taking advantage of a day off horsemouth wandered up through the salt marshes to duck island park - now the housing development for the uber-rich with a rather nice park attached recently opened by some royals. as the average flat decreases in size (to the point where it would be illegal to rent it to social tenants or even rabbits) it is good to see where all this saved space is going - into recreating tellytubbyland in what was once a mephitic swamp/ working warehouse area/ site of the largest purpose built housing co-op in western europe (clays lane -now demolished)/ place where umpteen raves were held. here and there are old sets of concrete steps that have survived the reclamations and cast iron victorian bridges painted appealing colours (and then closed off). horsemouth liked it enormously and will be making his way up there again when the sun is a bit more reliable.
years ago horsemouth read an article about the lower lea and about joan bakewell's support for an arts space to be based there - the people illustrated by little schematic stick people engaging in activities like ping-pong and making movies, these he then crossbred with the glorious shiny computer rendered images of jolly multicultural consumers enjoying the tellytubbied spaces of the soon to be opened olympic park. horsemouth replaced the computer generated consumers (in his illustrations) with the (now strangely less cybernetic and controlling) schematics - allowing these semiotc ghosts to haunt the proposed olympic site - today he went up to the former olympic site to hunt for these schematic creatures. everybody milled about having fun, except for one nervous dad who would not allow his son anywhere near water, but sadly everyone looked much like their architect standard illustrations, sadly there were also no semiotic ghosts that horsemouth could detect, simply a well layed out tellytubbyland gradually shading into walthamstow marshes.
after being denied entry into that space for so long it as if it has been spontaneously and magically appeared and given to the nation.
Friday, 11 April 2014
Monday, 7 April 2014
paperback writer / 1066 blues ( a pair of walking boots and a season ticket)
last night horsemouth went out to the bookgroup. this morning he has a bad head (but not too bad - he has plenty of time to treat it with paracetamol and asprin and caffeine berfore he works).
many people were there it was good to see you all.
horsemouth took up his c.s. lewis science fiction trilogy and managed to part with it, he lent out the david grubb (the agapemonians, the memory diary, the movie of his life that was seemngly never made), margueritte duras's the lover went quickly. horsemouth returned with only a spare copy of voyage to venus, he brought back,
jerome k. jerome's idle thoughts of an idle fellow,
angela carter's the magic toyshop,
pierre boisard, camembert,
and mute, underneath the knowledge commons.
max slipped the xenophobe's guide to the english into his bag so horsemouth will have to work out how to dispose of that.
paperback writer was a book review show in horsemouth's childhood, various writers would bring in various books they wanted reviewed. (yes the theme music was by the beatles) if horsemouth remembers correctly it was presented by the in our time fellow melvyn bragg. once, and again this is if horsemouth remembers correctly, angela carter was on, the book she had chosen was the whip and fladge classic the story of o, this was during feminist times, but also there was something sadistic in itself in making writers discuss a book about sadism, masochism and piercing in a manner suitable for a tv audience (at the height of the influence of mary whitehouse too). horsemouth watched entranced.
angela lansbury was prowling the neighbourhood yesterday - horsemouth does hop this is not the start of some arty gentrification thing - but, like eyore, he suspects it is.
1066 blues ( a pair of walking boots and a season ticket)
a tape has emerged of john fahey (and dr. demento) interviewing son house. son house sounds healthy and sober with a stronger voice than in his later years. much of the discussion concerns the origin of the name of charley patton's charlie bradley’s 1066 blues - this turns out not to be about the norman conquest of britain at all but about the times of local trains coming out of memphis (charlie bradley was the train driver - people on the route liked the way he blew the whistle).
outside it is rainy and grey and a bit rubbish. yesterday horsemouth went up to the nearby seaside town of hackney (it is hard to imagine the seaside towns tramway being memorialised like charlie bradley's train), he and howard (the musicians of bremen), worked on some new songs and played through some old ones - they plan to do some recording over the easter holidays. horsemouth, as howard pinted out, has cunningly ensured that he can survive on less money to permit him to work less and so have time to make his art/ music/ write whatever... the problem is that he is too lazy and disorganised to do so. it is a fair criticism.
horsemouth and howard have grown sick and disgusted by the murder mile (their hackney local) while nicely decorated and with good beer it is in fact infested with ponces, and it's getting worse, now they strut around like they own the place (which in fact they do). the musicians of bremen will be returning their custom to at the sign of the owltopus. one of the advantages of horsemouth's less than salubrious neighbourhood is that it is quite ponce resistant by virtue of being less than salubrious, utterly boring and a just little dangerous. this will however not be enough to save it from the flood tide of money rapidly sanitising this city. soon horsemouth and the local psychotic trash will be rinsed out to the suburbs - horsemouth will get a pair of walking boots and a season ticket.
horsemouth took up his c.s. lewis science fiction trilogy and managed to part with it, he lent out the david grubb (the agapemonians, the memory diary, the movie of his life that was seemngly never made), margueritte duras's the lover went quickly. horsemouth returned with only a spare copy of voyage to venus, he brought back,
jerome k. jerome's idle thoughts of an idle fellow,
angela carter's the magic toyshop,
pierre boisard, camembert,
and mute, underneath the knowledge commons.
max slipped the xenophobe's guide to the english into his bag so horsemouth will have to work out how to dispose of that.
paperback writer was a book review show in horsemouth's childhood, various writers would bring in various books they wanted reviewed. (yes the theme music was by the beatles) if horsemouth remembers correctly it was presented by the in our time fellow melvyn bragg. once, and again this is if horsemouth remembers correctly, angela carter was on, the book she had chosen was the whip and fladge classic the story of o, this was during feminist times, but also there was something sadistic in itself in making writers discuss a book about sadism, masochism and piercing in a manner suitable for a tv audience (at the height of the influence of mary whitehouse too). horsemouth watched entranced.
angela lansbury was prowling the neighbourhood yesterday - horsemouth does hop this is not the start of some arty gentrification thing - but, like eyore, he suspects it is.
1066 blues ( a pair of walking boots and a season ticket)
a tape has emerged of john fahey (and dr. demento) interviewing son house. son house sounds healthy and sober with a stronger voice than in his later years. much of the discussion concerns the origin of the name of charley patton's charlie bradley’s 1066 blues - this turns out not to be about the norman conquest of britain at all but about the times of local trains coming out of memphis (charlie bradley was the train driver - people on the route liked the way he blew the whistle).
outside it is rainy and grey and a bit rubbish. yesterday horsemouth went up to the nearby seaside town of hackney (it is hard to imagine the seaside towns tramway being memorialised like charlie bradley's train), he and howard (the musicians of bremen), worked on some new songs and played through some old ones - they plan to do some recording over the easter holidays. horsemouth, as howard pinted out, has cunningly ensured that he can survive on less money to permit him to work less and so have time to make his art/ music/ write whatever... the problem is that he is too lazy and disorganised to do so. it is a fair criticism.
horsemouth and howard have grown sick and disgusted by the murder mile (their hackney local) while nicely decorated and with good beer it is in fact infested with ponces, and it's getting worse, now they strut around like they own the place (which in fact they do). the musicians of bremen will be returning their custom to at the sign of the owltopus. one of the advantages of horsemouth's less than salubrious neighbourhood is that it is quite ponce resistant by virtue of being less than salubrious, utterly boring and a just little dangerous. this will however not be enough to save it from the flood tide of money rapidly sanitising this city. soon horsemouth and the local psychotic trash will be rinsed out to the suburbs - horsemouth will get a pair of walking boots and a season ticket.
Saturday, 5 April 2014
march's books
read
damn good advice - gerorge lois,
hunger - knut hamsen,
the ministry of pain - dubravka ugresic,
memories, dreams, recollections - marianne faithfull,
reveries of a solitary walker - rousseau,
(started) emile or education - rousseau
bought
uncle's dream - dostoyevsky,
the iron heel - jack london,
the hearing trumpet - leonora carrington,
letters - tolstoy
borrowed
a graphic guide to hegel
damn good advice - gerorge lois,
hunger - knut hamsen,
the ministry of pain - dubravka ugresic,
memories, dreams, recollections - marianne faithfull,
reveries of a solitary walker - rousseau,
(started) emile or education - rousseau
bought
uncle's dream - dostoyevsky,
the iron heel - jack london,
the hearing trumpet - leonora carrington,
letters - tolstoy
borrowed
a graphic guide to hegel
scrying the skies with seventies council buildings
for horsemouth the sun sets behind the block opposite - it is four stories high (two maisonettes) with a 3 story corner at either end. the sun has precessed round, travelling through the barrow of the block, to emerge (just before it sets) at its northernmost end - the sun appears to have made this change suddenly while horsemouth was 'away' or inattentive.
the sun should now shine directly through onto horsemouth's bookshelves illuminating an area for study.
after the summer solstice (and around the time of the autumn equinox) it will retreat back behind the block again bringing sunsets forward in the teeth of daylight saving time - but horsemouth does not want to think about that now.
for horsemouth the towers of the island are too far south to interfere in this operation and the towers of the stare mesto (or old town) too far away, a railway line and a playing field hold back the
encroaching residential towers.
later he goes to play music (hopefully) - he may have to check out the travel.
the sun should now shine directly through onto horsemouth's bookshelves illuminating an area for study.
after the summer solstice (and around the time of the autumn equinox) it will retreat back behind the block again bringing sunsets forward in the teeth of daylight saving time - but horsemouth does not want to think about that now.
for horsemouth the towers of the island are too far south to interfere in this operation and the towers of the stare mesto (or old town) too far away, a railway line and a playing field hold back the
encroaching residential towers.
later he goes to play music (hopefully) - he may have to check out the travel.
Saturday, 22 March 2014
equinox
horsemouth has survived until the vernal equinox (again) - this alone would be cause for rejoicing, but in addition he had an idea for a lyric on the way home.
looking out at the greyskies horsemouth finds it hard to believe that soon in will be summer, and yet it is so, we are entering the bright half of the year, soon it will be the solstice. horsemouth has celebrated by putting up a link to orbital's version of the equinox theme music (which if he remembers correctly had commentary by 'the voice of dr. who' tom baker, from whence comes the meat beat manifesto sample burning with ecstasy (he believes). he listened to chime (orbital's best track) and lush 3-1 (which features a young horsemouth in african guitar mode - he comes in about half way through under the double time hi-hats). this is horsemouth's 15 seconds of fame.
ok horsemouth should get on with some spring cleaning (or perhaps a snooze) - later
horsemouth has been having a nostalgia binge - first the stooges, then the 12 dreams of dr. sardonicus by spirit, then hawkwind - in particular a shot of dancer stacia from the start of the video for silver machine. the first time horsemouth ever saw hawkwind as part of a documentary on science fiction writer michael moorcock, m.john harrison cropped up, climbing a rock face somewhere the bubble machine creates bubbles, the audio generators burble to themselves and then assume an upward trajectory, the ascending guitar riff kicks in, stacia salutes, lemmy starts to sing.
.
later horsemouth will probably listen to the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy which horsemouth heard when it was first transmitted 36 years ago (when he was about 13/14), as improbable as it seemed the rumour that the theme music was by the (unfashionable) eagles turned out to be true. horsemouth pretty much knows it word for word and sound by sound.
horsemouth was a nerd avant la lettre, studying science, playing dungeons and dragons, reading science fiction, listening to hawkwind and the friday night rock show, computers hadn't quite happenend yet, space travel was over (but nobody knew it yet).
looking out at the greyskies horsemouth finds it hard to believe that soon in will be summer, and yet it is so, we are entering the bright half of the year, soon it will be the solstice. horsemouth has celebrated by putting up a link to orbital's version of the equinox theme music (which if he remembers correctly had commentary by 'the voice of dr. who' tom baker, from whence comes the meat beat manifesto sample burning with ecstasy (he believes). he listened to chime (orbital's best track) and lush 3-1 (which features a young horsemouth in african guitar mode - he comes in about half way through under the double time hi-hats). this is horsemouth's 15 seconds of fame.
ok horsemouth should get on with some spring cleaning (or perhaps a snooze) - later
horsemouth has been having a nostalgia binge - first the stooges, then the 12 dreams of dr. sardonicus by spirit, then hawkwind - in particular a shot of dancer stacia from the start of the video for silver machine. the first time horsemouth ever saw hawkwind as part of a documentary on science fiction writer michael moorcock, m.john harrison cropped up, climbing a rock face somewhere the bubble machine creates bubbles, the audio generators burble to themselves and then assume an upward trajectory, the ascending guitar riff kicks in, stacia salutes, lemmy starts to sing.
later horsemouth will probably listen to the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy which horsemouth heard when it was first transmitted 36 years ago (when he was about 13/14), as improbable as it seemed the rumour that the theme music was by the (unfashionable) eagles turned out to be true. horsemouth pretty much knows it word for word and sound by sound.
horsemouth was a nerd avant la lettre, studying science, playing dungeons and dragons, reading science fiction, listening to hawkwind and the friday night rock show, computers hadn't quite happenend yet, space travel was over (but nobody knew it yet).
Sunday, 2 March 2014
this years books (to the end of february)
ficciones - jorge luis borges,
and a threefold cord - alex la guma,
blues people - leroi jones,
beneath the visiting moon - david grubb,
gustav holst - imogen holst,
the lover - marguerite duras,
train dreams - denis johnson,
the people's land - hugh brody,
travel arrangements - m.john harrison,
unfinished woman - lillian hellman,
a handbook on hanging -
the prisoner - thomas m. disch,
magic hour - jack cardiff,
summer in baden-baden - leonid tsypskin,
hadrian VII - fr. rolfe.
and a threefold cord - alex la guma,
blues people - leroi jones,
beneath the visiting moon - david grubb,
gustav holst - imogen holst,
the lover - marguerite duras,
train dreams - denis johnson,
the people's land - hugh brody,
travel arrangements - m.john harrison,
unfinished woman - lillian hellman,
a handbook on hanging -
the prisoner - thomas m. disch,
magic hour - jack cardiff,
summer in baden-baden - leonid tsypskin,
hadrian VII - fr. rolfe.
Saturday, 1 March 2014
what does horsemouth love about his flat?
well he loves the light - the light that being on the 3rd floor gives him, the light from the sun that shines through his windows in the afternoon making certain places bright sunny and warm. (one thing he needs to do is to rearrange the furniture to take better advantage of this).
he also loves the heating - however grim it is outside he can be toasty in a matter of minutes... and he loves the internet connection (so he can write tedious toss like this). the hi-fi system does not work well enough to be loved.
he loves the sofa - but not as much as he loves the bed - it's just not as comfortable.
... and he loves the shelving (and various boxes etc.) used to store and display all his cultural product until the glorious day when he can actually get round to reading or listening to it all.
the kitchen, the bathroom, the toilet, the cupboards - these are all very useful but they don't excite his love (not even the new work surface in the kitchen), they are insufficiently aesthetic. the fridge he has warm feelings for - it keeps the beer cold and preserves food long past its sell-by date. the coffee pot he only loves in the afternoon - in the morning he is not awake enough to be grateful.
his balcony he does not love yet - for he has not tidied it up in preparation for summer.
the big mirror (from jiska's) he loves - it just bounces so much light back into the room. his tilak table (one of his few' spends' on furniture) he loves, the chair that he found in a similar style he does not (because it's a bit too heavy and he stained the wood oak which is too dark)
but most of all he loves the door that (after a hard days work and the commute from hell) he can close behind him.
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