This week has been filled with me dipping in and out of A Vision. It’s something I should have read a long time ago, rather than just reading about — because it is entirely bonkers. A Vision is the philosophical/metaphysical work of W B Yeats that he put together while experimenting with automatic writing. It’s where his concept of the gyre comes from (you know, the one from the box-office smash hit, The Second Coming).

The process of the automatic writing, and the writing produced from process and dreams by himself and George (his wife) is described a little like as haunting. As a romantic, Yeats was obviously haunted — or, as he presents somewhere in the opening section titled A Packet For Ezra Pound: “some drop of hysteria still at the bottom of the cup?”

But the descriptions of bringing the work to life via a variety of forces and persons includes descriptions of Frustrations (capital fuh) who come to him as people and feeling and distractions — and, specifically in one movement as a someone who tells Yeats not to make notes because he will summarise at the end, and then forgets his point.

Which is very much my brand.

Anyway, have a look at some of the utter madness inside this work:

Also, I found this to accompany it.

Today’s song is the excellent Miami by Baxter Dury. Baxter is the son of Ian Dury, and presents something a little similar, but entirely his own. It is a kind of spoken word over repeated loops that lend themselves as a simple canvas bed for his filthy voice.

If you liked Miami, then I can also recommend Palm Trees and most of his other work.

Thanks for reading Etch To Their Own. I am the night chef, you are a river of dead fish, we’re all Miami — except it’s not the famous one. This is a kind of madness. Invite your friends to subscribe to this newsletter via this linkette.