fever dreams (a quiet day)

horsemouth has found another link to dario argento's inferno online.

this is the second in his the three mothers series following on from suspiria. more fever dreams inspired by de quincey. 

near the start our heroine revisits the bookseller (kazanian antiques) where she bought the book of the three mothers written by the alchemist varelli (allegedly). she asks some questions about it. (she is in any event living next door in mater tenebrarum, the mother of darkness's house in new york).

the bookseller proposes a number of other damned houses one of which is  the villa palagonia (or villa bhagheria), near palermo, sicily, called the villa dei mostri because it has a lot of grotesque statues on the garden walls. 

many travellers have visited the villa palagonia.  goethe visited it on his italian journeys (horsemouth should check this out).  part of  l'avventura by  antonioni was filmed there.

here (in part) is what goethe had to say about it.  (horsemouth went and got the book out of the garage where it currently resides). 

'our entire day has been taken up with the madness  of the prince of pallagonia (sic.). his follies turned out to be quite different from anything I had imagined after hearing and reading about them...' 

his travelling companion kniep is even more horrified by this than he is. 

'kniep's artistic feeling was almost driven to desperation in this mad-house; and, for the first time in my life, I found him quite impatient. he hurried me away, when I wished to take a note of, and to perpetuate the memory of these monstrous absurdities, one by one. good-naturedly enough, he at last took a sketch of one of these compositions, which did, at least, form a kind of group...'.

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horsemouth's brother is telling him london is enjoying an indian summer. here a rainy grey morning. the rain little better than mist. horsemouth has fed the chickens. they don't seem to be laying much (which is a bit of a mystery). 

today a quiet day (horsemouth hopes). there was a fair amount of damson picking and bottling yesterday but they have gone past their prime and horsemouth doesn't know that it is going to be as good as last year despite the huge crop. anyway, time will tell. 

on this day eight years ago now horsemouth plays a gig in the oranges and lemons church. it was a friday the 13th. 

it was a launch party for max's book mirkwood.