a general plan to do more cultural production

horsemouth is slightly over half way through the year. in solstice time we are on 7/12ths of the way through. 

how is his cultural consumption (and production) going?

gigs

in the first half of the year horsemouth only managed to go and see two gigs. in april - alula down in malvern and in may - soft white underbelly (aka. the blue oyster cult) up in the wen. 

he hopes to manage to go to see jazz jamaica at the anniversary of the anniversary of the release of babylon. 

that's a pretty poor showing. he would have managed the tapestry festival in southampton (but he bottled out). 

similarly no CDs or DVDs purchased. 

he played no gigs himself and undertook no recording. he practiced a few things. he brought back the 12 string to the wilds and has tried some things on that. 

he did listen to the the dave webb show on new river radio pretty religiously. 

films sorcerer, les nuits rouges,  amarcord (fellini), 

books

he reread milstone grit by glyn hughes (which is one of his favourite books he thinks). anais nin's journals volumes 2 and 3 likewise. human acts by han kang scored big with him. alberto manguel's  packing my library he found a bit dull truth be told, but both these last two were books he bought (during a trip to abergavenny) so that's all to the good. 

he bought far fewer books than he would normally do. he read fewer than usual (he suspects).  

he read lots of diaries (as usual) and posted about them, often in sync with the days, kilvert, the reverend william poole, kafka, edmond de goncourt, h.d. thoreau,  the book of disquiet by fernando pessoa (where it gives dates) etc. 

he didn't keep a physical diary himself  (particularly) but he did keep up this blog (with only the odd day off for hangover or sickness). he transferred some of his better prose over to substack in the hopes of enticing a better class of reader (but fundamentally he's against the whole idea of fine writing in the same way he's against the whole ide of fine dining).

he didn't write any letters. he has a plan to get into that.

as well as a general plan to do more cultural production 

yesterday he wandered into the village to buy some coffee. on his way in and back he passed the bell-ringers ringing for a church service. he paused to chat with sylvia and libby.  he has at least stuck with the bell-ringing and is beginning to see some progress (one year later). 

last night silver objects drifted out of sight pushed by a strong wind high up. later a rainbow (after the rain). 

he listened to a michelle coltrane gig from the hartford jazz festival (live streamed on youtube). she's about two hours in. the stuff when they let the harp player go (olivia tilley) is decent (paramahansa lake). the stuff with michelle and the two women from the ashram choir is decent. the band on their own are a bit  jazz fudge (but then they're young) - the blue nile was decent. the bassist lonnie plaxico is well regarded. 

he watched his friend zali's livestream from vienna. 

howard has bought some music by some russians - foresteppe.