‘letters of a deceased person’ (religious visions after a meal in cork)

the day before yesterday horsemouth mainly sat about and read - sometimes there was sun (in which case he was out on the patio toasting himself). he did some shopping but he’s rapidly come to the conclusion he doesn’t have time to eat it all before he goes (see you only have to show horsemouth a bargain and he’s off - aldilidllidl aldilidllidl).

as others saw us: cork through european eyes is a book on what visitors thought of cork that leaves out british writers (and the normans - excepting bernard de clairvaux, and the vikings). in this it prefigures the post-brexit city, forget about fishguard, forward to bilbao and santander. it’s side-by-side original text and translation (so there’s half the book horsemouth can’t read and comment on).

brother marcus, an irish monk, writes, in 1149 in latin and in ratisbon bavaria, of the impious knight tnugdal who dies for 3 days and then comes back with stories of hell and a noticeably improved attitude, noted german travel author (and gardener) hermann von puckler-muskau’s letters of a deceased person is an account of his journeys through ireland in 1828. bernard de clairvaux our earliest visitor (1090-1153 ad) writes of the miracles of st. malachy.

broadly the visitors are a snobby bunch (complaining of the beggars and the lack of anything to see) - the french (including de toqueville) blame the british and imperialism (when not applauding the prisons), the germans, dutch, czechs and scandanavians (mostly) blame the irish and the want of protestantism. sometimes the grand houses and thoroughfares and shops are to their taste (sometimes not). all praise the situation of the town (in the arms of the lee river, in the valley) and the natural advantages of the harbour and the bay.

victorian cork is a giant slaughterhouse and buttery sending first salted and later tinned beef (and cannon-fodder) to the british army all over the world (now there’s some lucrative contracts me boys). the food all goes for export, the merchants of cork get rich, the poor in the countryside starve and save for emigration or sign up. like dublin there’s a huguenot community.

in the 20ies there’s the agitation for home rule and the border war - the black and tans murder one mayor of cork, burn down half the centre of town as a reprisal for a bomb thrown at one of their armoured cars, a second mayor (terence macswiney) dies on hunger strike in brixton jail. he becomes a hero to galician nationalists. it was events by these that probably helped strengthen henri beraud’s hatred of the english - in the second world war he wrote for vichy newspapers and after it was sentenced to death by de gaulle (later commuted to life imprisonment).

eventually there are trade shows and factories on the road to cobh.

july 2018 gigs, books, films list

  gigs

•  5th - gwenifer raymond, john mcgrath 

 books

• gogol (biography of) - vsevolod setchkarov 
• church fathers, independent virgins - joyce e. salisbury, 
• writings of the desert fathers (introduction), 
• felix holt (stuck in the middle)- george eliot, 
• the ghost rider, the siege, palace of dreams - ismail kadare 

 films 
sicario, ripping yarns, the train (burt lancaster), faster (2010), true grit (coen brothers), iron sky, high rise, 12 monkeys (series), picnic at hanging rock (series - first episode)

don't tell the d-o-g

don’t tell the d-o-g but horsemouth is breaking up the b-a-n-d.

the cockerel (howard grange) is safely back in england (probably down in pop(u)lar at this very moment), horsemouth (as you know) is the mule, or donkey, or donkeymule or whatever, the d-o-g and the c-a-t are who they say they are.

but the d-o-g and the c-a-t do not get on (in fact they are barely talking). this is why horsemouth has decided to break up the b-a-n-d.

horsemouth will probably reform the b-a-n-d in england as just himself and howard (though he may musically collaborate with the c-a-t in future), the d-o-g is, in any event, off to the k-e-n-n-e-l-s later on today (probably), that was always the plan anyway. the d-o-g is only a young feller (and a hothead), the local dogs seem mostly to sing I’m the king of the castle, but the d-0-g’s song seems to be you’re not the boss of me.

horsemouth hoped that if he could just get everyone in a room talking then the reformation would naturally follow but it was not to be. 

horsemouth knows that in other cultures the musicians of bremen are composed differently - a badger rather than a dog say - and indeed in many tellings of the story they are not even on their way to bremen.

actually the d-o-g is probably not gone until monday.

horsemouth was bored so he got out the time machine...

one year ago horsemouth and howard got john clarkson's harmonium out of storage (and so hence the current musicians of bremen album). two years ago horsemouth was moving his worldly possessions after several happy years down in langdon park (thanks to everyone who helped). three years ago he was buying the biography of karl krauss: apocalyptic satirist in oxfam in walthamstow. four years ago he was going to a meeting to be persuasive (he can't remember what about to be honest or if he succeeded or failed). five years ago horsemouth was hiding out in the countryside at his folks and reading balzac's a murky business. six years ago he was with kevin davy watching people going off to the london olympics down the greenway. seven years ago he needed a bass amp and a means of getting it to the gig for a snatch foster band gig - iona obliged with the amp (and an awesome beast it was too), john clarkson drove (cheers dude).

hmmm - reincorporation has been achieved - that seems to be a good place to stop.

‘a horse may well be able to do things that a scholar can’t’

the siege is over - the defeated army trundle away - horsemouth will have to do some research. at one point, in ismail kadare's book, to find the aqueduct bringing water into the castle, the besiegers release a thirsty horse who begins to dig where the aqueduct is. in this he truly is ‘a horse ... able to do things that a scholar can’t’ because the aqueduct has been designed to baffle human understanding and ‘make no sense’ but a thirsty horse just digs where it can smell water...



this could have been a morrissey tune - if you listen very carefully you can hear him. swooningly romantic, wracked with self-doubt, all wrapped up in a double entendre... no idea who this lot are (young person's music).

horsemouth is uncomfortable with the animal side of him (notice that he has chosen a much put upon beast of burden to be his spirit animal). however it is sometimes necessary to connect with this side of himself (when dealing with animals, children, lovers and insufficiently socialised adults - all creatures who will not accept a fascimile of the correct response but demand actual emotional connection).

but horsemouth finds this difficult and will often just get angry instead at having been made to do it. horsemouth’s anger is not a least said soonest mended kind of thing, it’s a mean passively-aggressive consequences playing beast, it’s a bit of a tantrum thrower, it’s not a pleasant sight. but it is funny - a real comedy piece.

as horsemouth gets older he strives to do it less - let them have it, he says, if that’s what they want.

yesterday horsemouth got the bus out to fountainstown - and then after a read on the beach and a paddle he got the bus back. last night it rained (which made the dogwalking brief).

interesting there’s just been a power outage. the dog seems unbothered. horsemouth will blog on until the dog gets restless and then go for a walk. it’s a rainy grey day so he’s uncertain what he will do for the rest of it. for a brief moment he had a vision of no shops open, the fridges defrosting, the full ATMs not working apocalypse.

'come as you are...'

a few nights ago horsemouth was dreaming of village life. of the firemen making a symbol similar to the takoma park records logo. his dreaming of villages may be inspired less by carrigaline and more by the village in ismail kadare’s the ghost rider - the daughter marries out far away, the son promises the mother that if she wishes it he will bring her back, but then he dies fighting, the mother curses him in his grave for not bringing the daughter back, but then one night the daughter is at her door saying her brother has just brought her back. ‘come as you are...’ he said to her. his armour all covered in earth. 

when he wrote it kadare was in disgrace in internal exile in albania. it’s translation history is interesting it was translated into french by a friend of his joseph vuroni in paris and then from that into english with additional bits added. the book ends by giving a preview of the siege.

it’s another book (like broken april -horsemouth would argue his best)  about the kanun (albanian blood feud laws) - which the police chief sees as a self-managed means of imprisonment and execution (this may be a portion added after in the new translation). there is of course a political metaphor and message here but for kadare to have survived albanianian communism there can’t have been one - hence the rewrite, hence the original choice of a well-known ghost story (but one that was known in the rest of europe), folkloric material officially approved of.

horsemouth live from carrigaline

horsemouth is sitting out in the sunset in the back garden minding a fire while J+D ferry one of the offspring and her friend to the cinema. he really needs the fire not to go out (so he can look like a trustworthy person and build trust).


 ‘with ishmael’s white reverie, with the patience of bartleby...’ - georges perec, W.

last night (when he arrived) horsemouth was straight on the guitar and him and denise blasted through their classics and through some prospective new tunes. she’ll have plenty of time to practice them while on holiday with dave and caudia (and graham and fiona).

meanwhile horsemouth will be dog-sitting, cat-sitting, watering the tomatoes (and possibly playing a little guitar himself, certainly doing some reading and some farting about on the internet, perhaps going for a few long walks). before he flew he was reading felix holt again - it’s great - he will be quoting some of it tomorrow (when he finds a quiet minute to blog).

a l'entree du temps clair (friday 13th)

horsemouth is a little bored (but soon he is off to ireland). saturday sean was supposed to visit but there was also creation rebel up at walthamstow garden party (in the end sean will come monday or tuesday). later still on saturday horsemouth was off babysitting.

sunday afternoon there’s a good solid african music line up there (seun kuti and egypt 80, fatoumata diawara).

on the glorious 12th  he failed to get out the door to look at the old school house (a very churchy looking building just off lea bridge road) - he always wondered what it was (and now he knows). soon it is up for sale (as a grade II listed building there’s limited opportunity to chop it about). he shopped in the morning and read/ farted about on the internet in the afternoon.

he began the day listening to nirvana’s in utero (satisfyingly crunchy, strangely melodic and very well made) and ended it with metallica’s 1983 kill ‘em all - there’s a band photo, they all look very young and very serious, the riffing is there (but the vocals and the production aren’t).


horsemouth has ‘discovered’ veronique chailot a normandy french singer of early music who since 2005 has played with veziana, an ensemble dedicated to early music from both sides of the pyrenees. 

horsemouth is reading the mystic mind: the psychology of medieval mystics and ascetics - a collaboration between a medieval historian and a psychologist has a precedent in his studies of the desert fathers but also on the position of women in the early church - in peter brown’s the body and society and in joyce e. salisbury’s church fathers, independent virgins - this also feeds in to his interest in utopian communes, monastic communities and secular solitaries (in both fiction and real life).

‘this mad riddle that no one knows what it is’

last night (on the news) horsemouth heard danny dyer proclaimed ‘the shakespeare of our times’ - and it is true - with a little work (and a few connectives, a refusal to parenthesize, the excision of a few agreement seeking right’s and yeah’s, the twat’s can probably stay) there it is.

he is channeling not just pub geezer (hearts of english oak and all that bollocks) but also a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing - this is at the heart of it, confusion. that the facts cannot be established, watching the words move around on the page and refuse to settle down. and an endless confusion, an endless quibbling.

what dyer is doing is channeling and dramatising this confusion - he wants it sorted, but it’s not his job to sort it or even to propose how it could be sorted. where is the geezer? where is the geezer who called all this on?

the world is (to quote the temptations’ hit) a ball of confusion. but this confusion is not born of the desire to poets and songwriters and playwrights to entertain, or indeed a metaphysical desire to point out how very temporary and conditional our understandings are, but is objective, it is not just in our minds but out there.

 ‘... all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind....’ so says marx, also channeling shakespeare in a way, but he wants to give us a way out.

‘.... the bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. to the great chagrin of reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. all old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. they are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations...’

in brexit and trump and bannon we are witnessing a strange revival of the reactionists, of ideas to which the bourgeoisie usually only pays lip service, or recommends for others, or does on the quiet, are now a political programme - perhaps because the progressive part of capitalism has an inconsistent character, seemingly roaring ahead into the future on one hand (AI, china, biotechnology), seemingly stagnating and decadent on the other (its backing away from production into rent seeking, and endless foam of south-sea bubbles, dirty hospitals and late trains).

there is a way in which what is progressive in capitalism has become an ideology of capitalism, one of free-trade and globalisation (neo-liberalism) despite the fact that the world is still divided up into trading blocks managed by alliances between nation states. against this the economic nationalists aka. the reactionists propose a strategy of realpolitik and trade war.

this is not the end of history (in a globalised neo-liberal utopia) that the neo-liberals were expecting but it is the consequence of their victory.

it is strange to see marxists arguing for (or against) different arrangements of trading blocks, but that’s what the debate over brexit is. for, of course, in the end, it is capitalism either way.

a post-brexit britain will not escape from the world economic system into a permanent england football victory (and its people into beer-warmed togetherness and homogeneity) but (more likely) into a dangerously isolated hinterland, the people troubled by the unfinished business of brexit. the current dust-ups in the conservative party are not set to come to a crisis and then all blow over - they will run on and on because there can never be a brexit sufficient enough to satisfy its most utopian fans. brexit cannot lead to albion (and beyond that horsemouth makes no predictions).

so where are we headed? perhaps to some economically damaging brino, or an incredibly economically damaging no-deal, or an extension... all of them capitalism will deal with in the same way as the 2008 crisis, by beating more value out of the workers, by more austerity, by more crisis.

and meanwhile the center cannot hold europe may fall torn apart by its own reactionists but not in such a timely fashion that they can abandon their (strangely neo-liberal and globalist) european principles such as freedom of movement (such as currently enjoyed by refugees crossing the mediterranean in inflatables?) - but perhaps they can, perhaps that can be portrayed as a necessary compromise with the mad unprincipled english.

for the most likely end to the business (as vaudeville actors refer to productions) is for it to remain unfinished.