horsemouth is out in the wilds of herefordshire and it has stopped raining

horsemouth is out in the wilds of herefordshire and it has stopped raining (this fact bears repeating). 

horsemouth is up early. he has made himself a coffee and let the dog out. as he drew back the curtains he surprised a rabbit feeding near the house. 

it is absolutely beautiful out there with a fine dew descending and everything very green. the sun shines through a haze that is slowly building up. far far away aircraft accelerate up into blue skies.  

it's been a good year for the primroses and the other wild flowers (his mother says).  

yesterday evening horsemouth went for a quick walk on the common. he ate dinner and fell almost  immediately into a deep sleep. he will have to find a book to read (he didn't bring the picasso with him he was nearing the end with it anyhow). he brought the hannah arendt planning to start that at some point near the end

the plan is to take advantage of a day without rain  .to get some mowing in (but first it must dry off). the forecast predicts rain tomorrow and thereafter. 

he may try and get a walk in before breakfast this morning (his parents tend to be late risers and bearkfast is eaten late). he will revisit the blogpost as he discovers more to say.  

he has been up on the common - it was beautiful but muddy - he has seen the ponies (they look wonderful but they do tear up the ground). he exchanged greetings with a pensoner 'lovely morning' 'isn't it beautiful'. 

. 

 

horsemouth is out in the wilds of herefordshire. bears, wolves, tigers all howling til dawn

horsemouth is out in the wilds of herefordshire. he got there by car.

he is visiting his folks but before that he payed a lightning visit to birmingham to eat curry (and very good it was too) and converse with his (extended) family - angela and martin (of musicians of bremen review fame), viv and roy, dave and sally. martin claims to have some early horsemouth on CD, horsemouth has lost those recordings over the years so he would be quite interested to see them. after dinner they adjourned to angela and martin's house and together sank a few cans before making their way wearily up to bed.

he tried to persuade martin of the virtues of marion brown (but the girls were more interested in siouxsie sioux). 

in the morning there was coffee and croissants and dave and sally drove him across to his parents (and here he now is). 

horsemouth is back online. he expects to be up here at least a week. 

it is day one of sweet earth flying weekend. . 

horsemouth sings for his breakfast (in poverty granted)

horsemouth posts patty pravo's il paradiso the original for the amen corner's 'if paradise was half as nice'.

he does not so much sing for his supper (as the saying has it to describe a means of earning a living) as sing for his breakfast (an altogether smaller meal). contained in this is an implicit critique of the musician, writer or poet's role in society - as someone required to dance attendance on the whims of the mighty. 

in fact he does not even do this. he has funds that should enable him to survive a while longer (in poverty granted). that reminds him he should refuel for the year ahead. 

horsemouth plans to travel to his brother's and thence to birmingham (and thence to his parents in the countryside). his main concern is not to arrive ill (people cannot afford more illness).

yesterday he went to visit andrew minty (who is recovering well). they watched the first two episodes  of children of the stones and then a view from a hill (a later bbc ghost story at christmas).  he walked over (and walked back) about an hour each way. later he rested. 

picasso is nearly dead (horsemouth has a few pages to go).  his death will be attended by other deaths - retainers going to serve him in the afterlife (it's all a bit grim). in other reading horsemouth has still not started in earnest on the alexandr blok italian poems project (there will be plenty of time for this at his parents). his decarbonisation meeting is delayed (til next friday) - good it gives him a chance to do the reading. there's a meeting of the communal endeavour on the 15th - horsemouth is unsure whether he will attend in person or phone it in  via zoom. 

ok time for breakfast. 

the foxes cannot endure to be mocked (francine as blodeuwedd)

 that the foxes cannot endure to be mocked 

as horsemouth came to the corner he saw a man down on his hands and knees crawling towards it. another man watched from across the road. as the rest of the corner came into view horsemouth saw a fox warily making its way down the street.

at that point the two saw each other and the man started barking (the fox beat a hasty retreat). 

francine as blodeuwedd

this is a discovery francine and picasso make. later they find an owl chick and picasso adopts it. they look good together picasso and the owl.

it is worthwhile remembering that before they became bespectacled and bookish owls were considered birds of ill omen and connected with witchcraft. 

picasso spends a lot of time being photographed with animals but, like his women and children, they are soon discarded. now picasso was a terrible person. and yet the art is great. go figure. horsemouth has a book of the pottery and the assemblages and a book of the engravings. 

yesterday horsemouth woke up feeling anxious and possibly ill. he then bollocksed the entire day. on the plus side he spent it out of doors sunning himself on the front steps reading and writing. 'are you writing me a love letter?' asked a woman walking by (see the sun does marvelous things for people). 

horsemouth has come out the other side of the anxiety (he thinks). he is off to see andrew minty this afternoon. friday there (should) be a zoom meeting.  he has made a decision and timed a getaway to see his folks. 

the weekend is sweet earth flying weekend. horsemouth will be at his folks.(and for the following week at least). 

'time itself has been reversed for us' (a problem of chronology )

last night horsemouth reached the end of the devil rides out which he has been watching on a similar timeline as the movie - except that this presents a problem of chronology.

the film's relationship to time is linear and not linear - it begins april 29th with rex van ryn's plane landing and ends on the morning of may 2nd with everyone reunited in the living room - except that this time tanith is with them. 

in an earlier ending she had died and the daughter had been kidnapped by mocata. the rescue of the daughter requires the pronouncing of a particularly efficacious sutra (it is the second pronouncing of this in the movie - previously it had been used to repel the angel of death) here it returns our band of friends to the living room on the morning of may 2nd. 

'time itself has been reversed for us'  remarks the duc de richleau in wonder. 

it is a bright beautiful morning. the day will no doubt warm up but at the moment it is a bit cold. 

horsemouth has mostly been reading the arianna huffingtton book on picasso which is frankly a bit dull - picasso has a bleak pessimistic black metal view of the world, he treats the women in his life badly (in the age of me too he would probably have ended up painting in jail) and he is getting old and the few people he does love (or who genuinely love him) are dying off. 

and despite all this it is dull. (being a minotaur is very boring).

horsemouth has stuff to do today (well this afternoon). 

in 1909 blok is in venice, in the paris of 1871 the commune hasn't fallen, in 1872 edmond de goncourt is meeting flaubert.

'the older flaubert gets the more provincial he becomes... he has no tastes to indulge, never buys anything... in fact the only idea he has had so far is to use jam-jars as flower vases.' 

in this flaubert is like a modern slow-living minimalist. 

books, films, gigs, events april 2023

books

- volcano and miracle (gustaw herling)

- lost connections (johann hari)

- comonwealth (hardt and negri)

- the castle of the carpathians (jules verne)

- the spirit-wrestlers (philip marsden)

- aleksandr blok's 'italian poems'  confrontation and disillusionment (gerald pirog)

- diary of a plague time  (max'crow' reeves)

- ted gioia's piece on mack mccormick's 'lost' robert johnson biography and re-reading john jeremiah sullivan's piece on geeshie wiley and elvie thomas

films

- diana athill interview

- bear island 

- berlin 1990 (robert kramer)

- interview with director of '50 years of king crimson'

-  documentary on beat-mining

- h.p.lovecraft documentary

- human desire (fritz lang)

- golden valley radio 4 doc and brecon and monmouth canal video

- the origin of cyberpunk: hawkwind and new wave (youtube)

- hawkbinge podcast (the zenon codex)

- on youtube  retirement advisors, slow living advocates, resellers, people documenting their lives as they are pushed to the margins of production. 

- hari krishna in new york (jonas mekas, allen ginsberg, barbara rubin) from C4's midnight underground (1993 -1996)

gig

musicians of bremen soo gig at max's booklaunch with elspeth anne etc. 

events 

meeting of comunal endeavour (AGM), horsemouth does not receive the emergency alert, visit to the cloud forest, jacqueline's birthday at her and minty's, disastrous drinking session in hackney with howard.

charge de CRS sur le boulevard voltaire (the blue nights begin)

oh dear it is all going off in paris (and some other french towns). god bless the insurrectionary masses acting in defence of their pensions (and the other comforts their ancestors managed to extort from the ruling class). 

in the chronology of aleksandr blok's visit to italy

'shall I awaken in another homeland / and not in this land of gloom?'  remarks aleksandr blok in one of the italian poems translated by lucy vogel. 

'I am living in venice almost as though it were my own city... as though I have been living there a long time.'  he remarks in a letter home (as quoted in chapter 3 of lucy vogel's 1973 aleksandr blok - the journey to italy). venice is in some ways like st. petersberg - built in marshes, in someways not part of the country it is joined to. it had already been a point of reference for blok, see this 1902 poem (perhaps based on memories of his visit as a child).

'centuries and countries were interwoven / we were going north from venice /  we saw the rain-filled fogs...'

blok begins in venice (he will be there until may 8th) and then on to ravenna but this is not the order that the cities will appear in blok's finished collection. he will write 23 poems in total under 15 titles in the years 1909 to 1914, a few  of them written during his visit. he will append an epigraph at the start and an epitaph at the end. whilst he is there he will keep a travel diary and send letters home (many of which have survived).

horsemouth is indebted to john for the vogel book. for pirog, 'the artist is not only a spectator, the artist is a necessary participant... it is particularly important that the artist who created the work of art be present within that work of art.'  - and this is blok's problematic, getting himself into the poem. 

horsemouth is in fact mainly reading arianna huffington's boo on that most famous malagueno  picasso. ... and he is a mostly badly behaved chap (it's just as well that the art is good). 

in the chronology of the devil rides out yesterday was mocatta's visit and the visit of the angel of death, today there is the discovery of the kidnapping of the daughter and the final battle with the satanists. horsemouth must say he admires the stamina of rex and the duc de richleau as they magically slug it out with the evil ones. 

by an accident of time-stamping horsemouth's may 1st blogpost has been filled back in april 30th. he must also remember to post the books read/ films watched/ gigs been to list for april (if he hasn't done this already). 

today a grey day (as usual bright sunshine woke horsemouth up but by the time he'd got the coffee on had vanished). horsemouth will post this, get a little more coffee and then see what his email holds.