horsemouth - independent worker or trustafarian?

horsemouth detaches from his dayjob (i.e. the job he did on some days). 

the job has over the last few years become the job he did for a few hours a day, one or two days a week for about 30 weeks of the year, er. online, working from home. it used to  drag him out all over london and sometimes further afield, it used to invade his weekends and his evenings. it used to occupy him very nearly 9 to 5 for 4 or 5 days a week. 

horsemouth was happy to work, he's a greedy little thing at heart, he liked making hay while the sun shines against the inevitable and harsh winter. he liked squirreling away. in many ways he was relieved just to have a comparatively painless way of making a living (not that he didn't sometimes get in a stress and strop about actually having to do it).  he thanks denise for pointing it out to him. he feels privileged to have solved thee poor scholar's problem so painlessly. 

yesterday the thank you and goodbye email from his boss (one of the better ones), the day before the goodbye email from the office (bye bye gosia, bye bye lucy too).

he is now (as facebook has very adroitly picked up) an independent worker. 

horsemouth may already be making the connection necessary to have some leisure work to top him up on his inevitable decline (or he may come think it is more trouble than it is worth and he should just embrace a trustafarian lifestyle). 

horsemouth has squirreled away. 

he is reminded of his father. someone who cheered up enormously when he could retire and get on with the things he actually liked doing instead (gardening, DIY, car maintenance).  

horsemouth's problem is that he gets bored. 

yesterday strange weather. the sun would no sooner shine than it would piss it down with rain. horsemouth made several sorties out (to the allotment, down towards eagle ponds). eventually, reconciled, he got on with some admin and then got on with copying out some arguments on the necessity of a business plan. 

in the evening he ate and watched a (bad) movie. 

today is positively the last in the cloud forest. 

he returns heavy laden - guitar, backpack, laptop, new books, 1kg of humous.  a meeting up with howard (10am ish) . perhaps some work on music. the weather says grey until 2pm (then thunderstorms). 

 

one window shows grey skies (the other blue)

'if either the job or the housing go then horsemouth is shtooked, he will either have to get a ‘proper’ job (heaven forfend) or move out of town and eke out his savings until his pension (which is still too far away for his liking). 

of course horsemouth is glad not to be one of the youth for them things look proper shit.' 

and guess what happen? (as they say). prophecy thy name is hindsight. 

the job has evapourated. and not just for the summer this time. 

horsemouth rolls toward his redundancy though the date when they actually pay him the wedge has slipped a little. by now horsemouth thought he'd be sitting on his treasure trove like smaug the dragon (but no that would only happen if he were paid like a boss). 

horsemouth is recalculating as the ad, based on the idea that life is a car journey and that it has a destination and that technology can help you get there, says. can he eke it out to his pension? can he get something small and not very irritating to tide him over. 

horsemouth is a procrastinator and a coward (as you know) and also a filthy bourgeois rational planner. he apologises for going on about this. he realises the minutiae of his existence (and particularly the money) are not of great interest. 

the housing is still there (or it was the last time horsemouth checked) but it is as irritating as ever.  he has agreed to another round of cat-sitting elsewhere (thanks for the offer) and then there is (perhaps depending on the vagaries of international travel) another round of cat-sitting (and horsemouth rolls it towards the equinox). 

horsemouth has two problems - how he can afford to live until pension day and how he can split his time between the cheap sunny place and the expensive cold place. the consequence of brexit is that he can only live in the cheap sunny place for 91 days at a time (and then he is banished from the magic kingdom for 91 days). 

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meanwhile horsemouth rolls towards lammas (1st of august) and the anniversary of the release of musicians of bremen volume four. he should give it another listen (he bets it sounds good). 

was that just sunlight that came in the window? one window shows grey skies (the other blue). soon a run up to the allotment (to check it is ok), some cleaning about the house, some admin.

horsemouth is about to indulge in some rational planning for the communal endeavour (and worse still to encourage others to do so). yesterday horsemouth visited his brother's house which is up in nearby highams park on a hill, a friend of his (who lives at the bottom of a nearby hill) has been flooded out in the recent rainstorms. the media are blaming climate change. horsemouth is wondering if it is not time to think about beginning to futureproof the communal endeavour, of doing their bit. 

 

the march from poplar (free the poplar thirty)

footage from the windsor free festival has been digitised here it is - hawkwind (featuring lemmy, stacia, dave brock etc.), the hare krishnas,  assorted hairy people.

yesterday's book purchases (oxfam walthamstow - st.james street branch)

- critique of everyday life, henri lefebvre, volume one (no sign of volume two). two squid.

- dialectical materialism, henri lefebvre, translated john sturrock, cape editions two squid. here's a pdf of lefebvre's dialectical materialism to be getting on with.

- dialogism: bakhtin and his world, michael holoquist, new accents, one squid. 

judging by the signatures inside they may all be from the same person's collection. 

today is the one hundredth anniversary of the march from poplar to the high court led by george lansbury and the rates rebels. you may remember horsemouth performing the role of george lansbury for a friend's cartoon (here it is).

baltimore continues its trajectory. if you ever wondered what a series 6 of the wire would be like, it would be like the shield, cops gone bad running their own drug and gangster operation out of the police station. let's have a statistic shall we 'in fourteen baltimore neighbourhoods, life expectancy is lower than in north korea'. 

yesterday was off and on a rainy day. horsemouth made it down to oxfam (but he got the train back up). he snoozed in the afternoon. read a little. went up to check on the allotment (still there). attempted to watch pet sematery (gave up). he bought a cheese (a cheap camembert) - it's nice and ripe but too cheap to be properly flavourful, he's a little disappointed. 

he had a discussion online about richard booth and hay-on-wye. a friend lived in peterchurch and hay as a child and has memories of that scene. 

the stendahl is kind of like the m. john harrison. the city is the character (in stendahl's case the city is  paris), time passes (in stendahl's case ten years) but he is writing his memoirs it in a hurry after the end of his ten years there. people are remembered and summed up, salons are visited, places are named but not described, they become allusive. you can argue it was ten wasted years for him. but he writes. he is published. 

horsemouth has spent knocking on 40 years in the seaside towns (as he euphemistically describes it). he has written. he has been published (a bit). he has made music (some people have even heard it). he attempts to set down his experiences and his life in a somewhat disguised fashion (the salt marshes, the cloud forest, beachside donkey rides, horsemouth himself). he gives you enough of it to have the sense of it (books, music, politics, rent, enough work to keep the show on the road). 

today dry weather. a walk down to leytonstone perhaps (to the somewhat disappointing charity shop).  tomorrow the last day in the cloud forest, the weather looks a bit iffy. 

'all founded on the great axiom 'I have to live''

so wrote stendahl of the political speechwriter maisonette. it would make a great title for an adorno piece (if he hasn't used it already).  the author has to live, so he lies. but not stendahl, he professes a complete disinterest in success and just does what he likes, he does what destiny throws in his path. and then,  like montaigne, he writes about it. 

stendahl's problem is that loves the italians but (because of a broken heart) he can no longer live there. he is in exile in paris (with a side visit to london in 1821 and to near birmingham in 1826). but he doesn't really like the french either (mind you he doesn't particularly like the brits either). he doesn't like parisians either. 

he writes well though (and this is what keeps his account of the ten years he spent in paris readable). eventually he gets back to italy, to rome, and can start writing. in other pleasures he gives us a running total on how the writing of the book itself is progressing (so that we can cheer him on).

of course there is considerable pleasure in seeing writers transported to london (voltaire etc.) in having them wander round familiar streets. 

just as in the life of henri brulard  he gives us a map of his family farmhouse in memoirs of an egotist he gives us a map of a parisian drawing room and tells us who may expect to encounter on our journey from the front door. he also gives us a proposed design for his tombstone and a sketch map explaining his opinion of the geography of montmorency where he would often spend time. 

yesterday horsemouth went to water the greenhouse on the allotment and then walked over to south woodford to raid the charity shops. as you walk down to the tube on the right hand side the good crusty old charity shop is gone (another victim of coronavirus presumably), the two on the left closer to the tube are not that interesting, the oxfam up by the bridge over the ringroad is closed on account of flooding. on his way back he read the book he had with him (the stendahl). 

in the afternoon he snoozed. 

in the evening he watched the comic strip (a fistful of travellers cheques) a pleasant homage to spaghetti westerns and then retired to bed in the attic to read alex callinicos's 2010 the bonfire of illusions. callinicos had second thoughts about the title because there has been no bonfire of the illusions, neither of neoliberalism and financialisation (following the 2008 crash) nor of US hegemony have fallen, both ideas have continued to march on despite having been disproved by events (go figure). 

horsemouth should probably get on with reading his bluffers guide to writing a business plan and then get on with writing a business plan (the sunday times 2004). outside the sun has just started shining (and almost immediately been hidden behind grey clouds).  ok no it's putting up a decent fight. 

jacken elswyth (of betwixt and between  and the shovel dance collective) has put up another  mix, fahey and basho yes (but also some less familiar choices). 

up early. cooling rain. morning final

'... having had some second thoughts about the title...' - a. callinicos.

horsemouth is up early (well he went to bed early). 

already he has gotten embroiled in two discussions.

the one concerns the influence of aaron copeland on john fahey (or maybe vice versa). horsemouth would have to go and listen to both the copeland and fahey back to back to be sure. thinking about the gustav holst (another suggestion for an influence on fahey) for a while there was a fad for british classical composers to use folk themes and to re-set hymns (to be honest it was happening all over europe) . if horsemouth remembers correctly fahey has mentioned ralph vaughn williams. he knows fahey has mentioned charles ives. 

the second concerns 'prepping'. horsemouth tends to think of prepping as a temporary measure just to get you through the collapse of western civilisation. once you are through that you are into some feudal hell world of subsistence agriculture (and god help us all). 

there's been some discussion of howard's old acoustic guitar (a hohner arbor LW400N). researching the make online horsemouth found a guitar shop claiming it's an 'extremely rare hohner acoustic guitar from the 1980s which produces a rich warm sound.' it does have a nice sound - howard plays it a lot on musicians of bremen volume two.

horsemouth is not entirely convinced it's a jumbo (or a dreadnaught or a leylandia) - it seems a bit small for that. but it does have a sweet tone. 

yesterday a shopping mission (books):

1) memoirs of an egotist  by stendahl, forward by doris lessing. written in 13 days, 'ramblings from my private life'. rose road bookswap box. free. written about stendahl's 10 year sojourn in paris and london (starting  almost 200 years ago). stendahl was on the run from a broken heart he got in milan, in september he will be visiting england, searching through the pubs near the tower for a sailor who insulted him, going up to richmond to the park and travelling back by boat. 

2) bonfire of illusions by alex callinicos. post fukuyama, post the financial crash of 2008, where were we? 50p walthamstow salvation army (just opposite the william morris museum). they do 4 books for a quid but horsemouth has to be careful with the books. 

the oxfam near st. james street was shut (horsemouth will hit it later on in the week). 

fortunately for horsemouth the work today and tomorrow has cancelled. this gave him the jitters because he'd written it down in his diary as tomorrow and the day after. still, phew. 

in the boat: the buddha

it's a greyish morning. horsemouth is up in the cloud forest and he has just fed the cats (now read on). 

welsh american primitive guitarist (see it gets complicated very quickly) gwenifer raymond plays hell for certain, eulogy for a dead french composer and gwaed am gwaed live in the studio as part of a radio show about world music festival WOMAD. starts about 40 minutes in.

see here the name is said 'gweniver'. 

yesterday it rained (quality thunderstorms).

the narrow path to the deep north  (or at least up to the summit of mount snowden). horsemouth watched some tv, first some kids on outward bound, second a commune type thing in hereford, third john carpenter's truly terrible (and not in a good way) ghosts of mars (the black metal remix). 

also during the day he read and snoozed.  in virconium continues to be good, it's nearly over, horsemouth will miss it when it's gone. it looks like the bit of work horsemouth was going to do has evapourated (the lecturer is self-isolating). being a lazy sod horsemouth is not too displeased by this.

a photo has emerged (well howard took it) of horsemouth round howard's gaff. horsemouth is looking pensive and a little tired. he is playing howard's old acoustic guitar (a hohner used extensively by howard on musicians of bremen volume 2 and decorated with an OM sign by a previous owner).

there are several items of note in the photo:floor: howard's rug, horsemouth's notebook. coffee table: beer, cheetos. mirror: ganesha. square shelving unit: small blue indian gods. framed poster: works of nek chand. painting on wine box lid: isaballa the cat. in the boat: the buddha. 

horsemouth if not hungover at least a little jaded

if  horsemouth is not hungover he is at least a little jaded. 

he's ok he's had a lie in, a cup of coffee, some paracetamol, and a cup of orange juice. 

yesterday a visit to howard in sunny east ham. horsemouth took his guitar (howard's old guitar) and has brought it back with him. they started trying to chose tracks for the next album (and to remember how they were played). no more work on that now until the week after next (howard has to go off camping near weymouth).

horsemouth is keen to get a version of jai guru deva OM (a song he has bodged out from  fragment of the beatles across the universe) up and running. there are a number of new howard tunes/ fragments which can be stitched together. howard is keen on horsemouth's country waltz version of cheap trick's I want you to want me. 

after the practice (at horsemouth's suggestion) they walked up into barking (past the site of the barking folk festival of a few years ago - stick in the wheel, the unthanks etc.). horsemouth's plan was to get the train back up to walthamstow queen's street (and indeed this is what he did later).

howard suggested a pint of beer - neither of the two pubs up by the station looked that promising. sad to relate the wetherspoons seemed the least scary (so horsemouth and howard went in there despite all horsemouth's high sounding rhetoric about avoiding the spoons in future). 

in there the usual collapse of their will to resist the beer took place. 

there may have been some recording of the ambiance. 

horsemouth can only hope they will not be unduly punished for their foolishness beyond what he is currently experiencing. these are still pandemic times and while horsemouth feels invulnerable when he has had a few beers he does recognise that this was probably not the smartest move to be making in current times. (hell even visiting east ham is not particularly smart)

horsemouth will have to be extra solitary to make up for it. 

next week a secret mission. 

a big change in the weather

there's been a big change in the weather. the skies have gone grey. a damp coldness rules over all. soon thunderstorms (apparently). flash flooding, weltende  horsemouth thinks he's safe (he's up on a hill).  as horsemouth put it (rather inelegantly) it's due to piss it down anyway. thunder rolls around the skies. 

horsemouth us up (importuned by the cats oreo and rosie). his dreams are forgotten. something about german anna/ german anya.

yesterday horsemouth said hi to the neighbours.  he went for a quick walk in the forest (the clearing is being well used, lots of people are meeting up en plein air). at night he looked out of the attic window towards the centre and down towards docklands - the red lights of the cranes shimmered in the distance.  

horsemouth has his coffee (it can be done). 

last night (finding nothing on the tv to his taste) he retired to bed early and read more of m.john harrison's viriconium tetralogy/ quartet. the city is still in the grip of the plague but at the first sign of sunshine the people are out celebrating. and in real life people are bored with coronavirus, they want to be out in the pubs and at the coast having fun. 

horsemouth has entered into a strange state of bargaining with himself. if he stays alone for one day he can go and do something less than entirely safe another. 

yesterday he wandered up wood street in search of the charity shop run by the old indian man and the chinese lady. it seems to have gone. he went up to the allotment - he always likes opening the gate and emerging from the forest into the straight paths and ordered squares stretching up the hill (it reminds him of a shot from a film version of alice). 

the next two, maybe three days are due to be a wash out (but hey it frees him up from the obligation to do the watering up on the allotment).  

today he's supposed to be off to howard's. he awaits developments. if they are planning to make music he will nip back to his main domicile to pick up a guitar (but which one?).

 

'the plague is difficult to describe...'

'the plague is difficult to describe... it was a kind of thin-ness, a transparency. within it people aged quickly, or succumbed to debilitating illnesses... the very buildings fell apart and began to look unkempt, ill-kept. businesses failed. all projects dragged out indefinitely and in the end came to nothing.' 

- 'plague' john harrison in in viriconium.

horsemouth is back up in the cloud forest following an early morning mission of an ill-defined nature.

the disadvantage of it was he had to get up and travel in the morning.  (but surely this is useful practice mr. horsemouth for when one has to work and indeed travel in to work). 

they've been spoiling him with their furlough and every two weeks pay-cheques. now he has been reminded, by a delay in the redundo-date, of the paid-in-arears nature of his soon-to-be former employment. soon the money will stop coming in (and will start only going out).  

the advantage of it was he got to drink an espresso outside in the morning sun at a somewhat posh cafe in the village. 

the locals were bemoaning the pingdelic antics of the NHS covid app. one told a tale of attending a theatre performance at the globe where one role had to be played by the understudy until such time as the PCR test for the main actor had come through (at which point the main actor could rejoin the action and the understudy be returned to deserved obscurity). they were discussing holiday plans (one was off to sitges).

horsemouth sat (long after he'd finished his espresso). later he sat in the sun outside the school gate  waiting for his charge, the hand-over was achieved, horsemouth (it turned out) was not further needed. he retired happy..

he went home and attempted to upload this blogpost using his old and loyal netbook, but after being woken from its slumbers the poor wee beastie was not up to the job. 

saturday maybe another meet-up with howard. it may rain. horsemouth will have to work out a means of getting there. 

an al fresco meeting of the communal endeavour

horsemouth is back from an al fresco meeting of the communal endeavour. it went well horsemouth thinks, he was able to pitch the idea of planning ahead largely without interruption and recruit people to help write it. he has a workbook and apparently there is a website (now it's just a matter of sitting down and doing the work). he thinks most of it can be handled by email. 

earlier horsemouth had been for a wander with tim goldie by the riverside. nudists frolic  in the polluted waters like middle aged, saggy, water spirits, later when out two heroes returned they had been replaced by youth in bikinis and swimming trunks playing reggaeton. 

humanity you are beautiful (but a bit disorganised), that's probably why we are doomed. 

tim and horsemouth discussed uk hip-hop, horsemouth as an aficionado of  leytonstone crew gunshot, tim of hijack (who horsemouth thinks were south london - but he could be wrong). they discussed how fortunate they were to live next to such a wonderful reclamation by nature and the urban planners of former brownfield sites. 

today has been cancelled. horsemouth is therefore free. in the evening he goes to feed the cats (and water the allotment)  up in the cloud forest. today dry and sunny at the weekend. hereafter the weather takes a dip down to a more bearable 23C (but only after a weekend of tropical storms). 

this morning there was a discussion with sten of the movies of charlie kaufman; 

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

Being John Malkovich (1999)

Adaptation (2002)

all show a distinct interest in doubles, copies. so do the works of another collaborator of his, michael gondry,  notably be kind rewind and the science of sleep. 

'and didn't it rain children'

yesterday it rained (and horsemouth was out in it).

the sky opened and truly did it chuck it down with a vengeance upon the children of the earth. the children and parents of the playground scattered in search of any cover anywhere. horsemouth and his charge ended up under a tree (before relocating to the overhang of some public toilets). thereafter it eased up and horsemouth and his charge made their way to a bar where they had a pizza. 

at the playground horsemouth met some new parents and he bumped into dimitra, her husband and child. he hasn't seen them since the cameron anniversary poetry evening, perhaps he bumped into them up at the wetlands cafe when john was over visiting one time (but horsemouth is uncertain about the sequence). 

it's not 8am and its 20C already. today the weather should be not as savage as the last few days (a mere 29C).  when it is that hot horsemouth tends to skulk indoors. just lately he's been getting on with painting the front room (attempting to restore it to its proper use). 

today horsemouth goes to a meeting of the communal endeavour touting the idea of a business plan and bearing a how to write a business plan book. he's unsure whether it will be in the open or indoors (he's pressing for it to be out in the open).  

tomorrow a spot of child-minding and then up to the cloud forest to feed the cats. payday. next week cat-sitting and a spot of work (then the digital kerfuffle of getting paid), the anniversary of the march by the poplar rate rebels to the high court and then lammas.  

if it were gove at least the trains would run on time (but we'd all be dead).

dominic is on tv tonight. he will tell us boris didn't want to go into lockdown two, to lockdown the economy with only 80 year olds dying. but come on this (wrongheaded) view is simply the kind of harsh minded triage that dominic himself would attempt. the PM is a dolt, a shambling everyman, a bertie wooster, a big baby, he has the inverse midas touch (everything he touches turns into shit) and that is what people like about him - charging him with a mere lack of competence hardly seems fair dominic. 

after all you got him elected. 

horsemouth supposes it could be worse. it could have been gove. if it were gove at least the trains would run on time (but we'd all be dead). 

come to think of it boris deserves some kind of an award ...for services to the virus etc.

currently the youth are being bribed into getting the jab by being threatened with not being let into night clubs. horsemouth thinks the youth should be off raving in the forests but he thinks get the jab also - true it is a massive experiment but the harms of the virus vastly outweigh the likely harms of the vaccine (so says horsemouth who knows absolutely nothing about these matters). 

shortly horsemouth will decamp to the cloud forest for a week. it looks like the weather will be good and sunny. 

this afternoon some babysitting (possibly dinner after). (remind him to stick some more money on his phone) horsemouth was up visiting dave and claudia last night, during the day he painted. dave and claudia were on good form, they sat and sang and played for a bit in the garden.

horsemouth is trying to kill off the sitting room redecoration so that it can be brought back into use as a facility for everyone in the house - it would be nice, for example, to be able to use it to sit and watch tv sometimes. at the moment it is entirely devoted to tools storage for one member of the house (for horsemouth to be successful this is going to have to change). 

during the redecoration horsemouth discovered a how to manual on making a business plan. now the communal endeavour needs to make a business plan because it needs to borrow some money, or rather it should want to borrow some money to buy new property to rehouse its members as the shortlife ends. horsemouth will try and get the process  started try and incorporate a wide range of views (he may have missed stuff and rehousing members may not be everybody's priority). 

wednesday he goes to a meeting of the communal endeavour.  thursday he decamps to the cloud forest. the met office has issued a heat warning. the poor duds next door continue with their building. 

everything is going to be alright (we hope) / the relationship with death has been broken

a year since the release of this beauty. basically howard. horsemouth gets to put some guitar on towards the end. a wicked beat that howard made on his phone.

yesterday about 4.4 miles. out to coronation park (past the turn off for the supermarket in the fields just south of the leyton orient stadium) a park dating from about 1900 with enough historical explanatory material to keep horsemouth happy (and a bandstand). he returned via orient way and the footbridges and marshes.  horsemouth then hid indoors throughout the 30C plus day. to tell the truth he snoozed. 

where as the day before horsemouth had done some painting yesterday it was too damn hot to attempt such a thing. 

there was a plan to go walkies with tim goldie later on (but horsemouth was feeling a bit pre-flu and overwhelmed with the heat so that fell through). 

today another scorcher. 

the reading of the m.john harrison viriconium goes well (he has completed the pastel city already, some of the short stories and started on  a storm of wings). the city is (of course) the main character, a collection of place names, street names jumbled together. mari lwyds (a horses skull on a stick taken door to door in pursuit of beer) feature heavily. 

well it is freedom day and the country seems to be accelerating up into the heavens of a fourth wave of death and misery. it is not that the relationship between infections and hospitalisation and death has been broken (as our woosterish PM likes to claim) but that it has been weakened, but if enough people get infected enough  will be hospitalised to grind the NHS's other work to a halt (leading to subsequent death later) and enough people will die to give people pause for thought and convince them of the prudence of staying in. people will have their summer holiday (sort of) and then it will be another long grind over winter (with a quality flu season as well). 

be not afeard remarks horsemouth. the majority of you are young and in good health (with decent lungs) you may catch it, you may pass it on, but you are unlikely to get seriously sick or die. if you are old, not in good health, or have crap lungs like the mule, horsemouth advises you to drive defensively and do less. 

horsemouth has two little bits of work (he will have to do some declaration to the self-employment authorities) and a redundancy scheduled - thereafter he can suit himself what he gets up to because he is without the compulsion to earn a leaving  (for a while at least). 

last night a phone call from horsemouth's mum in the wilds. the phone has been playing up leading to missed medical appointments but overall horsemouth is very pleased that his parents are so far out of it in the wilds (he finds this very reassuring). 

he watched robocop 2 (the height of satire). 

some ramblings found online

'away with metaphor, analogy, allegory' - john fahey in some ramblings found online. 

horsemouth is back from a babysitting mission. 

it's a beautiful morning. the people who set up the market stalls are hard at work. 

one of the songs horsemouth and howard played through was across the universe by the beatles (horsemouth can't remember why they got started on it). they got the chords up, horsemouth played and howard sang and horsemouth sang along (they were doing it round D and A7 if that helps er. it's a bit fucking high for him singing it there). 

from this comes the jai guru deva (om) - the bit that is melodic genius is the possessing and caressing me that for one time only in the song (this is why it's genius) takes place on a G minor chord (it sort of chromatically feeds back into the D). thereafter the chords are what you would expect (D, Bm, G, Em7, A7 etc.)

perhaps the place to start it is with the A7 (the om)))) (come to think about it this may be where the beatles start). 

the line  across the universe  is a feed in line, the chorus (payoff) line seems to be nothing's gonna change my world repeated over A7 and then G (in many ways horsemouth's least favourite line from the song).  the song itself makes use of a number of pedal points, see-sawing back and fore (in the A7 between a (the tonic) and g (the seventh)). 

horsemouth had the thought of turning it into a fahey style devotional piece. 

fahey played a number of these -  jai shiva shankarah most notably but the whole of fare forward voyager  is saturated with this. fahey claims  he played these in his pursuit of devotee shanthi norris rather than of higher spiritual knowledge. 

it's a beautiful morning. horsemouth should get out and about while it is reasonably cool. 

yesterday about 5 miles (up to walthamstow oxfam and back  taking the route through the river valley of the agapemonites going up and coming back by the industrial park). horsemouth visited the oxfam walthamstow. he bought  a 2 octave glockenspiel (£20) and two chalklin ms-24 soft headed drumsticks (£10)

'he whistled the 'found and killed' of the locust clan'

horsemouth is up. he's awake (slightly later than usual). he has his coffee (he's probably going to sneak a little hot water into it).

last night he tried to watch various movies but gave up and started reading of compendium of m.john harrison's virconium writings. he has a nice story of whistling brawlers to begin it, 'he whistled the 'found and killed' of the locust clan'.

yesterday howard came round. his school is closing early for the summer. horsemouth tuned the bad taste country and western guitar up into standard tuning and howard played his old acoustic (tuned standard). they made some progress on a few tunes.  howard has a number of fingerpicking guitar things he wants to try. notably if time was a lie -  which howard wants horsemouth to sing exactly as howard sings it,  and  ah poor bird  which horsemouth pulled out a part for and howard seemed to like). they won't start work in earnest for two weeks or so until howard has had a chance to recover from this year (what a fucker it has been). 

at some point howard picked up the telecaster copy and was having fun playing it. 

then they drank and squabbled about what music to listen to. before howard headed down to the station and off home. 

the pawn shops of the margarethestrasse

so horsemouth has been inside only one second hand bookshop in the past year (similarly for second hand CDs). he has even been hesitant about picking up stuff from the street (why take the risk right?). on his way back from dropping howard at the station he picked up a collection of new yorkers and a cigarette cards album from the street. it is record store day.

tomorrow is the anniversary of everything... (to be contrary howard pronounced his favourite to be the humming, horsemouth counterattacked with amarach). 

tonight horsemouth goes to child-mind/ babysit. 

we roll towards lammas, a meeting of the communal endeavour, and a pay day.  

'hey guys don't be so negative. what's so wrong with young entrepreneurs opening wine bars on lower clapton'

seven years on from horsemouth's war on the gentrification of lower clapton (with glyn, and django and her friends) and what's the state of play? well horsemouth wouldn't know because he hasn't been up there in a year. 

the nearest he's got was the end of powerscroft road where, last night,  he went up to meet up with ayesha, iona and hannah (iona is over on a visit from sunny rumania). 

seven years ago in glyn's front garden in the sunshine (a blazing hot summer day). himself and glyn being interviewed by django and her friends  - horsemouth thinks he may have made some sense at some points. some stuff to think about - ok the gentrification isn't paper thin but the jobs that go with it are - no surprises then if wine bar employee doesn't like the negativity.

the film vanished into the aether but horsemouth had an enjoyable time wandering around clapton with glyn and django viewing the gentrification (and bemoaning it) 

it was good to meet up with iona and ayesha (they of gertrude, iona of the rantipoles) and hannah. horsemouth may have promised to reprise his role of george lansbury from catastro/FILLE's film for the E15 mums street stall at some point (oh dear god). 

gertrude were great (but at some point the pressure to do something else instead became too much - and curiously at the point where the music was taking off). horsemouth was thinking about it because he mentioned gertrude  at his gig in hereford and someone asked what had become of them (ok ok it was his planted stooge richard). 

there was some discussion of manele - a kind of slightly gangster/ materialist/ living large take on gypsy music popular in rumania. they plied horsemouth with beer and eventually ushered him out of the door. 

before he met gertrude he bumped into tim goldie in the street and they sat and had a chat for a bit (good to see him). tim mentioned he might be off to berlin to meet mattin (that would be good). 

yesterday, other than that unexpected adventure, horsemouth did a homework and hand over at his child-minding/ tutoring gig (this involved nearly 5 miles of walking).  

today (a.n.other beautiful day). he may see howard (if not at some point over the weekend). 

what is this I see before me? (ah it's another beautiful morning)

it's another beautiful morning. progress seems to be being made on a scheme to have horsemouth working in his retirement. even if this scheme fails horsemouth at least has an in and has done some of the preparatory work for remobilising (it's like he doesn't even have a pen right now). 

later horsemouth goes to do more child minding - a trip to the park and more ferrying (he thinks). probably about 7km all told.  from here on more sunshine temperatures gradually increasing. tomorrow (hopefully) he sees howard. 

last night horsemouth read an article, he watched a movie and he listened to a podcast. 

the podcast concerned the making of offshore wind turbine towers in vietnam (and scotland) for the danes (wind power kings) to be installed in the north and  irish seas (for the brits). of course behind the new green (low carbon) economy is  still the actual economy of low paid workers in vietnam actually welding the towers together. they are predominantly from the poorest region of the country (the one that sends its children to die attempting to get into the UK in containers). 

the article was on ghédalia tazartès the recently deceased (well, february) improv musician and tape collage artist. horsemouth knows the triple negative  are keen on this one. ok he'll finally give it a listen. a friend (howard slater - another howard) wrote about him sometime ago (here it is).

the film was when eight bells toll, a young anthony hopkins in an alistair maclean thriller. horsemouth should really go back to watching samurai films (it fits with the people practicing their stick fighting over on the marshes) or at least italian thrillers. he was going to write 'he hasn't been to a cinema since he doesn't know when' but of course he went while he was up in hereford - that will have been the first time in years. before the pandemic he couldn't afford it, during the pandemic its was either shut or he didn't fancy the odds. 

here - a beautiful golden morning.

here - a beautiful golden morning. there - in south and west london, flooding. ok seems to be clouding over.

from here on the weather improves (heading up into a heatwave allegedly but definitely good out until the 25th). 

yesterday a chat with colin. it was a 7.6km walk (3.8km there, 3.8 km back), later a wander round on the marshes, eager students practicing their stick fighting (looks amazing).  the day before a walk to the park and the swings (3 miles there and back to aldi, and 3.2 miles to the playground and back).  this tops off the 2.6 miles saturday. very healthy horsemouth. 

to be frank horsemouth preferred the area round poplar for walking (more genuine edgelands, more of the river, more of the canals). round here interests him less. if he was keener on cycling (or public transport) he could get out a ways (but he's not). 

friday, saturday, sunday - possibly the thing with howard. 

horsemouth has just done a 4.4 mile walk over (and back again) to the supermarket in the fields (you may remember it as the supermarket horsemouth said he would never go to again because they treated their staff so badly).  he raided some cherry trees in the carpark and purchased a lot of coffee that he has hidden in a secret stash against hard times. (other than that, more museli, more beer) horsemouth is struggling with some admin tasks (and not traveling hopefully). ok he's just phoned up (which he thinks is the thing to do - maybe that's broken the logjam). 

phew.

horsemouth's problem is that he gets stressed. 

on having something to do

horsemouth is happiest when he has something to do (of course he is not always so happy when he actually has to go and do it).  yesterday a little child minding (some reading, some reading to, perhaps a little maths, and then a trip up the playground - which was largely deserted). horsemouth agreed because he was bored. thursday morning more of the same. 

there was some stuff (an email) for the communal endeavour and there's the possibility of some post-city lit notetaker work (just a smidgen - horsemouth was checking out the journey practicalities online). 

so all of a sudden horsemouth looked like a busy boy. time will tell if any of this will happen. 

horsemouth and howard may meet up round his friday afternoon. (then there's the possibility of doing stuff saturday and sunday too). 

from today the weather starts to improve. saturday record store day (horsemouth believes), sunday the first anniversary of the release of everything..., wednesday a face-to-face meeting of teh communal endeavour (possibly), the week after hiding out in the cloud forest.

thereafter 1st august (lammas) the anniversary of the release of volume four, sunday  august the 6th anniversary of the release of volume two. 

it's a grey-ish morning (supposed to get better later), horsemouth plots... actually no he's pretty empty headed. 

the hissing of the summer lawns demo is amazing (is horsemouth's opinion). 

'meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily...' (fast shadows)

instead horsemouth gets up and writes a blog as if her were living (a man with things to do). 

last night he watched a documentary on ghost dog. and then he listened to the wu-tang track fast shadows (itself another earlier wu-tang track sped up). the soundtrack to ghost dog works really well. the movie is an enjoyable confection. ghost dog is a loner - he is effectively using the samurai code to alibi his solitude. horsemouth admires his living conditions (warehouse penthouse). 

what happened with the football? horsemouth does not know. (he will look later). he could claim to be welsh as his get out clause but that's not the real reason. 

as a kid horsemouth was a nerd, it was not possible to be a nerd and have an interest in sports. like noam chomsky he disdains the people's interest in baseball (or other sports) and argues it would be better if they put their mental effort into understanding the causes of their oppression and devising means of resistance rather than participating in their own distraction. 

against this there is only the rollerball defence, that sports are an autonomous expression of the people but subject to the same interference and distortion by capitalist forces as everything else in society (thus the revolution can start there just as effectively as anywhere else). it has the advantage of already being concerned with the crowd and the mass. 

curiously it seems to be in sport where racism seems to be most effectively broken down. where a relative freedom prevails (go figure), where the oppressive distinction between mind and body is broken down. 

anyway enough sentimentality.  

'meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily...' 

last night the regular sunday phonecall from his mum (despite the fact that he was only there two days ago and thus has little news to tell). horsemouth used the laptop to discover the future weather of the golden valley and the current infections, hospitalisations, death statistics for the country as a whole. it is (of course) ticking up very fast with large numbers of people not yet double jabbed (and even then that provides only limited protection). boris initially made it sound like there was going to be a maskless free for all from july 19th and now they have had to row back to a mask wearing position. 

ultimately horsemouth thinks the people are more sensible than the government. if they can see people are dying in appreciable numbers they will take all the necessary measures to ensure their own safety without waiting to be asked or told. 

really horsemouth is only concerned with ensuring that his parents pseudo- libertarian (daily torygraph  style) distrust of the government and restrictions is outweighed by their appreciation of the reality of the risks. 

we all face growing old, becoming progressively less able and dying (sorry if that's a bit harsh for first thing in the morning). how did we get so old?  remarked a friend on a recent holiday. horsemouth contemplates the arthritis in his fingers. he advises people to enjoy the good days and the days in the sun. 

ok horsemouth should get on with the day. (he perhaps needs to stock back up on provisions). 

'can I go with you? can I follow you today?'

post named by book divination using a a copy of jack kerouac's desolation angels.

horsemouth is back from his babysitting gig. he wandered back up ___ road (past the closed down charity shop and the dudes assembling stalls for the market), down his street (past the dogfox sunning itself) and in the front door.  it went well (he thinks). 

there was a brief visit to wells street common to play on the swings. siobhan cycled past. she stopped and chatted for a bit (they jointly lamented their plan to go see lankum together that died in the first wave of lock down). then there was a pizza. then there was a  delivery. (anything to stave off the dreaded moment of cartoons). 

horsemouth wondered why he couldn't hear the roar of the football match (it is because it is tonight instead), he feigns indifference (he normally claims to be welsh (but the evidence is against him)). 

outside it is a beautiful morning. the extension next door is progressing. the builders have got the steel frame in to support the flat above and a lot of the back wall. they have got the second piece of steel  in for the lintel of the back door. the owners are living round the corner somewhere while the builders do the work (though fair play the dude did dig the back garden down to the required depth over the first lockdown, shovelling and bagging several tons of earth). 

'and now, after the experience on top of the mountain where I was alone for two months without being questioned or looked at by a single human being I began a complete turn around in my feelings about life...'  - jack kerouac, desolation angels book two, passing through. 

how much will coronavirus and the lockdowns have changed people? horsemouth does not know. 

horsemouth may have agreed to work (like actual paid work) for the end of the month. time will tell if it will come together.  he also has a cat-sitting gig for the end of the month (that might complicate things). 

next weekend. possibly some music with howard. until then horsemouth will be lying low trying not to catch the delta variant and  get sick and perhaps die. 

outside it is a beautiful morning. 

'industrial america shall be abandoned and left to rot in one long sunday afternoon of oblivion'

so says jack kerouac in desolation angels (a book horsemouth thinks he bought as a teenager. hmm no this edition is a 1986 printing that's too late). horsemouth hears it declaimed by jim morrison. kerouac sits high up on desolation peak watching for fires for the forestry service. but already it is not true solitude, already there is radio. the fire-watchers can talk to each other. 

horsemouth is back in the seaside towns. it looks like the babysitting is off. (he awaits clarification. he thinks he read a text to this effect but he seems to have deleted it). ok no it seems to have been on the whole time.  

horsemouth was quite sad to leave his parents (he does worry about them) but they are in the best possible place to ride out the pandemic. the isolation that he always thought was the disadvantage of their life now seems him to be an advantage. they live in the middle of the countryside, they have few points of contact with the outside world. in terms of prepping they even have a generator should the grid go down, a tank of fuel oil for the heating and a good solid vegetable garden. 

there were problems with the phone line while horsemouth was there but even so he could probably email his dad (failing that there's always the royal mail). his mum is phoning sunday he believes. 

on the way back the train and the underground were decently busy. it looks like the carnival of the world is getting going once again. horsemouth's plan is to stay sat down and wait and see what this brings. 

horsemouth expects the pandemic to be going on for the rest of his life. when they pronounce the pandemic over it will still be going on. it will come to be like a more lethal version of the winter flu - he thinks life expectancies will fall. we have less time to run and play than we thought. it therefore becomes more important to use the time we have. 

61 years on from kerouac writing desolation angels and industrial america has been abandoned several times over in successive rust belts. the commuters avert their eyes and drive on to somewhere where life is supposed to be happening, the last of the malls will die, the themed retail opportunities and leisure destinations will be deserted and shuttered. mickey, minnie and pluto will wander round the magic kingdom scavenging for food. 

when he got back horsemouth cooked and then he opened a bottle of beer and listened to the talking politics podcast (who are - they admit it themselves - bad at prediction). it's the last one until september. in september they hope to meet face to face and do the podcasts from the studio. 

horsemouth could have hidden out at his parents for longer (time will tell if coming back into town so early was the right thing to do).  

 

all of these things will be what they will be in the fullness of time

good morning.

yesterday horsemouth let himself get in a grump. 

the immediate cause was the trains - horsemouth has forgotten that the railways are running a pandemic service with decreased frequency and/or capacity (allegedly). just rocking up, buying a ticket and travelling he's used to, any of this planning ahead lark he can't really do. this time the trains seem to be full going back (until later on) or they want to send him on a route via bristol temple meads (wtaf).. 

tomorrow there's a rugby international in cardiff so the trains will be even busier (so horsemouth best get away today). 

horsemouth is sure he will be fine. he has a return ticket he may need to call in at the ticket office before he travels to ensure it is connected with an actual journey. 

there are other deeper causes. the condition of the front room (an ongoing problem now in its 6 month of blockedness), the likely condition of the kitchen, the overall unsatisfactory condition of the gaff. 

alternatively horsemouth could always worry about the task of development at the communal endeavour and the naysayers and what they might say.  digging back he could identify the people whom he has wronged and their likely desire for revenge and back before that the naughty things he got up to as a youth and the state's infinite memory.

it is of course beyond futile to be out in the wonders of nature (or at least wandering round ewyas harold common) and to be worrying about these things. it's downright foolish and a waste of space. all of these things will be what they will be in the fullness of time.

at some point he looked over the dulas valley clear to the black mountains and laughed at himself. 

it was good to see steve, richard and stass and to meet people on the weirdshire scene.  it has been good to see his mum and dad (and he seems to have done it without infecting them all with the latest variant too). it was good to play a gig (it went well he thinks). 

horsemouth is coming back into the city for the doubling every 6 days delta variant (lovely) and the mask-less dickheads party from the 19th onwards (who are we kidding - they're maskless already).  he will be returning to keep a low profile, do some babysitting  and hopefully make some more music (from about the 8th of august onwards). he will have to work out some low profile, covid secure way of doing all of this. 

later this month horsemouth's redundancy in earnest. a possible farewell party. probably the final furlough check. horsemouth reaches peak wealth and contemplates a long slow descent into poverty (that would be a good alternative title for this post but horsemouth thinks he will save it for later). horsemouth will have to return the work laptop and go back to using his fucked and held together with sellotape netbook. (he should probably spend his ill got on a new laptop but he's probably too mean to do so). 

'... which was he: a refugee or a misfit?'

'he was a misfit. he was also a cautious soul. he liked the security of a monthly salary cheque.' 

so goes the debate on the writer john coetzee's teaching career (for which he had no great aptitude being too secretive about his interests and enthusiasms to actually engage the students). horsemouth has finished j.m.coetzee's summertime.

so as you are aware (if you are adept at reading between the lines or as horsemouth may have blabbed already) horsemouth's department  is closing and he is being made redundant after 25 years at his employer. he can finally stop referring to it pseudonymously as 'beachside donkey rides'. there's a video of a colleague explaining  the situation in sign language and what services will be continuing after horsemouth's department closes.

horsemouth's colleague blames covid and the reduction of student numbers and thus money coming in  but to horsemouth that's just the immediate cause, as part of the redundancy process your employer has to make the case to you for redundancy and all horsemouth saw was headline figures but from these it can only safely be inferred that the department had problems predating the epidemic not the actual nature of the problems.

the work will now be taken on by a number of the larger employment agencies that pay lower hourly rates, do not pay into pensions etc. etc. 

horsemouth has enjoyed his time working there (not always - ask him on a rainy monday morning when he can't find the student - but overall) and specifically he has enjoyed his time working with the deaf. he may do a little more of it in the future (who knows). the best of luck to his co-workers - you'll be fine (here we see horsemouth in optimistic reassuring temporising mode).

he thanks denise (25 years ago) for persuading him to give up daytime drinking in favour of a dayjob. it's not just the money (though that has helped him survive and kept him out of the clutches of the benefit system) it's the access to educational institutions and their libraries. 

anyway they showed him a redundancy cheque and at that point he was convinced. 

there's a meet up in a park. but in a way he'd prefer a zoom call. 

the post-covid economic environment looks worse than the pre-covid one to horsemouth. he's certainly got no plans to engage with the full horror of it until after august. meanwhile...

the pandemic is not over. 

we must learn to live with the virus (say our rulers) but this  is not the same as pretending it's all over already in the name of profit. so how well have our rulers done so far  in protecting us? deaths per million of population is about the best measure. 

and on that measure they have failed badly. 

yesterday (7/7 - when the two sevens clash) was international staying in day. today is a bright beautiful sunshine-y morning. horsemouth's dad is already out in the sunshine having his morning cup of tea and undertaking a few back breaking tasks. 

it's 20 years since the death of fred neil and in other bad news datblygu has died. 

today breakfast a few walks. check if the last or last but one furlough payments has been sent out. 

it seems a shame to lie in bed when the sun is shining (the last of the money)

here we have pressure of speech (aka. micky mann) and his renamed mothman. horsemouth opines this is his best track. he liked gritty textures but horsemouth thinks the whole house/ techno thing was about artificially smooth sounds, perfect in their regularity. as far as horsemouth knows he has retired from music making which makes horsemouth feel guilty for not having appreciated his work more when he was active. 

a while ago he seems to have got a rerelease. 

horsemouth also posted a bert (jansch) and john (renbourn) track. this is mostly because he likes the cover and wants to parody it for the musicians of bremen album of guitar duets. 

(doubtless this idea will fall by the wayside.)

horsemouth is an enthusiast. when he is keen on something he wants to do it immediately and has little patience with any possible logistical issues (or indeed the feelings of his collaborators). this is why he prefers working on other people's stuff.

his tendency is not to exhaustively prepare but to do a minimum amount of work and then show up and see what happens (despite the fact that he is not in fact a good improviser). for this reason his output is a little hit and miss.

musicians of bremen  has been just about the best possible place to be for horsemouth with just about the best possible collaborator (howard). it has produced some of the best possible tracks. if horsemouth had to pick favourites it would be  - amarach from volume four, on the banks of the susquehanna from volume three, noah from volume two, and sorrows of tomorrow from volume one. these feature some of the best possible performances from horsemouth (given the limitations of his talent). 

musicians are however very constrained in terms of recording time and energy. 

what he should learn to do is get on with his own stuff (or get some other collaborations on the go). but he's a slow (self) starter. at one point (in the horsemouthfolk pre-musicians of bremen era) he was recording himself (and that went ok). this is something he should probably return to now that he has the time. 

he should make a list (that's how he normally gets most things going). 

summertime  by j.m. coetzee progresses. coetzee gives his biography subject (john coetzee) a hard time, coldly noting his failures as a human being, letting the supporting cast muscle him out of the way for the reader's attention. (horsemouth is reminded of himself). horsemouth (so far) prefers disgrace by him which is much darker. 

later breakfast. later today a walk (doubtless). horsemouth thinks he will return to the seaside towns friday/ saturday (he has some child minding work saturday). 

horsemouth is waiting for the last few furlough cheques to hit his account and then the redundancy payment. at some point (the end of july) he will have seen the last of the money. horsemouth will be hiding up in walthamstralia. then in august there will be the musicians of bremen recording campaign for 2021 which horsemouth expects to be brief because horsemouth expects howard will need to harbour his resources for his work over the winter of 2021/22 (which horsemouth expects to be hard).

 

a strange episode with the phone (no dial tone)

it was an ok morning but now it is going grey at a rate of knots.

horsemouth types this wearing a sweat shirt, a t-shirt, jeans and socks. the window is very slightly open. 

he has picked up and started reading j.m.coetzee's summertime.  he has previously read his disgrace - recently enough to remember the plot and his waiting for the barbarians sufficiently long ago that all he can really remember about it was that it involved being on the edge of an empire and waiting for the barbarians to arrive and start destroying everything. 

in summertime an unnamed protagonist is going around interviewing people who knew the novelist john coetzee. he mentions early kurosawa movies and zbigniew herbert's poem report from a besieged city. j.m. seems to be giving himself a hard time. in some ways the political frustrations of people who survived under apartheid are similar to those of people from eastern europe (or indeed 70ies britain), they survived through times that were monstrously stuck when it seemed as if it would never end. 

like freya stark there are diary entries. but there are also discussion of the times written subsequently (except coetzee has delegated this task to an unnamed interviewer). in montaigne we just get the reflections (in this he is like adorno). 

later horsemouth tried reading it in bed but he found the light and his eyesight not so good. 

the weather is supposed to be off and on rubbish for the next while. 

yesterday the sun shone but then there was a strange episode with the phone (no dial tone) eventually horsemouth got a very pleasant dude from ireland on the mobile phone while wedged in the window of his room (the one place in the house where he can get any signal). a fault has been recorded (and will be fixed by midnight on the 8th apparently). attempting to sort that out totally spoiled horsemouth's mood (until he got the dude on the phone) and when he next looked up the skies were boiling with storm clouds. 

this did not stop him going for a walk. 

up on the common he met the anti-vaxxer/ anti-lockdown activist he'd met last time he was back (and his dogs). nice dude but horsemouth believes in the virus which he thinks is a dangerous little beastie best avoided, he does not think it is an evil government scam to take away our liberties (why would they bother). he thinks its an actual health emergency, an actual worldwide pandemic. he thinks it is actually much more dangerous than the government realises. 

horsemouth has shaved off his walrus and sideboards leaving only a small goat (on his chinny chin-chin). 

today horsemouth will go for a walk or two. read summertime  and catch up on his listening to lrb podcasts

 

be sure that my grave is kept clean

outside it is a beautiful sunny morning. the sun is already high in the sky. as usual horsemouth thinks he should get out into it and blog later (but the urge to blog is too compelling). 

earlier horsemouth dreamed of his reward. horsemouth's reward? for all that hard work? well stranger things have happened. 

horsemouth has a most itchy insect bite on his foot.

yesterday horsemouth went with his mum to keep the ancestors' graves clean in stoke prior graveyard.  at the back of a church a  marquee was set up ready for a reception (some portaloos also). cheerful people in suits wandered round. they did not call in (as they usually do) to the queen's woods on dinmore hill for a coffee or an icecream. horsemouth opines (from having checked the neighbouring grave) that even with the grit on top if it is just left the successive waves of plants dying off and back will eventually produce enough soil to support wildflowers (as in the the other the graves in the graveyard, ox-eye daisies seem very prevalent) but he would not object if they decided to take the grave all modernist. 

a friend's mum has died. horsemouth has made his condolences.

last night he watched a little of jan svankmayer's alice, then he finished off watching the giallo the strange case of mrs. ward. 

yesterday was the anniversary both of lewis carroll telling the tale of alice in wonderland for the first time but also the birth of al 'blind owl' wilson of canned heat. like fahey wilson was another blues enthusiast who could really play the old time material.

meanwhile that rascal robert jenrick has been busy. not only is he of the opinion that mask wearing will soon be a personal matter but he also has an opinion about the relative mortality rates in flat fires. only three people a year die in flat fires he says - surely we should stop making such a fuss over inflammable cladding. 

yes but not in 2017 robert. that year 72 people died in flat fires and all in one go, in one flat fire, now what was the name of that tower block?

horsemouth proposes that this is not an outlier but evidence of a trend (the trend of people to die in flat fires when a government derelict of its duty has allowed napalm to be installed on the outside of the block). 

the issue of course is not that we should learn to live with covid but that we should learn to die with covid and keep quiet about it (and be jolly grateful to our betters for looking after us so well). 

in defence of horsemouth helliwell (struggle with imaginary foes)

after a wrestling with cookies horsemouth is with you (fucking shitting things). track him all over the internet then (like he gives a shit). 

horsemouth likes it when things work easily. he is suitably less enthusiastic when they don't.

all he really has to tell you this morning is that it is still a grey day outside. 

horsemouth has dylan thomas's adventures in the skin trade on the go (they have reached the apartment full of furniture), he also has in defence of raymond sebond by montaigne (he has read the introduction). it is a 50p second hand edition that was once (according to the sticker on it) in the indiana university bookstore.

until now horsemouth has been misunderstanding this book. he assumed it was a defence of an old friend of montaigne's (such as etienne de la boetie) but it is in fact a defence of a writer from 200 years before montaigne, a doctor working in 15th century toulouse who wrote in a latinised spanish. finding the book in his collection, montaigne's father asks him to translate it but what we really get is a precis of its ideas. 

'man is not inferior but one of the animals' 

montaigne is interesting because he writes about himself and the process of writing (freya stark was interesting for similar reasons). he may be the first in the west to do this. 

yesterday horsemouth went for two walks on the common, both were cut short by the necessity of avoiding his fellow humans. his fellow horses he was fine with. on the common he mainly struggled with imaginary foes (those of the collective endeavour type), later he tried to find a place where he wasn't sitting and reading while his aged father tilled the soil (it's a bad look he knows). 

in the evening he watched the post. tom hanks and meryll streep refight vietnam in the name of journalism, feminism and gracious good manners against the charmless (and only seen yelling into a phone) richard nixon. it's not all the president's men, or rather it is, it is that self-regarding re-telling that makes conditional events look like outcomes of a deep seated sense of justice (it is a vietnam war that once again doesn't feature the vietnamese). 

the hero is in fact bob macnamara. he has his people write a document that exposes the whole shoddy mission creep and futility of the whole thing. this can then leak. he permits himself to see it and once it is written down it can be passed on to the people it was not intended for. 

it's rubbish weather for the next few days. horsemouth will read and such like. 

bandcamp fridays is still going on (horsemouth thought it was over) - next date august the 6th. 

'in the direction of a beginning'

another day another gift from the internet 

never heard this before. medicine raga by robbie basho from 1967. it's long (as the youth used to say) but basho is in control of it all the way through. 

in adventures in the skin trade a dylan thomas alike sets off to london from swansea (having smashed the family crockery before he went).  he hides in the toilet of the train. the publishers wanted a serious, studious autobiography from dylan (they didn't get it). 

yesterday the sun shone. horsemouth walked up over the common, along the hill and down over into the dulas valley to the corner where the trout pub used to be (when it was run by bill and pauline). he took his shoes and socks off and waded around in the dulas brook. the houses and farms  that used to be near ruins are done up very nicely thank you. and then he climbed back up the hill, past the paintball and glamping farm and made his way home. this knackered him so much that when his mum suggested a wander in the afternoon all he could face was a turn round the fields. 

otherwise he sat out and read (the daily torygraph, adventures in the skin trade). he drew a picture of the male pheasant.

he attempted to post yet another panegyric to musicians of bremen's musical output - in this case the humming which they released slightly over a year ago, but the internet frustrated him and ate the post. he had meant to go into more detail. 

the humming benefits from a number of happy accidents, that while howard was recording himself humming in an art gallery (don't ask some kind of art thing) one of the nearby displays contributed some jazz trumpet - this by itself would be a happy accident but fortunately for horsemouth (when he was adding his bert and john style guitar part) it sits in nicely with his part. (what he would have done if it had come in out of time or out of tune he does not know). 

malkin tower came about because horsemouth wanted to do a drone piece (continuing on from (S)erpents and on the banks of the pawtuxent on the previous album) using john clarkson's harmonium. sadly it is pitched about 50% above normal. he figured if he were to play the note and the note bellow that one frequency component would be the average of the two frequencies and thus be in tune (that note should also beat at the difference of the two frequencies). the human ear (well the human brain) tends to assign the pitch of things to the nearest note. they then had great fun howling and groaning along with it. it features in the film the fall of the house of fitzgerald. broadly horsemouth wanted to suggest some kind of magical transformation. 

punchdrunk blues howard brought. horsemouth just added the percussion and loads of clanging guitar. 

for the next set of recordings horsemouth thinks he should get the thumb piano and  the omnichord onboard, perhaps the banjolin too. in general though he wants to attempt some guitar duets. 

yesterday the sun shone. this is not totally true. it was often overcast. today looks like being grey and overcast all day, er. and rainy.  soon breakfast. then a walk then the one o'clock news. 

early on the sun shone but then the skies clouded over and the day began

outside it is a bright sunshiney morning. horsemouth is up half an hour earlier than his holiday standard. it may mist over later. (ok it's done it. it's galling to know that the other side of that cloud cover is sunshine) . you  know the rules horsemouth - to see the sun you must get up early.

last night (and the night before) horsemouth slept with the window open. this morning he was chatting with lone star parson (republocrats, heatwaves, the importance of AC). 

horsemouth checks the news. labour hold batley and spen with 300 votes (down from 3000 last time).  

horsemouth would, of course, prefer the labour party to be to the left of where it is, and would prefer it to get elected to office on a radical platform and then do radical things. the vagaries of first past the post, the entrenched nature of the british establishment and the downright reactionary cast of working class opinion mean this is unlikely. labour then becomes the least worst option. 

ultimately the real resistance to capitalism is only the workers requiring proper pay for their work and sundry protesters clustered round various issues. the first past the post system encourages extra-parliamentary struggle by failing to give parliamentary expression to even quite large protest movements (look at UKIP - 1 million votes and all they got was one lousy tory renegade for an MP). but it also discourages extra-parliamentary struggle because ultimately you are dependent on one of the two major parties to take it on and turn it into action. look at UKIP now - dead in the water because the boris johnson wing of the tory party schlupped their policies.

horsemouth apologises for giving you examples from the right but other than corbynism he can't see others on the left. (this is why the people horsemouth knows who should have known better were so enthusiastic about it).

there is of course 'direct action' where the people create the conditions on the ground such that the state has to go another way. at the moment  only seems to occur in the  limnal spaces, where the state simply doesn't care enough about the problem and people based solutions can be built.  plenty of people are still doing good work. 

horsemouth has lived his life in the shadow of the ruins of the workers' struggle ever since he came (belatedly) to political consciousness in about 1985. 

last night gwenifer raymond played (live from a toy museum in brighton). horsemouth attempted to watch various movies finally alighting on the legend of the seven golden vampires but the will was not with him and so he went to bed early.

yesterday. one walk on the common on his own and another  with his mum and the dog. today the same (horsemouth thinks). soon breakfast. 

the guitars are sounding very nice (now that horsemouth doesn't have a gig to play). horsemouth should probably put some effort into practicing, working up some new tunes etc. so that he has something to bring to the next round of recording. 

july begins (alice coltrane lives on forever)

it is the winter of 1937 freya is back in the middle ages. the nobles, the peasants, the tradesmen, endless negotiation. she doesn't want modernity to come to the people. the new roads for cars mean the camel drovers jobs will go. some have taken to raiding their neighbours, stealing camels as recompense, the british are sending aircraft to bomb them.

outside in the 21st century in the july 2021 it is grey and shrouded in mist. 

lots of alice coltrane news

what kicked it off was don campau doing a show on kows radio about alice. 

this led to horsemouth looking up more alice online where he found  a record of alice's 9 minute harp improvisation in warsaw  (23rd october 1987).

the harp belonged to harpist anna faber. it was made in russia she had acquired it in a most unusual barter; bags of white potatoes in exchange for a russian pedal harp. anna, said the harp had a great tone but was mechanically very hard to play, because it was not in very good shape. it was the only available and playable harp in warsaw.

meanwhile horsemouth discovers that alice's son ravi had found early recordings of her devotional music without the overdubs (there's an album).

outside it is grey and shrouded in mist. yesterday it was bright and sunny. horsemouth got in a walk on the common with his mother and the dog. he sat outside in the sun reading the torygraph business section.