'the order for rejoicing and dancing has come from our warlord'

'my name is kinnall darival and I mean to tell you about myself...

this is what the earthman schweiz would call an autobiography...' - robert silverberg,  a time of changes.

searching around in the grab bag of forms silverberg finds that descendent of rousseau, the autobiography. he then proceeds (and continues) to make a science fiction novel out of it. what if there were a society that instead of me and I used his and one? he asks. people using such obscene terms  are castigated as self-bearers. 

horsemouth was always surprised that SF authors didn't only read SF but instead went on and on about books in other genres (as if you'd want to read those). 

the book itself is from one of the local book boxes - in a gollancz SF hardback plain(ish) yellow jacket with just a bit of 3D work on the typeface of the title. as a child horsemouth always thought these covers strange (as if the attempting to look reputable and disguise the fact that they were really science fiction and so sneak past librarians and onto the shelves). 

it's a bright sunshine-y morning but cold (it's about 2C out there). last night horsemouth was not warm (under his duvet and his sleeping bag). he wished he'd worn his jumper. but he did sleep reasonably soundly. 

given the essential doubling in energy prices horsemouth expects this is the future, wearing more layers and retiring to bed earlier. he's trying to get on with the getting the house more insulated and double glazed. 

in other media news horsemouth watched italo-gothic queen barbara steele in the butterfly room (2012). it is great to see her still alive and still working. ...and there she is being evil (the latest in a long line of bad mommies in horror movies). horsemouth supposes it is like boris karloff - who has a second career when old in american international pictures as a kind of living talisman of horror. her performance is kind of like this, older slightly posh english person adrift in LA. 

the first of the key albums that influenced horsemouth when he was young was pentangle's basket of light named after a lyric from train song the first track the pentangle play here.  the range of material on the album gets horsemouth as well as the rhythm section of danny thompson and terry cox. in folk terms they are not digging particularly deep at all - the young tradition have covered lyke-walk dirge, others are familiar from the scene once I had a sweetheart, the cuckoo, house-carpenter. sally go round the roses  is a pop song by the jaynetts (a lift of sidewinder  by lee morgan). 

today is a sunday. horsemouth is due to wander up to the cloud forest to feed some cats.