horsemouth had not noticed that he hadn't reviewed april (ah well). he's up late but we are in those peculiar dead days between christmas and new year (to be followed by the dead days of january).
thinking about it horsemouth has good positive stuff he needs to be getting on with (round the decarbonisation for example). (two rabbits in the field, pied woodpecker on the bird feeder).
he repurposes a quote from samuel beckett 'to end yet again'. horsemouth will review the start of the year and the end (the middle he will probably leave). he has a number of quotes cued up and ready to go for december 31st and january 1st. he will do a books read and films watched list for december.
he has read some of john michell's at the centre of the world (polar symbolism discovered in celtic, norse and other ritualised landscapes) and baudelaire's intimate journals. he watched (most of) a film on aretha franklin (respect).
his stomach feels like it is his (again).
review of the year - the 'uaries', and march
january
john (from porto) was over. other than their usual run over to walthamstow they didn't get up to very much. in the sally army horsemouth bought a hard guitar case (a rockcase by warwick) and a soft padded gig bag (by rosetti).
horsemouth was not (physically) writing very much in his diaries and notebooks. he'd started on his read, listened to, visited list for january. he'd made some notes on his diet and on his walking. the little black notebook has not quite made it up into the diaries and notebooks box yet, the 2023 day a page did not yet feel natural and inevitable. horsemouth was writing it in cheap biro.
horsemouth saw triple negative at cafe OTO. he saw enza, darsavini (newly relocated to west london), john cunningman, john and sarah, TG, demetra, but there were loads of others. and then of course there was matthew and anya and denis.
a friday 13th.
horsemouth was beset by memories of his failings (this is because he hasn't dealt with them). of course the sooner you deal with them the sooner you are free of them.
horsemouth went a number of times to play guitar with catastro/FILLE (about an 8km walk there and back). they played a number of pieces through and came up with a plan to go and play an open mic night. (in the end they didn't do this).
february
a picture appeared to show horsemouth dozing in a private members club while wearing a suit and leather shoes. dozing and reminiscing and drinking a glass of claret. (of course this photo was faked up in photoshop).
groundhog day (once we were sacred bears) imbolc - kind of the midway point between winter solstice and spring equinox (pulled a week or so out of place to align it with the start of the month) the point when one can allow ones-self some hope. if not quite out of the depths of winter at least up into the shallows. at the weekend some sacred cat-sitting.
while horsemouth was up at aldi's punxsutawney phil (the famous groundhog) made his prognostication. six weeks more of winter it was.
your favourite horsemouth song? probably one of the early funny ones.
horsemouth has got some pens so he can make a note of stuff (so he has stuff to mind when he comes to type this in).
horsemouth loves cities because more people can meet and interact and live their best lives. they can move around by means of public transport and bicycles (reducing transportation carbon emissions). trees can be planted to make the streets shadier in summer, there can be allotments and parks. because there is more money up and walking around it is possible for poorer artistic people to make a living - hence horsemouth is interested in increasing the number of members of the communal endeavour (poor artistic types who want to live in the city).
horsemouth is making a number of belated discoveries. the first one is that he is an old man of nearly 60. the photos show him this.
in truth horsemouth suffers from body dysmorphia - he had always assumed he was going to stay at about 30 forever. for a long time he has been positively celebratory about the (not quite imminent) arrival of his bus pass (and later on his state pension) - now he regards it with the warmth usually reserved for the sudden arrival of a tombstone.
that said, the ability to contemplate being able to afford stopping working deeply appeals to horsemouth.
the second unfortunate discovery he is making is that many people are ahead of him in this race to leave the planet, not just random celebrities or influential musicians but people he knows.
horsemouth finds every day in the sun genuinely delightful (despite its sadness). he can't understand wanting to check out early and this is horsemouth saying this.(mad crazed difficult person that he is).
‘the only thing that matters in life is collecting one’s thoughts’ - italo svevo
march
horsemouth was gradually returning to heath from the lands of sickness. the first months of the year were rubbish in terms of his health.
'the only memoirs of any interest have been those written by indiscreet individuals' - edmond de goncourt
horsemouth (as a diarist) is very discrete. so much so in fact that he will not give you the proper names of things. this circumlocution perhaps began as a security procedure (back when horsemouth was paranoid. legitimately paranoid perhaps. but paranoid none the less). it became a game in misdirection (where does horsemouth live? the seaside towns). above all horsemouth is a fabulist who would rather live in a world of fiction (and is prepared to make some efforts to get himself there).
horsemouth's memoirs will therefore not have the ring of truth, they will not be of interest to later historians.
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