dreadful accidents (and strange adventures)

'the woods are to be felled to pay for de winton's gambling debts...' - kilvert, diaries, 3rd february 1872. 

it's like something out of a russian novel or play.

kilvert is much concerned with dreadful accidents and strange adventures. the blue rocks at blaen cwm, the mawnpools between painscastle and aber edw. rider and horse perishes or the horse comes home alone and the rider does not. the rider is found drowned in the mawnpool with scrabbling marks all round the side like a drowning rat. 

and then the cwmgwanon woods felled for gambling debts (so the gossip goes). the de winton family seem to have been active in the church, banking, porcelain collecting and steam engines. 

yesterday a misty and grey morning. horsemouth was not sure what he would get up to. 

he went for a walk. down to the abbey. across the field to the dore river. along the fence of the military base. back across the road to follow the dore up a little way in the direction of the alms houses and then back to the village hall and round. on his way he bumped into the bus driver (whose guitar practice is going well). 

he had a partial plan to maybe take the bus into town but in the end he decided it was kind of pointless - his second hand book options are much better in the wen. 

'I could have gone on after summer 1980. just doing that. keeping a journal of time and the sea...'

- marguerite duras, practicalities. 

'the people who pay to hear you sing or speak are enemies you have to get the better of in order to survive.' - random sentence from practicalities by marguerite duras.

this is probably the least facebook, bandcamp, substack, patreon sentence it is possible to have. 

duras wins again. what is the origin of this? it is in her mother's fear of officialdom (a typical attitude of the poor duras says). duras's way up and out is through oral examinations a way with words as the title of the chapter puts it (in an adornoish echo, its english translation). 

'... when you have done it once, after you've once mastered the words and carried the audience with you, it happens to you all the time.' 

horsemouth supposes that the purpose of substack  is that you write endless essays as if in a try-out for a real writing job (one that is published, if not paid for).  

in differentiation the posts in blogger tend to be slightly less fully formed. horsemouth supposes it is analogous to the soundcloud/ bandcamp distinction. 

practicalities is coming the other way. from a known existing writer towards the quotidian everyday world. it was first published in french in 1987 but there had been the earlier semi-autobiographical writings from her. 

random sentence - 'for fifteen years I threw away my manuscripts as soon as the books came out.' 

horsemouth has been watching the first series of fallout (he should confess to this).