this record (boho dance) (rubbish bin reminder)

 

'this record is a total work conceived graphically, musically, lyrically and accidentally 

– as a whole... 

the whole unfolded like a mystery... 

it is not my intention to unravel that mystery for anyone.' 

- joni mitchell, sleevenotes to the hissing of the summer lawns (1975) 

it is the afternoon of wednesday the 1st of may and the mist has at last cleared and the sun is finally shining. horsemouth has delivered the eggs and taken the rubbish bin down to the bottom of the drive. (he has put up more bamboo canes for the broad beans (whenever they should need them) and moved a bench (at his mother's insistence). 

he sat out and read owen hatherley's account of a visit to hamburg (the white review, no.12.) and a short story by álvaro enrigue about a samurai in mexico at the time of new spain (was this a thing? or is it some kind of steampunk game?). apparently it was a thing.

'his short story ‘a samurai sees the sunrise in acapulco’ (tr. rahul bery)... expands on a period in the 1600s when japanese merchant ships, guarded by samurai warriors, docked in mexico...' 

danse bohémienne is one of debussy's first compositions, written at the age of 18. it's kind of dull and too busy at the same time. it's difficult to tell from bad debussy why he is so good. he has been composer of the week on radio 4 but they have a knack for playing what is bad by him, what is rare (or unfinished) rather than what is good (too many wailing sopranos). there's a tendency to take the orchestral and sung pieces over the piano pieces. 

we have only just reached deux arabesques and prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (when it begins to get good, you can hear things from the first arabesque being recycled later).  

joni mitchell's boho dance she declares to be named after a 'tom wolfe-ism' lifted from the book 'the painted word' on the art world.   

'...the ritual has two phases: (1) the boho dance, in which the artist shows his stuff within the circles, coteries, movements, isms, of the home neighborhood, bohemia itself, as if he doesn't care about anything else; as if, in fact, he has a knife in his teeth against the fashionable world uptown. (2) the consummation, in which culterati from that very same world, le monde, scout the various new movements and new artists of bohemia, select those who seem the most exciting, original, important, by whatever standards -- and shower them with all the rewards of celebrity.'

perhaps this is what makes horsemouth think of joni as joan didion in song? the dryness, the coldness, the observation. 

today is the second of may - in madrid in 1808 the peninsular war is about to turn. the people rise up against the napoleonic occupiers and the francophile ruling class. it inaugurates bloody years of guerrilla war in spain (as chronicled by goya in his prints los desastres de la guerra). 

today a rainy morning. in a bit horsemouth will go out and check on the state of the bins.