'different days in a different city' (in praise of giving up)

'how time flies; another ten days and I have achieved nothing. it doesn't come off. a page now and then is successful, but I can't keep it up, the next day I am powerless.' - franz kafka, diaries, 11th march 1915.

'I ought perhaps to have put in my will that they should all be burned at my death.' - antonia white, on her diaries, from a diary entry made 24th june 1964.

it is monday again. well... 

actually horsemouth writes this on the sunday. 

he is live from the seaside towns. by the time you read this he will have been in the seaside towns for ten days and once again he must admit that the problem is less his circumstances than himself. 

it is a rainy grey and horrible day (he supposes it would be no better in the countryside. indeed bbc weather assures him that there is little to choose between them).  he is at least up the antonia white diaries (powerscroft road book-box you have redeemed yourself). 

saturday night horsemouth played round minty and jacqueline's. he took the laramie and tuned it standard (not an ideal solution) and borrowed other people's guitars when they weren't in use. minty and jacqueline sang, himself and morven sang, morven sang, various people percussed (lisa and sorry-I-didn't catch your name of walthamstow). horsemouth stayed out late - he only drank two bottles of beer and a glass of red but he still feels underwhelming this morning, ok the day has already shifted into afternoon. he has an invite up to the park jams. 

today we will have the result of the portuguese elections. 

now the story of portugal is not the predictable europe-wide rise of the far right or of populist candidates but instead the story of bloco de esquerda and the geringonca. horsemouth hasn't checked the NLR or the LRB recently. in the LRB a piece about  tom verlaine's book and record collections. 

'... they’re a reminder of different days in a different city, where the bookstores and record stores stayed open late, and you could poke around in them even after a night out at CBGB, and the stuff that you’d get there was cheap, and the space that you needed to store it was cheap, and, even if you worked in a bookstore, you could afford an offset press and start your own poetry imprint, or find a loft space in soho and start your own band.' 

elsewhere on the LRB a discussion of giving up (and in some ways writer's block).  

in a bit horsemouth goes for a wander round the marshes with TG. we will see how lively he feels after this.