fragments of a faith forgotten (the art of harry smith)

fragments of a faith forgotten: the art of harry smith ran at the whitney museum of american art from october 4th 2023 to january 28th 2024. there were three days of events too. sadly horsemouth was on the wrong continent (never mind the wrong city) to go. 

he will have to make do with a few short films he has found online. 

so yesterday horsemouth was out at howard's from about midday on. they sat in the downstairs living room and they played some guitar (the dulcimer stayed upstairs this time but the 8-string ukulele came down).

amárach from volume four got looked at. they both struggled to remember their parts and then resorted to playing through the track a few times to remind them. they also had a look at blindspot (probably not a runner) and fallen snow and they've looked at broadbury down (in horsemouth's guitar powered version) before.  

howard has worked up a version of townes van zandt's waiting around to die and they already have a version of pastures of plenty (woody guthrie/ practically everybody) . horsemouth's version of go your way my love (norfolk traditional usually known from the anne briggs version) did not get looked at but then they looked at it last week. eyepennies (sparklehorse) got played through again and recorded again (sounds decent).

quite a few of howard's got looked at. howard works for two more weeks and then he is free (until he has to go back to work again). he has a plan to record a whole tranche of his unrecorded songs. 

horsemouth thinks if he sits down and puts the effort in himself and howard can put together a good show for their upcoming gig on the 24th. 

and er. after that they went up the pub. the football was on but they managed to hide in the back garden with a pizza - horsemouth had a pint and a half (very sensible) and howard had two. howard had his phone with him so they listened to music - all the good times are passed and gone (mr.fox) and high on a mountain top (loretta lynn) antithetical but similar songs. 

at home horsemouth watched some paris set we anderson thing for a bit (but he found it too annoying).  and so to bed. 

at the sidmouth folk festival (early august 2nd to the 9th) jim causley and miranda sykes start the week with a celebration of sabine baring-gould, pioneering victorian folk song collector and author. 

'fourteen year fever dream'

'those who would endeavour to extirpate evil from the world know little of human nature.'  - boswell's london journals, 6th july 1763.

yesterday a grey day. rain begins (not clearing fully til monday). 

horsemouth is enjoying reading anna neima's the utopians: six attempts to build the perfect society. he has finished the section on rabindranath tagore poet and founder of a utopian community. the film-maker satyajit ray studied at his school (er. as did future prime minister of india indira ghandi). 

horsemouth is on to dartington hall. 

if he gets bored he will swap back to the carlos castaneda. carlos has been flying with silver crows but after a night of terror where he was seemingly attacked by a doppelganger of his teacher don juan he has abandoned his magical apprenticeship. 

'what is it that is coming to a close? this fourteen-year fever dream of failures, absurdities and outbursts of reaction...' so asks william davies in his article in the LRB. 

there is a tendency to view the madness of the last 14 years as originating from the tory party but horsemouth thinks it originates from the people - the post financial crash austerity drove them crazy. the belief is that if the government is sensible and dull that will be enough to save us (horsemouth doesn't think so). 

the election brings a number of questions. horsemouth opposes reform (charitably it is an anti-immigration party that contains some racists). that four million of horsemouth's fellow citizens have voted for it is deeply worrying but their support is about where ukip's support was in 2015. that they have picked up new voters (anecdotal) means they have also lost earlier voters (interesting). 

let us be blunt about this, it is reform's splitting of the right wing vote that has brought down the tories - otherwise the tories could still well have been in power. it is not that the people have chosen labour. 

the first passed the post electoral system is a very strange beast - it gives the appearance of clear decisions by the electorate on the flimsiest of majorities. it does this because of vote splitting. horsemouth is waiting to see the gallagher index for the uk 2024 election. he supposes he could calculate it himself if no one will calculate it for him (now there's a task for a rainy day).  

the labour party have an opportunity to move the dial in british politics by changing the economic conditions under which many millions live. horsemouth thinks they will fail to seize this opportunity and so the madness will continue. 

horsemouth is taking a look at the weather back at his mum's for the next few weeks (where he will soon be). dew it looks awful - certainly for the first week (mostly rain and not too hot) and then the second week (some sun but mostly grey). we are still up on a generous 16 hours of daylight a day. 

in theory a practice with howard today. 

brave new world (how does that t-shirt go?)

liz truss, jacob rees-mogg, alex chalk, gillian keegan, johnny mercer, penny mordaunt, grant shapps

we may never need these names again.

horsemouth is a little hungover and slow this morning. (no he wasn't up until late at night waiting for the portillo moments). 

sadly kemi badenoch, suella braverman, james cleverly, priti patel, robert jenrick, and jeremy hunt (hammer of the nurses) survived. they go into opposition to fight like rats in a bag over the top job.

once again four million or so of horsemouth's fellow citizens voted for nigel farago's racist party (you can't say that people didn't get to see them as they are) this time they got four seats out of it (but then again four seats fell to independents running on pro-palestinian tickets, one of them displacing the odious jonathan ashworth). 

the greens get four seats and win north herefordshire! the tories keep south herefordshire (but only by about 1,300 votes over labour which is interesting in and of itself).

as usual on a morning after drinking horsemouth feels remorseful. he feels he has blabbed and babbled.  he hopes he wasn't too much of a pain in the arse. he can only hope nothing bad comes of his foolishness. 

before he got to the drinking part he went to see the marian choir perform ruth crawford seeger's 3 chants for women's chorus  at the QEH foyer. he walked down (about 6 miles) and he walked back from the pub (about three and a half miles). adding up the distance he walked is making him feel virtuous and is making up for his blabbing and babbling last night. 

isis and osiris day (war on the bullshit)

OK HORSEMOUTH DUNVOTED

today is isis and osiris day - the day (well rather the night) that alice coltrane and her band recorded isis and osiris at the village gate in 1970.

it's the outlier on the album - a track recorded live in concert with jazz bassist vishnu wood playing oud (rather than the tanpura of tulsi sen gupta on the rest of the album) and charlie haden is on bass. 

now isis and osiris (the wife and the husband) - osiris is slain by his evil brother set (god of god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence, and evil foreigners). osiris the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation.  isis resurrects her slain husband osiris, and produces and protects his heir horus. (you can see why alice coltrane may have liked the myth). 

as horsemouth types this the election campaign is over. horsemouth calls war on the bullshit. (hell he just published this and donald banks status quo also). as conservative backbencher charles walker quipped (after the liz truss debacle) 'there is nothing as ex as an ex-MP', but  ex-MPs won't happen without your help.   

horsemouth  went to bed early the better to get up early in the morning and vote (and after this he will have five years to repent). he walked into the sun to the polling station (remembering to take his only piece of photo ID). he walked in behind a little girl and her mother. everybody was pleasant and helpful. he was crossed off the list and given his voting slip. he went to booth put in an X on the card and popped it in the box as directed. job done he thanked the poll workers and headed off down the street passed the people coming to vote (clutching their passports). 

horsemouth is feeling all virtuous and civic minded. 

the night of 4th july 1963 carlos castaneda is allegedly with don juan and having a flying on jimpson weed (datura) experience. he wakes up naked in a field near the datura plant. don juan comes and finds him (bringing his clothes). horsemouth suspects many people's nights will be like this. 

tonight horsemouth may be going out to see minty in the evening. he may try to get into town to see a free classical music thing at the QEH 7pm (ruth crawford seeger - stepmom to pete seeger but before that avant-garde composer).  he will let you know how that goes. 

yesterday he went to the oxfam walthamstow (about 5 miles all told). he's up the utopians: six attempts to build the perfect society by anna neima (a.n.other charity shop - one squid). 

'my notes on my first session with don juan are dated 23rd june 1961. that was the occasion when the teachings began...'

'this book is both ethnography and allegory' - walter goldschmidt, foreword to the teachings of don juan: a yaqui way of knowledge by carlos castaneda. 

'during these early conversations I took notes in a covert manner. later, relying on my memory, I reconstructed the entire conversation. when I began to participate as an apprentice, however, that method of taking notes became very difficult... don juan allowed me - under strong protest, however - to record openly anything that was said. I would have liked to take photographs and make tape recordings, but he would not permit me to do so.' - carlos castaneda, introduction to teachings..., op cit. 

'... castaneda's work was accepted as factual by many when the books were first published, the training he described is now generally considered to be fictional.' - carlos castaneda wikipedia entry. 

horsemouth has started re-reading the teachings of don juan and is finding it vastly enjoyable. he would have first read it when he was 14 or so. he took it to be factual. he has since read richard de mille's writing on castaneda (which contends that it is fiction). 

how does it start? with an undated ('summer of 1960') and unlocated ('in a border town') first meeting with don juan, then a discussion of the term diablero, then a shaggy dog story (undated) - ok well, in fact, a giant coyote story (that might be a  diablero - a witch or wizard in animal form). 

the book is a joy to read and 'carlos' (the central character who is supposed to be the author) is an engagingly stupid apprentice. later, when he reads de mille, horsemouth will become impressed by what a fluid and efficient liar castaneda is, how well he writes, how beautiful is his collaging of academic texts, and how comedic his parodying of academic style is. 

of course fahey has been here before. in his thesis on charlie patton. 

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

did horsemouth have a day without spending money?

he did not. he thought that might be a good idea and then realised he would have to cook some starch because there was no bread in the house. then he realised he would need some margarine for the bread. at the shop he became tempted by a cheese and onion pasty. by now we are up at £4.49. 

hopefully he will manage to avoid further expenditure.

it is the birthday of franz kafka today.  the kafkaesque will come later. it is one of the keywords of the 20ieth century (together with catch 22).  

horsemouth is reminded he should add rashied ali (born july 1st) to his jazz musicians who adopted islam list. 

horsemouth is hanging around to vote. last night he cooked something vaguely curryish - tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, onions, peas, rice. he still has plenty of rice left over (that will be today's meal). 

'I hear you are giving up all your bad company (but I beg I may not be included in their number)'

ok horsemouth is back from an exceptionally stinky wander down the greenway (aka. sewerbank prior to 1990) with TG.

the walk - the homestead to becton alps, roughly 6.1 miles, two and a quarter hours (possibly a little longer because they got lost trying to find the entrance to it in fish island, the continuance round pudding mill lane, and stopped for a tea at one point.

in the foothills of the becton alps horsemouth pleaded tiredness rather than ascend it and they got the bus back to stratford and were thence off about their separate businesses on the overground. 

the title quote (repunctuated) from lord eglinton to boswell on this day in 1763. 

as they walked along they talked. there was a discussion about jazz musicians who adopted islam; 

the list he would probably give (off the top of his head) would be; 

• yusef lateef, (born william emanuel huddleston) multi-instrumentalist, composer, and a prominent figure among the ahmadiyya community. 
• art blakey also known as abdullah ibn buhaina after he converted to islam for a short time in the late 1940s.
• ok maybe not pharoah sanders (he may not have fully converted but he was certainly mining the concepts tauhid etc.).
• ahmad jamal - born to baptist parents, jamal became interested in islam and islamic culture in detroit, where there was a sizeable muslim community in the 1940s and 1950s. 

of course there are loads more. 

in the folk music world  there were various sufis - richard and linda thompson, cat stevens (yusuf islam), in the rock world pete townsend,  and, in the american primitive guitar world, robbie basho.

horsemouth usually goes on about alice coltrane who became a hindu, carlos santana and john mclaughlin, but there was a period where john fahey was showing an interest.

er. and then there are the scientologists... (incredible string band, chick corea etc.)

horsemouth remembers the nicky skopelitis album from the time. it was the kind of thing he was very into - kind of worldy but rocky too. horsemouth has a big block of these CDs recorded on axiom (hail bill laswell) kind of in the island livery. he's hearing parallels with can in the arrangement (and no it's not just the presence of jaki liebezeit on a few tracks). 

after his walk horsemouth basically slouched round the house enjoying the pleasant sensation of virtuous inactivity. today he has no plans. the election campaign crawls to a close. tomorrow kafka is born. 

exile - (untimely death) - relics

'friday 1st july 1763. mr. johnson, dr. goldsmith and I supped at the mitre. I has curious ideas when I considered that I was sitting with london authors by profession...' - boswell's london diaries 1762-63.

a friend who has left london is wondering where to live. they are nostalgic for the city (as it was) but know that they cannot afford to come back. they cannot afford to live here. but also they cannot afford to live there (in the prosperous south). 

both places have gentrified. but beyond this rents have risen drastically in both places even without gentrification (this has happened in porto, this has happened basically everywhere). 

add to this places in the uk have gone rightwards post ukip/ post brexit/ post boris/ post reform or perhaps this material has just been acknowledged and risen to the surface.

benjamin - kafka parallels discuss. 

exile - (untimely death) - relics. horsemouth is making progress with benjamin's berlin childhood around 1900, essentially a farewell to the city (exile) but also a relic. 

the night before last's beer trophy - aeron bergman and alejandra salinas's telepathy a collection of writings inca press.

'their early works are among the first experiments with folk and laptop electronic music. this is especially noted in... porto: folklore fragments volume 2. the track 'water jota in 1213442' from the former consists almost entirely of water drop sounds, arranged according to the structure of a folk dance; the artists themselves comment on such concepts that the record "considers the past, while not repeating it."' - wikipedia entry. 

in the night we have passed the mid-point of the calendar year. 

wait a minute horsemouth will just turn the calendar over to july. 

wednesday the (re-)birth of kafka.

thursday horsemouth votes (don't forget to take ID). there are some free modern classical music things down at the QEH towards the weekend (horsemouth may well wander down). 

horsemouth is up. he has his coffee (but it's cheap supermarket coffee so it's no great shakes). it is a beautiful morning outside. he's due to be going for a walk with TG. TG wants to attempt some long walk (horsemouth will see how he feels). a fox just passed by within five feet of him, rat running up the front gardens, having an explore. the hazelnut trees in the front garden are growing well shading out horsemouth's flat in summer. it all looks very verdant and cool. 

wait horsemouth is going to check his emails to make sure TG has't cancelled. 

above a discussion of changes in the musical commodity.