Monday 4 November 2024

'come and reminisce if you think you're old enough'

'my journal is that of me which would else spill over and run to waste, gleanings from the field which in action I reap.'  - h.d. thoreau, writer's journal, 8th february 1841.

horsemouth  is still feeling out of sorts. he went out for a wander on the common but was soon back. the sheep are back in the field (he'll see if his mum mentions it).  today (at midday) a decarbonisation meeting on zoom. 

'I remember a corner in brescia... a church in verona...' 

franz kafka, diaries, 4th november 1915. 

tomorrow an interesting day for franz (but today less so). 

horsemouth is up and reminiscing about the deptford free festival fired up by two old dudes discussing it. there was a whole scene down there. back to the planet were the main band to come out of it (horsemouth opines).  dave (mr.social control) played there loads. the guy mentions ruff,ruff, and ready (who horsemouth thought were excellent), they later split to become fat dinosaur and the co-creators. (the co-creators were wonderful). 

the guys also do the london rave and hip-hop scenes (so horsemouth will be returning to it). 

horsemouth is told one of the old punk bands opens with the terrace chant of 'come and have a go if you think you're hard enough' changed into 'come and reminisce if you think you're old enough'.



Sunday 3 November 2024

two wonderful sisters, three wonderful sisters...

'went about a great deal lately. fewer headaches...' 

- franz kafka, diaries, 3rd november 2015. 

kafka is going about with miss r. and  'the two wonderful sisters esther and tilka; they are like the contrast between a light on and a light off. tilka especially is beautiful; olive-brown, lowered, curving eyelids, heart of asia ..'  

and yet he dreams of esther.  

'half asleep I had a long vision of esther, who, with the passion she impresses me as having or everything spiritual, had the knot of a rope firmly between her teeth and swung energetically back and forth in the empty room like the clapper in a bell (a film poster I remember).'

we are with kafka until the 6th. we are back with edmond de goncourt on the 7th and kilvert on the 8th. 

horsemouth was reading a review of love's work (and gillian rose's other works) and who should appear in it but rahel varnhagen (as earlier written about by hannah arendt). 

in some ways there is a repeat of thoreau's admonition from yesterday;

'we should not endeavour coolly to  analyse our thoughts, but, keeping the pen even and parallel with the current, make an accurate transcript of them.' in some ways rahel is praised by arendt for doing this, but she is also called a schlemihl, a shadow, an unfortunate. 

there's a lot here and horsemouth is not going to struggle with it first thing (once upon a time he 'understood'  a lot of this, or at least he could swim in that pool). 

NTS has put out a compilation of instrumental guitar, mapping out the european analogues of the american primitive guitar movement. there was a show on NTS as well

Saturday 2 November 2024

the pen (even and parallel with the current)

 diaries notices

- only one kilvert diary entry for the next two weeks (1870)

- only one entry from edmond de goncourt (1870) also

- four days solid of the kafka diary (and then about two weeks of radio silence) (1915)

- thoreau has quite a lot to say (but it's not very date specific)

- similarly with john clare's letters and sinyavsky's letters to his wife.

'reintroducing the freeze on local housing allowance is deeply disappointing for the hundreds of thousands of families struggling in temporary housing or facing eviction..' - the women’s budget group thinktank.

from here on in a written in the morning blogpost.

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'we should not endeavour coolly to  analyse our thoughts, but, keeping the pen even and parallel with the current, make an accurate transcript of them.' - h.d. thoreau, a writer's journal, 7th march 1838. 

yesterday was a difficult day. horsemouth was slightly run down and grumpy after thursday evening. there was a zoom call with howard but horsemouth was still on the tea. horsemouth's mum seemed moody as well. the new roof is on the wood shed. the washing machine repairman is coming on the 8th. horsemouth and his mum still have a full-ish tank of oil against the winter. 

today he starts the day (at least) a bit more cheerful. 

monday a meeting with the RISE team supporting applications for the government's decarbonisation funds. horsemouth does hope he can get it up and over the finishing line this time. any money the government can kick in leaves the communal endeavour with more money in its pocket to do the next stages of decarbonisation. of course the government money would come with various strings attached (PAS 2035, fabric first approach).  


Friday 1 November 2024

it's all go in grosmont

as they entered the pub don't fear the reaper came on. the lad with the white face (who had earlier been sitting stock still on the banking opposite) was there. earlier some ghosts had been projected on a wall. later still the shanty singers came in. 

it's all go in grosmont

earlier horsemouth had been directed to the church by a group of children who were prowling around in the dark, it was a narrow climb up the bell tower to the ringing room. the ringing room was very nicely appointed (carpeted, comfy chairs). the ceiling was comparatively low, the ropes vanished up into the ceiling. 

the owl service have released a new ep including a re-imaginings of the theme to fulci's zombie flesh eaters and various other excellently synthy horror movies. truly it was a golden age for this sort of stuff

the film has come back from being developed  from howard's camera from the debrief session in his back garden round about august 25th/ 26th.  

here we see horsemouth with don and moki cherry's organic music societies. (horsemouth has cropped this photo from howard's original).

horsemouth forgets what point he was trying to make with these photos. 

horsemouth wakes up not tip-top but mercifully hangover free. today is grey-ish day (but hopefully rain free).