books, films, gigs, events march 2025

books 

- diaries (edmond de goncourt, kilvert, thoreau, fernando pessoa)

- we're into endgame by benedict seymour, metamute 

-  tales of unease by sir arthur conan doyle

- stuff on substack 

- archive anxiety (art review)

-  john stewart collis, down to earth

-  'bifo' befardi, quit everything (excerpt)

- FT on global warming and climate change

- rent cap proposal

-  colonel chabert by balzac 

- graveyard and ballroom (howard slater)

- GDN mipim, housing and heating stuff in general

- ted gioia music business healthy again. really? (substack)

- review of paul preciado's dysphoria mundi (art review) and follow up

- LRB, nlr, nlr sidecar

films

- ian christie documentary on 'the new babylon' (1929 russian silent film about the 1871 paris commune directed by grigori kozintsev and leonid trauberg. 

- outlaw bookseller, bookpilled

- john f. szwed, cosmic scholar: the life of harry smith (presentation)

- andy edwards, rick beato, 

- stick in the wheel interviewed by max reinhardt 

- uncanny landscape (justin hopper) interview with stick in the wheel 

- poem in a straight line (fernando pessoa)

- R4  a radio show from september 2023 on heatwaves in the south of europe

- a review of one of PKDs non-science fiction novels

- a bbc hereford and worcester show about mike oldfield's old house where he recorded hergest ridge

- martin scorsese's music documentary about bob dylan

- the robbie basho listening party (bandcamp)

- two vids by jeremy gilbert (LRB and self-promotion) 

gigs none

events

'our revels now are ended'

'it is my design to recount the singular adventures of my life. some of them have been strange and some beautiful. in bringing them back to memory it is doubtful whether I have not dreamt them.' 

- anatole france, at the sign of the reine pédauque. 

the last ever points of view

howard jacobson presents it. he talks about notebooks/ essays/ a voice (broadcast).

did he know? did he know it was going to be the last?

the title? 'our revels now are ended' 

that gavin barwell is on the radio talking about the house building targets. horsemouth has just turned it off in disgust.

(but he will have to listen to it again in a minute).  

like any of the housing ministers from that era (pickles the unfunny clown for example) he's the real murderer of the 72 dead of grenfell - on his watch the failure to learn the lessons of the lakanal house fire and implement the necessary changes was continued. 

horsemouth is in favour of building more housing but it is only in part a shortage of housing problem, it is in many more ways an affordability problem, a problem of low wages and low benefits, a problem of multiple poverties. 

ok let's try barwell again. 

barwell knows all this. 

he's making sense (ah. he's a  non-executive director of clarion, the largest housing association in the country). his talking about getting rent certainty for housing associations (following on from michael gove's 5% plus inflation effective reduction in real terms in HA rents (and thus HA incomes). barwell says this was during the cost of living crisis but really gove's aim was to lower the housing benefit bill. 

to horsemouth barwell always looks like those oriental masks from brazil by terry gilliam. 

'our revels now are ended. these our actors,

as I foretold you, were all spirits and

are melted into air, into thin air;

and, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

the cloud-capped tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,

the solemn temples, the great globe itself,

yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

and, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

leave not a rack behind...' 

il faut cultiver notre jardin

well it's a nice day here. there was a plan to get the bus into the village and load up on provisions (but horsemouth always thought it was a bit foolish). 

he's been out in the garden and the greenhouse attempting to plant things. so far only the nasturtiums (13 in all) have come up (and the hellebore have survived being potted out). horsemouth is not seeing any sign of anything else yet. 

if it all works out he's put in half a row of peas, and some spring onion and parsnip seeds in the lower raised bed (now to see if they come up). horsemouth is adopting a plant-it-and-see strategy.  having taken the time to read the self-sufficiency guide more closely he's now soaking the remainder of the peas before planting them. 

for the afternoon shift he tried separating out a grown hellebore (in a pot) from some kind of a woody shrub (also in the same pot). this he could have done while listening to the 1 o'clock news (except he couldn't because it was a saturday). 

at some point horsemouth had an exploratory dig in the old garden to see what happened to the potatoes they didn't lift last year. (they are there still but tiny). 

in the evening a zoom call with howard - lots of old photos, a cat visit,  howard has been listening to autechre. he has a week to go and then it's half term for two weeks (when he hopes to get some music done). when he goes back it's exam weeks. 

here a beautiful morning. horsemouth was up at what claimed to be 7.30 (but was in fact 6.30). it will make staying up late to watch things easier (at least temporarily). 

last night he watched sapphire and steel: escape through a crack in time.  time breaks in (a malevolent force). how is a house built (from the cellar up). is the roof really raised last? 

'a ruling class which is searching for new ways of organising the economy (but can't find it).'

it starts with stuff on leftism in norway but then (about 20 minutes in) it moves onto the notion of crisis. (as influenced by mandel and poulantzas)

capitalism produces crisis - ok so it's weak because it's always falling into crisis, 

but crisis (re)produces capitalism - so it's strong, flexible. 

polycrisis - suddenly, in 2020, crisis becomes much more apparent, the ruling class start talking about it a lot.

'a ruling class which  is searching for new ways of organising the economy (but can't find it).'

unlike the 20th century (long hegemonic eras) the crisis re-appears with shocking regularity now, every 10 years or so. 

of course an economic crisis does not always become a political crisis. 

this is pretty much how horsemouth thinks about it. people expected in 2008 that the financial crisis (aka. the great depression) would cause a backlash against , consolidate resistance and possibly defeat the measures that the state and capitalism itself was going to introduce.

instead we have had a decade and a half of defeat and (at the moment) that looks like continuing. 

a useful book at this point may be hannah proctor's burnout: the emotional experience of political defeat (2024). 

here (in the wilds) a beautiful morning. 

symmetrical risk (hanging on and praying for growth)

'the powers that be are facing symmetrical risks, on the one hand they are scared of rudely awakening the population to the scale and stakes of the cuts, on the other hand, of frightening capital – i.e. themselves - with the scale and stakes of the crisis...'

- from we're into endgame by benedict seymour,  published 14th october 2010.

'often I can give the truest and most interesting account of any adventure I have had after years have elapsed, for then I am not confused, only the most significant facts surviving in my memory. indeed all that continues to interest me after such a lapse of time is sure to be pertinent and I may safely record all that I remember.' - thoreau, diary, 28th march 1857. 

of course when ben  wrote this what we were into (really) was the corporal clegg (cameron/ clegg) government. this is when the real author of our misfortunes, george osborne, got his start. thence we were off into the land of austerity and the lost decade (well the lost last 15 years really). a decade when borrowing costs were low and the economy could have been rebuilt.

but those days are now over. 

and here we are going down the long dark tunnel of austerity once again (as if no one learned anything from the last go around). 

for this time we are much further on in the process of decomposition. 

the assumption is that there is low hanging fruit to pick (there may not be).

now what we seem to be seeing is labour taking its economic cues from the OBR and announcing the cuts loudly and all in one go (to show loyal to the financial markets) - but maybe this is just the beginning of the cuts process, rather than stealth it in (as in the corporal clegg era), now the intention is to go hard from the start pleading the pressure (and unpredictability) of international events. 

it may be that the strategy is no more than hanging on and praying for growth. 

eventually (dialectically) come tax rises (we move round one dinner place in the triangle of state finances - tax, cut, borrow) - but tax rises on whom? they cannot be applied (like the increase on employers national insurance contributions) upon the working part of the population (because that would slow down growth even more). 

so where will we be by 2030?

older (for sure)

poorer (almost certainly)

paying more for gas, electricity, water and sewerage? (almost certainly)

paying more tax on whatever economic activity remains (almost certainly)

yesterday horsemouth was in yet another meeting - after he went for a walk on the common to clear his head. later he went bell-ringing (which is making progress). today a perfectly decent morning. horsemouth has sent in an email to check that various cosas or coisas are on track (hopefully they are). 

thoreau and his attempt to obtain a stereoscopic vision of events by means of writing ('this is not... a record collection')

'I would fain make two reports in my journal, first the incident and observations of today; and by tomorrow I review the same and record what was omitted before, which will often be the most significant and poetic part...'  - thoreau, journal, 27th march 1857. 

thoreau and his attempt to obtain a stereoscopic vision of events by means of writing. 

horsemouth was just grumpy. 

having done a meeting (for the shhh you know what) (which went well) he was tempted by his mum to have a beer (which he did). they sat out briefly in the evening sun. then horsemouth dealt with the fuzzy head. but now he's feeling tense and grumpy - he has disrupted the usual flow of the central heating and now he worries that it isn't coming on. ok fairplay it has come on (so no need to worry about that). 

time told if he was being paranoid or correct. he was being paranoid.  

there he just went to check if the wounded chicken was ok - in a little bit he'll go downstairs and dry up the washing up. 

allegedly there's a modern gothic horror movie on at 9 on film4. horsemouth will give it a go. despite an engaging lead it's a turkey. 

'this, despite appearances, is not a record collection. I prefer to call it an accumulation of records. a collection implies some kind of organising principle and this doesn't have that. these records are just records that, if you like, just followed me home over the years..'  

advert goldmine, the music collector's magazine, featuring the guy who used to present the old grey whistle test (but not whispering bob, mark ellen? no. david hepworth).

he  discovers an album by laraaji he bought 45 years ago, he has never played it, he plays it, it is wonderful. (about 20 mins in. skip the rest they are still bloody annoying)

horsemouth is contemplating how to get his records home (and his books, dear god his books). 

the AGM is coming up (end of april) as usual horsemouth is dreading it. there's the rent rise, there's the accounts and now there'll be discussion of the thing. but horsemouth will survive, it will soon be over, he will soon be up the pub. 

'jack of diamonds...' (I'll-see-you-when-I-see-you)

diaries

there's nothing from kafka until 19th april 1916 in keeping with horsemouth's diary laws. he can't publish a kafka diary entry until that one (so that we are moving through kafka's inertia and writer's block at the speed that he is. wishing that we were in the earlier chapters where he was actually writing the stories that would make him famous etc.)

five years ago horsemouth was first introduced to remote working (and shortly thereafter he was out of the workforce). as he remarked to ben it was the paying into a pension that did it, no maybe it was covid.

'      oh, wonder!

how many goodly creatures are there here!

how beauteous mankind is! o brave new world,

that has such people in ’t!'

true horsemouth has derived great compensation from the messaging apps - last night a chat with ben (after another friend vanished), there's the regular zoom beers with howard etc. other friendships are pretty much on the I'll-see-you-when-I-see-you basis. 

yesterday instead of going for a wander on the common horsemouth went down behind the abbey and across the valley to the dore river and then up along it.

a bridge (largely used by farm animals) across the dore had collapsed (severing a foot path), similarly the banking alongside the river had been eroded making using the main footpath difficult. 

horsemouth turned back just before he reached the orchard. 

further along are the abbey dore workshouses. there has even been a book about them by a local historian. 

--------------------------

it's a greyish morning (but yesterday didn't turn out so bad). horsemouth awakes beset by memories (get away from me you mutts). 

still it means he can have coffee. 

online horsemouth discovered a rory gallagher album of (mostly) acoustic guitar songs. some of them were duets - with bert jansch, with martin carthy. here we have rory solo doing the cuckoo. 

'jack of diamonds

jack of diamonds

you're the cruelest 

card I know...'

'though you may think you have said all...'

'the afternoon had been stormy but it cleared towards sunset.' - kilvert's diary, 14th march 1871. 

horsemouth should probably return to his diary cormorant ways - it strikes him now that he hasn't done it for a while - there was the kafka, the thoreau, the kilvert, edmond de goncourt, and indeed there were his own past exploits (well some of them anyway).  

with the edmond de goncourt of 1871 the paris commune is kicking off. across the channel on the 14th kilvert is having a near mystical experience contemplating the mountains. on the 20th (being a reactionary) he will remark on the uprising in paris.

'miserable news from paris. another revolution, barricades, the troops of the line fraternizing with the insurgent national guards, two generals shot, two more in the hands and tender mercies of the beastly cowardly paris mob. those parisians are the scum of the earth, and paris is the crater of the volcano, france, and a bottomless pit of revolution and anarchy...' 

march 24th 1857 thoreau is giving writing advice again and noting peculiarities of memory. it is a theme he will return to over the next few days. 

'if you are describing any occurrence, or a man, make two or more distinct reports at different times. though you may think you have said all, you will tomorrow remember a whole new class of facts which perhaps interested most of all at the time but did not present themselves to be reported.' 

horsemouth seems to have transferred all the dated quotes from fernando pessoa's book of disquiet to his diary so he can use them as he is going along. 

meanwhile how are things with horsemouth?

yesterday a pheasant hiding by the far fence. 

and a walk into ewyas harold, about 1 mile each way but up hill and down dale, to post a letter. after that some sitting out in the sun and reading. he's making progress with the sir arthur conan doyle horror stories one of which (the horror of the heights) seems to be more a science fiction/ weird tales sort of thing. he's about half way through (he still has lot no.249 to come). 

he has announced his (eventual) departure from the communal endeavour (he's a bit sad about it). not that he actually has to do it yet you understand. he's restless his mother says. 

he has been out, fed the chickens, and taken the milk over to the garage. 

14 years ago he was moving down to langdon park (pop(u)lar). 

this evening there will be a meeting (those simple lines by caeiro)

'I re-read passively those simple lines by caeiro, the natural conclusion he draws from the smallness of the village he lives in...'  - fernando pessoa, the book of disquiet, 103 (142), 26th march 1930. 

of course here fernando pessoa slips us another mickey. alberto caeiro is another one of his heteronyms (like bernardo soares).  caeiro for the countryside, bernardo soares for the city (lisbon).

it's a neat trick - to have one of your imaginary poets review the other. 

sunday a zoom call with howard and some recommendations from him - horsemouth wanted to make sure he'd sorted out the sound problem.

so here we have maria reis on a variety of instruments (but mainly for horsemouth it's the sound of the portuguese language) live from an artist's residency in algarve town of castro marim.  howard also recommended some beatles song (but horsemouth was less keen on that).

horsemouth also found a john surman film soundtrack for apartment #5c which is pretty cool.

news briefing is gone. that's a shame it was one of the anchors of the mule's days. 

the communal endeavour

this evening there will be a meeting of the communal endeavour. things roll on keenly and there may even be progress (such as it is). at some stage horsemouth has to announce his resignation and begin moving towards a departure. 

but not just yet. 

the figures are looking good for the year (so far). arrears are where they usually are (post covid), voids are a bit high (it's a moment of transition). the endeavour is small but about 60% of the endeavour is owned outright (ok this assumes various government grants don't have to be repaid), 10% is on a mortgage, about  30% is leased. the reserves are good. the surplus is good. 

wednesday there's a meeting of the the thing, you know the thing that can not be mentioned (or maybe it can now). anyway it looks like that's all on and working. 

the sunny uplands of the now (13 nasturtiums)

so how was horsemouth's saturday?

7am horsemouth wakes up (he had gone to bed early friday night).  this is typical of his days right now (soon this will not be praiseworthy because it will be 8am when he wakes up - the clocks will gain an hour and the rest of us will lose an hour). 

he makes coffee. he opens curtains. he goes and feeds the chickens and unleashes them from the shed. they are excited to be up and out and keen to be fed (and very vocal about it). he checks for eggs (but he doesn't expect there to be any). he returns to the house and starts drinking the coffee. 

thereafter horsemouth blogs 'he has a plan (of course he does)'  and posts a link to his blog on facebook (together with  a brief description edited out of the text of the blog). he looks at his email and discovers an art review article he finds interesting and posts a link to that. that encourages some responses from myk, neill, max, mikey gee and jacken.

it's rare for something he posts these days to get any kind of response - so he's delighted - soon he finds himself fleshing out his thoughts. he thinks it's going to be a blogpost but it turns out to be a substack post. john fromporto - whom he talked to friday - was urging him to do more substack posts because they are easier to find on the app (apparently). 

but that won't happen for a couple of hours. 

9am breakfast it's a weekend so it's boiled egg on toast (or some other kind of cooked egg).  after that horsemouth swaps to the tea. 

horsemouth is outside taking advantage of the cool weather to dig over the garden and to put more chicken manure fertiliser in the raised beds.

he stops sometime before midday to listen to the midday news, have a (small) pot of tea and two cheese sandwiches (his usual lunch). after the (truncated) weekend edition of the world at one he has another crack at the garden. 

in the greenhouse so far 13 nasturtiums have come up (out of the 30 or so horsemouth planted in pots). nothing else has come up yet (but he's still a bit early).

yesterday the crows were being very noisy- his mum commented on it, she is reading joe shute's a shadow above (which is about crows) .

4pm a zoom call with howard (1 bottle of beer). he attempts to show howard his latest purchases but they are cursed with bad sound. they try restarting, moving to howard's phone, tinkering with the sound settings - all to no avail. horsemouth is now using his dad's smaller lenova laptop and it may be that it just will not sit happily with zoom (many of his recent meetings have been beset with this sort of shit). howard is 2 weeks off half-term. 

6.30pm horsemouth goes and feeds the chickens and locks them up (for their own good you understand). a few months ago one chicken got taken (by what horsemouth does not know) he found its gnawed carcass up the field and buried it beneath the water tank. 

he checks for eggs (and this time there are two). his mum found two in the day (so that's not too bad for 8 hens). 

he takes the opportunity (while the chickens are safe in bed) to fill up the wheelbarrow from the manure heap (the chickens take too much interest in this when he tries it in the daytime, climbing on the shovel, getting in the wheelbarrow  etc.) 

7pmish  dinner. leeks, macaroni, linda mccartney sausages, his mum has real sausages (horsemouth adds some cheese). for afters (see in the countryside horsemouth has afters) - a jam scone. 

horsemouth retreats upstairs. he comes down at 8pm to put away the washing up. 

around 9pm he post an outlaw bookseller book review - he's an engaging cove. 

there's nothing he can see on tv tonight. he types this now as 21:12 - he will probably go downstairs at 10pm for the news and weather (except it's 10:10 or 10:25 and his mum will probably want to watch the princess anne documentary instead. (he'll check in a bit). 

horsemouth fiddles with the settings for sound on the zoom again - he thinks he may have sorted it. 

horsemouth is typing this in the evening. this means he won't have the pleasure of writing it in the morning. hopefully something else will occur to him. 

it's the morning. let him check how his substack thing went. (nope no reads yet).

outside it is rainy and grey. last night it rained heavily. 

and yet still we are in the sunny uplands of the now where, by paying close attention to everyday things and actions, a new joy can be produced. 

he has a plan (of course he does)

lots of photos of horsemouth, a few of howard, and a few of them together. 

the ones of horsemouth were mostly taken by howard (excepting 3 taken by mike H and horsemouth thinks two taken by ayesha), the ones of howard were mostly taken by horsemouth, the ones of them together are selfies (as if). 

ok there's one photo in there of him taken by TG and one by suke. 

yesterday a very lazy day. the weather was strangely pleasant. some re-arranging of the woodpile (to permit better access and to permit the storing of more wood). some burning of rubbish. yesterday a zoom call with john fromporto (in far-off porto). 

'... horsemouth wrote (this) last night. of course the disadvantage of writing the blogpost the night before is you don't have the pleasure of writing it the morning after.'

it's the morning after. the laptop is cold to the touch. horsemouth has just been out feeding the chickens. in the night it has rained. 

horsemouth's plan for the day is to level various bits of the garden more (making it easier to put in paving later). he has a plan (of course he does) but it may not be exactly to scale. remind him to go and water things in the green house/ see if anything more than the nasturtiums has come up. 

the weather is about to go a bit shit again

 

horsemouth realised he could scaledown the images to make it possible to fit them all on one screen (and then take a screengrab of that).

and so he did. (click the image to enlarge if you can't quite see anything)

it begins with horsemouth's early days (in pop(u)lar and in porto) but curiously seem to end with him round howard's in east ham or down in the basement flat in hackney. it is as much a collage of time(s) as it is of space(s)/ place(s). 

yesterday horsemouth was sat outside in the sun reading tales of unease by sir arthur conan doyle. he's read the ring of thoth (egypto-shocker), lord of the chateau noir read, the new catacomb (romano-shocker).

it was a sunny day. he wandered across the common to the village shop and then up the road to deliver some eggs. thereafter outside reading. nasturtiums are coming up (so far no sign of anything else).

it will be the day after the vernal equinox when you read this. the days are not only getting longer (as they have been since the winter solstice) but we have passed the halfway point on our ascension up to the summer solstice (gaining about 4 minutes a day). 

sadly the weather is about to go a bit shit again (rainy from this evening and getting colder). still the day should be decent. 

british summertime approaches on the 30th. horsemouth has been waking up earlier but all his good intentions will be wiped out in one fell swoop when we 'gain' an hour.

--------------------------------------------------------- 

'history (and the people of the third world) will judge us harshly for our failure to stop this genocide (in gaza). as it (and they) will judge us harshly over sudan, yemen, syria, libya, iraq, afghanistan and over our treatment of refugees from these conflicts and from others.' 

this is how horsemouth feels about the gaza/ west bank thing. but as the thing with the pause round trump's inauguration shows, only the US can stop it. 

and the US isn't going to. 

 

vernal EQUINOX (birdsong and fog machines)

sunrise - 0615

sunset - 1824

(there's something to do with it being the point where the mid-point of the sun is above the horizon (and that's 12 hours) but the amount of daylight is more than this because of diffraction in the atmosphere causing the the light to still be visible when the sun is beneath the horizon (etc.) 

in 2025 the equinox is on 20th march at 0901.

today eggs and bring the bin back up (and go bell-ringing). 

accessions diary 19/03/25

- brecht: a choice of evils, martin esslin (4th ed.) - one squid (may have this one already back in the wen. horsemouth's copy is black rather than blue.)

- tales of unease, sir arthur conan doyle, in the tales of mystery and the supernatural series, one squid fifty. (includes lot no. 249 that was recently filmed as part of the ghost story for christmas series).

- the great japan exhibition: art of the edo period 1600-1868, ed. professor william watson, royal academy of arts (RAA), two squid (to go with the hokusai and the florence oriental art catalogue).  

has he done well do you think?

there was an ltc rolt lives of the engineers book (on trevithick, or was it telford?) in the oxfam - but horsemouth wasn't convinced. probably if he'd been in less of a hurry to get around every second hand book-shop and charity shop in hereford (that he knew of or saw on his journeyings)  he would have taken the time to start reading it (and been hooked). 

last night he read the introduction to tales of unease.

another beautiful morning  (birdsong and fog machines). 

today eggs and bring the bin back up and go bell-ringing. (has he said that before).  

so this part is a written yesterday part/ and this part is an entirelywritteninthemorningblogpost part

           so this part is a written yesterday part                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 h+howard in the big empty pub

h round howard's with acoustic guitar

h round howard's with electric guitar

h+TG  out in the marshes

and this part is an entirelywritteninthemorningblogpost part

these are photos from howard (mostly) lifted from the emails. horsemouth finds the grid less compelling than the grid lifted from blogger because there is less juxtaposition and colour variation. this is because horsemouth makes a selection from these photos to post on his blog. the joy of it is rediscovering photos that he did not select at the time but that now look good to him. 

horsemouth was following tomkins square's advertising for their music off 78s (treasures untold: a modern 78rpm reader) compilation but a friend observed that cul de sac had been there as early as 2002. 

'old 78s are sampled and looped, odd drones that sound anything but live creep in and out, field recordings form the structural backbone. I'm sure they have a solid plan for taking this music on the road...' - pitchfork review by mark richardson, april 16th 2003.

'are 78s the next format to make a comeback?' 

'what next? wax cylinders?'

it's a CD only release (no downloads) which is a beautiful archaism. almost everybody horsemouth knows streams all their music - next to nobody has a hi-fi set up with a CD player (unless they have lived where they are living for a very long time). never mind record players. we are nomads, refugees, setting up temporary encampments wherever we go. driven here and there by the forces of capitalism. 

etcetera etcetera dot dot dot 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

it's a beautiful morning. there has been a frost. horsemouth has been to let out the chickens. later on he's off to town (but first coffee and breakfast and such like). with a bit of luck he will get in some book buying (that would be good).

he has a fair few books here (and then there's his mum and dad's collection) but often nothing really grabs him. the summer is coming and with it the ability to sit outside and read (and this make more progress with the books he does select). his reading has slowed down dramatically because of the possibilities for entertainment and boredom afforded by farting around on the internet. 

look at him now. 

'I thought I'd never run into a more difficult subject than sun ra... but then along came harry.'

topline horsemouth's first gig as a solo guitarist,  rob lawson - two pamphlets, ghostly reflection of john fahey, tracklisting, photo of howard (demo for cover of musicians of bremen volume three, photo from la chinoise, poster from community event. 

second line  buriden's ass post-it note, unicorn falls off gate to  buckingham palace, a collage of horsemouth's from various times, tracklisting for musicians of bremen volume four in post-it notes, photo of enza (space medusa from the fall of the house of fitzgerald), horsemouth plays his first gig at one of max's book launches (5 photos spreading onto the third line), j.g. ballard book cover (myths of the near future), horsemouth with guitar round howard's, horsemouth in b&w (two), horsemouth's basement gaff (three). end.

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'I thought I'd never run into a more difficult subject than sun ra... but then along came  harry.' 

 - john f. szwed.

the simple fact is that harry was a genius (and really annoying) at the same time. peter stampfel (holy modal rounders) makes a song out of him.

meanwhile andy edwards splits his music and politics project (or so he says). which is probably for the best really. he promises more cats (but the cat doesn't appear til nearly the end so there's no point waiting around for it).

now horsemouth likes andy's prog/ jazz rock witter, he likes his analysis of where the music 'industry' is now (and why it is difficult to care about it), on the other hand he doesn't think andy is your best source on either the origins of jazz or the problems besetting jazz now (nor on what particular value you should attach to 'british' music). 

andy plays it for comedy (a lot of the time). this is not always helpful. 

horsemouth has been up. he has got his coffee, fed the chickens and taken the milk over to the garage (oh and he has sent an electricity meter reading to his brother). yesterday the AGA thing got fixed (replacement solenoid). tomorrow a run into town. 

'... and I stop writing just because I stop writing.'

topline a young horsemouth, two pieces of bush house memorabilia (a backstage pass and a demo cassette), some notes on the goatboy album, some dj mix diagrams, mudlarked kipple, horsemouth recording round howards.

note: you can click on these to make them bigger. 

second line horsemouth recording round howards (3  times), detail from a joe harriott album cover, stacia from hawkwind during the video for silver machine,  two photos of a promotional leaflet for akenfield (the movie).

last line werewolf illustration, two of horsemouth recording again (b&w), the cover of jacques attali's bruits and its english translation noise, the cover of mute proud to be flesh, the cover of sonic warfare and music and capitalism, a very young horsemouth, headhunted skulls. 

'... and I stop writing just because I stop writing.' - fernando pessoa, the book of disquiet, 52 (39), undated. 

that's a good question - why did horsemouth stop writing? 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

it's st. patrick's day (hail the irish). 

horsemouth knows nothing about gardening

looks like more of horsemouth's nasturtiums are coming up. but so far no peas or broad beans. (this is in pots in the green house). he has plenty of the runner beans to go in but it's not quite warm enough for them yet. 

it's not yet time for the carrot seed and onion seed outside. really horsemouth knows nothing about gardening. the celandine is up (ficaria verna).

the fruit bushes he hasn't pruned (he'll just have to take his chances with them again). 

stick in the wheel from about 34 minutes in ahead of a spring tour. they have some good selections. 

'am I the only scoundrel and bungler alive?'

'months have gone by since I last wrote anything. my understanding has lain dormant and I have lived as if I were someone else...' - bernardo soares in fernando pessoa's the book of disquiet, fragment 42 (165)

the book of disquiet pretends to be a diary of fragments composed by one bernardo soares, but it is not, it is a diary of fragments composed by fernando pessoa pretending to be bernardo soares.  when 'he' writes this it is not a metaphorical laying dormant, a metaphorical 'being someone else', but a literal one. 

clever that.

and here we have another poem by another heteronym álvaro de campos. (what does it sound like in portuguese?)

this afternoon horsemouth and his mum will have completed their stint of unlocking/ locking up the abbey - this time horsemouth has only 'nearly forgotten' the once. 

later zoom beers with howard - yet another massive IT battle to get online and on zoom. in the end they managed it. (bottle and a half of beer, new 'old' track by howard. 

great (worm)moon out the window

end of the month british summer time  begins (though people may have forgotten to tell the weather). by that time there will have been a meeting of the entirely fictitious 'communal endeavour' (and a zoom meeting of not-the-consortium). hopefully everything will be clear with 'the thing'. 

mid april looks like a busy time - horsemouth is off to a gig the friday night and then off to his brother's daughter's birthday on the saturday. (busy busy). (possibly bell-ringing the thursday - that might be a bit much). 

beautiful morning outside. frostyish. he's fed the chickens. in a bit horsemouth will go down to unlock the abbey. 

please save this (all is digital)

 

horsemouth was looking for photos of the current gaff but he couldn't find them - so he found these instead. what a wonderful exciting life he leads. 

as you can see if you squint there are a number of photos of horsemouth playing guitar - from his first ever solo guitar gig and while recording guitar for musicians of bremen volume one and volume three. firstly you see horsemouth drunk and happy at an afterparty, finally his guitar hero john fahey appears to give him encouragement (at last), . 

here you see more photos of his flat down in pop(u)lar, his laramie (hummingbird copy) guitar, his guild resonator, playing with minty, morven, siobhan and lisa, playing bass with the snatch foster band. 

horsemouth shares with you a selection of the photos from horsemouth folk archive because the archive is now a source of anxiety.  see he even documents the snipping tool he is using. 

he documents his last gig for one of max's book launches, rehearsals for musicians of bremen's most recent gig and them getting drunk in the big empty pub (now deceased again). 

there. and you're all caught up - the process reaches its natural exhaustion. horsemouth shows you boxes containing paper diaries (his own and thoreau's), he shows you maps and mountains, chats and zoom sessions, book annotations and book covers, book shelves. 

'these are a few of his favourite things'

our lives are much more photographed than ever they were. 

debí tirar más fotos ‘I should have taken more photos’ people no longer say.

horsemouth thanks enza, howard, john clarkson, jonny and denise, gertrude, sally, max 'crow' reeves, TG, and of course himself (because many of these photos are in fact artfully composed selfies).  no physical photographic film was harmed in the making of these photographs, no chemical changes were undergone, all is digital. 

 

the guy who wrote this  book on reading (peter szendy) and who has written extensively on listening and music, has also written on cameras and photographs. 

horsemouth is enjoying the grid while at the same time speculating on the algorithm that produced it. he's done the chickens. in a bit he'll go and do the abbey. he has his coffee. there's a possibility of zoom beers with howard later (but he may be too knackered).

he continues to read fernando pessoa's the book of disquiet. some of the entries are dated and so will be able to appear here in horsemouth's diaristic fashion. 

that'll be a long wait and it will feel like a long wait (the song of our times)

to be honest it's all been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. 

(it's been emotional as vinnie jones's character remarks in lock, stock and two smoking barrels).

and soon it will be over

last week - anxiety 

monday, tuesday - anxiety

wednesday - happiness and release of tension (but with an element of distrust).

thursday - depths of gloom again. 

friday - well we will see (but we may not see until monday or wednesday). 

horsemouth was reminded of doc watson's waiting for the times to get better 

(well that'll be a long wait, opined horsemouth, and it will feel like a long wait). 

for it is the song of our times.

ok it looks like other people are getting on with the tasks rather than succumbing to horsemouth's catastrophist viewpoint (which is probably the best way forward). 

horsemouth is looking forward to the bell ringing. (oh dear, red sky at night). looks like all the chickens are in because of the cold so he might go and feed them just now and lock them up early. 

horsemouth is back from the bell-ringing (not his best night) but he's happy now.

ok in the morning - chickens, milk, abbey (a busy social whirl).  

next wednesday a plan to get into town get his mum a bus pass, do some financials. horsemouth is hopeful he can find the time to sneak off and get some books (maybe go in with them and get the bus back later). 

a second post for the day (a carpet of flowers )

yesterday horsemouth was up early he expected  a meeting at about 11.30. (one of those on-line things that he can no longer see the link for).

phew horsemouth has done the meeting - the sound cut out on him and he had to relocate to another computer. (at one point there were two of him) horsemouth is obviously being cursed for something he did in a previous life.

it's all a bit of a rollercoaster to be honest.  

as horsemouth remarked the nasturtiums have started to grow (that is good news) but horsemouth is running low on peanuts for the birds. he's had a discussion with his mum about putting in more paths in the garden (so she can get around it more safely).  

later in the afternoon they had a sort out of the mail and tried to get on top of their various tasks. 

on his way over to see the chickens he surprised the black cat which scooted off down the banking looking as if it had been caught up to no good. 

horsemouth posted a radio show from september 2023 on heatwaves in the south of europe. this is some of horsemouth's favourite global warming art. it even features the kalima - the hot dusty wind out of the sahara desert. one embattled british farmer living in spain (in the alpujarras) even quotes louis-philippe, comte de ségur: 

‘without regret for the past, 

without anxiety for the future, 

we walked gaily across a carpet of flowers 

which concealed the abyss beneath …'

this he may have lifted from a contemporary article in the LRB.

horsemouth only really writes this to enjoy the pleasures of diarising even though he has written something for the day already (hence the title: a second post for the day).  now he thinks he can get away with using it as the diary entry for tomorrow (but then he is using up his healing effect of diarising early).  

hey horsemouth just heard (well saw) jontavarious ____ do a version of poor black matty  that was a lot like homegas's version of bumblebee. above  martin carthy on the prehistory of the downfall of paris as french revolutionary anthem ca ira (horsemouth didn't know the duke of wellington was born in dublin)

PKD (an important precursor to joan didion)

'if you find this world bad, you should see some of the others' 

- philip k. dick, somewhat cryptically, at a literary convention in metz in 1977. 

philip k. dick (PKD) is best known as a chronicler of 50s/60s california and the suburbs. an important precursor to joan didion (to whom he was (briefly) married). 

because he enjoyed mainstream success he didn't finish writing his long-planned science fiction novel the man in the high castle  and the manuscript is now lost.

his later years were marked by substance abuse  and religious mania and attempts to get publishing houses to accept poorly plotted 'third-stream' writings. 

valis (aka. we are all one with the sun or jesus joins the beatles) was widely derided as a hippy farrago and nowadays the movie can only be found on VHS (or perhaps a youtube free movie channel).

through a glass darkly  was first made into a tv series (staring young unknown david soul as police detective glass) and then remade for the cinema with al pacino and dustin hoffman.

lately, worryingly, science fiction novels and films claiming to be by PKD have started appearing on youtube, daily motion, tik tok and in obscure areas of the internet.  defenders of PKD's reputation as a chronicler of the suburbs have derided these as AI-written imitations and point to plot and characterisation similarities with his published work. 

the entry on him on wikipedia seems to be subject to an edit war seeming to say different things each time the page is reloaded. 

PKD is buried in riverside cemetery in fort morgan, colorado and not in his beloved southern california. 

retroactive tidying up of the past

'the book of nature lies closed before us' - john stewart collis, preface to down to earth.

phew. bit of a meltdown in the morning (slow loading shit and the like). either it will be a problem or it won't. here is horsemouth running around like a blue arsed fly and here he is realising there is nothing he can do about it he just has to wait. 

ok so meeting at some point on wednesday when it will become clear. 

horsemouth (like winston in 1984) has just been engaged in a little retroactive tidying up of the past (future historians will curse him for it) but it does simplify the tale he is telling. he has been back for a read over the offending months and it all looks ship-shape and  bristol fashion. 

shitting hell some tanker is on fire in the north sea (er. and a container ship loaded with cyanide gas).

horsemouth is focusing on his time in the wilds and his reading, material relating to the entirely fictitious 'communal endeavour' he is removing. he is leaving material relating to global politics. climate change, decarbonisation  (and railways).

'railways! HUH! (good god y'all) 

what are they good for?

absolutely  loads of things really

(say it again)...' 

soon it will start to rain (monday afternoon) thereafter it is cold and grey all week (there may be some rain also).  horsemouth got in his wander round on the common. 

tuesday morning. he's fed the chickens. taken the milk over to the garage. and in a bit he's off down to the abbey to unlock it. he needs to photograph, photocopy or scan something for his brother. 

at the abbey he saw a tall maninblack with a camera with a telescopic lens walking away - presumably the guy had been out getting some exterior shots (because he wouldn't have been able to get in).  last year there was a photographic calendar put out by the friends of the abbey, but it had been discontinued because of poor sales. the year before, the first year of its publication, the calendar had been very successful. 

good news! his nasturtiums seem to be coming up (he can't remember whether he got them from round here last year or back in hackney - there's a diary entry that suggests hackney 9th of august). but it's about to turn cold again and that may kill them off. 

tumble in the wind (hergest ridge)

'I am the indifferent narrator of my autobiography without events.' 

- fernando pessoa, the book of disquiet, 25 (12), undated. 

good morning! today an entirely written in the morning blogpost (first one in a while).

horsemouth was in the country he goes to when he is on holiday in his dreams (it was hot and sunny). there was something about storage and visiting a gentlemen's club. 

the evening before horsemouth spent some time trying to learn tumble in the wind by jackson c. frank, it is late style jackson c. he is back living in the states, you can hear his wheezy breathing, the lyrics are even madder than his early style lyrics. 

'britain performed worse than most other developed nations in its response to the covid pandemic...

the UK spent more money than most other countries on economic help yet still ended up with larger drops in life expectancy, more people too sick to work, huge levels of homelessness and soaring mental health problems among young people...'

it is the fifth anniversary of the UK going into covid lockdown.  

horsemouth thinks this was entirely necessary because the government hadn't taken the necessary steps earlier (in fact he would have welcomed locking down earlier). the virus thrives on contact between people you want to minimise that until you have a vaccine, and the earlier you minimise it the less people catch it, the less people get sick, the less people die,  and, crucially, the better the chance of your health service and health workers surviving so that people can get treated for the coronovirus and for other ailments (which don't go away just because the coronovirus is out there).

and yet the fact is that about 50% of the working population still had to go to work all the way through it. they still had to take those risks. this is not recognised because the chattering classes were more concerned with the expansion of work from home (which turned out to be a more partial phenomenon than many of us hoped). 

horsemouth found a bbc hereford and worcester show about mike oldfield's old house where he recorded hergest ridge (and the pilgrims to it). it seems to be being said HARjest ridge. 

there was also a programme about finding a photo of a woman from presteign. 

a word of warning here - horsemouth has used some kind of generative AI thing to fill in the edges of the photo to get it up to the required width to be used as a header on facebook - this does the falsification of history begin. 

urghh. horsemouth was just trying to download some shit to confirm his suspicion about a particular form or other - and the computer was absolutely making him beg for it. he got there in the end (sort of).  horsemouth is a bit more relaxed about it all. soon the expert comes - they will either have time to sort it out or they won't. hopefully they will have the time to sort it out. 

what is horsemouth talking about? the plunger on the toilet (see how paranoid they have him). 

maybe howard. maybe not.

'reading through this book of mine, and the subsequent ones of the same kind, I see that my approach has the merit of being highly unoriginal...'  - john stewart collis, down to earth, introduction.

'I have learned from long experience that there is nothing that is not marvellous and that the saying of aristotle is true - that in every natural phenomenon there is something wonderful, nay in truth, many wonders.' - john de dondis, 14th C. sage according to collis. 

this is probably actually jacopo dondi - famous as a clock-maker, scientist and a medic. 

zoom beers? maybe. maybe not. it is looking like not (howard is probably off to see jackie). 

turns out howard was away at a gig ex-easter island head and here's a photo to prove it.  'like glenn branka crossed woth penguin cafe with a little bit of steve reich sprinkled on top' says howard. 

horsemouth can see how this would fit in with a number of howard's current thoughts and practices. 

back at the gaff the washing machine has (allegedly) died. 

next week horsemouth and his mum are on abbey duty

and there's a meeting wednesday (that should cheer horsemouth up).

saturday horsemouth went for a walk and sat outside for a bit. he even read john stewart collis' down to earth from whence the quotes above. collis considers the humble potato, and the humble earth worm, ants, dunghills.

so improv musician (and horsemouth's former tai-chi teacher about 40 or so years ago) susanna ferrar is far away and giving  a lecture. she has a blog (it's very good) thoughts on antarctic exploration, king penguins, site-specific improvisation, education in hackney. 

last night horsemouth watched a bit of martin scorsese's music documentary about bob dylan. he picked it up when dylan arrived in new york city, there was fred neil and dave van ronk (and karen dalton), there was izzy young from the folklore centre... there are the poets, ginsberg cries when he gets back from india and hears him.  there are joan baez and susie rotolo. 

heading this up with a video of shankar making the soundtrack to alice brings up the possibility that  joan baez and susie rotolo are alice and her sister, but shouldn't that be joan baez and mimi farina?

was bob dylan a hustler? no. but he knew what he wanted. he was very focused. 

if he had to start up all over again (from the perspective of exhaustion)

'... the pandemic, global civil war, and the acceleration of climate collapse have marked the end of this expansive paradigm, forcing us to imagine the events to come from the perspective not of expansion, but of exhaustion and contraction...' - 'bifo' befardi, quit everything. available now from repeater books. 

ok horsemouth is back in some sort of semi-stable condition. he thinks it was one of those periodic re-glitches in  the force/ denial of service attacks whatever.

he read the piece by 'bifo' befardi on substack (and very good it was too).

what do we do when faced by defeat? we retreat to the mountains and grow potatoes (like ivan bunin). to hell with them and their small highly efficient teams, to hell with them with their doing more with less. 

horsemouth was always very fond of scavenging for furniture, and second hand stuff. why? because  the money he saved by doing that he didn't have to earn, he didn't have to work for it. in this he was guided by the wombles and stig of the dump. he would have gotten into taking sandwiches but it required too much planning ahead. it has (so far) worked out reasonably well for him. 

in a little while the news (more defeat). 

his recent toys out the pram makes him contemplate what his digital activity would be like if he had to start up all over again.

in a way it would be no bad thing.  the substack would replace the blogspot. he would be free to abandon the complaisance that is facebook. he would rebuild his connection round google.  

he doesn't see a way out  of the constant autobiography. 

so there was rick rubin talking about doing the thing you love and not listening to anyone else. sadly this hasn't always been horsemouth's attitude. 

then horsemouth took up listening to more john hassell (but with brian eno this time).  

 

trade, wars, and tariffs

so the european powers are keen to step up for ukraine. 

but not for gaza? or the west bank? how come? 

or are they just saying that now (confident their bluff will not be called). 

we'll send troops (if there's a peace deal with US security guarantees). 

oh dear 'history' has started up again.

is this a temporary phenomenon? 

trade, wars, and tariffs

how long would it take to start mining minerals in ukraine (or the donbas for that matter)? how keen would companies be to start digging with shells whistling round their ears? 

argh! a phone menu at the local health centre - the book covid vaccination appointment has not been turned on. that and the fact that his mum's mobile seems to have died and the landline phone seems half-dead and keeps cutting out because of exhausted rechargeable batteries. horsemouth eventually managed to get through with his own mobile only to be greeted with the not yet properly set up phone menu.

his mum is going in tomorrow anyway. 

it's the thursday and horsemouth is feeling uninspired. he's not sure why. he's tempted to blame social media. he's listening to some jon hassell (which is much of muchess), next some late style alice coltrane  (maybe). now he's on to harold budd bismillahi 'rrahman 'rrahim... and then more harold budd (it seems to be doing the trick).

in a bit it will be dark and he will go out and feed and lock up the chickens. (he will be useful). 

ok he's done it.

later still the bell-ringing. 

and after that a paranoid meltdown. he thought he'd had his cards and his phone stolen (but it turned out not to be the case). horsemouth was temporarily locked out of his email but he can still get access to his facebook page, his substack and shortly he will be working on his blogspot (yes success).

until then he will post his blogs on his substack. (no that won't be necessary horsemouth)

still a change is as good as a rest they say.

but here he is again. it's a rainy greyish morning. 

he was briefly full of good intentions. now the trick is to make sure he actualises some of those.  

liquid pleyades

horsemouth is back from a visit to the village shop 

he returned across the common with a small backpack containing provisions. it's enough to hold them until friday. 

later he will take the waste bin down the drive (and then feed the chickens).  

he has talked (briefly) to colin on the phone and so his anxiety is starting to abate. colin will phone james and then let him know what the coup is (horsemouth is not sure that will mean much to you but it means a lot to him). 

horsemouth just wants to be reassured that the business is in hand and it seems like business is being taken care of. there's a meeting next wednesday (by which time it needs to be mostly taken care of). 

ok he's off to sit outside and read. 

horsemouth thinks he saw the black cat over passed the abbey (it's back here now). 

that horsemouth has much to be thankful for 

he is not (for example) a minimum-wage delivery driver man with a family to support. 

while he's had a fair amount of drama in his life he has rolled out of most of it reasonably unscathed. while he is poor he also has a low maintenance life-style that enables him, pretty much, to do what he wants (within obvious financial limits). 

he is now coasting it out to his actual pension still a while off. (hopefully that will work).  

'arguably the biggest challenge facing the world...' is global warming/ climate change. 

horsemouth would like to do something about it (however modest) but it seems like people would rather have a £60k kitchen extension (total people benefitted 4, total carbon emissions horsemouth shudders to think). ho hum. ok shortly not to be his problem. 

he does hope it's all going to work. it would be nice to go out on a high point.  

one of his flatmates is probably off to the south coast some time this year. horsemouth is struggling to write the sentence saying that he will be off too. 

it will all take shape and flow easily and happily towards a justified conclusion

tuesday (just another day) 

horsemouth feeling anxious and tense (hopefully today - wednesday - it will all take shape and flow easily and happily towards a justified conclusion). he went for a walk on the common. it was very muddy but horsemouth successfully reached the bench on top of the common but then his anxiety drove him on and round. 

horsemouth's mum tells him the controller on the cooker has stopped working (it's an AGA type thing). fortunately the heating seems to be fine so they will not freeze. and fortunately there's an entire electric hob and oven just round the corner of the kitchen so they will  nor starve. horsemouth guesses it is a job for the usual repair man and will resist any suggestions otherwise. 

he has had a look at the downstairs clock - the one hand was blocking the seconds hand (and thus preventing the clock from working) - horsemouth has got it working again he thinks (never work with children, animals or moving parts). 

in a bit he will go out, dig another trench, put in some chicken shit, and then fill it up again. (he's done it. mission accomplished).

the telephone is being a bit glitchy (again) horsemouth thinks it either needs replacement rechargeable batteries or replacing entirely. his mum could (of course) use her mobile phone to make the phonecalls (but that's unlikely). 

and not just the black cat 

now that horsemouth remembers there was a different cat hanging round the house (a white cat with orange markings). a tom (horsemouth thinks). his mum has seen the black cat again (yes it has no collar). 

it's the waiting he can't stand (the hill of dreams)

well there is news.

but horsemouth can't tell you what it is (yet).

so on we go.

it's the waiting he can't stand.  (ok 2pm nothing)

horsemouth would at least like to be able to have a meeting (but no). 

other than that it is a beautiful sunny day (but cold). the guys from the garage are due to come and pick up the car for its MOT.  

yesterday (the 3rd) the birthday of arthur machen mystic and weird fiction author.  brian stableford writes that machen 'was the first writer of authentically modern horror stories, and his best works must still be reckoned among the finest products of the genre'. 

horsemouth went off down a rabbit hole to books in wernicke  in search of copy of machen's the hill of dreams.

he's been out for a walk on the common and looked over at the black mountains in the direction of hay. it is still too muddy to get up to the top of the common to look over towards the skirrid. he's going to try sneaking outside - first to read and then probably to dig some more compost into the garden. 

ok he's done that. now he's going to go back outside again. and then he's back in. 

horsemouth and his mum are due to be back on abbey duty soon

he's looked up the weather - it's great this week (sunnier and warmer (except at night)), but next week it all goes a bit rubbish. we are up to the 10 hour day (we are on our way to the equinox and the 12 hour day).  horsemouth needs to change the timer for the chickens so they get more light.  

horsemouth usually enjoys abbey duty (he likes regular duties - just show up, do it, get the tick).

horsemouth has completed  colonel chabert by balzac. military hero (presumed to be dead) returns, but his wife has remarried, remarried better, and doesn't want to know him, the world indeed doesn't want to know him, times have moved on, the heroes of napoleonic times are done. he enjoyed the introduction by a.n.wilson, chabert is buried by new times.  

horsemouth has the text in french in a harrap french classics edition (£1 - somewhere) collected together with gobseck (which he has read online) and with introduction and notes by a.g.lehmann. 

he's also continued with his reading of the worm forgives the plough  by john stewart collis. 

today a bright cold morning. horsemouth continues in his anxiety.  

ah great! the fucking cooker has died. seeing as the heating still works (so far) horsemouth guesses it's the controller, but he doesn't know. they'll have to get the repair guy out. that much (in horsemouth's opinion) is certain. 

oh les beaux jours (a metaphor extended beyond its capacity)

oh dear things have just got more difficult 

horsemouth's mum has had a stumble in the kitchen and hurt her knee. this means that wheras horsemouth used to be able to let her get on with everyday things pretty much unaided  that is no longer wise. at the moment horsemouth is back upstairs because his mum is watching football (safely parked on the sofa). 

horsemouth is in a slight grump because things were going better (health-wise)and they've now taken a turn for the worse. 

what's new..?

the quay brothers will have an exhibition at swedenborg house, up in the wen there will be a polish film festival (full of the kind of literary themed films horsemouth likes, sanatorium, the manuscript etc.). 

meanwhile 'plans to recreate a passenger railway station for south-west herefordshire have hit a further setback... the government...  cancelled the restoring your railways fund, which had been seen as the most promising source of funding to get the scheme off the ground.' 

as horsemouth often remarks a train service into hereford (and abergavenny) from pontrilas would be much better for him than the existing bus services. that said he doesn't particularly avail himself of the bus services so one of his plans is to start doing that. book-buying visits are his priority (it's more the browsing and the bargains if he is honest). 

all the good times are passed and gone (beggars with dreams)

so what does the future hold?

'I'll be living quietly in a little house somewhere in the suburbs, enjoying a peaceful existence not writing the book I am not writing now and, so as to continue not doing so, I will come up with different excuses from the ones I use now to avoid actually confronting myself.

or else I'll be interned in a poorhouse, content with my utter failure, mingling with the riff raff who believed they were geniuses when in fact they were just beggars with dreams, mixing with the anonymous mass of people who had neither the strength to triumph nor the power to turn their defeats into victories.'  - fernando pessoa, the book of disquiet. 

pessoa's book - cobbled together from fragments after his death - is a perfect urban work. we have a map of the low town in lisbon, a workplace, a rented room, cheap restaurants to eat in, characters who seldom leave their neighbourhood (this is their virtue). but pessoa's heteronym bernardo soares (the character who is supposed to be the writer) dreams of a life elsewhere and after (but not very convincingly). 

fahey week and basho day are over for the year (not that horsemouth did much to celebrate them).

fahey, basho, pessoa (and all his heteronyms) enjoy an afterlife because they made art while alive (and now they are gone and all we have is the art they made, and sometimes someone finds more of it). this is what has happened with robbie basho, liam barker made a film about him and because of this his old guitar, his unreleased recordings and his unreleased live recordings have come to back to life.

and elsewhere you have the (allegedly) silent masses (as ranciere would note, only 'allegedly' silent). 

so (horsemouth enjoins you) make art while you can. 

in parallel with the pessoa he is reading john stewart collis's the worm forgives the plough in particular the second part of his second book down to earth, the wood. here collis is clearing some woodland for folklorist rolf gardiner (who is famously dodgy as horsemouth has remarked before). 

'having opened the gate of labour I had suddenly stepped inside the world and could see the objects with fresh eyes.' remarks collis in his first book while following the plough. what makes collis unusual is that he writes about these experiences (and that people wanted to read them).

saturday afternoon a zoom beer with howard (seen here in microcosm) 

and with horsemouth (seen here in macrocosm).

there was some discussion of aztec camera  but not much discussion of books (as far as horsemouth can recall).