shamanic depressions (sleeping gas)

of late horsemouth has mostly been stuck in a van with julian cope touring america. julian isn't having much fun, even when he isn't stuck in a van touring america, he has to write songs with the other members of the band nipping at his heels. things are even worse back in the UK - he has been marketed as a pin-up and a pop star and his audience are screaming teenage girls. he is profoundly ungrateful. he is ungracious about his audience. he's living on pennies (35 quid a week) and owes a fortune to the record company. he is self-medicating with LSD. he feels fake and phony but after four years of purgatory the band splits and he is free. 

his adventures are continued in repossessed: shamanic depressions in tamworth and london (1983-89). horsemouth has just read the opening page, he appears to have decided he's odin (bad choice dude). 

nonetheless horsemouth is impressed by sleeping gas  the first single. it could be the happy mondays, it's obliquely funky and has that love, seeds (pushing along) feel about it. 

meanwhile it is two years since the QAnon shaman and the hillbilly brothers invaded the capitol (together with 1000s of other trump supporters intent on stopping the certification of the election). the crowd make a pretty good job of bringing democracy to a standstill, and if horsemouth liked their politics he would be impressed. he watched a timeline put together by VICE magazine, trump tells them to fight like hell, they march down to the capitol and er. fight like hell, after about 3 hours of a genuinely insurrectionary moment he appears on TV to tell them to go home (and they mostly go home). 

there are no charges for trump and likely there won't be any - it is easier for all concerned to pretend that nothing really happened (and to jail the likes of QAnon shaman, the hillbilly brothers and actual rioters for minor(ish) offences).

thursday horsemouth walked back from islington (about 6 miles all told), friday he did a visit to asda (the supermarket in the fields - 4 miles all told). he watched a joseph l. mankiewitcz noir somewhere in the night - the hero has lost his memory, a minor character gets a speech, the tough cookie is a tough cookie. it doesn't quite work (but with a better cast it could have worked), only the minor character does it - her speech about loss and longing burns a hole in the screen.  

last night pasta and pesto. in the day a vegeburger. at asda a deal on linda mccartney fakemeat sausages (horsemouth is tempted to go back for round two). 

four songs on regional TV (wondrous love)

“busy at home all day with various arrangements” - from goethe's diaries (as quoted by kafka).

good morning! good morning! it doesn't look too bad out there to be honest. it's quite mild (for the time of year). thus do british people talk about the weather. 

curiously, for four songs on a religious show, pentangle end up making jacqui mcshee look like she is in  suspiria. they do a cover of wondrous love (in an early music style) which is truly excellent. (this is partially because wondrous love isn't ancient, it's modern, it just sounds ancient). 

horsemouth and howard took a crack at wondrous love (back in 2022) but either the idea is wrong or horsemouth's singing on the day was rubbish because it doesn't come off.  

horsemouth read the introduction to NLR jan/feb 2020 by susan waktins - boris is back in (on a get brexit done mandate) but the pandemic is about to come and knock him off course (in as much as he has one). it's good on the conditionality  of the tory rule, on all the conditions that had to be met to give them their victory (and to give labour their defeat). horsemouth looks forward to the unraveling of their particular brand of bullshit but he doesn't hold out much hope for the return of the labour party - he thinks it will be a things can only get better election (labour will get elected because the tories are temporarily incapacitated by sleaze and labour will get elected on a new labour/ tory platform). 

there's a piece called learning from japan  - a country in economic and political  stagnation, this is probably where we are going. 

to be honest horsemouth is  mostly reading julian cope's head -on. horsemouth was never a julian cope/ teardrop explodes fan, but the wanting to make it, the wanting to be signed and validated he recognises. 

'I'd probably start with you'

so horsemouth has  just dropped john off at the 242 (it turned the corner at precisely the right time).

last night they watched kill list (which was most enjoyable but horsemouth will not spoil it for you by recounting the details of the plot). 'I'd probably start with you' (as one of horsemouth's friends remarked). 

earlier horsemouth listed his new NLRs and tried to plan a campaign of reading. he has started with the jan/feb 2020 edition - so just before the pandemic really hit. part of the idea of it is to see how well radical debate has fared when confronted with the actual events that came after it.  

almost immediately he defected to read a little of julian cope's head-on: memories of the liverpool punk scene and the story of the teardrop explodes (one of horsemouth's bookbox finds yesterday). the other was derek bailey's  improvisation: its nature and practice in music (now that really was a bit of a find). horsemouth used to own a copy but he passed it on to a contact (together with ben watson's book on bailey). 

yesterday horsemouth was doing surprisingly well with the sight and sound list of the 100 best films (slightly less well when you discounted the ones he had heard of but not seen and even less well if you only included the ones where he could recite the plot). john bridled at the low showing for african movies (only one ousmane sembene) and for once upon a time in the west (joint 99th). there was an engaging discussion (on the LRB) about what makes a good movie and a favorite movie, and how best of.. lists get constructed. 

anyone care to construct a best of the musicians of bremen list?

horsemouth has had his coffee and he's had his toast. the rest of the day will be devoted to more reading (he guesses)

 

the dead have not died in vain

john is up. he is slightly hung over but is recovering. 

following on from their trip up to walthamstow yesterday horsemouth is up a few copies of the NLR (new left review) one going as far back as issue 37 and the most recent one from some point in 2021. they saw jimmy page's tapestries (at the william morris museum) which were very rich and pre-raphaelite. it took horsemouth a while to overcome his resistance to the material. there was a julia margaret cameron photo which horsemouth liked and a drawing/ watercolour(?) of kelmscott house. 

over the road at the sally army horsemouth bought a hard guitar case (a rockcase by warwick) and a soft padded gig bag (rosetti - with such a stylised logo he thought it said rose morris). he wasn't tempted by the books. the hard case is too heavy and bulky for comfortable transport (horsemouth prefers the greater ease of transport of the rucksack type soft-case models) but will be good for storage.

in the afternoon/evening they watched onibaba (grimness, fear, isolation and lust in japan beset by civil war). 

horsemouth's NLR acquisitions go well with the ovenden book on syriza he is reading - we have just crossed the anniversary of the UK leaving the EU, the people who watch these things economically tell horsemouth that it has been a disaster (but then the EU's austerity was a disaster for the people of greece also). 

so, looking back on it, what sense can we make out of the wreck of time. 

not connected - no connections are available

and then the wifi has popped again. this is a regular (daily) event. usually his netook looses all memory of wifis and passwords at about the same time. horsemouth's usual strategy is to reboot. he was waiting on a text from john. john came and then was gone again (off to the british museum). the wifi popped again. horsemouth will restart again (and try the tv instead).

he also tends to publish posts as he is writing them so that he knows

yesterday blake's 7 began. there is a federation (but it is evil) 

john is up. in a bit they will probably go for a wander. 

'between things ended and things begun'

from the poem thoughts in  leaves of grass (1891-92), walt whitman.

kevin ovenden quotes it in chapter one of his book syriza: inside the labyrinth (a book a friend has described as 'over-enthusiastic', or something like that, if horsemouth remembers correctly). for once it's an apposite quote, in thoughts (and in leaves of grass in general) whitman is going on about the rise of america, its cities and its people in a democratic surge - and this is what the author takes to be happening in the greece of the time. 

while leaves of grass was first published in 1855, whitman spent most of his professional life writing and rewriting it.the first edition was a small book of twelve poems, and the last 'the deathbed edition', a compilation of over 400.

'L. of G. at last complete — after 33 y'rs of hackling at it, all times & moods of my life, fair weather & foul, all parts of the land, and peace & war, young & old.' - walt whitman in a letter to a friend, 1891.

horsemouth picked it out because he likes that moment between things, and it seems, to him, very apposite for january (or the period after christmas and before new years). 

horsemouth is returning to normal. he's got a grump on. he thought he was ok with it. it turns out he's not. he has cleared himself enough room in the living room to sit on the sofa (or the armchair) and read or watch tv. he does not think this is unreasonable. presumably it will not be taken as such (it had better not be). he plots watching the news (there's no news on january the 1st but he plans to watch it anyway).

he's been for a walk out with TG (he has tried two book boxes - no joy). he did however pick up a leaflet on decluttering your wardrobe (really and truthfully it is books, records and CDs that horsemouth needs to declutter). because he was tired out after the walk he couldn't face wandering over to howard's for a beer (his last day of freedom before being back to the grind). 

he has cooked dinner - a quorn and lentil curry with onion, potato, sweet potato and rice (no great shakes in the flavour department but filling enough) - and wolfed it down entire in two sittings. tomorrow he will do the run out to aldi and pick up some more beans, museli, margarine etc. while he's not a vegan he tends only to eat cheese when other people are buying (except on cheap pizzas or in pesto). he is partial to blue stilton however and sometimes this can be picked up cheap after christmas.

another advantage of it being january is that horsemouth can begin compiling his list of watched, listened to, read and been to for january.  he started on a film noir, he watched some of thrift a life  (he wishes to do other things aside from the reselling and he needs to get his health sorted, he's got chronic pain issues). horsemouth has sent in his tax return (now he waits to see if it is acceptable/ unproblematic). 

john (from porto) is coming over in a bit. other than their usual run over to walthamstow he's not sure what to do with him (they'll think of something). 

happy new year (2023)

good morning! good morning! 

and so horsemouth makes it out to new years day 2023. 

he stayed up for new years too (and then went rapidly to bed).cocoa and an early night is his usual plan to be honest. in the end he didn't go out. he farted about online and opened a bottle of beer and (at 12) went out into the street to greet the neighbours and watch the fireworks explode behind the houses. duty done he went rapidly to bed. pausing only to wish ian happy new year. 

and then he slept like the proverbial log (having first ensured he had enough bedding).

and so today, in theory, a walk with TG. . 

he cracked. he put the calendar up early - is that bad luck?

elsewhere in mittel europa people were watching sedmikrásky (directed by věra chytilová). yesterday (horsemouth failed to mention) was the birthday of max ochs. looks like he has his first gig of the year booked (triple negative, cafe OTO, january 11th).