today horsemouth returns to the wen

it's 1980 and  PIL are on american bandstand.  

it's the 90th anniversary of the birth of 'neither structuralist, nor marxist' anthropologist pierre clastres (author of the chronicle of the guyaki indians as translated by paul auster - archive.org have a copy with his photos of various guyaki tribespeople). 

horsemouth has been struggling with howard's version of pastures of plenty. at the moment he can't find anything he's playing that will sit with it. howard is doing a fiddly fingerpicking thing and horsemouth keeps falling off. howard has pulled the 'G' from the last line (well most of the time) leaving a vamp back and fore between C and Aminor (well in fact he's doing it with a capo on the 3rd fret so that's Eflat and Cminor).  

horsemouth has got the pretty polly derived tune (he believes) but the shift to G then back up is the bit of the melody that really appeals to him. he's retuned the guitar with the b string up to c to make playing the Eflat and Cminor easier (he's noticing the arthritis in his finger joints more).

ah well maybe something will click when they meet up. maybe he'll try putting howard over the anker speaker and see if that gives him a better balance. horsemouth and howard have a gig the end of august and horsemouth wants to get match fit for it and have a better more integrated show than last time. 

today horsemouth returns to the wen 

denise and jonnie are over visiting and horsemouth wants to catch up. 

he's back in h______ the first week (there's a meeting of the communal endeavour and a triple negative gig), thereafter he's away cat-sitting at the house in the borderlands (fka. the cloud forest located somewhere near walthamstow). he will try to get in a visit to his brother while he's up that way and do some book buying in the charity shops/ get in some drinking with friends/ go for various walks and excursions. 

saturday june 1st there's the jacken elswyth album launch gig. a matinee at greennotemusic. 

it's the evening before all of this is due to start and horsemouth has just noticed the rain starting (he's been waiting for it all day).

last night horsemouth dreamt he was alone on a frozen plain dressed in a blanket. a large bird with very small wings was succeeding in flying away through the trees. 

online meeting done bin walked down the drive horsemouth goes to deliver the eggs 'at the crossroads'

'it will take two decades to fix the housing crisis, and I fear it’s going to get worse before it gets better.' 

- rick de blaby, chief executive of get living.

so what did horsemouth learn in his online meeting then?

that  decarbonisation is being prioritised for home owners - why? 

because they have the money to do it. 

the money to decarbonise social housing simply isn't there (yet), either in government, in local authorities or in the willingness of the financial system to loan it out.

there is (of course) a conflict in some ways between the need to address decarbonisation and the need to address fuel poverty. 

what would our typical user on a prepayment meter make of the need to run an air source heat pump constantly to achieve maximum efficiency? the truth is that many people do not heat their homes adequately or even at all because they cannot afford to do so, and with rents increasing by an average of 9% this year and wages and benefits not matching this people are going to continue getting poorer in real terms. 

and the next two decades will be the decades of the housing crisis (as even the robber baron developers will tell you). 

to be in fuel poverty is defined as having less than £36k combined income per household per year (and typical gas and electricity bills). so, for the communal endeavour, if there are 4 people in a shared house they might not be in fuel poverty if they all earn as little as £9k a year. 

the EPC (energy performance certificate) rating and survey has two separate scales, one for energy performance and one for carbon emissions,  the government introduced the certificates in light of concerns about energy efficiency and fuel poverty and is now retroactively using them to diagnose more complicated issues relating to decarbonisation. 

tariffs are a big thing now that we have come out of the government price cap - if a combination of smart meters, batteries  and agile tariffs can get the price of your electricity down from 27p a kwh to 9p a kwh and at this price point many strange things become possible - heating with electricity for example at a similar price to heating with gas but with no CO2 created in the generation of the electricity. 

but of course there are no guarantees tariffs for electricity are going to stay low - particularly with the expansion of the grid that will be needed to deliver that additional juice. further the high interest rates we are currently experiencing (and are likely to experience for a while) and the high rate of cost inflation (in building materials for example) makes decarbonisation mare expensive and slows it down.

he must have a chat with his brother's eldest joe (who knows all about these things). 

so far for all the cheerful stuff.

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here in the countryside it is a bright sunshiney day (storms later apparently). yesterday was surprisingly good. horsemouth did some weeding down in the bottom garden. he did the tasks and he went for walks. 

. 

'the fire's burned, the ashes spread, the lifted light hears all that's said...'

the day's tasks? 

hop the eggs round to the crossroads (more of a t-junction really). 

take the recycling bin down to the bottom of the drive (like an actual physical wheelie-bin, not just a computer icon). 

in theory the weather will be greyish and cooler but with possible sun in the afternoon.  thursday a thunderstorm. friday just a rainy day. 

and friday horsemouth will be back to the wen. (the weather should be decent in the evening then there there's a possible thunderstorm saturday afternoon). 

'the fire's burned 

the ashes spread

the lifted light 

hears all that's said 

we are undead...'

horsemouth is trying to work out where harvey bainbridge copped the lyrics from. any thoughts? it seems rubiyat of omar khayyam-ish to him. hawkwind have a history of lifting poetry (longfellow a psalm of life, shelley hymn of apollo verse 3 etc.) as well as employing poets - michael moorcock, robert calvert and summarising novels (particularly under calvert) - steppenwolf, high rise, damnation alley, jack of shadows. 

chat GPT (or the microsoft search assistant copilot) liked it anyway but the poems it suggested as 'like' it (the hollow men, t.s. eliot etc.) weren't that convincing. 

horsemouth is not the only person to be sitting with kafka's diaries of late - the LRB (that is the london review of books) have been doing it also. they plan to put on a show at st. mary's church hay on wye on the 1st of june to coincide (roughly) with the centenary of kafka's death on the 3rd. it will feature music from max richter's the blue notebooks featuring some readings of kafka and ceslaw milosz.

horsemouth (as you know) will be away. 

howard's epistle to horsemouth has arrived. 

horsemouth has read it. he will not be telling you very much about it because (hey) it's a private letter. what he will do is show you what howard wrote on the outside of the envelope 'a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse' (as well as the address obviously otherwise it wouldn't have got here, plus there also had to be a stamp affixed). 

well it's a beautiful morning. horsemouth has bin out and watered some plants (not that they need it). hopefully the runner beans will grow up the trellis fast enough to avoid being eaten by the slugs. 

horsemouth has a meeting today 12 to1 on blended finance. 

'two drop' rainstorms (eternal now)

'lost all regularity in writing' - franz kafka, diaries, 14th may 1915.

yesterday lots of hideous stinky (but seems successful) fucking around with the drains.

horsemouth is waiting for the real rain. he wants to see if the temporary shelter he has fabricated for his runner bean plants will work. it is not his finest (engineering) moment but as long as it doesn't get too blowy it will survive. 

(he will let you know here how it goes. so far the rain just seems very determined.)

the serious rain is due to start at about 4pm. we are talking of about 8 hours of it. broadly we get wednesday off (and then it's more of the same). (admittedly according to the bbc in the wen the weather looks a little better - no 'two drop' rainstorms for example). 

having missed eagle eye cherry's birthday (may 7th) horsemouth has also missed the anniversary of the recording of eternal now - first and last tracks may 1st, the rest april 30th 1973. but horsemouth supposes it is the eternal now. of the people who played the don cherry gig horsemouth showed you recently (1973 jazz jamboree in poland)  bengt berger and christer bothén also play on this one. 

it's the morning after. it's sunny(ish). horsemouth has moved the covers from the runner bean plants. he's going to try to get out for a quick walk again before it starts raining (which he did). horsemouth and his mum may be lucky, the storm may have blown itself out and they may be into an OK day. the bbc weather is showing it alternating rain and shine at about 50% all day (horsemouth is not clear what the percentage figure means). 

horsemouth has started on maxwell fraser's welsh border country. it mentions the motte and bailey castle at ewyas harold (as visited by the reverend kilvert for a picnic probably built on the orders of william fitzosbern earl of hereford from 1067). 

there's a storm coming and horsemouth has a problem with the drains

 don, moki and eagle-eye cherry 1973 at jazz jamboree in poland. 

don cherry, trumpet and doussn'guni,

dodou gouriand, soprano;

christer bothén, doussn'guni, tenor; 

bobo stensson, piano; 

jane robertson, cello; 

palle danielsson, bass, 

bengt berger, drums, tabla; 

moki cherry, tamboura (and the textile art behind the band)

and eagle-eye cherry (dammit we missed his birthday 7th may 1968)

this time last year (and into june) horsemouth was mad for this stuff. it's a pleasure to be reminded of it.

oh dear there's a storm coming and horsemouth has a problem with the drains

yup. yesterday afternoon (after putting in the runner beans and having been for a walk on the common) horsemouth noticed that the level of water in the drains near the house was very high. so he opened up the inspection hatches . (the water was very high in these as well). he decided it seemed to him that the blockage was between the last inspection cover by the house  and the septic tank itself. he drained the inspection cover sink with a bucket (ew), chucked some enzymic cleaner down there and rodded through from the house side of it as far as he could and this morning he will rod through from the septic tank side of things (and chuck some enzymic cleaner down there) and see if that clears the blockage. if that fails there is only phoning a drainage company (and this with several days of heavy rain coming in). 

after that he had a shower (not thinking for a second that this would add water to the inspection cover sink and left his clothes out to be rained on).

remind him to cover up the runner beans before the storm hits tonight.  

ok so far today success (he thinks) with the drains. he's not convinced with the covering for the runner beans (he thinks the decision to put them out rather than to wait was dumb) but the weather forecast doesn't show strong winds so he may just get away with it. his mother tried to give him some advice on it but frankly horsemouth was not that receptive.

infinite liberty (scribbles, sketches, drawings, failed works, models, studies, thoughts, conversations...)

'all sorts of people dreamed of an utopia and infinite liberty...' - chestlin, persecutio undecima, in christopher hill's  a world turned upside down. 

 '... scribbles, sketches, drawings, failed works, models, studies, thoughts, conversations - are of interest. those that show the thought processes of the artist...' 

- sol lewitt, paragraphs on conceptual art, artforum, june 67 

well this is kind of max brod's idea. and the idea of autobiography. kafka was struggling to produce something much more modernist and minimalist and pared down in his fictions and brod spoiled it by slathering it all in autobiographical sauce.

how many years do we have to sit with kafka's diary with him claiming he cannot write until we are obliged to go yes he really struggled to write. horsemouth is trying to do it in real time he's up to the diary entry for 5th may 1915 ('nothing. dull slight headache. chotek park in the afternoon.' )

'for each work of art that becomes physical there are many variations that do not.' - the twelfth sentence from sentences on conceptual art, sol lewitt (1968).  this is  precisely what kafka was trying to foreclose. 

howard is sending horsemouth a letter.  he's taken to sitting in cafes writing letters with a fountain pen. they had zoom beers (horsemouth had one bottle of butty bach). horsemouth proposed they cover pastures of plenty. after the phonecall he took a look at it and decided it might be a bit too complicated. 

(night time. there was just something moving at the window. horsemouth thought it was the face of  the black cat had got up on the glass roof (but no it was a moth)). 

it's another beautiful morning. horsemouth is going to start shovelling dirt before it gets too hot and then, later on in the afternoon there's due to be a thunderstorm and a week of rain begins (eek). he's been hearing fat old sun by pink floyd in his head a lot lately. he's realised it was a tune he learnt from a songbook without having heard the original (thus he learnt it incorrectly but he doesn't seem to have done too badly). 

all ideas need not be made physical (the formation, development and obsolescence of words)

' all ideas need not be made physical' - sol lewitt, 10th sentence in sentences in conceptual art (1968)

 'all intervening steps - scribbles, sketches, drawings, failed works, models, studies, thoughts, conversations - are of interest. those that show the thought processes of the artist are sometimes more interesting than the final product.' 

- sol lewitt, paragraphs on conceptual art, artforum, june 67 

both quoted in luke skrebowski's notes on sentences, versuch no.1: notes and projects, ed. gil leung. 

horsemouth has finished reading down and out in paris and london (from whence 'the formation, development and obsolescence of words' the study of which orwell proposes). the paris side of the adventure is considerably more interesting with its drunkenness and low-life (it could be jean genet if orwell weren't such a prig). orwell persists in trying to solve social problems - proposing that the british doss-houses become places where people grow food (which is very modern). 

horsemouth's mum has had some raised plant beds built and horsemouth has just been throwing soil and compost into one of them (before the day warms up). the problem is the amount of soil necessary to fill them - it means altering the level of the garden (effectively) 

broadly horsemouth will try not to overdo it on the first day. 

he then has most of sunday to fill up the second (slightly smaller) planter. the runner beans (the ones horsemouth has been calling broad beans) seem to be doing well after their night out in the cold and horsemouth will soon plant them out (remind him to check this with his mum first so they don't get out of sync again). 

he also spent a little while this morning debugging his mum's  emergency alarm thingy (having seen it flashing) - it now connects through the wi-fi as well as over mobile phone signal (something that was, courtesy of modern technology, utterly painless to do). 

this is probably why he is posting slightly later than usual.

so how's the dude who moved to douarnenez getting on? 

well the house is gradually getting sealed against the elements, partition is getting built and insulated and the neighbourhood is gentrifying (turning into st. tropez say the locals). of course this is the problem with spending the  money you earn in the city out in the wilds/ in the poorer regions, it drives up the prices for the locals who have not had access to the money making potential of the city.  our architect here is wilfully oblivious to the effect of his actions.