GIGDAY! ( see you all down south)

it's gigday. in a bit horsemouth will test himself for the C-O-V-I-D (he's not had a positive test yet). assuming he passes it he will be seeing you all down south. er... if he doesn't pass he will be messaging a few people. but first he will write this blog. 

'poetry XX century like all arts and sciences is devolving into examination-experiment on the very material on which it is made... 'an examination of language itself'... 

so music moves from old habitual scales and harmonies to abstract mathematic potentialities unrestricted by human pre-supposition.' 

so writes ginsberg on 8th july 1962 from calcutta. (horsemouth has found his copy of indian journals). ginsberg claims to be looking for a guru. 'take blake for your guru' he is advised (or so he says) mind you he is also advised to chant guru guru guru for 3 months until a guru comes to him. every few pages of diary there's an epic poetic ramble (admittedly of variable quality) but there are also photos and drawings and prose pieces. the drawings are similar to cocteau's in opium (for this seems to have been ginsberg and orlovsky's main interest at the time). 

an interview with shawn philips has come up.

'the shift would have happened after donovan...

I went through a very heavy spiritual transformation and suddenly I discovered why I was making music...'

today horsemouth will do a little light playing and singing through the repertoire and get in touch with howard to see how he wants to work it. he will then (gingerly) be rapid mass transiting it down to brockley. he's been thinking about why fahey and the rest of that circle played american primitive guitar and what exactly that was (in case he has to explain it). 

yesterday was bandcamp friday (when musicians of bremen derive extra benefit from you purchasing their kipple).  horsemouth will have to check if there were any additional sales of musicians of bremen  merchandise. (nope). 

talking politics is coming to an end. they've announced it. horsemouth is shocked. he enjoyed it a lot. there they were (david runciman and helen thompson), being reasonable. it helps that helen thompson sounds like miranda sawyer (i.e. not posh). they've been at it for three years, it's probably time to call a halt they say. 

meanwhile no sightings of the hawkbinge podcast (due to move on to levitation and the huw lloyd-langton years).  

he's been listening to recollections of albania - first by lea ypi (who grew up there under the beneficent rule of uncle enver and then had to face a life without those certainties) and by joanna robertson a reporter who set off there after the fall of enver hoxha (and witnesses the return of the son of the deposed king zog). initially her time in the collapsing state is good, 'it's the girl who fought the security police at the parliament' yell the terrifying paramilitaries at the roadblocks as they wave her through but eventually an assassin comes for her.  

initially she does not leave (well only temporarily) but eventually she does. years later after she has left she phones a friend who tells her while it used to be the hotel california now it's a shark tank.   

daryll is out the door - he seems to be taking his bike trailer for a spin. the upstairs next door neighbour is out the door  likewise. the next door neighbours seem to be back.