a bright sunny morning with clouds and a dream (and boats and cormorants)

it is a bright sunny morning with clouds. last night horsemouth dreamt he was in montreal again (but he wasn't having much fun). he was drifting around libraries (admittedly funky looking libraries that seemed to double as student halls of residence). he was trying to remember where people lived. finding this dull horsemouth's brain teleported him onto a bus (horsemouth had no recollection of getting on nor of buying a ticket nor of knowing where it was going) - horsemouth resolved to stay on until the first stop and get off there - whenever that was. after a whle they arrived - they didn't seem to be checking tickets on the way out and horsemouth found himself in a sunny pleasant town just outside montreal (possibly a suburb - it's a big island or possibly a satellite town) - a while later he was in a very chinese mall - a little while later at a dance performance. horsemouth was invited to join in - at some point a girl kissed him.
this dream may indicate travel.

last night horsemouth was due to go out and be sociable but after friday's drinking session and a saturday spring cleaning his flat horsemouth was doubtful. social events and invites usually cause horsemouth some anxiety. though normally once he is there he has a fine old time. he worries about who will be there, who will go, etc. etc. this means he accepts far fewer social invitations than he receives (sorry - this by way of an apology should he ever blow you out) and certainly far fewer than he should attend. he also missed record store day - but this bothers him less.

sunday (today) he was pleased to note a friend was going for a birthday walk - up the canal path from limehouse to victoria park - to attend a boat-livers towpath party against the plan to run those on continuous cruising licenses out of town - a girl from tyrone was playing bodhran and reciting poetry. they then went on to the second tuesday club to look at a series of leonora carrington drawings in the backroom (this they duly did) - one of them featured cormorants (allegedly).

on the way back horsemouth bumped into marike in tower hamlets cemetery park - she was escaping from writing an essay on leadership and directed him to some wild garlic for the good of his health. 

monday he works (just a little bit) and there is a gig he should go to. tuesday he works all day (and thursday), wednesday, friday he works half days. it looks like he will be done by about may 8th - seeing as they are already giving away 'his' hours to other beachside donkeymules who are short of hours (allegedly).

he really needs a vacuum cleaner - that's possibly the only way to deal with the dust caused by so many books and records and CDs and potted plants (he was spring cleaning yesterday so this is fresh on his mind). the beans on the balcony continue to do well, some nasturtiums are even coming up - horsemouth has rearranged it to use the space more efficiently and to place the bean plants nearer the railings (up which they can climb). the smell of wild garlic now permeates the flat.

he has been reading ishmael reed's yellowback radio broke-down.

'of late i have come to sense within myself an accumulation of all kinds of things that cannot find adequate expression...'

hmmn. cloudy outside (and cooler) - no suntan lotion for horsemouth today he feels (50/50). things are growing on the balcony (beans mostly) - he'll have to get some beanpoles and 'train' them onto the railings.

horsemouth has been wandering around in his summer clothes (shorts, a t-shirt sometimes worn over the head in the manner of a seaside postcard hanky). yesterday horsemouth had his usual pasta and pesto thing, as is his wont except that he ate it with a salad (well a grated carrot and some spring onions). mnnnnn.

last night he dreamt about being on holiday in the countryside near his parents (at the bottom of the hill) but in a rented cottage for some reason he'd given away the cooker (and had to get it back before the family who owned it came back).

'of late i have come to sense within myself an accumulation of all kinds of things that cannot find adequate expression via an objective artistic form such as the novel.'              - yukio mishima, sun and steel. 

yukio looks up into the boundless blue skies as he carries the shrine round the village. later he is at an airforce base.

howard has recorded another solo track lost without words in the 'post'(?) musicians of bremen era - it's good.


as he lay in the sun horsemouth read hammond innes's the mary deare - a thriller set on the plateau of the minquies off the channel islands where the sea rises and falls 40 feet exposing dangerous reefs and wrecked ships. innes's hero is curiously void - like a camera just there to record the action.

'the hero rides a mule and not a horse'

(on spaghetti westerns - from 'not so quiet on the western front' by pietro bianchi)

work has cancelled. horsemouth has washed his duvet cover and hung it out to dry. now he's going for a walk. he will put some sunscreen on his face (not being one for public nudity he tends to develop a farmer's tan in warm weather - face, forearms, chest).


bill laswell is full of regrets - he'd do it all differently if he had his time again. grandmaster d.st (crazy cuts) makes the usual reconciliation of experience and learning. they sit as if they don't (really) want to be in the same room together. they're being interviewed for the story of cellulOid records a french label that started out putting ut free jazz, then put out tons of african music and inbetween put out lots of NY music from downtown to early electro and hip-hop. but half of the story (at least) isn't there - the free jazz is skimped, as is the african music (represented only by fela kuti and ginger baker. where's the toure kunda? where's the foday musa suso?).

mules are unheroic, low rent. lower even than workhorses. horsemouth has a day in the sun. tonight he goes to a meeting. tomorrow he goes to a gig. friday he works. next week he's back to the grind. but it's not long now and he'll have made his money for the year. what next year will bring who knows.

visiting times at the horsemouth guitar museum

so as you know horsemouth is something of a collector of (and sadly also a distributor of) cheap guitars (being too mean to spring for expensive ones). none of them are particularly valuable - at the moment the collection consists of;

• 

•  an oscar schmidt (by washburn) OR6CE resonator guitar - a biscuit resonator guitar with a pickup, volume and tone controls for live performance. (now all horsemouth has to do is get an amplifier and work out how to transport it to gigs). it's a strange beast. horsemouth wasn't planning to buy one - he thinks they're a pain to tune - but then one was offered and he thought 'oh what the hell.' it certainly looks good. 

• a laramie (by rosetti) a cheap copy of a gibson hummingbird. (aka. the 'bad taste country and western' guitar - the pick guard features a drawing of a hummingbird drinking nectar from a hibiscus flower (!)). this is the one where horsemouth's mum found it battered at a jumble sale. horsemouth's dad helped him reglue the bridge. horsemouth then restrung it. this horsemouth usually tunes daddad (so the open chords are neither major nor minor). it's a pleasant bright acoustic guitar (though a little bass heavy for horsemouth's tastes). it also looks good. this is the main guitar on sorrows of tommorow, fanfare for the common mule, the worldes blisse etc. 

• similarly the almeria BM (made in spain) - also found by horsemouth's mum at a jumble sale - this is the nylon-strung guitar on which horsemouth recorded most of the musicians of bremen's songs - the werewolf, the devil song, you're not god etc..it's these last two guitars you'll see in photos of the musicians of bremen. 

• an artisan lap steel - essentially a small plank of wood with cheap tuning pegs and a cheap pickup, bought for the second round of recording this is the guitar horsemouth uses for the solo on silver raven and as backup on sorrows of tomorrow (there are some photos of this). horsemouth hasn't even replaced the strings on it yet. he should (of course) get an amplifier for it, and probably a foot volume control so he can do those 'country' swells. 

• a woodstock rb6 'jumbo' steel-strung guitar (charity shop islington) - last heard when horsemouth was recording partie de camapgne round mr. nick's flat - it's been sitting neglected in the cupboard tuned dgdggd waiting his decision to get on and record a version of debussy's pagodes. the action is terrible (which makes it good for slide guitar) and it needs restringing. ok he just pulled it out of the cupboard, tuned it dgdgbd and tried the start of la fille au cheveux de lin on it (sounded good). 

 of course realistically horsemouth can only take two of these out at any one time. he's a little unethusiastic about getting into onstage retuning.

one day horsemouth will construct a list of guitars that went walkies on him - his yamaha sg300 for example (the electric guitar on which he recorded most of the boom clan and bush house music, the one rust used in the snatch foster band), the clanky 3/4 size acoustic (made in czechoslovakia) which horsemouth strung with superslinkies and on which he recorded most of the horsemouthfolk music and with which he played the wild hare club, the one he had to abandon at stansted airport (ryan air bastards). the bass the kid from bournemouth ran off with etc.

reconstructing the year's reading (so far)

ok - the year begins with the french, the goncourt brother's journal and renee mauperin (this goes with germine lacerteux by them that horsemouth read last year), words - jean paul sartre (horsemouth had a sartre / de beauvoir reading binge a few years ago - only really adieu where sartre dies affected him particularly).

journals are of course big with him, wartime notebooks - marguerite duras, anais nin - journals vol.2, two stories and a memory - guiseppe di lampedusa, a death in the family - karl ove knausgaard, homicide: a year on the killing streets - david simon, miami - joan didion, the air-conditioned nightmare - henry miller.

then there are his theoretical dabblings, shoenberg's 'moses and aaron' - worner, fear and trembling - kierkegaard, althusser: a critical reader - gregory elliot (just the introduction), chronicles of consensual times - jacques ranciere, the melancholy science - gillian rose (love's work by her remains amazing), modenist radicalism - stephen crook, often read in a hurry in university libraries.

then there is his ongoing interest in utopian commune and political movements (a hangover from his work on ranciere perhaps - and in particular his on the shores of politics), the democracy project - david graeber,the literature of labour - h. gustav klaus, documentary and educational films of the 1930ies - rachael low, selected writings of the transcendentalists, alternative communities in 19th century england - dennis hardy.

then there's the russians (horsemouth will have to do some catching up here - he's got a short story collection and herzen's ends and beginnings to be getting on with), the elaghin affair and other stories - ivan bunin, moscow circles - benedict erofeev. the erofeev in particular was amazing.

... and then a few 'modern' novels written in english for when horsemouth was bored, hangover square - patrick hamilton, goldberg: variations - gabriel josipovici, julius winsome - gerard donovan (largely borrowed from andy).

as usual when he reconstructed the list he found he'd missed out a few books, ones he'd read electronicaly also tended not to make the list. he needs a further list as well - one of accessions (books bought or received).

book list til april

• miami - joan didion
• documentary and educational films of the 1930ies - rachael low
• words - jean paul sartre
• wartime notebooks - marguerite duras
• shoenberg's 'moses and aaron' - worner (some)
•  hangover square -  patrick hamilton
• fear and trembling - kierkegaard - introduction and first few pages
• the literature of labour - h. gustav klaus (most)
• anais nin - journals vol.2 (all)
• goldberg: variations - gabriel josipovici (all)
• althusser: a critical reader -  gregory elliot (introduction)
•  the record as artwork (1977 fort worth art museum) - germano celant
•  the democracy project - david graeber
• chronicles of consensual times -  jacques ranciere (several articles)
• modenist radicalism - stephen crook - (dips)
• a death in the family - karl ove knausgaard
• julius winsome - gerard donovan (all)
• the air-conditioned nightmare - henry miller - (dips)
• the elaghin affair and other stories - ivan bunin
• moscow circles - benedict erofeev
• two stories and a memory - guiseppe di lampedusa
• a history of the church in the middle ages - f.donald logan - most
• selected writings of the transcendentalists - some
• alternative communities in 19th century england - dennis hardy - dips
• renee mauperin - goncourt brothers
• the melancholy science - gillian rose - some
• homicide: a year on the killing streets - david simon (all)
• the goncourt journals

the inauguration of british summer time

both duras and sartre are stuck with their childhoods. wartime diaries is a little disappointing - the stuff that is recorded for the first time here is better written (and so more convincing) elsewhere, the cookie-cutter kernels of wisdom designed to enable each fragment in the notebook to be self-sufficient do not work, and cannot until they are excised and the fragments made whole. their lives could not be more different - sartre the bookish child of alsatian grandparents, duras the white trash colonial girl gone bad.


with the rolling back of horsemouth's sickness (he's been ill with a filthy cough for about a week now) came the return of his quotidian anxieties. realistically, when horsemouth had a fever, the shivers, a raging cough and a week long headache he could not be expected to consider politics and music - but he has just picked up the guitar for the first time in a week and so his 'duties' cannot be far behind. he tried out the latin riff for tv eye on the resonator (following iggy's vocal emphasis) - this would be a companion piece to don't fear the reaper as cuban son. of course horsemouth should really hurry up and commit more of his music to recordings - he's done some nice things but really he's no further forward than when he was forty - or at least, crucially, he has no evidence to demonstrate that he is.

the sun has moved its way through the block opposite and now sets beyond it's furthest edge (shining into the northernmost recess of horsemouth's flat) this happened sometime around the inauguration of british summer time (horsemouth was adrift in time spending as much of it in bed and asleep as possible). horsemouth once awoke in what he took to be the early hours of the morning only to discover it was 9.30pm at night (only to realise it was really 10.30).

every cough says to horsemouth remember thou art mortal and proclaims unclean unclean to every creature (with a heart and lungs) in earshot.

one of sartre's schoolfriends bernard dies - and almost immediately his double walks into the classroom - the teacher (in shock) asks him his name - paul nizan -

 'nizan was the most obsessed: sometimes in center of the city, he would see himself as a corpse; he would get up, his eyes swarming with worms, grope for his round-brimmed borsalino, and disappear; next day we would find him drunk, among strangers.'