Friday, 7 January 2022

'the willow sees the heron's image upside down' (repair the web of time)

allegedly a haiku by matsuo basho (repeated in chris marker's sans soleil). above a short film by chris marker on art installations on some mudflats near san francisco made out of driftwood (and now sadly gone). horsemouth sees the sense of it. mudflats are fragile habitats and you don't want art fans tramping through them destroying the plant cover in search of an aesthetic experience. 

the mudflat sculpture park (here's another film by ric reynolds) makes it into harold and maude. the idea is replicated up in humbolt bay (in the town of eureka) and at various other places in SF. horsemouth thinks of it as of a piece with jean varda's marine utopia. 

horsemouth has continued with his chris marker researches - notably jean-piere gorin's appreciation of sans soleil  and some youngster and their appreciation of la jetée/ 12 monkeys. some are clear that marker is aware of the invention of morel, of time recycling, others pick through his sources (notably alan resnais je t'aime, je t'aime and hitchcock's vertigo).

it is typical of horsemouth that he hadn't realised chris marker was french (why he has an english name doesn't he?).  

the appreciation of  john berger's ways of seeing  continues as does a rather engaging/ infuriating discussion series on population. the west (the first world) is ageing - soon it will be short of workers to pay for its old people (unless the old people keep working or unless it imports new workers or it accepts drops in the material quality of life (at least for some)). the direction chosen by his horsemouth's fellow countrymen is into population decline and senescence (by means of low(er) immigration). the direction of travel is japan - a quiet world of old people. 

in sans soleil  an older japanese couple conduct a funeral service for their missing cat - because the cat is missing they will not know the correct time to do it so they are doing it anyway 'to repair the web of time'. 

horsemouth is up. he has his back to the radiator and he has a cup of coffee on the go. today the funeral service for jim bermingham - horsemouth is out of town and so will not be going, he wishes everyone the best with it. 

today the usual. he thinks he will be staying in over the weekend. next week (at some point) back to the seaside towns (a friend has a birthday, another friend is coming over). 

finally pink floyd playing jugband blues (which is so good).



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