- various 'an old house by the sea', bookpilled, thrift a life, novara media
- various reviews of 'under the silver lake'
- man in a dingy
- R4 freethinking, ideas about health
- an investigation into the locations for 'a warning to the curious'
- michael tippett: the shadow and the light (documentary john bridcut)
- iris murdoch interviewed for icelandic TV
gigs
leigh-on sea folk festival
yes today, belinda kempster and fran foote, the owl service, evan parker and alex, united bible studies (feat. alison o'donnell)
events
leigh-on sea folk festival (meet up with max, django, glyn, howard), dinner with enza, meet up and walk with TG, the longest day and 6 visits to cheltenham, françoise gilot RIP.
'in the biography he wrote of himself , and pretended was written by his second wife' - so john bayley talks of thomas hardy.
we have reached the end of iris and the friends - it ends as it begins, poor iris has alzheimers and must go away to a home to be cared for until she dies. but before that a clip of iris in fine fettle being interviewed for icelandic TV.
'you've got to have nerve... and the courage to hold on at a certain moment, this is rather hard to explain perhaps, there's a tendency... there's a very strong temptation, if one can do something moderately well, to move very quickly from a moment when you think, well this is all provisional, this is a sketch, it's not really the finished thing... it's all too late, actually it is the finished thing, I'll jump from saying it's all too soon to saying it's too late.
it's the middle, it's in between these two things, this is the area that you have to enlarge...'
curiously john bayley taught dennis potter at oxford - they were both particularly taken by the writings of the reverend kilvert of clyro (something of a local hero for horsemouth - his parish is just outside hay-on-wye). there is the same mixture of innocence, beauty and speculation on the possibility of sex in their work. bayley is however clear that dennis wants to scandalise the dons (and later on the rest of us).
elias canetti, as an earlier lover of iris, crops up as well, in a day dream sequence towards the end. iris, of course, does not make it into canetti's autobiography.
and horsemouth, of course, is careful what he tells you, in this, the nearest thing you will get to an autobiography from him. he was interested to see a ghost-writing and book-binding service for your autobiography in the daily torygraph.
-------------------------------
'... when housebuilding is falling off a cliff and buy-to-let landlords are leaving the market, rent controls that cut rents for some will almost certainly leave others homeless.'
this is all that we can expect from the left of the labour left, and this by the 'soon-to-be-gone as too left' lisa nandy. it will be another hold your nose and vote labour election where they make a big show of offering us nothing secure in the knowledge that there is no one else to vote for (such are the barriers to entry of first past the post).
a rainy and grey morning, and definitely cooler out last evening. horsemouth will wander down to the abbey in a bit (to do the unlocking) and similarly in the evening. on the common yesterday evening the sun setting on the hill in a blaze of fire and the moon ghostly at the other end in daylight.
'we lost. but we are prepared to learn from our mistakes.' remark artists group chlo delat on the failure of video to usher in an era of direct democracy and participatory art (or at least they do in this telling).
horsemouth is back out in the wilds again. he's half-way up a hill half-way between hereford and abergavenny (as he is fond of remarking). no rabbits on the lawn when he woke up this morning. the chickens are still in their shed. he didn't make it up onto the common for a walk around yesterday. he has refilled the bird-feeder
today horsemouth begins his time on the abbey rota (unlock it AM, lock it back up PM) depping for his mum. it looks like being a beautiful (if slightly cooler) day outside.
horsemouth has published his books, films, gigs, events list for june 2023 (remind him to add the artforum article to it). already it doesn't look so bad as when he started, it looks like a reasonable cultural performance.
the boundary commission reports for england, scotland, wales and northern ireland are in.
there is an attempt underway to make elections 'fairer' by rendering the numbers of electors in each constituency more equal (at round about the 70000 mark - plus or minus about 5% and excepting 5 islands, the isle of white, anglesey etc.).
they will now form the basis on which the next election is contested.
as a means of improving the representativeness of existing parliamentary democracy these measures are doomed. the drivers of under-representation in parliament are the first past the post system, lack of voter registration (particularly among the poor and the young - the recent (pointless) introduction of voter ID requirements will only exacerbate this) and third party effects 'splitting the vote'.
what it will do is strengthen the position of the conservatives (by about 15 seats in a good year) and strengthen the representation of MPs from the south of england within parliament relative to their scotish, welsh, northern irish and even northern english colleagues (who are divided and thus ruled). horsemouth sees no political benefit to the central power in under-representing the scottish, welsh, northern irish and northern english, it just allows resentment at rule from westminster to fester further.
of course none of this will help the tories this time around. they are at the end of a 15 year cycle. only opposition and whining constituents in MPs surgeries await.
more broadly the redistribution of seats from where the people were to where people are by population reveals the relocation of people from the north and the regions to the south of england in search of work. further these figures do not even count the millions of EU citizens now not eligible to vote in UK parliamentary elections (but eligible to pay taxes).
of course few of the levers of power are really in the house of commons (more are in the boardrooms of the city and with multinational capital) but it is a useful puppet show with which to manage the inevitable dissent of a working population that sees less and less of the benefits of that labour.
horsemouth is out in the wilds (again). he's just been down to unlock the abbey with his mum (it is horsemouth's parents' turn on the abbey rota). they will go down this evening to lock it back up.
and then horsemouth will be fully trained. (it will give him something to do for the next week).
the mccormick blues archive is being exhibited by the national museum of american history in washington dc.
'the display also provides a unique behind-the-scenes look at this collection, revealing troubling revelations discovered within the archive, including letters from musicians’ family members asking mccormick to return photographs they had lent him. visitors will learn about the smithsonian’s current ethical returns policy and the museum’s ongoing work to identify surviving family members and return heirlooms...'
here is the knot of the problem. it is the blues collectors and the the english blues revival bands who effectively save the blues, so that we know something of it and of the people who made it, but it is not theirs to save.
bookpilled is in mexico city and has raided under the volcano an english language bookstore. he's found a copy of brian aldiss's frankenstein unbound (in, as outlaw bookseller would say, the pan lozenge format) and ubik (by philip k.dick). the second half of it is browsing porn (where our POV takes books from out of the racks).
the john bayley/ iris murdoch goes well. we are into memories of iris's (and john's) careers as writers. they meet george lichteim who takes iris to task for her drinking (in an avuncular manner).
horsemouth is back from dinner with a friend. it was very pleasant (gnocchi in a mushroom sauce, a little 'russian' salad (but meat free you understand), some melon and a can of tyskie). after they went for a walk round victoria park. beautiful humanity were out being beautiful. even the dude roaring around on a petrol engine motorised bicycle (a contradiction in terms in noisy motion).
earlier he had been for a walk on the marshes and picked some litter, taken the picasso biography and dropped it off at a book box. other than that he had mostly farted around on the laptop. he can't remember which day he mopped the floor (kitchen including under the white goods, hallways and lower stairs).
horsemouth is up. he has his coffee. it is a beautiful cool morning. soon horsemouth plots his return to the green, don't worry gentle readers he is back in city soon enough. he could have done with talking to his brother (but they have failed to manage the phonecall).
in a bit he's got to pack his bag and select a guitar to take with him back to the wilds (it's a toss up between the paesold and the hohner) - he had forgotten that he's given away the acoustic that he kept at his parents to his brother's eldest.
the coffee is doing its work.
the above promo for the associates club country appears to have been filmed at derry and tom's famous roof garden (this will be important to michael moorcock fans and hawkwind nutters). footage has emerged of hawklords playing on the 25 years tour (what a great new wave band they make) and (courtesy of the cherry red/ rough trade people) now we can watch it.
horsemouth is back from the leigh-on-sea folk festival (having made it out there this year). he thanks the people who organise it (it was most excellent yet again).
he mainly focused on the fishermen's chapel (bakingly hot because the heating had been left on).
yes today he liked - singer songwritery, violin, guitar, oboe, drums. belinda kempster and fran foote (formerly of stick in the wheel) he really liked, proper old essex folksongs, great harmonies and banter (and the correct attitude to agricultural labour - it's hard work, don't do it) . the owl servicea great set ending with wille o'winsbury.
at this point defeated by the heating, not knowing plantman and firmly intending to get back for alison o'donnell, they headed off in search of beer and food to the main stage. (up the hill on a baking 33C day). at the main stage they were defeated by the beer queue and so headed back down the hill to the low town. there they had a pint in the shade and caught up (max, django, glyn, howard and your humble narrator).
they then went back up the hill in search of food (but were largely defeated by the lack of vegetarian options). horsemouth and howard headed off back to the fishermen's chapel in search of united bible studies set and caught the end of evan parker and alex ward's set (most excellent). they ended out with united bible studies (featuring the guitarist from the owl service).
thence howard and horsemouth returned to london. back on the train to hackney horsemouth bumped into glyn. and safely home in time for tea.
later bookpilled reviews anna kavan's ice. he seems to have liked it (which is good).
tonight - dinner with a friend. today a much cooler day so far.
the back garden looks very jg ballard . the sun shines of the whitewashed back wall. the decking is decayed. herb robert breaks through and convulvulus climbs up everything available. it has returned to nature (but in a decrepit and shocking way).
the front garden appears to have survived horsemouth's not being there ok (so far). there has been no more dumping of building waste (ok there's half a door but it is well hidden). the hazlenut tree grows strongly and shades horsemouth's room wonderfully. (yesterday horsemouth's basement was 25C while the upstairs was 33).
horsemouth is back from adam's bar-b-cue in his beautiful back garden - great work there adam. horsemouth sang and played a bit - and others sang and played. he drank a little beer, ate wonderful food and talked some nonsense. he celebrated midsummer.
earlier on yesterday he went for a quick walk with TG before the day warmed up and the sun broke through up to the aldi book box.
today he is off to the leigh folk festival (hopefully to see the owl service bet they're on in the fisherman's chapel which is tiny so we will have to see). he is meeting howard at barking at 10.20.
like a cross between focus and deep purple but more jazz than either. that's some singer. not what horsemouth was expecting. (it's exactly what I expected (but it's still a disappointment) would probably be a good album title for MAN).
horsemouth is back in the seaside towns for a brief visit he thinks (he will know more monday). don't worry he will be back again at various points over the summer. the BBC says it' an off on cloudy day but warm (27C). at the moment it doesn't look like that - it is grey and cool. horsemouth has his coffee. as he walked back from a failed shopping mission he bumped into TG and a friend (and later another friend) up the park near his. (such are the joys of the seaside towns).
as the alzheimer's took hold, at a talk iris murdoch was giving in oxford about her work, instead of discussing her novels she stood up and began to sing an elizabethan madrigal by orlando gibbons the silver swan. horsemouth is reading her husband john bayley's iris and the friends: a year of memories. they are mostly his memories - iris is gone. horsemouth found a solo singer version (rather than the 4 part arrangement). he also looked up versions of let all mortal flesh keep silence (which he has covered). he was relieved to hear he'd got the tune right (basically).
during the second world war iris worked at the treasury on the complex problem of notional promotion in absentia - that people who went away to war should not be disadvantaged in terms of promotion when they returned to their peacetime occupations. there is (of course) a movie (judi dench, jim broadbent). they do physical resemble the couple, you can see it.
sleeping in henry james's house (lamb house in rye) john bayley (husband of iris murdoch) wakes up in the middle of the night.
'it must have been between three or four when I woke abruptly... . I felt full of an overwhelming depression, as if the day to come was to offer nothing but utter emptiness and loneliness, boredom, the knowledge of all that lacking in life, all the (sic.) had been missed.
it was so overwhelming that I could not stay in bed. I got up and went over to the window. I drew aside a corner of the thick curtain and peeped out. there in the still grey light of dawn, was the view unchanged, that james must have seen every morning on rising. an almost too perfect english vista of cobbled street, comfortable huddled old houses, the little church beyond. wasn't it called watchbell street, an almost too perfect english name.'
after henry james death the horror writer e.f. benson was to live in the house. bayley goes on to discuss henry james's theturn of the screw, an unnamed walter de la mare story, thomas hardy, and of course m.r. james's whistle and I'll come to you my lad. (one wonders if bayley's story is the basis for the BBC remake of whistle and I'll come to you).
bayley thinks that this was the only paranormal experience he ever had. it is from his book iris and the friends - an account of living with iris murdoch after she developed alzheimers. she is no longer there (except in physical form), he is left to his memories. horsemouth finds this the first episode in the book he has enjoyed.
rye was one of the cinqports but it became landlocked. (horsemouth used to have a book on them but he returned it to the commonweal).
mike (in far off texas) has posted him over a recording of the grateful dead playing eyes of the world. in texas it is filthy hot at the moment (well it is an el nino year).
yesterday a quiet day (that was the plan but the fishman and the podiatrist came). this morning his mum is just off to unleash the chickens. horsemouth should get off to water the plants before the day heats up.
horsemouth thanks to the guy at the pharmacy. he's always impressed by the kindness of people.
at the end of it horsemouth's mum had to go to a meeting of the village hall committee and horsemouth had to go to a meeting of the communal endeavour (on zoom).
but for all its trials and tribulations the day is definitively done. horsemouth and his mum rounded it out with some beer and stayed up talking to midnight. (horsemouth has a slight headache now which he is waiting to clear).
outside it looks like being a scorcher of a day. sunrise 04:52 sunset 21:35 maybe a 23C maximum out here. bbc weather says possible rain this afternoon.
a friend has discovered linda perhacs. it is another friend's 60ieth birthday (well done merv). yesterday was matt boyce (the cartoonist)'s birthday. here are matt and horsemouth off in search of a post-work beer.
horsemouth (of course) slept through the actual sunrise (at 4 something a.m.). last night he watched the hippies wander round stonehenge. he watched darkness fall and listened to some dull(ish) ambient music. such is his love of humanity that he had to turn off the chat - trolls pretending to be christians were arriving and annoying the virtuous pagans (who were then insisting that the 'mods' remove them). all of human life is here (unfortunately).
well it's a beautiful day outside (the dew sparkles nou sprinkes the sprae). horsemouth has let the dog out (to poo on the lawn). his dad (another habitual early riser) is not up yet. his mum (a habitual late riser) is not up yet.
today (this morning) they are off into town. wish them luck.
horsemouth has to think about getting back to town proper (at least for a bit).
at some stage there will be business to contract, meetings to be had. he's promised some cat-sitting. the timing all depends on the meeting today. horsemouth thinks the most likely outcome is delay. 'come back and see me in...'.
and delay has very much been the order of things - to horsemouth's evident frustration. in december 2021 there was a vote at the communal endeavour to purchase more property by means of taking out a loan but horsemouth and his merry band have not managed to actually do this. interest rates (after years of being flat as a pancake and historically low) have risen and (worried) banks have become less willing to lend.
to be fair the communal endeavour have actually got on with everything else (and indeed added a major new task decarbonisation to the list). but for the wider economy horsemouth predicts stagflation - a joyous mixture of stagnation (ultra low growth) and inflation (increases in costs taking money out of the pockets of working people). he predicts a lost decade and possibly longer (japan style). at the moment he doesn't see a way out.
'it will be missed. some of it will be missed: the part that cannot be out into words.' - ronald blythe, writer, 83, in craig taylor's return to akenfield.
'the truth is that provence is a very strange place', lawrence durrell in ceasar's vast ghost.
above some footage of ragtime ralph playing the fonotone stomp live from the deck of a ferry. it has that jazz age energy.
horsemouth is up early. he is yet to sneak downstairs for a coffee. outside it is raining. in fact it has just finished. bbc weather suggests further rain later (and tomorrow afternoon too). horsemouth has been enjoying the sun and the heat.
tonight the shortest night.
last night he dipped into ceasar's vast ghost by lawrence durrell 'the truth is that provence is a very strange place', there are photos too. he watched novara media, spain speaks and reviews of i'm thinking of ending things ((by charlie kaufman). he watched mark kermode's review of under the silver lake (he hated it) and the available clips from it.
in the day he did a bit of thinning out in the garden, he pulled up the radishes that had bolted, he put up some canes to stabilise the broad beans. he got his dad's advice on what to do (it's not like he's suddenly developed green thumbs). earlier he managed a walk up to the top of the common.
he read a bit of the daily torygraph that is catastrophizing over the rise in interest rates, net zero etc.
of the 650 MPs 289 didn't vote for the report censuring boris johnson. that's getting on for half of parliament.
of the 357 tory MPs at least 225 (possibly more) either abstained or arranged to be elsewhere (including the PM). so getting on for 2/3rds of the party. that's hardly a position of strength with the PM is ducking the row.
that's hardly a ringing condemnation of boris or a full blooded repudiation of him. presumably tory MPs are either not convinced that boris would ever lie to them or are unbothered if he did.
horsemouth advises the same strategy that works with zombies or vampires. double tap or a stake through the heart...
horsemouth types this. it is about 8am. he was dreaming about being on a road trip with max but at some point they offended their hosts, stuck for something to do max started cooking dinner. that kept horsemouth asleep for a while longer, he was hanging out for some free food.
the title of today's presentation comes from an artspeak NLP course (horsemouth gave up on it when he saw it was a talking head video). he watched a few shitsville USA videos (jackson - murder capital of the USA, the west virginia coal fields, gary indiana). magnitorsk (the soviet steel town) apparently contains an almost exact copy of the gary steelmills.
soon enough the shortest night and the longest day.
at some point yesterday the skies opened and didn't it rain children. before that started horsemouth had got his dad outside to plot the thinning out of various planted vegetables. they picked some broad beans which they had for dinner. horsemouth was on form, he routed round the BBC 1 and BBC 2 issue (reception on the downstairs TV is poor for them (but strangely ok for BBC's 1 and 2 HD), he negotiated some compromise on a vexing issue.
before that there was a delivery (cheers sten). horsemouth definitely has enough coffee to hold him for the next little while.
horsemouth watches the skies (well he watches the newspapers, ok ok he looks online) to see if there is any advance on the FOUR by-elections (timeline - possibly up to 3 months for them to agree the warrant for them in parliament then 21 to 27 days of campaigning, so they all should be clustered together).
ok it's warming up outside horsemouth should get a move on and get in a second cup of coffee. the week begins.
this morning was bright and sunny but it seems to have clouded over. wait a minute and horsemouth will refresh his cup of coffee.
yesterday was villa diodati day - the anniversary of the ghost story competition between polidori, byron and percy and mary shelley. mary shelley's actual dream was probably between 2-3am on june 16th. it was during the "year without a summer" of 1816 the world locked in a long, cold volcanic winter (caused by the eruption of mount tambora in 1815). it may be that frankenstein is not the first science fiction story, that there were earlier tales (by lucian of samosata for example - brian aldiss has a whole book full of them). or it may be that it is not science fiction because the genre hadn't been invented yet (we have to wait until gernsback and his golden age scientifiction). and yet it is the first science fiction story - the first examination of the social effects of technology cast in a speculative mode. it is the kind of fiction likely to be made by the daughter of feminist theorist mary wollstonecraft and the anarchist william godwin, and kicked around the writer's workshop of byron, polidori and percy shelley.
yesterday a zoom meeting with howard (two beers and not much on telly afterward).
today a cool cloudy day. horsemouth might be able to get on with some reading. the sheep are back. horsemouth has done the watering (except for the tubs over by the garage). his mum is just off to let out the chickens.
... and meanwhile the politics. ahem. adopts hungarian accent
kenneth anger and distorted guitars (but not really the rolling stones)
'probably the best thing I've ever found is a bronze statue of a roman dog, which is in ipswich museum. it got me 3000 pounds. I found it on one of the fields just up the road... it was probably six or seven inches down. it's bronze. lovely. second-century roman. one of the men working on the farm saw me jumping up and down when I found it... but I only found one metal dog in thirteen years. the roman dogs don't turn up too often.' - darren clarke, man with a metal detector, in return to akenfield, craig taylor.
here we have him a real life detectorist heading up the private passions section of a portrait of an english village in the 21st century. by this point (2006) they have the internet. and indeed horsemouth types this from the countryside (it's raining out there incidentally).
'in roman cult worship, dogs were seen as agents of healing (through the licking of wounds) and as protectors of the dead. such animal statuettes would be kept with those of the lares or household gods.'
there was some discussion of the role of dogs in a review of under the silver lake (a film by the it moves director). there dogs were held to be intrinsically socialistic (unlike coyotes and chimpanzees).
spain speaks was wandering around madrid and the central and most chi-chi barrios. earlier he had been discussing the upcoming spanish election - the wheels have come off the PSOE and podemos (we can) thing, podemos's candidates have compromised themselves in working with the PSOE (some more than others), the remaining left parties have formed a block calledsumar (to unite or add up) with podemos joining with four hours to spare and not being able to bring over all their candidates.
the election will be held 23rd july in the middle of the holiday season which is likely to discourage people from voting/ piss people off and encourage them to vote. the way it looks at the moment is that it will bring the right-wing PP and vox parties into power in a coalition. so not a good thing.
last night was the kind of hot sticky night when tempers flare easily.
it can wait until the morning is good advice. (though not too early in the morning, many people are not good in the morning).
howard has posted over a link to a horsemouth/ howard improv track that they recorded (way back when) on the 8-track zoom recorder itself. howard does the kind of circular picking he does on serpent(S) and adds some swooshy synth noises (made on an iPad). horsemouth adds some slide guitar. there are some street-sounds also. it's kind of like one of those middle era pink floyd soundtracks, such ad the one for barbet shroeder's la vallée, (a.k.a. obscured by clouds).
ok it's a nice cool morning. horsemouth is about to go and get another cup of coffee.
horsemouth's human handler paul helliwell has been polishing up horsemouth's book reviews (as published here) and publishing them as his own over on goodreads!
the rotter! as a friend notes paul helliwell is a dodgy character (horsemouth should probably ban him).
but they may prove useful to you if you don't fancy reading through all these tedious blogposts (with all their distractions) in order to discover how his reading is going. p.s. he isn't 'currently reading' commonwealth he left it back in london.
book-pilled/ thrift a life has been SF book shopping in mexico city. it is fun guessing what the SF book titles would be in english from their spanish titles. he has also posted videos of him wandering around the scrubland bird spotting. he seems to be having a great time. but then he is on holiday really. can he make it to digital nomad status? making enough money from the digital stuff to fund one long holiday? (only time will tell).
horsemouth has also been listening to spain speaks out of valencia - spain rolls towards an election on 29th july, the podemos wave has broken and the right wing parti popular and vox stand ready to pick up the disgruntled voters.
'(I) had only to listen to hear my own world talking' - ronald blythe (author of akenfield) quoted in craig taylor's return to akenfield.
the original plan with akenfield was to get ethnographic reviews done of communities from all over europe by outsiders. there may be some virtue to this schema. (it is kind of what is going on in christ stopped at eboli or in freya stark's accounts of life in arab villages). blythe, on the other hand, was a local (like laurie lee also). it's stay at home writing it's not travel writing.
on monday, june 19th, from midnight to midnight PST, bandcamp will hold their fourth annual juneteenth fundraiser, where they donate 100% of their share of sales to the NAACP legal defence fund, 'a racial justice organization with a long history of effectively enacting change through litigation, advocacy, and public education' as they put it.
like the bandcamp mondays horsemouth effectively thinks it is advertising for bandcamp and yet he welcomes the political gesture because the money raised is real and the cause is good. horsemouth thinks everybody who is likely to buy musicians of bremen recordings in this particular wave has done so already, but, hey singers and players, it might be a good time to advertise anything you have on bandcamp.
horsemouth is impressed with bandcamp as a means of making music audible and available
(and in the same way that he is not impressed with spotify) and yet he remains a bigger fan of CDs - there was a brief period with CD-Rs and CD burners on computers where there was an even more democratic dissemination technology. (unfortunately horsemouth let this period pass him by).
recently there was a tom service documentary on radio 4 about music and money, jacques attali did not get mentioned. horsemouth checked out the wikipedia entry on attali's noise - it's very good, admirably clear but it doesn't mention attali's rewrite of bruits the french original of the book.
more music from alice coltrane is surfacing.
here circumstances don't sound ideal. the woman playing violin is swami gurucharananda. they are beset by sound problems, a wobbly mic-stand and an unsympathetic organ sound but there are some good moments nonetheless. you can hear the audience get into it. a friend has posted him over alice coltrane and carlos santana's angel of sunlight which is a great tune and one of their best collaborations (in horsemouth's humble opinion).
last night he watched canoe man (the dude who faked his own death to claim on the insurance by paddling out to sea in a canoe). we are in to the depressing bit (the bit where him and his wife get caught). he would have watched the last episode of the crag valley coiners (that seemed to end with a big party).
yesterday a phonecall leading to a face-to-face meeting next wednesday. today more beautiful weather, a little light watering, probably a walk on the common. this morning there were rabbits on the lawn outside horsemouth's window (now there are swifts flying round and round). he's been seeing more rabbits up on the common. he often sees kites and buzzards high up in the air being messed with by the local crows.
horsemouth is nearly at the end of reading relative stranger by mary loudon and written about her sister catherine. it ends with a spell mary found in her sister's notebooks (the one page she kept), it reads like a spell for summoning the spirits of family members and then bidding them farewell.
'6. then say 'goodbye til next time' smiling.
blow the candle out at stop incense sticks.
this gives them safe return to heaven until next time.'
horsemouth is up early. it is truly beautiful out there. he's feeling a little deflated (but that may clear). he's not sure he's made the right decision, or assisted with the decision made. only time will tell.
horsemouth had a week of activity - which felt good, it felt like stuff was being achieved, but now they are back to being stuck.
anyway today a phonecall. horsemouth hopes that is the right decision.
the book (relative strangers - which is variously subtitled, in horsemouth's parents' edition a life after death) continues well. there are various intersections with horsemouth's interests, hoarding for example. this really turns on what the correct use of a wardrobe is, and the importance of having one, of putting things away, of having the appropriate quantity of things. there are tensions between the inside and the outside, between self-expression and art.
there is also interesting stuff on changing names, on new identities (which should, of course, be of interest to horsemouth).
horsemouth doesn't view lockdown as a dreadful imposition by the government because he wanted them to call for lockdown earlier than they did and was already shutting up shop himself. his plan would have been to stay sat down throughout the pandemic and to encourage others to do likewise. people were changing their behaviours before the government called for lockdown and one difficulty is calculating how many lives were saved by people staying sat down and how much by the government lockdown. in sweden the measures mandates were less strict (but by-and-large) people just stayed in anyway.
horsemouth has his coffee. that's cheering him up (and clearing a mild headache).
horsemouth has started reading mary loudon's relative stranger: a life after death, an account of her sister's life and her sister's schizophrenia. the cover photograph is by sergio bondioni it shows two dresses hung on the wall side by side, on the cheapest wire coat hangers - the hooks pointing away from each other, with shoes placed at the correct height on the floor beneath them to suggest a person. the heights are slightly different suggesting bigger (older) person, little person.
the author is the youngest daughter. her sister the distant elder sister. towards the end of her life (she dies from cancer) the elder sister starts living as a man. the younger sister visits the body, she talks to the nurses on the ward, she visits the ruin of a flat in bristol. the elder sister was an artist of some promise as a child but the schizophrenia hollows out the technique making the work seem child-like and naive, that classic outsider art look.
except that the art is described but not shown. we only have the author's word for it.
it reads well so far. horsemouth is unclear what would have persuaded either his mother or his father to buy it (it won't have been a joint decision). he will have to ask.
after yesterday's access to schadenfreude (and the thunderstorm when the skies opened) today bright sunshine (and a hot day). wednesday a trip up to town in search of direction.
horsemouth has made a parallel between the underground orchard of baldasare forrestiere in fresno california and his own basement room in hackney. (it's a stretch he knows).
horsemouth is staying in his brother's old bedroom on the side of the house that gets most of the daylight and has something of a view. he was always distinctly envious of this as a child. his own room was a smaller, darker back bedroom. his parents moved here 43 years ago, it was their project, horsemouth was not that interested and moved away to london and to university as soon as he was able.
that said he has, over the years, spent a lot of time back in herefordshire. if you were to ask him where he was from he would say caerphilly, it's where he grew up (he has few memories of earlier places they lived in wales). he has a welsh granny (from gorseinon, the other side of swansea), and so, despite having a scottish granny as well he tends to claim to be welsh these days (despite being born in birmingham) but it's a bit tenuous and convoluted to be frank.
he has lived 40 odd years in london - this is much more his home, the origin of his social attitudes.
elsewhere he watched the first episode of a tv series about the man who faked his own death (by paddling out to sea in a canoe). it was either that or the shame of bankruptcy.
howard has news,
- just found an improv track we did called krak on the 8 track. me on guitar and you on guitar. then we overdub and I add synth sounds from when I had the iPad. do you remember it?
- nope. post it over.
- have to mix it first. it needs some found street sounds on it. we should do more of this…
'there were four MPs on johnson's honours list who he was hoping to send to the lords - dorries, former COP26 president alok sharma, scottish secretary alister jack and adams.
adams had been preparing to go to the lords since mr johnson resigned because he knew he was on the list...
he had sold his business, turned down a place in liz truss's cabinet and announced he was quitting as the MP for his hometown in north yorkshire.'
but then he was 'shafted by machiavellian sunak' (not a comparison horsemouth had previously thought likely to be made) and his proposed lordship torpedoed.
adams is reportedly 'livid'. horsemouth proposes mindfulness and meditation.
adams who? nigel adams (no horsemouth has never heard of him either).
'get three by-elections ready'
sunak will need all the political skills of machiavelli. he is neither liked nor feared and as the election approaches the tory MPs in marginal seats have progressively less reason to sit still and keep quiet.
indeed horsemouth proposes hiding underground from the upcoming conflagration.
underground it is cooler in summer and warmer in winter. we should display the guts and determination of baldasare forestiere (of sicily and later fresno california). fruit trees can be grown up through light wells.
one other tory MP has jumped ship early (it's hardly a mass phenomena but it is still a lemming like self-liquidation). horsemouth can't remember their name and doesn't know who they are.
horsemouth is up. (it's a respectable time).
yesterday he sat outside reading the newspapers. the thunderstorm he predicted has failed to come to pass (well ok there's been some rain).
blok (1909) is in pisa. he is there until the 15th (and then he is off to milan).
last night zoom beers with howard (who was knackered after work). once again nothing on the tv. in london it was 30C, the street drinkers were out.
' we sang together, apart, of the holy cities that had become a wilderness, and the desolation of jerusalem...'
boris is gone ladies and gentlemen. he has upper stumps and retired to the pavilion (and gone home and taken his football with him). in altogether lesser news nadine is gone too (a nation mourns).
they don't do gratitude do they nadine? (not for someone like you)
now if horsemouth were boris he would let the current unpleasantness die down and then find a safe tory seat of brexit fans and contest it as an independent. but (to be frank) it's not like boris needs the money (it is the same with sunak or sir lord snooty - they don't need the money either). being an MP is, on the other hand is reliable pin money and a bit of a sinecure (so why wouldn't you).
it provides the opportunity to get the band back together. (little dominic would be delighted).
the last time horsemouth looked vast numbers of MPs were sitting as independents anyway as a result of being placed by their parties on the naughty step while investigations against them proceeded.
that well known portuguese poet alvaro de campos offers some advice (in translation);
'ah, how refreshing it is when we fail to do our duty!
It’s like being in the countryside!
Unreliability becomes a refuge!
I breathe more easily now that I’ve missed all my appointments...'
crimea river comes from the auto subtitles of owen jones valediction on boris - cry me a river, says a plainly unsympathetic jones. horsemouth supposes he should try the even less sympathetic frankie boyle.
horsemouth has reached saturday. it is a pleasantly cool morning. the week's campaign is over - now the consequences just have to be faced.
horsemouth is only just hearing the alternate version of india by john coltrane now. could this be even better than the take of india on the album? very nearly.
'I came into the world under the sign of saturn - the star of the slowest revolution, the planet of detours and delays...' - walter benjamin. in agesilaus santander.
this was a text written by benjamin in ibiza on two consecutive days in august 1933. it is quoted by susan sontag in her introduction to one way street and other writings in the nlb edition. instead of taking this in a dark way horsemouth was delighted to see that walter hails from the same planet as sun ra (or at least under the same set of influences).
horsemouth doesn't have a physical copy of one-way street with him but he does have a pdf. he will make an effort to give it more of a reading.
he begins today's blog with location film for a warning to the curious using the soundtrack from the episode and a k-punk connection. k-punk went on a hauntological pilgrimage (of sorts) to the locations for both this and 1972's whistle and I'll come to you publishing the blog on april 15th 2007. it's a nice piece of work.
last night he watched a documentary on michael tippett (presumably not born under saturn but under dancing jupiter) who went from stalinism to trotskyetism to pacifism and eventually to a CBE and national treasure status. horsemouth has a musical biography and his moving into aquarius at home. horsemouth doesn't know enough about music to know what is going on musically in his pieces but he does find descriptions of people's compositional processes useful - he has rather a lot of books by or about satie and debussy, and lesser stashes on british composers.
‘my feeling about brexit was not anger at anybody else, it was anger at myself for not realising what was going on. I thought that all those UKIP people and those national fronty people were in a little bubble. then I thought: “fuck, it was us, we were in the bubble, we didn’t notice it.” there was a revolution brewing and we didn’t spot it.’ - brian eno (as quoted by dominic cummings in his latest email).
as usual brain emo stands revealed as the smart one.
now this is the bit of cummings' argument horsemouth can agree with. later cummings posts a picture of the cover of when reason goes on holiday: philosophers in politics a book by neven sesardic, using goya's el sueno del razon (you know the one - the sleep of reason produces monsters...)
at first inspection, this book looks filthily dull, whining on about certain philosophers being 'leftists' and insufficiently rational. it looks like you can read it yourselves online, maybe it is not as bad as horsemouth makes it out to be. it seems to be concerned with leftists statements by western analytic philosophers (and that's a fairly particular breed of philosophers, people who claim a strong logical basis for their thought).
it is of course possible to take the opposite (or is it differing) view that philosophers are bad at politics because they are logical (plato etc. when what politics requires is negotiation) or that all of this arises because of confusion between the terms rational and logical. horsemouth can see that if you were behind the iron curtain and wanted out that you would run towards the philosophers who seemed untainted by marxism, hegelianism etc. only to be horrified to discover them compromising with 'the leftists' when you got there (or got access to all their work).
now this would be an interesting tale of philosophical disillusionment opening up new directions.
today more travelling for horsemouth and then this phase is done.
horsemouth types this on his dad's old laptop - a widescreen machine when compared to horsemouth's netbook. sadly the little netbook appears to have developed a sudden death glitch (it will suddenly die for no discernable reason) and so horsemouth has transferred his affections here.
he's up and awake early. no travel for him until about mid-day. (it feels like the weekend but it is only thursday).
the paris commune has fallen and the reprisals by the government have begun.
'the temps which is a careful journal, and not given to sensation, tells a dreadful story of people imperfectly shot and buried before life was extinct. a great number of them were buried in the square around st. jacques-le-boucheriere; some of them very superficially. in the daytime the roar of the streets prevented any notice being taken; but in the stillness of the night the inhabitants of the neighbourhood were roused by distant moans and in the morning a clenched hand was seen protruding from the soil... that many wounded have been buried alive I have not the slightest doubt.' - paris correspondent evening standard, 8th june 1871.
last night horsemouth had a bottle of beer (to celebrate passing the half-way point with the initial round of things). tonight, bbc 2 9pm, a feature piece on michael tippett. last night on the same channel, the crag valley coiners get their folk horror moment in the sun. horsemouth is slightly ambivalent - all the items are present and correct but it's also the gentrification of the aesthetic, its move to the mainstream.
françoise gilot has died. as a young girl (21 or 22) she entered the labyrinth and survived her encounter with the minotaur picasso. she escaped to new york and managed to make it more about her as the years went by.
horsemouth is watching more of 'christ stopped at eboli'. he hasn't read the book in a long while now so he is a little unsure of what is going on in each of the scenes.
once again horsemouth is reminded that the first episode is ruled by barone the dog (you can see carlo levi makes sense to the locals once he has a dog).
the second episode (secunda puntata) begins with a voice over still photos from the previous episode. the camera alternately zooming in or pulling back.
'autobiography has to do with time, with sequence and with what makes up the continuous flow of life. here, I am talking of a space, of movements and discontinuities.' - walter benjamin, one way street.
'imagine this written around the edges of the page. a book consisting of nothing but margins.' - graham caveny.
horsemouth listened to a podcast on agoraphobia (and other phobias)- apparently cases rose drastically after the 1871 paris commune.
horsemouth travels today - when we get there they will be half way there. there was a proposal to swap this one session but horsemouth was unenthusiastic about fucking with a winning formula. now there's breakfast and then the wait for the transport.
horsemouth is distributing his and howard's golden glows around the summer solstice the way the 3 clustered round the winter solstice are distributed. 3 above 3 below like a hexagram in the i ching. he's not sure how you would read these hexagrams (he will give it some thought).
horsemouth has been out in the wilds for a month.
today he will be doing some more travelling to appointments. it is the 10th anniversary of the one of jim bermingham's open mic nights that horsemouth played.
last night, following a discussion of ULEZ and 15 minute cities horsemouth watched a number of videos (well one) on the topic. true the well meaning cycling campaigners lean heavily into the depopulated new york streets of the pandemic in a way unlikely to reassure people. the measures on offer divide up between the punitive - charge people to use their cars, and the facilitative - just build more cycle lanes and pedestrianise more streets. horsemouth's informant (from the anti-ULEZ side ) said it was about 'freedom' .
of course the burden of ULEZ type measures falls mainly on the poor (the poor who are rich enough to own or rent cars granted, but the poor nonetheless). the rich can simply afford to pay.
horsemouth was dreaming he was at a party. dave and claudia were there and the girl from down the road. it seemed to be her party (at some point she arrived with food). there seemed to be some sort of mystery investigation going on (but as usual horsemouth couldn't make head nor tail of it).
a brief narrative of my life from the beginning to the present day
horsemouth has been researching early autobiographies. montaigne and someone mentioned in the introduction to montaigne's complete essays mathematician, doctor, occultist girolamo cardano (anglicized as jerome cardan). horsemouth has read some of his de vita propria liber (the book of my life).
horsemouth was thinking about his favourite books to read. carlo levi's christ stopped at eboli would be one, abra tertz's a voice from the chorus would be another, rousseau's reveries of a solitary walker would be a third. books about little other than the author.
yesterday (1909) blok was in spoleto picking the epitaph he would use to end his italian poems. it was also the day on which marion brown recorded geechee recollections (horsemouth had forgotten this - ok yes he was also recording today in 1973 so that's al well and good).
today horsemouth travels (hopefully). it is a grey morning. in a bit horsemouth will check if it will clear up (he suspects it will).
yesterday morning a scammer panic (not what anyone needed). horsemouth has either a) been rude to a perfectly helpful indian call-center worker or b) saved the family silver, one of the two. right now he can't tell (he will have to wait and see).
this is a by-product of the stress they have been under and all the waiting in for phonecalls.
all that is important is that the transport comes on the days when it is needed and the appointments take place. everything else can wait.
today (hopefully) a day off. one without drama.
on the plus side he talked to his uncle terry on the phone and went for a walk late afternoon on the common. later on picnic at hanging rock was on the TV but by that point horsemouth had retreated to his bedroom.
he watched book-pilled/ thrift a life propound on the best 'bread and butter' brands for reselling and he watched the japanese dude with the the house by the sea attempt to roast coffee and to make miso..he watched a documentary on japanese shut-ins (hikikomori) and listened to a podcast with a discussion of the 41 years of the GDR.
if the photo from the countryfile calendar for the month of june is the nine of flowers
then it must be followed by a pessimistic ten of flowers - it is late summer, the earth has cracked, the summer sun has scorched the once green plants to straw, the flowers have run to seed and the mice and birds feed on them. the next cycle is prepared.
if the photo is the ten of flowers then we simply have the high point of the world throwing up beauty.
the model for a pessimistic minor arcana is probably swords - in the rider waite pack in the ten of swords the body of the warrior lies fallen with about 4 swords stuck in him and the other 6 stuck in the ground (it is a perfect illustration of the adage 'live by the sword, die by the sword'). with 9 of swords 8 of the swords hang on the wall above the bed of the warrior (who cannot sleep for his worries) only one sword beneath him (in the land of instinct and the subconscious) remains to be used. perhaps an illustration of uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
horsemouth seems to be broadcasting lots of japanese lifestyle porn (as a rest from forest pixie material) at the minute. sample dialogue 'one of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats'. he likes the furniture and the kitchen implements (horsemouth likes a lot of natural wood, ingenious storage solutions and mis-matched crockery shown in close-up). the breakfast proposed is a bit meaty by horseouth's standards (he has been a vegetarian - and sometime vegan - for about 40 years now) but is very nicely presented.
horsemouth's usual breakfast (largely continued here at his folks) is coffee followed by museli (once he has got that pesky blogging lark out of the way) and then he may move on to some toast. at the weekend his parents tend to have eggs and toast for breakfast as a treat. thereafter horsemouth switches to tea for the day.
sten phoned. sten is sending him his post and additional coffee.
horsemouth was mostly traveling yesterday so he hasn't read or watched anything particularly. he had some zoom beers (two beers) with howard after and they rabbited on. after dinner he went for a quick walk on the common and saw a muntjac deer (as well as some rabbits and the ponies).
today has started overcast but the sun is rapidly burning it off.
it's the nine of flowers in the countryfile calendar tarot (horsemouth went around changing all the calendar's he could find in the house to the new month of june).
nine of flowers would be in the minor arcana. let's talk about nines in the minor arcana.
'the nines represent the penultimate step of a journey. For some suits like the cups and pentacles, it's smooth sailing to the end. others, like the swords and the wands, are more of a challenge. a trial of sorts...
nines require deeper thinking and wider vistas.' - incandescent tarot blog. for swords and wands the ending isn't good, for cups and pentacles the nine and the ten are marvelously affirming.
tomorrow (well today by the time horsemouth 'publishes' this)he is on his way to a meeting.
hopefully the meeting will move things forward. there's another meeting on the 7th of june (hopefully that will move things along too).
soon the waiting will be over (for now)
horsemouth was a little headachey and solarized so he was off to bed early (it is odd writing about things he is doing in the past tense because he knows that by the time he comes to publish it it will be in the past). horsemouth started reading a little of rainer maria rilke's letters to a young poet.
'search for the reason that bids you to write... whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write...
do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words...'.
it is certainly very helpful to horsemouth (and perhaps even to his human companion paul) to be able to write, whether he would die if he couldn't do it is another matter. he has the complete essays of montaigne out as well (that's a housebrick of a book).
the phonecall is a phonecall about a phonecall that is trying to find out the answer to two questions. who was it who phoned? and when will they phone again? ultimately there will be a meeting (maybe) and the stuff that needs to get done will start to happen (again a maybe).
the stuff that needs to get done is only the prequel (and necessary condition) to the stuff that really needs to get done and the stuff that really needs to get done only delays certain inevitable things (and hopefully makes things less painful).
one can't help becoming hopeful when one is promised a phonecall (and similarly one can't help but become anxious and depressed when the phonecall does not materialise). one can't help but feel that if the things that need to get done (and heaven forfend to mention the things that really need to get done) really need to get done then surely the people on the other end of the phone should be moving along in a more expeditious fashion.
there is a parallel here with issues in the NHS that horsemouth hesitates to make. his model here is abram tertz's a voice from the chorus. stuck in gulags abram can write home but he can't mention anything about the gulags (there is censorship). he can only discourse about unconnected particularities or airy generalities.
it is for this reason that horsemouth finds his dealings with the communal endeavour (the usual source of frustration in his life) a relief. there he is in the hands of good professional people who wish to get on and do something (and it seems like the masses want to get on and have that something done). there too there are things that really need to get done and they also seem to be taking forever. but there horsemouth has learned to be patient.
the start of the track above (brown rice don cherry) is lifted by a bill laswell DJ thing horseouth has (it will just take him a while to find it). sean recognised it immediately and of course immediately said that the don cherry track was much better than the use made of it by the DJ. (horsemouth likes both but he does think the basic bill laswell track is a little dull).
horsemouth is sure he's heard it sampled elsewhere - any ideas? (ok ok he knows there's a site that does exactly this - the track is reanimation by bill laswell featuring DJ rob swift).
outside it is a grey morning again (but should the clouds part it will be a beautiful day). the bbc weather predicts a beautiful day.
horsemouth's reading has stalled. he will try and relaunch.
ok the actual phonecall (part two of the phonecall from the unnamed assailant) has arrived. the phonecall attempting to find out who the unnamed assailant might be has not been replied to yet. there is a plan for a journey and a meeting tomorrow. whether your humble narrator will be allowed to go or not is another matter (he may have to make his own way there).
