'growing older, I learn all the time' (walk 3)

'near him stood a little spinet on which he tried out a tune now and then' - bernardin de saint-pierre on visiting rousseau at a flat in rue platiere near the palais royal in 1772)

(the grey bar does not appear on the top of the page. horsemouth has to deploy another means of getting here.)

and here we are. it's another fine morning and once again horsemouth is blogging. he types this sitting up in bed wearing two jumpers. he has a mild headache (sten has come down with the flu it might be that or it might be horsemouth's habit of showering  last thing and drying in a hurry). he has been looking through rousseau's reveries of the solitary walker. rousseau is trying to pretend that he doesn't care, that he is fine with it all, that he is reconciled to his situation in life (is he fuck). 

in his old age rousseau has taken up botany again. he goes for long walks. he still writes (but pretends that it is just daydreams from the walks and not intended for publication). he lives simply and cheaply (bernardin de saint-pierre, quoted in the introduction) in a modern sort of minimalism. 

'two little beds with covers of blue and white striped cotton like the wall-hangings, a chest of drawers, a table and a few chairs were all his furniture... a canary sang in a cage hanging from the ceiling, sparrows came and ate breadcrumbs at his windows which opened onto the street, and on the window sill of the antechamber stood boxes and pots full of the sort of plants that nature is pleased to sow.'  

horsemouth does not live like this. he lives in an age of great material wealth (much of which can be found a few years later discarded on the street). he lives in a basement room lined with books in old wine crates and on bookshelves, he has all of rousseau's furniture (and more) just in his bedroom alone. he has a coffee table he cannot use stashed under the bed. 

he has no canary (he thinks keeping birds in cages is cruel) nor any other pets, he approves of the feeding of the sparrows and the collection of wild flowers. .

instead of a spinet horsemouth has innumerable guitars (a couple of keyboards, a banjolin, two record decks, a harmonium, a thumb piano, a rainstick etc.). 

a while ago horsemouth started making drawings of his furniture. 

today maybe a walk with TG (or maybe horsemouth will cry off citing the risk of disease). it looks like it will be a decent-ish enough day (when the sun clears the houses opposite). horsemouth still has quite a lot to read of his rescued copies of the FT weekend, there's the rousseau and then there's the lovecraft. last night he watched a little of dario argento's dracula (a very dull costume drama) only rutger hauer as an old and clumsy van helsing was of any interest. he was listening to the DJ cam - it comes from a very specific era in his life (there was some domesticity).