condensate flower (the wheel of the year)

horsemouth spent some time listening to waylon jennings last night particularly the early stuff. he's a good guitarist and the band are tight. horsemouth likes the generic nature of the music. after listening to merle travis's original of dark as a dungeon, he also checked out his picking I'll see you in my dreams was particularly amazing. outside it is sunny and bright but cold and damp. horsemouth has cropped about 10 cherry tomatoes from the tomato plant he brought indoors - there are about 8 left that are still green horsemouth hopes they will get the 'opportunity' to go red.

it looks like having played a gig for samhain (well halloween - with john smith as musicians of bremen) horsemouth will also be playing a gig for the winter solstice (well on the 20th anyroad - this time on his own as musician of bremen) - he should probably make a cycle of it samhain -winter solstice- imbolc - spring equinox - beltane - summer solstice - lughnasadh - autumn equinox - (and it all goes round again and again). horsemouth has no idea what the result of this operation will be (but he's prepared to try). he'll have to work out a set list and get practicing - it's only a month away.

'art has two constant and unending preoccupations: it is always meditating upon death and it is thereby creating life'

'brilliant though apocryphal' guiseppe di lampedusa describes the novels of daniel defoe as 'near diaries'. of stendahl's work he praises henri brulard (stendahl's account of his own early life and his real name). lampedusa was in mourning for the house where he was born (bombed by the allies when they took palermo in 1943), his wife (a psychoanalyst) suggested he write about it, from this and from his unvarying daily routine came his novel the leopard and a small collection of short stories that horsemouth now owns. (two stories and a memory - penguin 3/6 edition - 2 quid 50 along with the death of ivan illych leo tolstoy, signet classics edition - horsemouth probably has it already).

horsemouth was out west (having worked in the morning and gone for coffee) to transport his mother across the seaside towns and safely to his brothers residence in the heights of highams park - he'll be doing some of the return journey sunday (12.10 liverpool street - don't let him forget). he visited his favourite second hand bookshop (the one in the engagingly rundown bell street) - he's never taken the time to check out their music collection (he should do). it was a long week - horsemouth is looking forward to a lazy weekend.

anais is in therapy again. her subconscious has risen up in revolt against her life once again. atlantis has fallen (leaving only cape verde). but the crisis passes her life is good. she goes dancing with the haitians, at the end of the night the older ones get up and dance a minuet straight from the court of the sun king. it will be a long time before she leaves new york yet (not til the end of volume 4). maya derren will film anais and her friends, she will see herself.

her cover portrait is pure remedios varo, ethereal and detached she meets our gaze like some higher aspect of ourselves. she meets leonora carrington. 'for days I lived without my drug, my secret vice, my diary. and then I found this: I could not bear the loneliness.'

the way we live now (machinery of the heavens)

horsemouth is listening to the sound of the rain in the leaves - outside it is rainy and wet - inside it is toasty and warm (or will be when his antique boiler gets its act together). horsemouth has his marching orders for next week. it is (or will be soon) five weeks to the winter solstice (the darkest day of the year) from thence summer iz y-cumen in and we begin our long slow climb back up to the light through january and february (and march and april). it would be (of course) good to mark this in some fashion. the sun now sets at the far end of the block opposite (having travelled quickly through the long barrow of social housing).

Robert Charles Mann - Photo Artist Pinhole Solargraph at Chaumont-sur-Loire.
Exposed for six months between winter solstice
December 21, 2013 to summer solstice June 21, 2014.

hrsemouth needs to check if it will be at its most southerly point on the horizon at the solstice or if this will be at some other date. he wants to understand the machinery of the heavens better.

horsemouth works this afternoon (he has agreed to this) - he also notes the hours he did not work (due to results being handed back,non-attendance, tutorials being cancelled etc. the faff of education). some of these he managed to put to good use. he's reading richard hoggart's the way we live now - a useful thumbnail sketch of the shifts in education and broadcasting since his the uses of literacy (horsemouth has it round the flat somewhere). hoggart grumps against the false egalitarianism of 'relativism' and calls for judgement in a way that would have warmed the heart of the old school rcp. this is not entirely to horsemouth's taste (he finds it an uneasy meeting ground between reactionaries and so-called revolutionaries) but then the egalitarian, playful, creative is also a meeting ground between so-called revolutionaries and the management consultants of the new spirit of capitalism. his copy of the book is lightly annotated - horsemouth suspects a teacher - but it is also (endearingly) a bit battered, suggesting that it was stuffed at the bottom of a bag and allowed to get wet.

---------------------------

"Perhaps the way one tells how alive a particular art form is, is by the latitude it gives for making mistakes in it, and still being good."

  - Susan Sontag, from Against Interpretation.

one thing horsemouth finds about modern folk music is that it's very safe - despite the wire inspired incorporation of avant garde gestures - which seems to have domesticated them, to make them wipe their feet before they come in. it all sounds very nice and very well played but it doesn't seem to be doing very much socially. it's all very much in the shadow of its folk-revival  models - here's a john fahey (but not as cantankerous as the original), here's a robbie basho cover (but not as excessive as the original), bulls precisely have not been loosed in antique shops (as rob young claims), no antiques were harmed in the making of this music. it's all very respectful. a curating of texture. people seem to need distortion and volume to create any of the megalomania necessary for some sort of catharsis or progress.

'the kingdom of heaven is within you' / 'I'd like to thank everybody for comin'... rilly'

anais is in new york with the vareses (that is when she's not going up to the savoy ballroom in harlem and dancing til 6am). francis kilvert is visiting one of dr.fox's new improved lunatic asylums near bristol when someone calls out his name and is bundled away. malcolm lowry (who has just been served with an eviction notice) is thinking about the economics of being a writer,

'naturally, one didn't expect to live on one's income, though between books, that can become necessary, because if you live on the advance from your next book you're eating yourself as the french say, literally, and if you get another job you won't write the book.'

sir thomas browne is writing on urn burial and the earth 'in the deep discovery of the subterranean world, a shallow part would satisfie some enquirers...' he explains in a footnote  that according to tradition adam was made out of dust from the four quarters of the earth (hence the four letters of his name - but the explanation is in greek so horsemouth cannot follow him further). 

you see what horsemouth is doing here? it's a season ending montage. 

in about an hour  horsemouth goes to work (he will walk in (virtuous boy) but for now he's just drinking the morning coffee. last night he finished off true detective (again - the eternal recurrence of the dvd, life a flattened silver circle). in the day he went out onto the island to do his shopping but he couldn't face the queues at the checkout so he went off mudlarking instead - the tide was low - it was a good haul. he then cooked pasta and kidney beans (and tomatoes and peppers and red onions, pesto and a little chilli). the first season ends out with what horsemouth has discovered is the 13th floor elevators song 'the kingdom of heaven is within you'  - in the great king james bible tradition of mistranslation and excessive concretisation - jesus's 'fuck you'  to the pharisees becomes the alibi of every DIY bargain basement satanist - as the 13th floor elevators do here on a muddy country 6/8.

he's been taken up with judee sill (the kiss) as well, who's also fond of biblical imagery - as is horsemouth despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that he was raised agnostic.  

'I'd like to thank everybody for comin'... rilly'

thankyouthankyouthankyou (best gig yet)/ the solitary of llanbedr

horsemouth would like to thank all those who came out and could stay to the end to witness musicians of bremen's performance halloween night - it was (in his humble opinion, and of course he's biased) the best yet - but this is probably just because he had a lot  of fun playing it. in particular horsemouth would like to thank the random scouse dude who asked the key question 'is there a second microphone stand?' and the girl from the venue who got it out of the storage cupboard - and the landlady for sorting himself and john smith out with a beer when their performance was over. 

sadly that still left the problem of there only being two microphones where musicians of bremen usually have four unamplified sound sources on the go at any one time. musicians of bremen got themselves into this state by electing not to soundcheck - if they'd known they had microphones and microphone stands at home (ah well live and learn).

horsemouth remained indomitable in the face of these setbacks (and in the face of persistent minor feedback and poor sound quality due to his having no real understanding of how operate PAs - he thanks ayesha and  iona and nick for their help). as far as horsemouth remembers they opened with the werewolf  which horsemouth padded out with as much call and response as he could reasonably get away with - they ended up with sorrows of tomorrow because they'd forgotten to play it earlier - in between they debuted all my dreams (with horsemouth singing). being fairly drunk and having overcome all obstacles in his way horsemouth was in good voice.

later (by way celebration) horsemouth went out to watch the spacehijackers funeral - he thanks one set of friends for inviting him out and another set of friends for managing to get him in - he danced, he yelled a bit, he went home. the space hijackers are shutting up shop (presumably because there's no more space left to hijack). in the course of things he acquired a red pinstripe suit (and it's not too bad a fit) which (being a disobedient object) has resisted the state's attempt to prosecute the wearer (including horsemouth himself he's told) three times (plus it has been dipped in the waters of the lethe having been worn to the owners father's funeral) - thencely it must be  in possession of some serious heavy juju - horsemouth will probably be wearing it for future gigs.

the solitary of llanbedr

'sunday, allhallowmass day 1874.

all has gone of well. fanny played the harmonium nicely and the singing was capital. the congregation were delighted and some of them could hardly believe their ears and the squire said nothing for or against, but he came to church twice.' - kilvert's diary, william plomer selection.

horsemouth is slouching around (perhaps he'll go out later) though typically the weather has taken a turn for the worse (after the end of british summertime comes an indian summer but this morning is rainy and grey). kilvert was a curate up at clyro in radnorshire (near hay-on-wye and thus near his parents), horsemouth has been to his grave in bredwardine. he writes of the depression of john couzens (john and the devil) and of his fortelling a revolution (john couzens' prophecy). he writes of the solitary of llanbedr  his shack stuffed with pamphlets where he perfects a new system of shorthand. typically the locals called the little valley where he lived cwm cello - probably cwm ceilio - the valley of the cattle pen. kilvert collects folk songs (from the postmaster in abergavenny). he came by the kilvert on friday morning and also volume 3 of anais nin's diaries (most excellent the little he has read), he will go back to the cobbett at some stage.

horsemouth is returning from the mountains of mania where he has been very pleasurably installed since the gig - this is the place where his genius is capable of everything and anything simultaneously - he has been returning via true detective which now that he watches it in the correct order works very well.

iona commented friday night that there's something very gothic in what musicians of bremen do (dead children, dead this, dead that, dead the other, the devil, the pulpit, the steeple, werewolves, sorrows, drownings etc.) and horsemouth has to admit it's true (just look at his choice of folksongs in his solo tracks - dead lovers, drownings, murders, etc. etc.).  that they deal with murders  is one of the things that attracts him to folksongs (the material of people's lives is just so much better) that and the fact that it is collectively authored and only gradually arrived at produces strange juxtaposiitions. there's a song of domestic happiness painted toes but horsemouth didn't write it and it's not something he would write, horsemouth would have liked to get his version of bright phoebus up and running (which he hears as a song about the moment when love hits) and there was john smith's song of an argument in a car - both of these need drums really - or maybe they're not where musicians are going anymore.

all the william morrises, all the ruskins, all the rosettis in hackney these days - all that facial hair and still no decent wallpaper.

all the william morrises, all the ruskins, all the rosettis in hackney these days -  all that facial hair and still no decent wallpaper. perhaps a fetish for fay and fair folk music, perhaps a willingness to play the journeyman artisan. perhaps a fear of pubic hair (who knows). thank fuck the fashion for hanky over the head (the poor woman's wimple) has died out.

forgive horsemouth - he's grumpy - they've been making him work. he's been stitching sow's ears into silk purses - or at least things that look like they might be silk purses until they have been sold - but the next morning  you wake up and it's a sow's ear you've got in your pocket. this is the nature of all alienated labour- the nature of every impulse purchase.

william and jane morris, all those pre-raphaelite crazies (and their folksongs) still they had more political sense than all these sweepy sweepy broom broom peope - horsemouth swears when he saw boris being danced up the street (broom in hand) there was somebody waltzing with him saying in his ear remember thou art mortal! remember thou art mortal! eyes fixed on the glorious all swept out future, when london would be free of its rioting mobs and a hundred village greens would bloom. he swears that person looked familiar.

the cuckoo and the turtle dove will get even rarer (as their african wintering grounds are eroded away). whereas in greece even the dogs are rioting.

horsemouth has been watching zombie biker movie psychomania - it begins with formation motorcycle ballet through the standing stones in the mist.

saturday british summer time ends, the friday after is halloween, the wednesday after bonfire night - the world frays a little at the edges, the gates are opened up, things begin to appear strangely transformed and yet still within the old world.

on hearing a modern singer (we work against)

great voice.
bjorkish.
cute accent
.... and not that interesting.
no the one for horsemouth - does she do any trad?

she does trad - it works better.

horsemouth is not in love with lovely voices - what horsemouth wants is something about the voice that is revealed as it does the work of opening up the song - words and music working against each other (barthes much misused and always worth a read essay "the grain of the voice'). he feels the same about most classical singing. horsemouth would be more interested in hearing an amateur singer sing and seeing where they breathed or put the emphasis - voices with flaws, voices with imperfections, average voices working with dramatic material having to recruit other resources to cope. too many people are in love with the sounds that come out of their mouths (and recording gives you access to these seconds again and again) to worry about what the song is saying.

the music too has this problem. it is too sparse and willfully 'adventurous' (in a boring tasteful way - hello wire). a lot of this stuff shares this problem -  it is just too mannered and too overproduced for its own good - all texture loving recorded with expensive microphones but with no musical content for it to work against. horsemouth is not interested in acoustic textures themselves but in the portability of the instruments and  in the restriction of options that not having an electric guitar, a rack of effects pedals and an amplifier brings.

they cover a song horsemouth knows 

so they found that one did they - ouch - well the lyrics always were rubbish - 10 seconds and off- ok if you could sing like bjork, cerys mathews and liz fraser the I guess you would... could she not sing a song where it sounds like she thinks it's important? or could she not sing one where it sounds like she just thinks it's cheap throwaway commercial trash.

even when he sounds bored bob dylan at least sounds like he thinks the song should be sung (or if he doesn't that's interesting - often he sounds like he wants to kill everybody for making him sing the song) - even when he's singing god-bothering trash on a nationally syndicated tv show mid-evening johnny cash sounds like he means it.

'lies, damned lies and quotations'

"figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.' - mark twain 

(ps. there is howeverno evidence disraeli ever uttered this line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics).

horsemouth recently got into a debate with john smith about child poverty statistics (in john's new role of fully paid up contrarian) wondering if  there ever a time in England when there wasn't child poverty? and when there were times of less, and why was this?

horsemouth held it was  post war - welfare state, more equitable distribution of the profits, running out of steam through the 80ies , 90 ies but admitted  that would be quite a bit a research - last year the child poverty stats weren't as bad (and before). he was not sure people bothered collecting statistic on the poor until victorian times - it's one of the things cobbett does in his rural rides is try and assess how well fed people are, but he's not collecting figures. this probably doesn't happen until the time of  engels, cole and postgate's the common people mentions a survey of london wages in 1747. being a contrarian John Smith suggested that maybe there were no poor to collect statistics on.

cobbett has a view of prosperous rural self-sufficiency (before the arrival of paper money and stock-jobbing) but songs such as four loom weaver (where during a cotton shortage the whole family shuts itself up in the cottage and starves to death) suggest that things weren't always so rosy.

horsemouth thinks that clearly if there are no statistics then the problem can't exist (this is the governments attitude - it is very careful which statistics it gathers and which could only e provided at 'disproportionate cost') - but wondered (on a practical level like cobbett) how many kids at john smith's school get free school meals. apparently lots of them, they've just started a breakfast club, because most don't get breakfast. Some were only getting one meal a day before this at lunchtime.

if there were only 20% of kids in a borough in child poverty would that be more acceptable? or 10%? or the 15% current national average?

horsemouth should probably read the report more carefully before rushing into 'print'.

'life is a pure flame. and we live by an invisible sun within us' (hard times dub)

today is the birthday (in 1605) of the accidentally knighted sir thomas browne. a writer celebrated by coleridge and johnson and connolly (and if horsemouth remembers correctly malcolm lowry - yes google supports this interpretation). horsemouth has found a copy of his the major works (edited by c.a. patrides) and will be making several expeditions into it today in celebration. horsemouth had forgotten the lowry- melville connection, furthermore he had not realised that lewis mumford had written on melville (pierre still languishes unread).

cobbett entertains - he sits on the hillside at old sarum (capitalised thus THE ACCURSED HILL) cursing malthus and cursing the political establishment and their plans to emigrate(soon to be transport) the poor. 'hard times' says a passing peasant. he curses birkeck and his enthusiasm for the backwoods, he remembers advising birkbeck's daughters not to let their father take them more than 20 miles from boston,  even though birkbeck died in the attempt.

howard (or john smith as horsemouth should now be calling him) is continuing to work on noah (now titled noah again) - he has a fine exhausted ending / middle 8 for it. noah is tenth in descent from adam, he is the father of shem, ham and japeth. the rainbow as a symbol of hope becomes important. 

yesterday horsemouth travelled to the supermarket to stock up on coffee and museli ahead of the collapse of civilisation, he also made soup and harvested some of his beans (he will store them for replanting next year). there are some tomatoes on the plant (but they have not gone red yet and it's a bit of a race to see if they will). horsemouth is pinning his hopes on the visible sun for this one. the catepillers have polished off his nasturtiums to the barest stem and vanished - apparently gardeners often plant nasturtiums to distract the catepillers (according to john clarkson). he has some nasturtium 'seeds' for next year. the peppers are doing well - especially the italian frigatelli , the fennel is still thriving.