science fiction, rock music and the counter-culture ( in many ways a golden age)

huzzah! end of the month! horsemouth has made it!

as horsemouth often relates it was the bbc tv series time out of mind (17th september 1979) that introduced him to all this. in the middle of the documentary about michael moorcock there was a clip of hawkwind playing silver machine (and at that point, with the swooshing of synthesizers, horsemouth saw the light).

interestingly enough the IMDB entry for it claims that it features one jerry cornelius as himself.

horsemouth first saw hawkwind play sophia gardens in cardiff  9th december 1979 (his first gig).  he then went back to caerphilly to see his old friends and to see  the levitation tour 8th november 1980. 

horsemouth saw michael moorcock open for hawkwind (with a poem and then coded languages) later than the  sonic attack tour (winter 1981) so probably winter 82. 

he saw hawkwind on the sonic attack tour and on the choose your masques tour (colston hall 31st october 1982). broadly he parts company with them on the chronicle of the black sword tour 1985. 

bob calvert horsemouth saw at theatre space sometime in the early 80ies (80 possibly) and then again at the hammersmith clarendon (14th november 1986). horsemouth had made his way over there on his own (because he was a hawkwind obsessive) at some point he remembers seeing all the crusties from hackney arrive at the tube station.

he saw nik turner's inner city unit a couple of times round about those times. once with here and now at the half moon herne hill (1983 he guesses). he saw the lloyd-langton group a couple of times (once up at dingwalls). 

other than that horsemouth saw moorcock once this century at the new british library as part of a panel with john clute, brian aldiss and norman spinrad. he felt a little sorry for spinrad (who was clearly the 'new boy' in these august circles). by now we are moving into nostalgia. 

in 2013 he went with sean to watch the warrior on the edge of time tour. 

it was that point of contact between science fiction, rock music and the counter-culture. to horsemouth it looked like a way out. punk (and the sex pistols had played caerphilly in 1976) had been and gone (and was something for bigger kids). there was the mod revival and two tone. there was early electro-pop and germans with synthesizers (tangerine dream, kraftwerk). it was in many ways a golden age. 

today horsemouth is off to hereford. he will hunt out second hand books while leaving his mum to deal with the bank etc. relatives are coming over friday. his brother is coming up saturday. 

'cold and empty. I feel only too strongly the limits of my abilities'

who knew that the apocalypse was going to be so slow and expensive? this was the rhetorical question posed by the girl on the website. 

possibly ballard. came back the response from one of horsemouth's friends. (horsemouth had posted some ballard recently come to think about it).

yes. replied horsemouth, he likes to give that impression that he's a  a connoisseur of apocalypses.

horsemouth and zali (for it was he) then imagined the breakfast in the ruins scene of aldiss, ballard and moorcock sitting around in pyjamas, eating hard-boiled eggs and discussing the end of the world. 

zali imagined them in derry and toms famous roof garden (and beset by attack helicopters). 

'pesky critters' said moorcock unshouldering the afghani stinger knock-off anti-aircraft missile. 'where did that one crash?' aldiss gestured vaguely with his wine glass. 'not buckingham palace again surely...' 

heavily scaffolded this kind of fanfic, one reliant on the original creations of aldiss, ballard et al. and their public personas. if you were to 'file off the serial numbers'  (and disguise the original source material) what would to happen?

'pesky critters' said horsemouth unshouldering the afghani stinger knock-off anti-aircraft missile. 'where did that one crash?' zali gestured vaguely with his wine glass. 'not buckingham palace again surely...' 

probably a diminution of the piece's effectiveness. (maybe not).

virginia woolf writes of the difficulty in writing when you are starved of the resources to do so - she starts in the male oxford colleges (which being a woman she can only visit on invitation).  they feed her well and it is very comfortable (because they are rich). it is from an essays about essays series by david runciman. 

peter conrad (who also writes in oxford colleges) is out in belem in the lisbon of the 70ies, 80ies. up on the hills the ambassador's residences, down by the river the shanty towns. he goes down the hill to investigate and it results in the first memorable scene in the book (which given that it is about half way in is a pity). 

it takes more than material comfort to write (but nothing can be written without a certain level of comfort). it takes an encounter (horsemouth tends to shy away from these). or perhaps what the encounter shows is that conrad has not gone deep, he writes from exteriors but not from himself, 

'cold and empty. I feel only too strongly the limits of my abilities.'  remarks kafka this day in 1914. yesterday in 1914 he writes 'the end of one chapter a failure: the other chapter, which began beautifully...' 

yesterday horsemouth buried daisy the dog (go well little creature). they buried her with the things that related to her life - lead, harness, muzzle, bed, a squeaky toy, a tennis ball to chase. horsemouth hopes that he has buried her deep enough and that she has a good decomposition. the grave goods with her are mostly plastic and so will last forever. he hopes he has set an explicable  scene for the archeologists. 

last night the detective serial. 

today a visit to the village to post something off. 

films, books, gigs, events august 2023

books

- where I fell to earth; a life in four cities  (peter conrad) about half

- detached retina (brian aldiss) about half also

-  madder music, stronger wine (jad adams' biography of ernest dowson 'poet and decadent') started.

- diaries (kafka, as edited by max brod) 1914 and thereabouts

- kilvert's diary (1870) and end of boswell's london journal.

- torygraph money, reaching EPC C makeover column

- bhanu kapil’s 'twelve questions'

- don, moki, neneh and eagle-eye cherry and other visitors at the dome project at utopia and visions, moderna museet, stockholm, 1971 (museum website)

-  pink beams of light from a god in the gutter (gabriel mckee). an appreciation of the religious elements in philip k. dick's life (fits in well with the erik davis)

- NLR 'zombie economy' article

- letter to publisher einaudi and 'message from the emperor (mario tronti) LRB and NLR

films

 - the revelation of PKD (erik davis talk) and a number of others. outlaw bookseller's thoughts on UBIK

- survivors/ the good life (first few episodes as available)

- the deerhunter/ the godfather II (wedding scenes)

- elizabeth and the spy thing (terrestrial tv)

- performance by naima karlsson on the occasion of the opening of moki cherry’s solo show at galleri nicolai wallner (vimeo)

- R4 documentary piece on the architect/ philosopher cedric price 

- R4 world at one and BBC tv  doc. on net zero and decarbonsiation

- michael moore (not that one) and stansilao pugliese on carlo levi at the NY italian-american centre

gigs

- david webb (online)

events

fail to go to hereford river carnival, funeral/ cremation of father,  india is on the moon, visit to hay/ pub lunch in peterchurch, 50 years of hip-hop.

bye bye daisy (days of wine and roses)

well it has finally come to pass. daisy the dog has joined the choir invisibule. the house seems strange without her. there's no-one to bark at the postman (or random cars on the road). 

she was 14 (which is a good age for a dog) and had been slowing down into old age for a while. it was only after horsemouth's dad had died that they noticed how quiet she had become.

horsemouth thanks the vet for his efforts. she clearly responded to the steroids (a last walk down to the abbey and back) but in the end they were not strong enough to contend with the forces of death. 

she died quietly under the kitchen table during the afternoon while the business of the house went on around her. horsemouth and his mum put her into her bed and carried her out to the garage. they selected a spot to bury her in (up on the banking where she would run and play) and horsemouth has begun digging the grave. he expects to get it done and bury her later on today. 

rain this afternoon (so had better get on with it). grey day and not warm. 

a number of horsemouth's friends have liked her photo (he should probably have warned them she was dead).

madder music, stronger wine continues to go well. well not so for victorian decadent poet ernest dowson who continues to drink himself to death. the fortunate (or unfortunate) thing is that he finds writing poetry easy - you know his lines days of wine and roses, gone with the wind. here he is. an influence on t.s.eliot (and that's probably how people now know him). 

last night horsemouth and his mum watched a police detective thing (you know the sort of thing. honest woman detective contends with sexism and gets things done) that will take up the next few evenings. 

animals are blameless (humans less so)

'totally impressive reading list, which puts me to shame, and a pub lunch to boot. nice.'

horsemouth publishes and then discusses his books read and films watched list for the month.  he will share it with the wider world shortly (not that the wider world are interested). 

well it is an entire month in the countryside and horsemouth hasn't read all of them in their entirety. the gabriel mckee on PKD it was only the first 20 pages available on google books. the kilvert/boswell and kafka diaries horsemouth is just reading in the years marked as the dates come up (in an event to spread out the pleasures of reading them and to give himself something to blog about). the first three books in the list are recent purchases from hay (at great expense largely) and so he has been making an effort to read them (and will probably finish two out of three of them by the time the month ends). 

horsemouth had to say the pub lunch rocked (largely because he got in a sneaky pint). 

as usual when he started writing the list he was convinced he had read nothing but when he came to examine it it turned out to be a reasonable month.

over in texas it has been raining. this is good news. they have been stuck under some kind of 'heat dome' forever. 

animals are blameless (opines horsemouth). they simply do what they do as they feel it. human beings are considerably more complicated and may be held to moral account for their actions because they may be reasoned with. for these reasons it is a lot easier to love animals than it is humans. 

up on the common horsemouth met gareth (and his dog). him and his partner are renting a house near the village (having lived in london and having moved up from kent). they wanted to be further over and in wales itself. 

it's a monday. but it's a bank holiday monday. little will be moving. today is also the anniversary of the release of hergest ridge (horsemouth believes).  nope it's actually the 2nd of september - he'll do his encomium then.

“it’s like a goddamned conspiracy” (the birth of alice coltrane)

as you can see there has been a horsemouthfolk  blog since 2013. before that even he was on the redoubtable myspace,  serving up a similar mixture of disguised commentary on his existence and oblique fantasy (all allegedly in support of his music 'career'). for much of it blogs were either advertised on facebook or written on facebook using the notes tool and selectively copied over to blogger (as required).

so here horsemouth is. he is sitting up in bed (well slouched back). in his brother's old bedroom in the wilds of herefordshire. it is on the side of the house that gets the light in the morning so he tends to wake up early. he goes downstairs, opens the curtains, makes himself a pot of coffee, perhaps goes out and waters the plants in the green house. (in a while he will water the flowers round the house and over by the garage). 

there is a second greenhouse but it has become shaded out by the trees round it. (restoring it to light would be a major operation).

ok he's got a second cup of coffee (now he's sat up, semi-lotus). 

last night horsemouth was confusing mary shelley with sylvia pankhurst (imagining mary shelley a defender of ethiopia against italian fascism). he had been reading brian aldiss on mary shelley's frankenstein. this aldiss acclaims as the first modern science fiction novel (asimov claims something similar at some point).  aldiss also recommends mary shelley's the last man (horsemouth may have it somewhere). 

later he read a little of jad adams' madder music, stronger wine  about victorian decadent poet ernest dowson (apparently there's a dowson's wharf, or at least a wharf owned by the dowson family, somewhere on the thames but horsemouth cannot find it). 

this morning horsemouth wishes to compare mary shelley and alice coltrane - both the widows of famous men who went on to make their  the own amazing things. it is alice coltrane's birthday. 

yesterday horsemouth failed to make it out to the various weirdshire events at the hereford riverside carnival. (for this he feels guilty). 

today (hopefully) the fellers at the house will send him the electricity and gas meter readings and he can record them on the company website. 

ok breakfast. the weather today? clearish but not particularly sunny or warm. 

 

I used to be a werewolf (but I am all right NooooW)

film has emerged of horsemouth in a half-darkened (and half-padded) room. 'exterminate the brutes'  he mutters. 'my methods have become unsound' he utters. a loop by neglected american primitive guitarist max ochs plays - in a shadow play horsemouth attempts to retell watership down.

good morning! good morning! good morning! 

the sun has passed the cloud barrier and ascended into the heavens from its launching point on the hill opposite. since the unexplained death of the actual sun and its replacement by a network of local drone suns the main question has been how to generate as much electricity as possible to keep the lights on and the plants growing and how to increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to reduce the leakage of heat into space. 

of course preventing the rapidly de-industrialising planet from reaching net zero is now a priority (of sorts) but one that can only be achieved by radical new technologies and multi-national agreements (we're doomed so we are).  

plans are afoot to turn the oceans into a giant battery.

film has also emerged of erik davis lecturing the assembled masses about philip k. dick's (PKDs) exegesis and the 2/3/74 event. erik was the author of the great techgnosis - he tells a tale where he was about to do a lecture on that book and realises he doesn't have a definition of gnosis, he opens dick's exegesis, and there, on the first page, is the definition he needs. 

it strikes horsemouth that it will soon (2/3/24) be the 50ieth anniversary of the pink laser beams and the fish (the symbol of the early christians).

someone horsemouth knows gets published (that is enough of a reason to celebrate in itself). and they're reviewing  breathless (that too). but wait, there are a whole series of other articles (joy). later horsemouth finds erik davis on the rider-waite(-coleman) tarot in the magazine that publishes my friend (result)

today the unblocking of the sink. (horsemouth really should have attended to it earlier but it at least gives him the chance to talk the handyman - a friend of his father's). horsemouth (the impractical) will try and solicit an opinion on the fluorescent lighting while he is at it. if the whole unit needs replacing it is beyond him. 

I used to be a werewolf (but I am all right NooooW) strikes horsemouth as a good title for a song (he thinks he could use the riff from the rolling stones' 'I used to love her (but it's all over now)'. this would give horsemouth a second werewolf song (a werewolf sequel). 

on preserving the chronological order and the logical development of the discourse (which are of course identical)

'l’ordine cronologico è tanto importante quanto lo sviluppo logico di tutto il discorso. si può pretendere anzi che sia una cosa sola.' in italian here.

in english here.

'the chronological order is as important as the logical development of the entire discourse. in fact, one could argue that they are one and the same.' - mario tronti to the publisher giulio einaudi, rome, 16th january 1966.

in tronti's un messaggio dell’imperatore, (in dello spirito libero: frammenti di vita e pensiero, rome 2015).we have an extended metaphor lifted from kafka - the emperor sends a message, but despite great strength and speed of travel his messenger has difficulty getting out of the royal palace even. it's all very derridean - what is the moment of foundation? when can the message be said to have been delivered?  

later this is paralleled by lenin's arrival in st. petersberg and reading of the april theses - but these are not met with the approval that we would expect now that they have become communist orthodoxy and the way in which the history of the time is understood. 

'lenin’s speech was attacked from all sides, only kollontai speaking in support of it'

of course that the logical development of the entire discourse and that its chronological order should be preserved is a very althusserian requirement (it is very of the time, very for marx er. if not very reading capital (first edition versus second edition)). and it is precisely  this that doesn't inspire one to confidence that anything can be made of it. 

during a youtube video on philip k. dick horsemouth became interested in jung's notion of synchronicity which (to him) now more resembled althusser's understanding of previous events than the orthodox freudian interpretation. 

these are the kind of semi-literary witterings horsemouth indulges in. or indeed old marxists indulge in after the collapse of the east and the end of history as they mourn 'the end' of the great project and claim that its ruins are in fact a garden.

there were clear skies overnight and this has made it a coldish morning (barely in double figures). his mum is up early - the sink has been blocking up, the fluorescent light in the back kitchen is on the blink. horsemouth is not a very practical person (unlike his father) and gladly cedes working out how to solve these problems. 

horsemouth can solve problems and do things. it is just that to do that he must defend a space where he is allowed to work. if he is not allowed this he becomes anxious and frustrated and can do nothing. 

yesterday horsemouth had a full-blown toys-out-the-pram meltdown. it has been a long difficult time and one not crowned with the glory of being the helpful son but instead crowned with the death of his father. he has been being sensible and calm for a long time and now he simply wishes to get to the end of it. 

today they go to get the ashes of his father from the funeral home, pay and say goodbye to the funeral home people and bring home his father's ashes. then they are on to the next stage of it. 

the derridean argument (in spectres of marx) is one derived freud's views on the necessity for proper mourning. at one time horsemouth had a whole gimcrack apparatus assembled out of derrida, althusser and marx and claimed to understand it. perhaps if he does his reading he could once again be in a position to understand it. 

while horsemouth has been typing this his mum has been out cleaning out the chicken shed. in a bit breakfast.  

his 'zoom' meeting yesterday? it was about entering flats that the communal endeavour owns (that are not up to EPC C) into the social housing decarbonisation fund to get them up to EPC C. horsemouth had assumed that all the flats (being 'modern') would be up to EPC C. not a bit of it.

 

the horror of space/ the terror of time (india is on the moon)

 'between the horror of space and the terror of time...' - the blue oyster cult, death valley nights.

an off-and-on day. horsemouth took the rubbish down. they await the postman (the bill is in the post). last night horsemouth farted about on youtube and his mum watched the first hour of the good, the bad and the ugly. they had their usual mid-week beer. horsemouth lifted the remaining overgrown (and under-developed) onions (he does hope he has got them all). the chickens have failed to escape again, looks like the sheep may be gone (oh no they haven't - they are just in the bits of the field horsemouth can't see from his bedroom window). oh look there's a rabbit. there's a crow. 

horsemouth (mostly) sat outside and read. him and his mum took a slow walk down to the abbey and beyond to deliver some eggs. they took the dog (which after some initial hesitancy enjoyed the excursion). he's keeping an eye out for any more appearances of the devil's trumpet in the garden. in the lower plot the leeks have run to seed generating dark vermillion balls that tow the plant over.  last night potatoes, carrots, onions, a few underdeveloped parsnips for dinner - horsemouth had this with cheese. 

there is a slight autumnal feel to the air but it  can be ignored when the sun shines. 

that just leaves the books. 

w.h.auden (of christchurch college oxford and new york) makes an appearance in peter conrad (of christchurch college oxford and new york)'s where I fell to earth,  he also translates (and writes the introduction for) charles baudelaire's intimate journal. 

brian aldiss appears, being an amiable old duffer, he addresses the british association for the advancement of science on prediction, he hails anna kavan as kafka's sister and quotes kafka's diaries in support of this argument. india is on the moon (and modi is lecturing us on universalism). aldiss helped get kavan's ice published in the US, he hailed it as the best SF novel of the year, even though he did not really think it was SF. 

'WARNING: these essays are produced by a man who produced his first SF short story at the age of eight. writing has brought him joy and possibly saved him from a  life of crime. the unifying theme here is his belief that all literature is a criticism of life, or someone's life. even when that was not the intention behind it.' 

a book is published on harry smith. horsemouth awaits his copy of matthew and anya's book. 

he watched the pilot movie for a tv series about werewolves. 

today at 11am a meeting on zoom (or something similar).

hay books report (outside by the pyramid)

today a grey, cool morning. maybe it will get better later? (allegedly yes says the bbc weather)

and now the hay books report (don't go expecting too many bargains)

- peter paul fuchs (ed.) 'the music theatre of walter filsenstein' (quartet encounters edition - usually reliable) - one squid. 'you turned right for felsenstein (left for brecht)' - david poutney in the introduction.

- peter conrad, 'where I fell to earth; a life in four cities' - one squid. ah. it's this peter conrad, the author of  the song of love and death a book about opera. one of his four cities was lisbon that's what drew horsemouth in. this is the one horsemouth has started reading (it goes quickly). 

here endeth the cinema bookshop bargain bin (outside by the pyramid).

 we go inside and the real prices begin.

- brian w. aldiss. 'the detached retina; aspects of SF and fantasy' (liverpool university press) - six squid. brian is reliably good, an amiable old duffer directing your attention to the early days of science fiction (before it was even really science fiction). (horsemouth wonders if outlaw bookseller or even book pilled have a copy).

- jad adams, 'madder music, stronger wine: the life of ernest dowson, poet and decadent' - ten squid. 

now dowson, and his poetry, feature in michael moorcock's the dancers at the end of time trilogy (horsemouth is a low-brow pleb really, this is where he heard of him). however, there are surprisingly few english decadents so anything on them is probably worth reading. 

- xavier de maistre, 'a journey around my room' - three squid fifty. horsemouth has heard about this (and now he has the chance to read it). 

- charles baudelaire, 'intimate journals' translated by christopher isherwood and with an introduction by w.h.auden, illustrated with drawings by baudelaire, panther paperback edition - three squid. 

so horsemouth's mum took him up to hay. whilst they were there the clouds parted and the young and beautiful took possession of the town. horsemouth would have stayed longer, bought more books and contemplated the beauties of humanity but he had underestimated the time he would need to sort through the racks and they had to high-tail it back to the car. 

on the way back they stopped in peterchurch (former home of bill glover) for some pub grub (and very nice it was too). horsemouth had a pint of the local beer ('otter') and the sun shone. 

horsemouth has of course been spoiled by being in london. the second hand bookshops, the charity shops, the bargain bins, the book boxes - it all leads to free, or virtually free, reading. the job dispatched him all over the city and gave him an hour off here, an hour off there, to raid the bookshops. he will be back for a chunk of september and will attempt to stock up ahead of the winter. 

in the evening horsemouth went for a quick walk up on the common. he was tempted by the storyville on grime but did not, in the end, watch it. 

'land and freedom' - cogs and wheatsheaves and pitchforks (peasants and workers unite)

just by the decommissioned catholic church of st. john kemble  in ewyas harold (the sign you can see is now gone) is a small concrete obelisk. 

st. john kemble was one of the forty catholic martyr's in england and wales 

august 22nd (the day of his execution on widemarsh common in hereford) is the day that people go to john kemble's grave in  the (Cof E) churchyard of st mary the virgin at welsh newton, some local catholics make an annual pilgrimage to it.

one of kemble's hands is still preserved at st francis xavier church in hereford. 

the decorations on the obelisk are all a bit 'land and freedom' - cogs and wheatsheaves and pitchworks 'peasants and workers unite'. horsemouth presumes that when they came to build the modern church in ewyas harold these sorts of sentiments were more common.

kemble was canonised 25th october 1970 by pope paul VI - the church was designed by nigel dees and opened in 1972. it closed in 2011 and is now in 'community use' (that's to say the car park gets good use). the saying is kemble pipe and kemble cup for the last drink and smoke of the evening in herefordshire. 

horsemouth is sure he has seen more of this sort of thing on his travels and will look up the architectural work of nigel dees. he has seen other photos of the obelisk itself (ah. here they are). 

today a bright sunny day (and possibly a visit to hay). 

the big yellow sun (a mis-translation over time)

the big yellow sun has climbed up the hill opposite and made its way slowly into the skies. it shines directly over into horsemouth's (new) bedroom (well maybe at a slight angle).

the golden valley is of course a mis-translation over time (as are most things). as the dŵr cymru (welsh water) sign by memorial hall shows - dŵr is welsh for water. the medieval monks of abbey dore mistranslated it as the french d'or or, of gold. (and so the legend was born). 

that at least is horsemouth's current  theory. 

and at this, the golden hour, with the sun low in the sky, it is possible to believe it. 

at the end of the day the opposite side of the valley will be golden. and then the sun will sink into the west (and it all goes dark apart from the headlights on the road). 

the squirrels were in the willow tree (cavorting). a jay has attempted to raid the bird feeder (but it is too big). the sheep are in the field. the rabbits must have been and gone already.  

the spirit of horsemouth's dad keeps bumping around (as he will do). horsemouth has been up already to water the tomato plants in the green house (obligation fulfilled - tick). then there will be the flowers by the house and garage to water. little else requires watering. (that is the generosity of the weather in line with the name of the valley). 

the rows of the vegetables are a little too close together (horsemouth saw his dad purse his lips when horsemouth said 'this far?' doubting but unwilling to say). the sweet peas have not been a great success (too few twigs and branches to lift them up as his dad said) and horsemouth has failed to plant out the rows in a timely fashion in the top and bottom  gardens to ensure potatoes etc. for winter.

horsemouth knows next to nothing about gardening (he's going to have to learn). 

the milkman has just been. horsemouth feels he knows the postman to speak to, if it had been him he would have gone out for a quick chat. 

last night horsemouth was knackered and went to bed early. he will need to listen through to the PKD thing again. 

it's always a good time to talk about harry everett smith and john f. szwed has written a book about him (sadly the NYT have paywalled the article but you can see a flicker of it if you scroll down quickly). 

today a visit to the vets. to see how things are going, the dog is much cheered up (or as cheered up as a 14 year old dog can get).

tomorrow a visit to hay (probably). there is a need to acquire some books that horsemouth and his mum would like to read. there  is often little on TV that either horsemouth or his mum wants to watch, so books are good things. horsemouth is more usually on youtube. there is also the need to rearrange the books in the house and to discover the hidden gems of the collection. 

the golden hour departs too soon and soon the sun's face is hidden in clouds. later it may break through.  

yesterday a walk on the common with his brother's family.

‘it is not so easy to live a life as it is to cross a field’ (eulogy)

it is done. horsemouth's father has been laid to rest.

horsemouth managed to deliver his eulogy speech. (which as his brother points out mean good words). the speech was based on the eulogy horsemouth gave closer to the time on facebook but he made some additions. 

'43 years ago this tuesday we, as a family, moved to the golden valley. the house, the gardens, the fields it was a fulfilment of my mum and dad’s dream - to live in the countryside, to be self-sufficient – something halfway between The Good Life and Survivors.' 

as you know horsemouth has recently been rewatching survivors. he has not rewatched the good life in an age but it is absolutely in that trend of self-sufficiency. 

having done the task horsemouth feels the release of it. 

later horsemouth held forth at the dinner table and then later still stayed up chatting to katie while he drank too much beer. (he doesn't feel too bad on it this morning)

earlier there had been some attempt to restart dad's truck but the battery had gone flat and the jump leads could not be found. in the garden horsemouth discovered an unwelcome visitor - a thorn apple (the devil's trumpet), joe identified it with an app on his phone. he has evicted it and chucked it over the fence (and dug down a little to try and get out the root). he thinks there may be a second one. he doesn't take it as an evil omen.

'the earliest thing we have of my dad’s is his stamp collection.

probably the next earliest thing is a copy of dr. zhivago he bought with the book token he was given for winning the french prize at his school.  

from this I take the line;

‘it is not so easy to live a life as it is to cross a field’  an old russian proverb (allegedly).'

oranges and crows

there was something else in the dream (but horsemouth can't remember it). he thinks the orange is the orange of the sun. 

a frankly exhausted horsemouth limps towards the finishing line (he hopes he makes a good job of it). he tends to hear nimrod in his head when he wakes up these days. 

it's the greyish morning of horsemouth's father's funeral. people will be up early and travelling from all over. the day could easily turn out to be a good one (weather wise). horsemouth has been up he has watered the plants in the green house (the tomatoes doing well, the cucumbers less so).

he made himself a tomato/ spring onion/ bolted spinach salad last night. his brother and his family are here. he can hear people bumping round the house (soon the day will begin).

lots of tea and toast. leave here at 10am. funeral home 10.15. crematorium 11. village hall 12.30. 

last night he went with his brother to check out the village hall. they laid out a table with some memorabilia of his dad's. david once went there for a young farmers' disco (yes they played come on eileen). 

as able a summation of the situation as is possible

 'like with everything they f**k up, they then try to direct discontent at individual organisations rather than systemic problems'

so remarked a friend on the government way of handling things. this, in horsemouth's view, is as able a summation of the situation as is possible. 

today. rain all day. 

tomorrow. fine decent weather (and thereafter fine decent weather out towards the weekend).  

later today his brother and family arrive ready for horsemouth's father's  cremation service tomorrow. remind horsemouth to hurry up and finish off his speech and take care of any last niggling details.  

last night beers. horsemouth and his mum had delayed the traditional wednesday evening beer to thursday evening (because thursday was due to be a busy day). and so it proved. horsemouth and his mum listened to music (horsemouth had moved the mini-system into the kitchen) and then they watched the wedding scene from the deerhunter (abandoning the movie when it took the depressing turn of the friends being POWs in vietnam). strangely earlier horsemouth watched the first half hour of godfather II (another wedding scene). 

horsemouth has been and watered in the greenhouse. his mum has been out and let out the chickens (they are talking about getting more chickens - the enclosure and the shed (a coop horsemouth believes the term is) are certainly big enough). she's just been out again to feed them the scraps from the kitchen. 

nothing from kafka today. kilvert has something for tomorrow. 

 

on with the day (the autumn crocus)

Vukojebina · Demon Lover (Constant Pain cover)

good morning! good morning! good morning! 

horsemouth is up at the usual time. he has just heard the alarm signal on his mobile phone (all a bit phantasm/ tubular bells). himself and his mum are off to town early - so they will have to be up and out early. so he will leave you in a bit to make his mum a cup of coffee. 

above some of cameron bain on guitar (he was a bit good) - and the drummer is no slouch). the song is by one of cameron's early punk bands (constant pain) but played by his last band vukojebina. horsemouth regrets missing his chance to see them. 

see, as horsemouth often says, it's already marked by genius;

- you in a band mate?

- yes. I'm in constant pain.

last night no watching of survivors. a quick chat with enza online (they both enthused over the release of a book of triple negative's writing and matthew's artwork). he listened to the first track off zeit by tangerine dream again. enza is back from romania, horsemouth showed her pictures of cat heaven in porto. 

the dog seems potentially more lively (but not this morning so far). it seems happier being woken at 8am rather than 7am. horsemouth has already been out to water the plants in the green house. he has dressed up in his 'going to town' clothes. 

they are dropping the dog off in the morning and going back to get her in the afternoon (she's on nil by mouth until then). it's a grey morning. the autumn crocus seems to be coming out on the common. 

food is out!

horsemouth is up slightly later than usual with this killer set of drum loops from meat beat manifesto. 

the dog seems a bit better (touch wood). she went after a ball horsemouth threw (for which he instantly felt regret because her back hips don't look too stable). she displayed some interest in her food. yesterday evening he thinks they successfully got her to eat an antibiotic tablet and she ate some food and there was the antibiotic injection the day before yesterday.

tomorrow they take the dog in for an ultrasound scan - what it is to live in a country so rich it can afford medical treatment for its pets - this requires anaesthetising the dog (about which horsemouth worries, she is 14, she is an old lady). hopefully she will continue to show some improvement and this will become just a health scare. 

horsemouth was up at about 5.30am with a headache (quite why he has no idea). he got some paracetamol and them went back to bed (eventually getting up at 8am). 

yesterday a walk on the common and 5 minutes on the exercise bike.  horsemouth and his mum went into ewyas harold to get some bread and the meat order (no meat for horsemouth you understand). he became interested in the obelisk outside the john kemble catholic church - he will do a feature on it on kemble's saint's day (august 22nd).

horsemouth and his mum  have gotten into the habit of watching the 10pm news together (because there's little worth watching on terrestrial tv before that). his dad used to watch loads of portillo's ralway journeys type stuff. 

breakfast done. a beautiful sunny day. probably a wander up on the common next (using his dad's old walking boots).  horsemouth has some puffer jackets that were his dad's (but that his dad never wore preferring not to get them dirty while gardening).  he will probably give those away - they are a bit big for him and not really his style. at the moment he feels negatively towards the clothing his dad actually wore (it will probably have to go to a charity shop). 

torygraph reading report. 12th aug. money section.  a 'doing your rental property up to EPC C' make over column and a column on how property might not be as profitable as people think it is because estimates are very poor of how much people spend on doing up properties (and how much this increases the value of the property). at the next level of abstraction - times are hard it is necessary to raid the value tied up in your new kitchen units. 

what a difference a day makes... (time will tell)

 a year ago (and a day)

horsemouth was visiting the hereford recycling centre with his dad. myk challenged him to write about it in the style of john fowles (here it is).

‘I have long learned to accept that the fiction that professionally always pleased me least persists in attracting a majority of my readers most. it is that day, that day itself, to which they wish to return. that day at the recycling centre, where people gathered together apart in their cars, the orange jacketed recycling technicians officiated at the rite, the one with social skills and language at the front gate, the others growing more and more hermetic and silent as we made our way round the recycling stations. of course the dreadful truth of this modern world, with its flocking crowds of tourists, is that there is no recycling, just endless product death, the reduction of working components to mere kipple, as if sorting them into different bins could redeem them..'

the first sentence is a direct lift (from fowles' introduction to a reissue of the magus). 

the problem with using a diary as a daybook is that it can't then be read it must be plodded through at the rate of the days. take kafka in prague in 1914, max brod has given us nothing of his diaries for a few days and then this entry,

'I have been writing these past few days, may it continue.  I can once more carry on a conversation with myself.'  

monday 15th august 1870 it is napoleon fete day and the reverend kilvert is chatting with an old british soldier who fought in france (the newspapers are full of the war between the french and the prussians ably described by zola in the debacle that will lead to the paris commune). the old soldier says the following.

'he said he knew nothing of the germans, the french were more natural to him, and he wished them well. they were very kind to him, he said, when he was quartered with the allied army at a very small village near arras. he helped them to dig their fields, garden, cut wood or do anything that was wanted. in return they rewarded him by giving him their nice white bread, while the dark hard ration went to the pigs.' 

napoleon I's fete day is in fact a celebration of his name day (the 15th august) designed to replace celebrating  the storming of the bastille (on the 14th of july 1789). this was itself already over-written by  the fête de la fédération  a mass gathering held on 14 July 1790 designed to inaugurate an era that abolished absolutism and gave birth to a french constitutional monarchy.

todays animals and vegetables 

a giant slug (that horsemouth cast down the banking) and a dead headless frog (ditto). his mum is up and as let the chickens out but has neglected to refill the bird feeder (horsemouth will do it in a bit). he has already been around and watered the tomatoes in the greenhouse and the flowers near the house and over at the garage. only one sunflower plant now survives. there are a number of 'free-range' tomato plants in the garden (distributed by nature) but he doubts if they will have enough sun and time to generate tomatoes (time will tell).

the carrots (that horsemouth should have thinned out) are coming up a decent size surprisingly, the spinach has bolted (but is ok for salad), the beetroot there is plenty of, the peas are on their way, between the humans and the birds the berries are long gone but the damsons etc. will be here soon, they are eating their way through the potatoes at a rate of knots.  

horsemouth has reformatted his blog posts. he does hope the new style is acceptable. today more discussion about the dog (who is no better). 

'so long! farewell! auf wiedersehen, adieu...'

 like scrolling?

then scroll down this long list of MPs retiring at the next election. 75 of the fuckers. and this is not counting the ones who are going to contest the election and then lose their seats.

'so long! farewell! auf wiedersehen, adieu...' 

bhanu kapil’s 'twelve questions', 2001/2023 

the first four questions

- who are you and whom do you love?

there are various names. 

my mother, my father (who recently died), my brother (and his family, extended), grandparents (and some aunts and uncles) gone on already. my ex-girlfriends (without exception), my friends (living and dead), the dog. some friends are of course closer than others (and thus more loved).

- where did you come from/ how did you arrive?

from his parents, from the second city, from south wales and then moving to london forty plus years ago.  mostly living out east (hackney, tower hamlets) but with some time spent elsewhere (brixton, notting hill).

- how will you begin?

don’t know. just want to get to the end of the current series of tasks and then we will see. 

- how will you live now?

a half and half strategy until things become clearer…

'autobiography is an exercise in self-forgiveness' - janet malcolm, the guardian. 

horsemouth is aware he has not been totally honest in his replies. he is stuck between answering as horsemouth (in which case he would not be himself) and answering as himself (in which case he would not be horsemouth). he has accepted the oulipo type rule of this and tried to write a text that is true to that. 

the dog is not well. she's a bit off colour. in a bit they will be phoning the vets and trying to get her down there and seen. outside it is a rainy grey day. the winds last night have uprooted the tallest sunflower that horsemouth planted (otherwise the horticultures that he was involved with before his dad's death all seem to be going well enough). 

how they celebrated the 100th anniversary of the paris commune in sweden

saturday is becoming elizabeth night. sunday is daniel lewis spy series night. elizabeth is coming to an end (boo-hoo). the rest of the week on terrestrial tv is pretty barren and horsemouth mostly has recourse to youtube his mum to books. 

howard is going to a talk on 30th august about moki cherry. here are some  photos from the exhibition, moki, neneh and eagle-eye cherry and other visitors at the dome project at utopia and visions, moderna museet, stockholm, 1971.

'the exhibition is remembered in part for the construction of a geodesic dome, where the artist moki cherry and the jazz musician don cherry, lived throughout the summer. it was here that they performed music, created set designs and costumes, and staged happenings together with the public.'

here is what we might imagine as the reverse shot. 

don cherry conducting a workshop. 

the exhibition was on the 100th anniversary of the paris commune and pulled in other 'utopian' experiments under the guidance of curator pontus hultén. in 2022  a one day symposium was held to celebrate it and his work. 

horsemouth needs to get on. he needs to time speeches. he needs to make sure people have been contacted. 

soon we enter 'the embers'  of the year - september, october (sic.), november, december... we cross the equinox and move towards the winter solstice. soon enough kilvert will be telling us about clyro again and kafka will be telling us about his difficulties in living and writing. 

'in the beginning there were quite a few...'

 'in the beginning there were quite a few (and then not so many)' 

- survivors (1975), episode 3 series 1.

so remarks the tramp tom (for once not wishing to say too much). he's been captured by the middle classes (who will now start to order him about).  like a good soldier svejk of the apocalypse he will cheerfully surrender to whatever pack of gun-toting fools arrives, talk shit, eat their food, do as little work as possible, and then look for a chance to desert.  we are supposed to dislike him, he is dirty, unreliable, uneducated and clearly welsh (growing up in the valleys horsemouth noticed that people were clearly not impressed to be represented by such a character, it's not so much that he approaches the garrulous stereotype of taffy so much as he is its utter embodiment).

mind you charles is welsh also. he claims to have been an architect but later he claims to have been a headhunter,  a recruitment consultant (or is that another of the characters?). charles is a man with a plan, but he is also a flawed character, he has understood the problem too quickly and thus cannot be used to dramatise it. he is not our hero.  

against the masculinist construction of history the women characters struggle but cannot yet win. 

greg (the engineer) is our hero - decisive, smart, practical (hell he can even play guitar and sing you a folk song), but he is trapped in an existential desire to be free, not to be tied down. he is also trapped in the feudal ages with diminishing supplies of canned food and the need to do lots of tedious farming. the entire focus of the series will shift from the commuter belt to the welsh borders near the monmouthshire canal. 

eventually his character will leave the series and have to be replaced by replacement greg.  replacement greg will meet the miners (reckoning with the ghosts of industry, solidarity and economic sabotage), go up to scotland and turn the power back on short circuiting the entire original premise of the show (the long hard march out of hobbes). 

the end. 

survivors constitutes an imaginary refounding of britain, a reckoning with the forces of collapse written precisely during that collapse (its villains trade unionists invited into the government for beer and sandwiches, yobboes roaming the streets, people who don't have RP accents and are 'not like us'). later, in blake's seven, terry nation will forge a strange mixture of flash gordon and thatcher's britain (and then once again the BBC will take the toys off him). 

survivors is a particularly british apocalypse (it is not weekend - JLG has stared into the abyss of may 68  and said yes). wells, jefferies, wyndham, ballard, nation, a dream of wessex, farage - it all falls.  its concern not so much how will humanity survive but how will the class system survive. 

horsemouth watched it again during the pandemic. he did not learn much from it. there are a few mentions of of the 1918 spanish flu pandemic, some consideration of the effect of the pandemic upon hospital staffing, the need to bury the bodies but really its focus is on the refounding. it helps that the music is so good. that the title sequence is so brilliantly constructed. that the first episode is nearly perfect. 

quite why he is watching it again now horsemouth is uncertain. 

yesterday horsemouth did a zoom meeting for the decarbonisation consortium (he was just having a panic that it was today and then remembered that it was yesterday and worried that he had missed it and then remembered that he had done it, phew).  once again not that good an intervention by yours truly (he's much better in writing than he is on his feet). 

he washed some windows. he went for a walk on the common (narrowly missing the gaggle of OAPs in the socially prescribed walking group). 

it is all going to come together well enough / hip-hop begins (sun, moon and stars)

11th august 1870 kilvert;

'the weather has become intensely hot again. there are such quantities of apricots this year and they all ripen so fast together that there is no knowing what to do with them.' 

11th august 1914 kafka;

'I imagine I have remained in paris, walk through it arm in arm with my uncle, pressed close to his side.'

11th august 2023 horsemouth;

yesterday went off ok (in the end). ok horsemouth speaks too soon (but he generally feels it like it is all going to come together well enough).  last night a phonecall from his brother - they are going to have to time things to make sure there is enough time for people to speak. 

all  this horsemouth wrote last night. kafka is beginning to make progress with his writing. soon he will write his shorter and lesser known works. kilvert will soon enough be back in clyro. 

'at one back-to-school party on august 11, 1973, DJ kool herc, a jamaican american DJ, spun hard funk tracks by singers like james brown. then, he did something a little different: he mixed drum breaks from different songs, creating the syncopated beats that would become the bedrock of hip hop....'

so today is the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop (allegedly). 

'they tell me hip-hop is 50 years old. to me, it’s older than the sun, moon and stars.' - un-named member of stetsasonic. 

horsemouth had stetsasonic's  june 1988 album in full gear, he got it at the same time he got EPMD's strictly business and added it to his copy of eric b and rakim's paid in full. he also had lots of cassette tapes (compilations done by friends) and a push-button mixtape done by rob (of rob and luna fame). 

it was a period of frantic innovation driven in part by technological advances (such as cassette tape), re-purposings of existing technologies (records), material poverty and political frustration. 

look how quickly it moves - by 1989 meat beat manifesto had recorded radio babylon and drum and bass was effectively born.   

today horsemouth has a meeting of the decarbonisation consortium to go to (on zoom) and he has some tasks related to his dad's funeral. above all he must get on and check the timings, scan some photos, write a eulogy etc. 

olafur elaisson valley takeover day two

Performance by Naima Karlsson on the occasion of the opening of Moki Cherry’s solo show at Galleri Nicolai Wallner from Galleri Nicolai Wallner on Vimeo.

an early performance of the olafur elaisson valley takeover on day two.

just a gentle mist this time (roadies with generators and smoke machines hidden in the trees).

and meanwhile naima karlsson performs at a moki cherry exhibit (at gallery nikolai wallner in copenhagen). the music is kind of like a cross between debussy and amina claudine myers (doing marion brown)).

darn it. phonecalls and emails have crossed with the celebrant for his dad's funeral. there's a need to get on with choosing photos and arranging the order of service etc. damn it. (sorry horsemouth was just getting a bit flustered there). 

yesterday a walk down to the  abbey to deliver some eggs.  

olafur eliasson valley takeover

olafur eliasson has taken over the southernmost end of the golden valley for one of his art pieces (working on a slightly larger scale than usual). he has pumped hundreds of tons of water vapour into the valley and then shone a giant light into it (from a giant crane atop the hill due east of horsemouth's parents' house).

a number of lighting effects are possible. 

horsemouth thinks it is a wonderful piece but he wonders where the audience will stand - up on the common maybe? perhaps they will pedestrianise the valley road with a cafe in the abbey. 

meanwhile there has been a documentary piece on the architect/ philosopher cedric price (his fun palace, his economic restructuring of the potteries as a peripatetic al fresco university etc.).

at a smaller scale of artwork (but for a longer duration) horsemouth was interested in the north pond hermit - a man who could survive at - 25C without a campfire. had he been self-sufficient the north pond hermit would have been a hero, but he supported himself by robbing the cabins so he's a villain and was promptly jailed on his capture.  there is a north pond hermit song (horsemouth should learn it). 

he read a little from gabriel mckee's pink beams of light from a god in the gutter an appreciation of the religious elements in philip k. dick's life and writing having watched an outlaw bookseller vid on ubik. 

today horsemouth should get on with the things he's not been getting on with. yesterday a visit to town to buy a suit and shoes. 

nothing from kafka now (have mercy upon us)

1870 kilvert is still back at langley burrell. news comes of the defeat of the french by the prussians 'france is reeling under two fearful blows' he reads in the standard.  

there will be nothing from kafka now until the 11th. horsemouth is reading ahead in the kafka. he is entering a difficult but productive period where he writes, he is not satisfied with his writing and it will not always come but he is doing it at least. he latches onto it as something like his salvation (except he is aware that he cannot be saved). 

horsemouth is up slightly later than usual (8am) having slept through solidly. yesterday they visited his father's body in the funeral home. he was dressed as he was usually dressed in the evenings to watch tv. horsemouth had to check he wasn't breathing. his forehead was looking distinguished (a lot like grandad in fact). 

horsemouth has to get on and write the stuff he intends to write. friday there is a meeting of the decarbonisation consortium on zoom. 

the cup of coffee he has made is great and very tasty. horsemouth will go and get some more and finish this off. in a bit horsemouth will go to water the tomatoes and cucumbers in the greenhouse. it looks like there will be lots of damsons this year. they may go into town to buy horsemouth a suit for the funeral and some shoes. 

today it's a rainy day (it's set in for the day). but the rest of the week may be decent.  

his discovery yesterday was an amina claudia myers track have mercy upon us - he had heard her playing organ on various bill laswell things and then he heard her poems for piano (the piano music of marion brown). howard is off to spain for a week or so - they may still meet up by zoom. 

'through debt alone' ('trivialities difficult to surpass...')

'zombie enterprises 

kept alive 

through debt alone

weakening economy/ hardening authoritarianism'

so horsemouth paraphrased an article on china's economy (now viewed as unlikely to surpass the US's economy). 'sounds a bit like here' said a friend. 'double tap' replied horsemouth, thinking of various zombie apocalypses, zombieland in particular.

he watched a little of dawn of the dead (the one with a shopping mall). 

nine years ago tim goldie put on musicians of bremen in only their second ever duo gig. he put them on together with a number of key improv people and the guitarist from a band called the hackney empire who had studied with folo graff of orchestre jazira). horsemouth (himself) had studied (briefly) with folo at jenako arts in hackney in about 1988 or so in the post-graceland african guitar rush.

horsemouth here shows you one of folo's key tunes - a ghanaian highlife take on the o'jay's for the love of money. you can really hear his talent and skill at layering guitars. he's since done instruction books in a number of african guitar styles.  (shit looks like I've got it wrong all these years he's actually a sierra leonean!).

horsemouth is debt free (it's one of the thrifty opinions he picked up from his yorkshire/scottish granny) but he's not absolutely averse to debt, to horsemouth you can borrow money if you can service the debt comfortably. but, of course, you can't tell this in advance because in borrowing the money you tie yourself more tightly to the fate of the overall economy. capitalism has a tendency to work it so that you can only keep your head above water by borrowing - and then they have you. (then you're a zombie).

even if you have your own money (you are a thrifty, valiant saver, a rational actor under capitalism), you are still tied to the fate of the wider economy (by means of inflation, devaluation etc.). on the whole it is a most chaotic and unsatisfactory life for the risk averse. 

horsemouth is beginning to realise quite how many of his life goals (read the russians, speak french, be ecological) in fact come from his father. it is a sobering realisation.

horsemouth ate a little salad from the garden (cucumbers, tomatoes, spring onions, basil, some of the spinach that had bolted), he had a plan to eat beetroot leaves (either salad or steamed) but his mum was shocked by the idea and threw them away quickly. the thing he should really do is thin down the carrots so that they can grow to a decent size. they are getting through his dad's potatoes at a rate of knots, they probably have enough beetroot (it is fortunate horsemouth has discovered a taste for beetroot).  horsemouth should think about things to plant for the remaining growing season.  

the key problem is that horsemouth knows nothing about growing food (this was always his dad's thing). 

his mum is talking about increasing the number of chickens (now that they have more room). 

on this day

kilvert is still back at langley burrell. boswell has left london (he is away travelling on the continent). kafka is writing (but it is not pleasing him).

'yesterday and today wrote four pages, trivialities difficult to surpass...'

there will be nothing from kafka now until the 11th.

it looks like it will be a decent enough day today (intermittently sunny). tomorrow looks rainy and shit. horsemouth has been out already (let out the dog, taken the milk delivery out to the garage, opened up the greenhouse, watered the plants, his mum is just off to let out the chickens). he's looking over to see if the bird feeder needs replenishing. 

yesterday was the village fête (horsemouth didn't go). he did go for two wanders up on the common (top AM, fussell bench and round PM) and sat outside reading. 

waiting for the barbarians (threefold cord)

'disgrace is his best imho... of the ones I've read...' opined a friend. 

disgrace is good (replied horsemouth) j.m. coetzee gives his disgraced academic a hard time and dumps everybody in the middle of an insoluble situation (the republic of south africa post apartheid). horsemouth has also read his book on animals, elizabeth costello, and waiting for the barbarians (but not for a long time).  

there is a concern for animals that runs through these books. the 'john coetzee' of summertime is a vegetarian (as is elizabeth costello). in disgrace the central character ends up taking the bodies of the stray dogs put to sleep to the incinerator week after week because he doesn't trust anyone else to dispose of their bodies with dignity and respect. 

in summertime coetzee makes his academic a fan of the cape town writer alex la guma. (horsemouth has la guma's somewhat neglected and a threefold cord somewhere).

yesterday a rainy day. horsemouth got nothing of importance done. today the discussion of the tasks for next week. 

six years ago horsemouth was reading laurie lee's as I walked out one midsummer morning. sten came out into the back garden to find evidence of horsemouth being there but no actual body - had he done a reggie perrin? had he been raptured? the back garden is currently rendered unusable (and indeed horsemouth is not there to use it) as is the living room (horsemouth guesses). he's back september for a bit (he guesses). 

kilvert is leaving cornwall (this morning of 1870) they miss the first train at 7.35 and have to return to tullimaar to wait for the 11.35. later he's back in langley burrell with his family in the evening. he's not back to clyro until about the 8th.  boswell has left london.  kafka (in 1914) has just watched a patriotic parade.

'what will be my fate as a writer is very simple. my talent for portraying my dreamlike inner life has thrust all other matters into the background...'

today it looks like it will be a good day. sunny and a pleasant temperature. 

blah blah paper versus digital/ blah blah records versus CDs/ blah blah CDs versus downloads

here's a torygraph article on journals. youngster versus oldster. you can probably winkle it out for free fit for a while but you know roughly what it will say. blah blah paper versus digital/ blah blah records versus CDs/ blah blah CDs versus downloads. 

horsemouth sides with the oldster (physical paper diaries) but he realises it's rubbish (he hardly writes anything in his physical paper diary. 

and of course that's not where he is typing this... (first facebook then blogger).

on this day

boswell has departed london (he'll be back). kilvert is saying goodbye to cornwall 'the last pleasant excursion. the last happy day.' kafka battles the landlord. 

thirteen quarto notebooks make up kafka's diaries. there are three travel diaries also and there are also the 'blue octavo notebooks' for working up literary ideas (though these sometimes occur in the diary proper also). 

the battle to retrieve boswell's papers from oblivion we have described before. kilvert's diaries were 'a collection of 22 old notebooks, variously shaped and bound' so plommer (his literary executor) tells us. 

some friends are releasing a book and a cassette. horsemouth has purchased it (he has no idea what he will do with the cassette).  the book will join the shelf of books published/ self-published by horsemouth's friends (minty's comics, max's photography, dave social control and robert lawson's poetry etc.).  another friend has purchased a sproatley smith CD - horsemouth is pleased to have been able to facilitate the connection. 

so endeth bandcamp friday for august. here it is rainy and grey in texas however books are spontaneously combusting (hence horsemouth's playing fahrenheit 451 a posthumous bob calvert/ hawkwind collaboration). 

today (judging by what he can see out of the window) horsemouth will not be up to a lot. (reading the torygraph and farting about on the internet horsemouth suspects).  in about half an hour breakfast, in the afternoon a beer with his mum and then a beer over zoom with howard. howard has bought a dulcimer (it sounds great). howard is currently engaged in recording more music and musicians themselves will reconvene at some point soon.  

over on the world at one yesterday about 22 minutes of the best discussion horsemouth has heard yet about net zero and decarbonisation. it is (as one respondent puts it) 'not all upside'. a lot of infrastructure (and infrastructure of fairly epic proportions) has to be built - all that new generating capacity has to be linked to the grid and the grid itself has to be vastly upgraded to handle the extra juice if people are going to switch from burning fossil fuels to using air-source heat pumps to heat their homes. these are not problems for horsemouth fortunately, all he has to do is get some insulation slapped in or on the houses and flats of the communal endeavour. 

the film, the book, the tie-in (bandcamp friday)

it is bandcamp friday (or it will be by the time you read this). horsemouth thinks you own everything by musicians of bremen already but if you don't you could buy some more of that. please download it when you do buy it (just in case it should vanish at some point in the future). failing that please consider buying something from one of horsemouth's many friends who make music - robert lawson's excellent lunaphone zither music from far off riogordo for example. 

on yesterday's walk on the common horsemouth was paused at the fussell bench (he had taken the kafka diaries out with him). there he met robert. robert was out walking his two dogs - an elderly  black lab and a (sort of) scottie of multiple provenance (called scruffy). they had a brief chat (about whether horsemouth was local, about the litterers of the common, about robert's belated discovery of walter scott, he had read ivanhoe first and was now reading kenilworth). 

it would probably go well with the young queen elizabeth drama series horsemouth is watching with his mum. (dastardly deeds and the young queen). 

there's plenty of john le carré about his parents' house too (that would probably go well with the philby, burgess, maclean thing that is on).  horsemouth is always on the look out for stuff he can watch with his mum that he will find interesting. 

4th august 1870 kilvert is still in cornwall but the holiday is coming to an end 'in the afternoon I walked about the grounds taking a farewell of all my favourite places.'  

4th august 1763 boswell is also taking leave 'this is now my last day in london before I set out on my travels, and makes a very important period in my journal.' he will be back (but he doesn't know it yet). 

kafka is not leavetaking. he has stuck and now has to deal with this. 'you've made your bed, now lie in it.' 

yesterday was hot and sunny. it looked like a storm was going to hit but it never quite did. yesterday evening horsemouth got the scanner and the laptop working together and scanned some photos of his dad that his mum had chosen. this afternoon he has to get on with phoning the relatives and letting them know about the funeral arrangements (his brother has done some emailing round for those with emails). he has shaved off his moustache (and succeeded in cutting his nose and had to put a plaster on it to stop it bleeding everywhere).  

horsemouth will probably get out for another walk as soon as he has had breakfast. he has been out to water the plants in the greenhouse already (the tomatoes are doing well, the cucumbers horsemouth is less interested in, there's a solitary basil plant that is rapidly going to seed). himself and his mum spent some time clearing where the broad beans and the first row of peas had been (preserving the occasional self-seeded tomato plant just in case). 

next friday horsemouth is in a meeting on zoom (hopefully) to roll the rock of decarbonisation up over the hill of bureaucracy. horsemouth has not reached the point where he thinks it is a lost cause. he always recognised that it was going to be difficult. 

the alternative is for the members of the communal endeavour to pay for all of it themselves out of their rent money. it would be good to get ahead of the curve of climate change and decarbonisation. last year's blazing summer and stinging heating bills over winter were good motivation. this years rainy summer and falling bills are perhaps less motivating.  but then the TV (record breaking heatwaves, forest fires, floods) should help. 

the bbc weather says possibly sunny this afternoon, rainy day (off and on) saturday, possibly decent sunday and monday. horsemouth will endeavour to get out for a wander this morning and get on with various tasks in the afternoon. 

horsemouth will now have to find something else to read

3rd august 1914. kafka is staying in his sister's house. he's depressed. he was going to be married (but not any more). 

3rd august 1763. things are going better for boswell 'I should have mentioned that on monday night coming up the strand, I was tapped on the shoulder by a fine fresh lass...'

1870 and kilvert is still down in cornwall (and having so much fun he does not make diary entries, or at least ones his editor thinks worth recalling). 

ok so horsemouth's fence appears still to be standing (no break ins by the sheep, no break outs by the chickens). a greyish morning (but difficult to tell). bbc weather reckons rain later (from midday) possibly a decent tomorrow. horsemouth may try getting out for a quick walk early. 

horsemouth has found two talking heads discussing carlo levi's christ stopped at eboli. they are showing the 4 hour italian tv version and there's an exhibition. the man who did the subtitles talks - if it was dialect they left it untranslated so as not to crowd the screen and hide the images and so as to show carlo levi's own perplexity, as a man of the north he cannot necessarily understand what is being said by the locals much of the time.

the second guy does a great job of situating levi politically. it's obvious that he's a part of some group of leftists, but the question is which particular lot (if that matters). 

a chunk of one of horsemouth's teeth has snapped and fallen out. fortunately it seems without any particular pain or infection. at some point horsemouth is going to have to get that bit of his mouth sorted (there are other niggling health things he is going to have to pay attention to). he has been doing odd bits of cycling on the exercise bike and (of course) going for regular walks up on the common (or down into the village if his mum has an errand that needs running). 

having finished the coetzee horsemouth will now have to find something else to read. there are brod's comments on the chronology of kafka.  

today a visit to the garage to pick up the hereford times (and a few days back supply of the daily torygraph). horsemouth's dad was very keen on the crossword (and to be frank the politics of it). 

films, gigs, books, events july 2023

films

- i vampiri (1957) co-directed by mario bava

- the mad executioners (1963)

- bookpilled/ thrift-a-life live from mexico, spain speaks live from madrid and portugal, novara media (lots)

- the sixth commandment (TV)

- a daniel lewis philby, burgess, maclean thing (TV)

- a.n.other 'queen elizabeth - the early years' thing (TV)

- a youngster reviews lampedusa's the professor and the siren

- jem bendell in retreat in indonesia (ecological doomers)

- throwing shade robbie basho special (again)

- iris murdoch interviewed (paris review interview series)

- various tommy bolin clips

- betty wright 'shoorah! shoorah!', lata mangeshkar 'lag ja gale' elgar 'nimrod'.

books

- london journals (james boswell), kilvert's diaries (william plomer ed. and intro), the diaries of franz kafka (ed. max brod, paul klee cover)

- paris review article on kafka's diaries

- summertime (j.m. coetzee) begins with journal entries

- the rubiayat of omar khayyam (fitzgerald 'translation')

- essay 'rereading jacques attali's bruits' (eric drott, 2015, critical inquiry) and subsequently horsemouth's piece on attali 'lost in translation' (metamute, 9 September 2004)

- the seductions of declinism by william davies, LRB in 2022

- brief investigation of martin wong

- a little of terry eagleton's introduction to pierre macherey's theory of literary production.

- NLR 142 such as is free, NLR sidecar and LRB blogs and podcasts as noted.

- quietus magazine the releases of the year so far.

- philip leider (how I spent my summer holidays - artforum1970)

- suffragette fascists: emmeline pankhurst and her right-wing followers (simon webb) reviews and introduction (don't buy it)

- the revolution is inside by lawrence kumpf and magnus nygren

- on don and moki cherry's collaborations, from blank forms 06: organic music societies.

gigs none (fail to go to triple negative gig)

events

death of my father after a short illness, spanish elections, islamic new year, everything is going to be alright day, two sevens clash, catsitting in walthamstow, death of jane birkin, anniversaries of various french pharoah sanders' gigs, horsemouth opens up and closes the abbey, anniversary of horsemouth's gig at the beehive 2017.

'to live your life is not as simple as to cross a field'

'2 august. germany has declared war on russia - swimming in the afternoon.' - franz kafka.  

'to live your life is not as simple as to cross a field.' - old russian proverb, quoted in a poem from doctor zhivago by boris pasternak. 

'tuesday 2 august. I should have mentioned yesterday that I dined with coutts, where we were very merry. friday the fifth of this month is now fixed as the day of my departure.' - boswell's london journal 1762- 1763. 

horsemouth is up early. the weather is good out there. boswell will soon be leaving london (he is off on his travels). he will be back. 

horsemouth is on the hunt for poetry and readings and suchlike for his dad's memorial service. his dad had taken to carrying around a copy of the rubaiyat in the truck, there will be something in there, or there will be something in dr. zhivago. 

today horsemouth and his mum go to get the car insured and drop off some clothes for his father to wear in the coffin with the funeral home. yesterday they did the big shop at TESCOs - horsemouth endeavoured to make sure they ordered everything in bulk so as to reduce the number of needed social interactions. this afternoon the man who puts the lawnmowers and strimmers round will come so that he and mum can agree what needs to be done. thursday his mum will handover the tupperware for the change and some table-cloths to assist with the village fête on sunday (but will not be attending). 

horsemouth has to do another round of contacting friends and relatives soon, 

remind horsemouth he's got to post his monthly read, watched, gigs been to list here. 

today's music is paul bley and annette peacock's improvisie.

horsemouth was also taken by an account of patti smith's early days in new york focusing on the bookshops she (or robert mapplethorpe) worked at, brentano's (mid-town and university place), argosy books and, where she worked for a number of years, scribner's bookstore. 

last night a program on achieving net zero/ decarbonisation by 2050 it is, of course, a major challenge (and probably will not be enough).  the government's solution seems to be more nuclear power and more giant cracking plants to produce hydrogen from oil (so it's carbon neutral at point of use but not necessarily in the production of it). the program ably summed up the problems with decarbonising the 15% of UK emissions that come from heating and lighting the housing stock (and then there's the 25% that is transport).  

undated fragment - an idea for a story (lammas day)

'undated fragment.

an idea for a story.

a man, a writer, keeps a diary. in it he notes down thoughts, ideas, significant occurrences.' -  j.m. coetzee, summertime.

horsemouth has just finished summertime by j.m. coetzee (dew but it's grim). there is, of course, a joke here (of the type milan kundera would have appreciated), that the academic in the book is interviewing all 'john coetzee's friends and acquaintances rather than reading his poetry, or diaries or letters. but of course the second layer of the joke is that john coetzee is not (quite) the same as j.m. coetzee. 

bookpilled/ thrift-a-life's escape to mexico seems to be going well (here he is telling us about the 12 best books he's read in the year the man in the high castle, ice, etc. it must be good to have all these books ahead of you). 

'1 August. went to the train to see K off. relatives everywhere in the office. would like to go to valli's.' kafka's war is progressing. he seems to be home back in prague. 

'I have nothing more to record but that dempster and I went upon the thames and saw the watermen row for doggett's badge and other prizes. we saw most excellent sport...' boswell, 1st august 1763. 

from here on in reading the diary entry would require horsemouth to cut the page. he has done it but that is the end of the entry for august 1st. as a bonus he now knows how the diary of boswell's first visit to london will end (and it will end soon). 

'monday. lammas day.

the morning opened with a dense sea fog which turned to great heat during the day close oppressive and sultry...' kilvert is down in cornwall having a whale of a time. pretty girls, poetry, photograph albums, expeditions to tintagel etc. 

here in the wilds of herefordshire it looks like a nice day. some decent sunshine. it is lammas day when the landowners have to be paid and various common land rights can be asserted. in hackney horsemouth thinks there is a beating of the bounds. today the celebrant visits. tomorrow a visit to tescos.