the pretty dancers of the black eagle (the rainstick)

ok that's a title lifted from steppenwolf (but it could be robbie basho)

elsewhere in mittel europa things are going less well.

'we will hold the reins of power in the world. our bitterest enemies are persons who love freedom. we need the young to keep us alive. they must become as us. they must think as we do. and those who rebel must be sacrificed.' 

so goes the club motto of klub 99 in prague. the evil and the old gather together to be depraved, the young and beautiful (in this case barbara bach) are sacrificed to them in aldo lado's 1971 short night of the glass dolls. it is interesting to think that this was made only 3 years after the crushing of the prague spring. ingrid thulin slums it as the discarded lover of the hero. 

horsemouth's reading of roger zelazny's isle of the dead which proceeds well. yesterday a walk up to walthamstow (4-5 miles all told). the st.james street oxfam was shut but in other charity shops horsemouth found a small (and somewhat parched sounding) rainstick with a  turtle motif and copy of alain robbe-grillet's jealousy in a calder books edition. (he has another robbe-grillet round here somewhere that john left). it was a pleasant walk up. 

jealousy provides you with a plan of the house where the action takes place. 

the rainstick makes a sound like rainfall (as the little pebbles within bounce off the cactus spines stuck through the casing in the form of a spiral) and this by sympathetic magic is supposed to attract rain. 

on the way back horsemouth sat on a bench overlooking the road attempting to get some sounds out of it. (mind you it does make a good shaker also). he got a thumbs up from a passing cyclist. and chatted with a small dog that came over (called rajput interestingly enough). 

the rainstick appears to emit dust when played (how magical is that) from out of the holes where a cactus spine used to be. 

later it clouded over.