horsemouth (the evil old pike that he is)

'here lies an old man who was fond of painting' - auto-obituary of a japanese painter (it may even be hokusai. horsemouth has tried looking it up online now he is looking in a book he has on hokusai).

'start with anything' is supposed to be a creative dictum of w.b.yeats (at least according to imogen holst) but horsemouth cannot find it anywhere (perhaps he will find it later). in his researches he found start something (think the do you wanna be starting something? of michael jackson)  and start anything (don't start anything) as expressions for starting trouble. 

horsemouth has been aggressed on the john fahey group (or rather, worse, he has been managed). his sin was to be a promoter of less well known american primitive guitarist suni mcgrath. an oldster from the scene  arrives with gifts (photographs, footage, anecdotes) but in parallel he takes horsemouth and another suni mcgrath supporter aside, there is a suggestion here that they are posting inappropriately (by distracting the john fahey group with suni mcgrath) and  that by taking them aside the gift-bearer is doing them and the group a favour. 

horsemouth's response to most discourtesy (perceived or real, in the real world and online) is to ignore it. he doesn't tend to confront it (though he knows he should), he just tends to walk away. the world is big (and contrary to what we are told) there is plenty for everybody. horsemouth tries to maintain an attitude of friendly co-operation. failing that he adopts a strategy of driving defensively (avoid arseholes and potholes). it can be objected he is not being authentic with people and not being honest about his feelings but so what?

there have been a few occasions when horsemouth has dug in and faced up to conflict but generally he considers them to have been a waste of time and effort. there is literally no point in warfare it is just bad for business - on a rational calculation you wouldn't do it. (horsemouth realises this is not a very revolutionary attitude and he should be looking to overturn the applecart and lead the people across the desert to the promise land etc. etc.). 

anyway. here, for your listening pleasure, is some suni mcgrath.

instead horsemouth (the evil old pike that he is) will simply slide beneath the water and vanish from sight for a while.  

he is reading imogen holst's (the daughter's) book on the composer gustav holst (following on from his reading of michael hall's book on more contemporary composer harrison birtwistle). as a kid horsemouth's parents owned a copy of the planets (as a bloodthirsty kid horsemouth was of course fascinated by mars bringer of war). holst was apparently very keen on casting horoscopes for his friends. jupiter bringer of jollity is supposed to have made the cleaning ladies of the queen's hall 'put down their scrubbing brushes and begin to dance'. 

and here we are with the gernsback continuum  a world of beautiful class certainty and classical proportion is about to fall into conflict, what it is hiding (the cleaning ladies, that their economic interests might be important) will be revealed. 

'here lies an old man who was fond of painting' this seems a worthy obituary to horsemouth but of course it hides a number of things. 

'this month, I have no money, no clothing, nor food. if this continues for another month I will not live to see the spring' so wrote hokusai in a begging letter to his publisher in 1830. hokusai is brought low by gambling. holst is raised up by success but he views it as an evil and its demands as distractions (the comparative material comfort it brings is welcome however). 

hokusai's last words were 'if heaven would give me just five more years, I might become a true painter'. his tombstone was inscribed with his final adopted name, gakyorojin manji, which translates as 'old man mad about painting.'