relative

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…

horsemouth is intrigued