'only the city is real'

'what is to become of us without barbarians? those people were a solution of a sort...' 

- c.p. cavafy, waiting for the barbarians.

horsemouth has started on reading lawrence durrell's the alexandria quartet.

however he currently lacks balthazar which is probably hiding in the stacks somewhere. (in theory it shouldn't matter if he finds it or not). this follows on from his reading of the dark labyrinth (which ends with a rediscovery of a paradise of sorts). 

the poet c.p.cavafy makes an appearance (hidden behind an asterisk). two appearances so far. apparently donovan quotes cavafy in his film there is an ocean. (this seems to be lost in the stacks of wikipedia itself. youtube is yet to provide an answer.)

horsemouth was looking for the a french version of electric moon by a 'marie'. he thought it might be marie laforêt but it turns out to be marie-france dufour's 'il faut toujours croire à la chance' (but there's also claudine longet's english language version).

apparently the donovan version only existed on the soundtrack of the film which was unreleased for many years. 

horsemouth had written his usual wittering about retirement but instead decided to go with an entirely written in the morning blogpost. 

the book storage question continues to be answered unsatisfactorily. really horsemouth should have recreated the vast amount of shelving down the walls that he had in his old room and relocated more (if not all) of his books into the house. (he has not done so). 

of india and impressions

spiritual, india and impressions (as collected on live at the village vanguard: the master takes) were all recorded on this day in 1961. 

meanwhile

it's dry out until monday the 9th (allegedly). thereafter it all goes to shit (and rain).  remind horsemouth to note the level on the fuel tank so he can check it again at the end of the month and see how their consumption looks. he doesn't think they're going to get to the end of winter without having to refuel the tank (and that won't be cheap).

he's up and about and he has fed the chickens. 

horsemouth has sent a proposed tracklist off to rob in far off rio gordo.  it may (of course) change again. 

rob is going to burn it to CD and see how it works. 

horsemouth has tried to attempt that journey by DJ thing (which may be the wrong thing to do). he thinks the flow is good for the first 20 or so tracks - thereafter he is less sure. it's very soundtrack-ish he thinks. 

softly as a morning sunrise (dance of the golden birds)

coming up this friday bandcamp friday.

coming up this sunday the anniversary of the recording of journey in satchidananda (1970) (excepting isis and osiris). 

so what else is happening in the rest of the week?

well probably just the usual (ho-hum). 

today the anniversary of the recording of much of live at the village vanguard by john coltrane (softly...  and chasin') . 

tomorrow the recording of spiritual, india and impressions. other attempts were made at these tunes but the ones on master takes were recorded on this day. 

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it's the morning. horsemouth thinks he has a running order for most of the tracks on far future village band IV.  he has downloaded them all to his laptop and has tried them out in a number of running orders. there are a few where he's not sure where to put them yet. (doubtless it will change yet again). 

there are a number of themes sailors, the moon, the seasons, animals, drunkenness.

there are a number of recurring musical motifs too - three blind mice, the gimme some lovin' vamp, that differently arranged feed into a number of the songs. coughing cat dance (for example) exists in two different versions - should those be close together or far apart?

and then there are differences between the instrumentation (there are flute tunes, there are accordion tunes). 

if dance of the golden rays is renamed dance of the golden birds (or even sleep of the golden birds) it fits in with the lyrics from drunken boat. downriver is not doing it for horsemouth at the minute (his vocal on it is just too poor). 

november cotton flower (heavy bones and the parson bird)

horsemouth at last reaches november (phew). 

here he plays you november cotton flower by marion brown.  

turning over the pages on his calendars

starter for 10? the triple negative calendar. 

the heavy bones and the parson bird

the heavy bones - bird bones are heavy (despite being hollow) because they are very dense (apparently).

the parson bird or tui is a new zealand native. (so called because it has a little white tuft at its throat).

'like other songbirds it has a syrinx, a voice box set where the windpipe forks in two, and a tūī can work each branch on its own. so it can sing two notes at once and harmonize with itself, moving from bell-like chimes to clicks and wheezing creaks that sound less like a bird than a small broken orchestra...' 

matthew's drawing

shows a parson bird and a cat that each have another animal within them - in the case of both a bird(?). the cat's breath seems to stink of fish however because it is manifesting the ghost of a fish from out of its mouth.

the drawings are on top of the well-known black and white photo of russolo and the intonarumori. (maybe a point is being made about the material nature of sound production).  

he has seen footage of a tui mewing like a cat (perhaps this is it). or maybe it's the introduction of cats to new zealand destroying the local bird population. 

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it is the morning. horsemouth is up. he is dressed. he has his coffee. he has fed the chickens (and a robin just because it asked nicely). 

today a journey up the hill to deliver eggs. 

horsemouth has made it to november. he has escaped the purgatory that was october. (ok he did some interesting things in october - it wasn't a total loss). 

the dark labyrinth goes well. lots of characters are left to die while others enjoy a greek idyll. it is a novel of flaws on its way to his later work. 

horsemouth has assembled a track listing based on autumn/ spring/ summer/ winter.  in a bit he will return to the work of listening and remembering. 

sequencing (decisions) (dreams)

yesterday horsemouth did a wander into EH (sausages, potatoes, some wraps, a copy of the hereford times). 

whilst he was away the good news was delivered.

horsemouth was listening to spiritual by john coltrane from live at the village vanguard (this time on CD rather than streamed off youtube). horsemouth supposes the anniversary of these tunes being recorded is coming up on the 2nd and (in this case) 3rd of november. 

the record opens with spiritual, a big annunciatory fanfare gives way to a hard swinging rhythm.

then there was softly as a morning sunrise - a jazz standard a nod backwards to the less groundbreaking style.

finally chasin' the trane, the big tune on the record. john coltrane, in a trio setting without mccoy tyner, takes the theme and beats it to death (in a style he learned from john gilmore of the sun ra archestra) or at least until it starts to give up the (holy) ghost.

and so ended the vinyl album. 

but when they came to release it on CD (live at the village vanguard: the master takes) they added more tracks from the sessions previously collected elsewhere. 

next up india for horsemouth was the big tune (at first collected on impressions). india is pretty much the inspiration for eight miles high by the byrds. 

yesterday a zoom call from john in far off porto. he is well. 

today 

horsemouth has some sequencing decisions to make. at the moment he has literally no idea how best to do it - group it round centres he thinks, then listen to the beginnings and endings together, and er...

horsemouth's favourite albums are pretty much sequenced as a continuous flow - hawkwind roadhawks, love forever changes, spirit the 12 dreams of dr. sardonicus, blue oyster cult secret treaties. 

ok he just read an article on it - start strong, cherry-pick your singles(?), think like a record (A sides, B sides), put longer tracks towards the end, manage the silences between tracks, dream sequence, put your longer tracks at the end of a side. some tracks are short (about the 1 minute mark) and so function as intros and skits, the longer tracks as deep cuts. 

horsemouth has 31 (mostly short) songs. some of them two-parters. and 3 stories. 

he guesses the real model is folkways ethnographic document - thematically linked (or juxtaposed) to pretend that he is not doing all the above (while doing it). 

wish him luck! 

no growth (since covid)

no growth (since covid)

to the tune of no sleep til brooklyn

what's the matter? is this cultural reference not up-to-date enough for ya?

real household disposable income 

maybe this is more what horsemouth is really interested in (and it's flatlining). 

two key reasons 

1) increasing energy costs

2) tax thresholds staying the same thus taking more tax money off poorer people. 

to this horsemouth would add local housing allowance staying frozen meaning that many poor people cannot get their full housing costs met. 

no growth in the economy. no significant increase in wages. rising prices. 

the chancellor's £100 bung towards your £400 increasing energy bills in january

this is a one-off payment, so just a softening of the sting (council tax bands A to D only).  

the changes to gas prices (removal of the standing charge) in 2027 will adversely affect anyone using more than the average amount of gas to heat their home (so people with a difficult to heat home) whether they are poor or not. 

but really these are pennies compared to the likely £400.

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little remains of october

as usual horsemouth is anxious for the month to end. he wants to celebrate samhain and start on november. 

in the evening a brief chat with rob in far off riogordo online. he's posted over a new track october lullaby - a cheerful jaunty thing (the heroine should be bicycling about to it in a  'raindrops keep falling on my head' kind of moment). this and sailor's lament horsemouth thinks are particularly good. 

horsemouth is having difficulty posting over chapter 5 - he's beginning to think they should just abandon it. 

he's reading lawrence durrell's the dark labyrinth. he's enjoying the chapter on fearmax (a medium) and the account of parapsychological happenings (it's quite m.john harrison). 

today/ tomorrow eggs up the hill. bin back up the drive (oh ok he's done that already). milk over to the garage. 

books, films, gigs, events october 2026

 books

- zastrozzi (percy bysshe shelley; forward by germaine greer)

- independent, making people pay the BBC licence fee if they use streaming services

- lawrence durrell, prospero's cell and the dark labyrinth

- glyn hughes blog, life class and chapter 13 of millstone grit 

- LRB alfred nunney,  write a novel in thrity days, on microphones

- bomb magazine, angela carter coats off joan didion

- prouvé’s pavilions, the observer

- hyperallergic on john berger

- nlr, 15 years of protest movements in spain

films

- various films on lawrence durrell (1975 etc.) greek islands, silent days in sommières

- a puppet show with kharaghiosis and his sidekick hadjiavatis

- V&A documentary on the tarot

- bookpilled, outlaw bookseller, etc. 

- dominic cummings at the lords

- FT, global energy order after hormuz

- don cherry interviewed

gigs none

events

an exhibition on radical living, an exhibition on revolutionary algerian cinema, ten years of the golden glow, anniversary of the release of levitation by hawkwind in 1980,  an adventure to cheltenham.