suite for horsemouth (every film can be read as its own the making of)

'if all time is eternally present, all time is unredeemable...' 

- t.s.eliot, burnt norton from the four quartets.

adam thirlwell is exercised by barbara loden’s movie wanda (1970) and by nathalie léger’s  2012 book on wanda and loden,  suite for barbara loden, where she describes the film as 'a woman telling her own story through that of another woman’. for thirlwell it is not just a confusion of actress and role but also a confusion between writing and cinema.

this film also fascinates anna backman rogers  in her still life: notes on barbara loden's wanda (1970) (it is a film that has fascinated lots of women). 

that every film can be read as its own the making of. every film is itself already doubled in time - between the moment at which it was filmed and the moment at which it was watched. and yet what was filmed was filmed  - it is (to some extent, but only some extent) fixed. these are the kind of debates you can find in evan eisenberg's the recording angel or in the uncanny doublings of hillel schwartz's the culture of the copy.

'what are you going to do now?'

'we'll see what happens.'  

(based an a reported dialogue between elia kazan, the husband of barbara loden, and barbara loden during the making of the film. michel ciment, entretien avec barbara loden, in positif, april 1975, p.34.)

that is what cannot happen when a  film is watched. with a film only one shot can come next. only one thing can happen next. (is that true?). 

'footfalls echo in the memory

down the passage which we did not take

towards the door we never opened

into the rose-garden...' 

- t.s.eliot, burnt norton from the four quartets.

yesterday horsemouth replaced a rotted fencepost (it was causing the fence round the garden to sag and his mother had remarked upon it). what a whole fencepost horsemouth? yes a whole one. he unscrewed the fence panels from it, pulled out the old post, dug out the rotted wood of the previous fence post from below the ground and put in a new metal foot for it.  he found a fencepost of the right size in the garage and put it in. he put the fence panels back in place (with some judicious tapping and shoving and bodging). 

unaccustomed as he is to physical labour this has left his with a strained muscle in his shoulder.

he did the afternoon run to the abbey with his mum and went for a quick 45 minute walk round the common. to get in his 10 000 steps, four and a half miles, hour and a half of walking he needs to find a better route.