'ecoutez l'histoire de bonnie and clyde' (a dream of wessex)

it is the anniversary of the deaths of bonnie parker and clyde barrow 
murdered by 'the laws' this day 1934

 'if a policeman is killed in dallas, and they have no clue or guide; if they can't find a fiend, they just wipe their slate clean and hang it on bonnie and clyde'  - from a poem written by bonnie parker two weeks before her death the first verse of which is used in serge gainsbourg's song.

horsemouth dreamed of bridport. (just back from bridport in the hills) when he woke up the summer sun and the whitewashed walls reminded him. horsemouth dreamed of bridport. (just back from bridport in the hills) ...

yesterday howard was up visiting but (as sometimes happens) they were out of tune. howard has his work head on (some of his young people are finding the lockdown - and life in general - difficult) and horsemouth... well horsemouth is losing the ability to speak because he speaks to so few people.

they sat out the front listening to music through the window. last time they actually sat out on a saturday (this might be the secret trick or it might have been the music - horsemouth was short on sitting out music (not enough brazillian music or old-school reggae - he’s not sure where it all is), howard brought some (but for some reason horsemouth was disinclined to play it). eventually carlinhos brown and capitao do asfalto did it.

it is a curious one, for much of the lockdown horsemouth was sustained by work (not enough work to actually feed him, as if these were normal earning times, but work that ate a lot of time). this is over, horsemouth is furloughed, and as usual, when work stops, he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.

he showed howard some illustrated books: the ones that met with approval were under summer skies by vytautas bubnys (designed by vasili shulzhenko) ‘a book about the lithuanian countryside today’ (from 1974) and a book of russian fairy stories the firebird with admirably flat and colourful folk style drawings by igor yershov and ksenia yershova. horsemouth forgot that he has the miguel covarrubios illustrated blues anthology - that would have been good to show also. he lent out the pierre de clastres (with the paul auster ‘making of’ introduction).

otherwise horsemouth has just been reading and sunbathing - more balzac (at the sign of the cat and racket). everybody else is back out and being sociable (which means the virus will keep going) but horsemouth is still not up for it.

a very influential tune RIP mory kante .