reframe the shitshow (an uplifting way to look back)

'coincidentally, I recently tried something similar, inspired by an article by daisy dowling in the harvard business review. rather than a story, she encourages us to list our achievements throughout the pandemic – which could include not snapping all your child’s pencils in an impotent rage while home schooling, or cooking 654 dinners in a row since march 2020, as well as more traditional wins. it was an uplifting way to look back and reframe the shitshow of the last two years.' 

- life after lockdown: how do we best recover from the pandemic? by rebecca seal, the observer 16/01/22. 

so what is horsemouth doing when he copies this piece of text? the main part of the article is a self-help co-counselling kind of thing for dealing with post-disaster PTSD widely trialled in 'developing' countries (except that descriptor isn't used any more). it encourages survivors to formulate a story where they not only survived but thrived (and came to terms with their losses). 

the broad thrust is that we too need counselling for our trauma of the pandemic but (of course) this being the guardian in sunday exile the author can't help but offer us daisy dowling's list work (a piece of writing rather than an exchange with another living human being).

of course horsemouth (being a grumpy old sod and a hopeless optimist at the same time) can't help but respond positively to some of this and negatively to the other bits. horsemouth was not sweating in home made PPE watching people die in intensive care, he was sat comfortably at home doing some typing. once in a while, true, he would sometimes have to wander out and take public transport (but not that often). what sort of a pandemic did horsemouth have? he had an easy one.  

currently horsemouth waits to see if there is any karmic payback for his going out and enjoying himself saturday. (he does hope not. he does hope everyone will be ok).

it's three weeks until musicians of bremen's next gig at water into beer (a double header with jacken elswyth (sometime member of sullow and martin howard saturday 5th february 19:30). horsemouth is looking forward to it. he's meeting up with howard saturday to discuss it. this will be the end of week one of his preparations. 

horsemouth watched profondo rosso again. one of the better productions by dario argento. again it features a book (modern ghosts and black legends of today by (allegedly) folklorist anna righetti). this contains the tale the house of the screaming child it is this tale that enables hemmings to find the haunted house with the secret room. the secret room contains the secret that must never be told and thus the site of the trauma that because it cannot be confessed must recur.  

there was a good site horsemouth found where there was a discussion of the movie in terms of writing and orality (in a kind of claude levi-strauss kind of way). david hemmings and carlo are musicians (so oral right?) - but hemmings is engaged in writing music, carlo improvises music in a bar, there's an exchange where carlo tells hemmings that he (carlo) is the proletariat of the music world and hemmings the bourgeoisie. 

in comparison the women in the film are writers, they are reporters or folklorists, (or in the case of carlo's mum an ex-actress). the thing that gets the psychic killed is sitting down to write it down. the psychic researcher? he gets killed too (after a lot of damage to his mouth, presumably to encourage him not to talk). 

on the whole these reviewers found the original suspiria more to their taste. 

yesterday horsemouth went for a wander (and farted about online). today horsemouth goes for a wander also (with TG). he sang some songs through (sometimes our dreams, somethings on your mind, boadbury down, gentleman john, the werewolf). 

profondo rosso has a wonderful fake ending. david hemmings is shown realising that the ending to the story the film has proposed will not work, that there is still work to do before the story can be completed. he must see again if he is to understand what he did not see the first time. 

horsemouth writes (as you know). he believes in the writing cure. he finds it most therapeutic. but he has run out of diary. he has the calendar. he still has notebooks. the 2021 diary has still not made its way up into the box of diaries. he forgot to get one on his journey to islington.