a vast increase in knowledge) and the rise of the interactive soap opera.
the happening/ relational art piece dionysus in 69, the lottery in babylon by borges for experiential gambling (presumably the dice man had not been written yet), the weather man (theodore l. thomas) for weather control.
the undersea kingdoms have not come - instead we have strip mined out the sea of fish from above, polluted it relentlessly, rendered it acid, plastic and radioactive, drilled (again from above) for oil.
toffler is right in that the bureaucratic apocalypse (1984, brave new world, brazil) has not come into existence quite as envisaged (horsemouth says this but he was scanned by a 25 seconds to comply machine on his re-entry to the country) - toffler instead posits the ad-hocracy (all those endless teams and projects, and the modular employee (the zero-hours contract), the rented equipment, the timeshared space, the endless mobility. some are up and flying. some visit the dream. some retreat to the forest.
the city is set to become a huge party town by night and a moloch by day - but a moloch of low paid service sector jobs.
this weekend is the anniversary of the recording of alice coltrane’s eternity - for horsemouth where it goes off the boil (only to come back on the boil later in the albums of religious chanting).
Friday, 12 August 2016
dogtown brexit ad verulam
horsemouth is hiding out up in the forest once again (but at a new location) - he’s found the back door key (this means he can feed the goldfish).
yesterday horsemouth was in st. albans (verulam) - or rather just outside st.albans near to the m25 - travel was made difficult by taking an estate agent’s word for it (it’s the nearest train station yes but that doesn’t mean it has the best transport links - horsemouth blundered about like a tourist - the locals were uncomprehending). he ended up in the nearby sainsburys waiting for the bus er. and then walking a substantial part of the way back because a bus doesn’t necessarily run to a railway station .
horsemouth hoped and feared the project might be a runner but it wasn’t - confronted by it he had to admit defeat - it’s too far away and it’s different people and there’s clearly some local politics going on.
the day before horsemouth was in the murder mile with howard (his fellow musician of bremen) both having a fine old time seeing as both were on holiday. they had a lot of ground to catch up on as they hadn’t seen each other since 2015 due to pressures of work (mostly howard's). they began early and drank and conversed steadily and just before they made the crucial error and got one pint too many horsemouth remembered he had to go to st.albans the next day.
howard has done a compilation on soundcloud of tracks from the length and breadth of his career frontloaded with musician of bremen songs before travelling back in time to his improv and electronica (the kind of music howard was first making when horsemouth first knew him) and fine stuff it is too.
there is, in dogtown’s exploitation of grace, a kind of parallel with the exploitation of immigrants/ refugees by the british economy and ‘our’ demand that they be grateful/ justify themselves. horsemouth hasn’t finished watching it yet and suspects (it being a film by lars von trier) that things will get much worse before the end.
yesterday horsemouth was in st. albans (verulam) - or rather just outside st.albans near to the m25 - travel was made difficult by taking an estate agent’s word for it (it’s the nearest train station yes but that doesn’t mean it has the best transport links - horsemouth blundered about like a tourist - the locals were uncomprehending). he ended up in the nearby sainsburys waiting for the bus er. and then walking a substantial part of the way back because a bus doesn’t necessarily run to a railway station .
horsemouth hoped and feared the project might be a runner but it wasn’t - confronted by it he had to admit defeat - it’s too far away and it’s different people and there’s clearly some local politics going on.
the day before horsemouth was in the murder mile with howard (his fellow musician of bremen) both having a fine old time seeing as both were on holiday. they had a lot of ground to catch up on as they hadn’t seen each other since 2015 due to pressures of work (mostly howard's). they began early and drank and conversed steadily and just before they made the crucial error and got one pint too many horsemouth remembered he had to go to st.albans the next day.
howard has done a compilation on soundcloud of tracks from the length and breadth of his career frontloaded with musician of bremen songs before travelling back in time to his improv and electronica (the kind of music howard was first making when horsemouth first knew him) and fine stuff it is too.
there is, in dogtown’s exploitation of grace, a kind of parallel with the exploitation of immigrants/ refugees by the british economy and ‘our’ demand that they be grateful/ justify themselves. horsemouth hasn’t finished watching it yet and suspects (it being a film by lars von trier) that things will get much worse before the end.
Monday, 1 August 2016
horsemouth goes for a walk / horsemouth goes to a gig/ the sun at night on lammas eve/ and a drink after
horsemouth went for a walk - he walked down through the forest (passed the pond and the back of dave and claudia's), crossed over to by the whip's cross ponds down and over to wanstead (passing by where clive lives) and back up to eagle ponds (and thence back through the forest).
red cover, common ragwort, meadow vetchling, may weed, rosebay willowherb.
as well as the reader's digest guide to plants and birds he took another book out with him horkheimer and adorno chatting shit in the forest - first they discuss work (how it has become the be all and end all), then (at the end) they discussed can history do it? can history deliver us to where we would want to go?
they are smart dudes - horsemouth is warming to horkheimer - he’s a little bit more practical than adorno. adorno describes writing theory as a message in a bottle, horkheimer replies that we work on theory to keep it in stock for when it will be useful.
in the afternoon horsemouth headed into town (well - shoreditch) to the sun at night in shoreditch church, to hear music and to meet up with max crow (and maybe john cunningman) and to then go for a beer. arriving just after 6pm, a kate bush-y, amos tori-y singer was singing and playing the (grand) piano (good voice, well played, not entirely horsemouth’s cup of tea), a poet recited st.toad by h.p.lovecroft (it has a cracked bell like st. mary woolnoth) and john barleycorn (robert burns version - horsemouth only really knows the john renbourn group version).
there was then a song in honour of the inspirer of the proceedings (now dead), vocal, piano, bass drum, the girl singing had a strong voice kind of like souixsie souix which worked well with the song (horsemouth was a little smitten). and then an improvisation on themes suggested by the audience - a guitar was added, a young guy got up and MCed (well done dude), the performance became self-conscious, it ended. (sorry people horsemouth missed your names but it was a good show)
there was a pause for tea then micalef (who had arrived a little later) recited a poem to piano accompaniment, this was great (a class act).
by this time max, horsemouth and john were assembled and saying goodbye to the congregation hastened to the masqued haunt for beer (horsemouth buying the first round). four pints of beer and much good conversation later horsemouth staggered off home (well to bus it up into h*****y). this morning he returned to the forest to feed the cat, tidy up and to take paracetamol. happy lammas day everyone.
red cover, common ragwort, meadow vetchling, may weed, rosebay willowherb.
as well as the reader's digest guide to plants and birds he took another book out with him horkheimer and adorno chatting shit in the forest - first they discuss work (how it has become the be all and end all), then (at the end) they discussed can history do it? can history deliver us to where we would want to go?
they are smart dudes - horsemouth is warming to horkheimer - he’s a little bit more practical than adorno. adorno describes writing theory as a message in a bottle, horkheimer replies that we work on theory to keep it in stock for when it will be useful.
in the afternoon horsemouth headed into town (well - shoreditch) to the sun at night in shoreditch church, to hear music and to meet up with max crow (and maybe john cunningman) and to then go for a beer. arriving just after 6pm, a kate bush-y, amos tori-y singer was singing and playing the (grand) piano (good voice, well played, not entirely horsemouth’s cup of tea), a poet recited st.toad by h.p.lovecroft (it has a cracked bell like st. mary woolnoth) and john barleycorn (robert burns version - horsemouth only really knows the john renbourn group version).
there was then a song in honour of the inspirer of the proceedings (now dead), vocal, piano, bass drum, the girl singing had a strong voice kind of like souixsie souix which worked well with the song (horsemouth was a little smitten). and then an improvisation on themes suggested by the audience - a guitar was added, a young guy got up and MCed (well done dude), the performance became self-conscious, it ended. (sorry people horsemouth missed your names but it was a good show)
there was a pause for tea then micalef (who had arrived a little later) recited a poem to piano accompaniment, this was great (a class act).
by this time max, horsemouth and john were assembled and saying goodbye to the congregation hastened to the masqued haunt for beer (horsemouth buying the first round). four pints of beer and much good conversation later horsemouth staggered off home (well to bus it up into h*****y). this morning he returned to the forest to feed the cat, tidy up and to take paracetamol. happy lammas day everyone.
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