friday night (as you know) horsemouth was in the pub with howard (one pint became four - but fortunately no more).
saturday horsemouth was out toasting in the sun (reading mostly) and then staying in (watching a dvd box set of the sons of anarchy season two).
sunday he planned more of the same but andrew minty invited him out first to a community gardens and next the park. in both places he (playing fool that he is) played a little guitar and attempted to impart his hard won guitar wisdom. he then went for food with minty and lisa (thank you for inviting him).
lisa had her guitar tuned in standard eadgbe - hence some cover versions were attempted (jolene, wind beneath my wings, something by the grateful dead).
the girl in the community gardens had her guitar tuned dada(-12)be (or something like that, nearly as horsemouth is fond of remarking) but her main interest was short little repeated phrases (though she professed to be a john renbourn fan). horsemouth recommended african music (funk would have done it too) ali farka toure etc. and is usual standbys john fahey and robbie basho (he’s a bit of a basho evangelist). he could also have recommended robert fripp’s league of craft guitarists (more than one person doing small repeating riffs in a knock-off minimalist fashion).
in both cases horsemouth recommended getting ones thumb perpendicular to the neck of the guitar when holding down chords (it just gives you greater strength and better string termination - and hence a clearer sound), in lisa’s case he recommended a cheat for playing the a-chord.
the sons of anarchy is ostensibly about the problems of community (a very horsemouth issue) but in fact it is mainly concerned with problems of masculinity (or rather their erasure in a fantasy). horsemouth enjoyed it (though it is a little grim) - maybe he should watch season one sometime.
he’s been reading dazzling stranger (a biography of bert jansch) - from whence the charles’ river holy boys tuning - it’s a bit stodgy and fattening (like all music books - music is incredibly difficult to write about well) and dvd boxed sets.
monday night and one turns into four again and horsemouth staggered home drunk. this was deeply deeply foolish. at some point he got some chips (he hopes he paid for them).
by wednesday horsemouth had recovered his equanimity - he’s away to inspect his quarters (and various allotments) in the forest - today he was away to sunny greenwich (CD and book buying mission). he should have bought dazzling stranger a double CD compilation of the finest moments of bert jansch’s career (including the later neglected bits), instead he bought a 2 CD’s in one compilation of jack orion and nicola (and free jazz by the ornette coleman double quartet - but that’s another story).
books wise it was another visit to halcyon(and on) but the muse of book buying was not with him so he only emerged with procopius’ the secret history (one squid)- a book in which bad things happen among the late romanochristian ruling class. it’s page three and we’ve already had some murders and an outbreak of incest. (kind of like I claudius on steroids).
‘why was the book written if it could not be published?’ wonders g.a.williamson in his introduction.
horsemouth was on point hill, an artist was there having drawn the new vista from there (for engraving later), as was his wife (horsemouth presumes) and a woman walking her dogs. the dogs made friends of everybody. apparently beneath the hill there are caves - party spaces before the war, air raid shelters during. he then descended via pigsty alley and past the house where alfred salter quaker mayor, doctor and member of the settlement movement was born (a quaker like many yankee whaleship captains). melville has published moby dick when a series of attacks on whaleships by an enraged whale begin, he writes, ‘I wonder if my evil art has raised a monster.’
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