Cabin’d, Cribb’d, Confin’d is the new journal of folk suburb. Folk suburb is about where the old countryside, on which the suburb is built, rises, occasionally, through (in the curve of a street following an old lane, maybe, or a left-over barn wall, or a name or a gatepost or a tree) and meets in the cul-de-sacs the attemtps to be ‘only the new’ of the suburb.
And the old songs and old ways and old lore are let in to the suburb, and the suburb is let out to the old.
And the old songs’ invading lets in the notion of a suburban folk tradition of itself too, to be created, celebrated and written, out of its own things, and lets the old folk be reborn anew, all of which is vital to folk just-about-anything?
Cabin’d, Cribb’d, Confin’d is done on paper and not on line. Cut and pasted with glue and scissors, not mice. Photocopied not pdf.
Cabin’d, Cribb’d, Confin’d is free to all.
The First Manifesto Of Folk Suburb
To anticipate, notice and notice the passing of, the annual eruption of the hawthorn
To make the old songs sing to the suburb and the suburb sing to the old songs
To embrace empty time & sitting
To stand still and refuse illusions of elsewhere, and elsethings, for there’s a bagful of sound, sight and smell nearby
To reject the pleasantries
Seed Bomb! Knit Lamp-posts!
Life not survival
“The most certain chances of liberation are born in what is most familiar”
Mike Love not war
Part-time not Full-time
Plant fruit and flowers not decks
No garden lights
BLAST holiday destinations, slavish fashion, advertisement, spotlessness
BLESS the stillnesses of houses in heat, rose petal perfume in buckets
BLESS the blue tits, ragwort, dandelions, bees
BLAST convenience breakfasts, fear of food, Chardonnay
BLESS ale, John Clare, Panini stickers
BLAST breakfast tv, garden lights and outdoor rooms
BLESS breakfast tv, garden lights and outdoor rooms, and rain
BLESS Shirley Collins, Forest, Trembling Bells and Sha-la-la records
BLESS Swizzel-Matlow, footpaths & nettles
BLAST begonias, dogs, the news
BLAST weather forecasts
BLESS Oscar Wilde, Shirley Collins. Dolly Collins, Subbuteo and Trembling Bells again
BLAST Metro
The suburb is the front line in our consumer economy laid bare. BLESS walking past houses, and strange lanes marking ancient paths, BLESS the plants
The suburb is the site of the struggle, the beauty with and of CONSTRAINT and CONFORMITY
Internal and external, the suburb is the landscape of many of our childhoods and adulthoods. The suburb retains magic – the hidden corners, scents and structures
The suburb is a site of great hidden craft
BLESS tea and Lincoln biscuits!
The suburb is a place of nature, ancient byways and boundaries
(un)circumnavigated and unnegotiable
In the suburb the storm clouds rising behind the houses is the fear and awe of the country. The lights of town on the horizon are the fear of the urban; the banging of the black Corsa the rage of conformist noise
The first manifesto of folk suburb
