bastille day, st. swithin's day, the grand hotel abyss (st.louis blues)

and so down to new cross from deptford bridge past the site of the new cross massacre - calling in at the book depository (william morris the wood beyond the world, thomas hardy the distracted teacher and other tales - this one is for horsemouth's dad probably - 30p each, and two music books with annotations of blues - 50p each), then back via greenwich and halcyonandon (who are going alphabetical - horsemouth worries this will put prices up) failing to find the jefferies he saw last time but picking up a copy of lyubka the cossack by isaac babel (signet classic edition - one squid). nothing in emmanaus in chrisp street.

last night horsemouth jammed with andrew minty and then watched the grand hotel budapest - an engagingly light hearted piece of hollywood mitteleuropea, a kitsch caper movie/ comedy of manners lifted from the writings of stefan zweig. it was a pleasant enough way to pass the time.


earlier horsemouth had spent a little time listening to st.louis blues on youtube (the vocal version from boardwalk empire was the most helpful) and attempting to learn it from the music (in his usual 'next line up -it must be a 'd'' way').

horsemouth has neary a whole set of old time-y tunes that he could work up and play - paper moon. world on a string, (dance me) to the end of love, honeysuckle rose, la mer, les feuilles morts, the entertainer, darktown strutter's ball (part) and the reverend gary davis's slide tune talking bues - really horsemouth should just get on with it. grey day - horsemouth will go for a wander then try and learn some songs.

history of the siege of lisbon blues

strangely jose saramago's history of the siege of lisbon gets a reference in john jeremiah sullivan's the ballad of geeshie and elvie in todays new york times - we are in the world of the collectors and archivists (harry smith, alan lomax being the only names horsemouth recognises) - and we are in this world with a desire to wrestle the lone voices on the recording down from the aether into photographs, birth certificates and surviving family members.

a young researcher placed with an old archivist just happens to have kept photos of documents after it 'doesn't work out' , one clue leads to another and we are with the surviving family and their stories. at one point our author worries that a document has been faked - like the history of the siege of lisbon where the editor of a boring conventional history decides to insert a not - the crusaders decide not to stay to help the portuguese retake lisbon from the moors. now make a history out of that says his boss.

maybe the history of the siege of lisbon is a clue here, perhaps we are being sold a pup, misdirected. horsemouth can't help reading it as a betrayal of trust, as a scam, and to what end, with photos (and family accounts) of the singer in later life we are really no closer to the mystery of the voice on the tape, or even of the guitar notes, as soon as they were recorded they split off and became themselves, this is what music does, the singer achieves a strange kind of immortality by lottery, of what gets saved from the wreck of ephemeral life by archivists and collectors. in publishing an account of this world the article has done us a favour.