the great tsundoku (blue crystal fire)

‘my friends, we are all in a damnable state, and I scarcely know how we will get out of it’

this is the thought that occurred to the reverend grimshaw (one of the fathers of methodism) in the middle of one of his sermons. once the thought had occurred it had, in all honesty and simplicity, to be uttered.

horsemouth has finished millstone grit by glyn hughes - a walk of the pennine way and a memoir of his time living there. it escapes the great tsundoku (the great pile of books that horsemouth will buy and not get round to reading) because now horsemouth has read it. all that remains is to put down his impressions of it sufficient to stir memory when he comes across this note again (or until facebook/ blogger/ the web collapses and it is lost forever).

hughes is a disciple of richard jefferies, of english transcendentalist nature writing, but a reader of fromm and e.p.thompson also - he teaches (intermittently) in the schools and colleges, cultivates his garden (when he has one), visits friends, walks and watches the weather, the rest of the time he paints and writes poetry. there are digressions on the mills and the luddites, on methodism, and a chapter like ranciere’s the nights of labour - on the study and culture of the newly literate working classes.




the locals sing the john o’grinfelt’s ballad that we would know in its june tabor or stick in the wheel version four loom weaver - the old ones sing it secretively as a ballad their parents sang in victorian times, the youngsters sing it loudly in the folk clubs as something ‘relevant’ they learnt off bert lloyd’s record.

horsemouth has this morning off (in a bit he will have a shower out of kindness to humanity and then some breakfast). in the evening there’s a documentary (inside europe: ten years of turmoil) on greece. thursday is the anniversary of the death of j.sheridan le fanu (horror writer of this parish), next week the anniversary of the release of the first album by black sabbath, the recording of stellar regions (by john and alice coltrane) and also on the 14th let’s kill captain cook day.

as saturday afternoon shaded into evening (and the sun set in the west) horsemouth wandered down the canal into pop(u)lar to visit howard -- this time directly at the pub the gentrifier’s arms. there they sat and drank a few pints of session and chatted - horsemouth was as usual the cheerleader for the more beer party, howard for the that’s enough party.


horsemouth spoke in praise of glyn hughes' millstone grit - and promised to lend it to howard when he was done. there’s a plan to do some work on another version of robbie basho’s blue crystal fire that howard has been working up. (and more controversially to bring back a version on all my dreams). perhaps they will have it together enough for the april gig at waterintobeer (who knows).