horsemouth king of the castle

interesting.

duras 'summer 1980' an interview with one of the two translators. the interviewer and the translator seem keen on duras for the reason horsemouth is keen on her, because it's all about her. so all of  summer 1980 has been translated (together with lots of other talkpieces).

similarly there is an essay from one of her translators on translating her.

horsemouth has made the discovery that a paper he co-wrote on amending the partial nuclear test ban treaty to a comprehensive test ban treaty way back in 1990 may have been published as a letter  in nature.

nature volume 348, page 279 (1990). if you are interested.

it's a very pretty morning

horsemouth is off, in a bit, with his mum, into the village, by the local bus service.

getting back may require a wait (horsemouth will take a book). 

nonetheless horsemouth is lucky to live in the valley with the bus service up it (the dulas valley has none).

there is a community taxi service (who require booking ahead). there are friends with cars (so getting around is not impossible). 

ok now to check that his mum is up. (she is). 

horsemouth has been out and unleashed the chickens. he has his coffee. he has just put some more hot water in the coffee to freshen it up. 

he can't think of anything he needs to do before he goes to the village. 

of course the village is no problem for horsemouth. he can walk there (bus or not). it's a problem at night (he fancies neither wandering back across the common nor walking back along narrow dark country lanes - if something goes wrong you are well and truly shtooked). during the daytime there is no problem. 

this morning a very pleasant half-dream where horsemouth was king of the castle.

an alternative network of production and distribution (peace, love, and unity)

'one could argue that do-it-yourself practices – like most, if not all, avant-garde utopias – failed in their ambition to change the world.... fluxus certainly never developed an alternative network of production and distribution powerful enough to pose a threat to the art market, and the audience for most do-it-yourself art works often remained limited to small groups among the artists’ friends...'

- anna dezeuze,  blurring the boundaries between art and life (in the museum?), tate papers, 31/1/2012. 

in the evening of yesterday horsemouth watched ghost in the shell (the origin of the 'balkan' singing on makai's beneath the mask). it was most excellent. once horsemouth heard the track in a club in prague. it's nice to hear the song in the context it was originally intended for. 

prior to akira horsemouth's only real exposure to manga was the children's tv series marine boy. 

when horsemouth was keen on drum and bass one factor in its popularity with him was the dubplate system of musical production - the newest tunes were not available for sale to all but were made available on dubplate to various DJs and radio stations so that they could be played live as it were. 

the playing of records and the going to the club nights thus became the musical event (rather than a band playing live to promote a record). this was a profound change in the economics of the music scene made possible by the grafting of the new digital production technologies onto the earlier reggae system of pre-release music. this was a temporary and unstable marriage of convenience.

horsemouth viewed it (in perhaps a utopian fashion) as an escape from attali's economy of repetition and into his economy of composition (as outlined in his book noise: the political economy of music). these changes had to happen not just at the level of musical structure and performance but also at the level of the economy of music. broadly anything that increased the amount of improvisation in music did this.

this was all supposed to inaugurate an era of peace, love, and unity (to quote MC fats). well no, the connections between music, its economy and their social effects was more complicated than that. 

the music industry fought back, first with a tidal wave of shite indie (britpop) and then with a tidal wave of boy bands. the technology, the scene, the music, in any event, it all moved on. MP3 (remember that) and file sharing (napster) came along as well. the music industry fought back against that with streaming (spotify etc.) leaving us in our current sorry state. 

outside mist and sunshine. no zoom beers with howard last night. instead horsemouth watched ghost in the shell and read more hannah arendt. 

he read little rock from the portable hannah arendt as if it were from the origins of totalitarianism (which it could be). it could certainly be from on violence. here is a moment in hannah's thought that is distinctly out of tune with modern thought. 

but then the whole of the origins of totalitarianism  is in its detail harder to assimilate to modern conditions than its current reputation suggests. 

3 weeks of the war/ two-and-a-half years of trump remaining/ how bad can it get?

'by the great oak of cross foot and the green lane to cwmpelved green, where the idiot girl phoebe sat laughing by the fire while her grandfather was groaning in bed and a black cat rushed in and out through a broken window pane...' - kilvert, diaries, 20th march 1872.

on the 21st it snows in kilvert-land.

here the weather decent-ish until tuesday.

3 weeks of the war

'if 2020 taught us anything, it is how ready we must be to revise our worldview.' - adam tooze, $hutdown, conclusion. 

horsemouth is currently in how bad can it get? bargaining mode. 

and the answer is pretty bad. 

'I believe the world has not yet well understood the depth of the energy security challenge we are facing, it is much bigger than what we had in the 1970s... it is also bigger than the natural gas price shock we experienced after the russia's invasion of ukraine.' - IEA executive director fatih birol. 

the economic harms are staggering  and the longer the war runs the more they are baked in. of course the oil shortage/ natural gas shortage/ fertiliser shortage harms china but it also harms american citizens, british citizens, EU citizens. 

the increase in the cost of transport will cause inflation in almost all commodities, shortage of fertiliser will cause rises in food prices, electricity and gas prices will rise, interest rates will stay high throttling investment.

the poor will get poorer again (but even more so). 

however, ever the dialectician, horsemouth sees the good that can come out of this in breaking US hegemony.

two-and-a-half years of trump still remaining (conservative estimate) 

assuming he leaves office when he's supposed to (it's not like he doesn't have previous for election tampering and coup attempts).

last night (fairly early on) a dream where horsemouth was in a house with a girlfriend (a girlfriend from the past, a girlfriend from the future,  he couldn't tell). the house was very full of things but it all seemed bright and happy. here a cold misty morning but probably quite good later on. a walk into the village to get the newspaper. 

there's some evidence of growth in the greenhouse. 

EQUINOX

'so can I just write some bullshit here and save it for the day when I am back online again?' - horsemouth, 19/03/2026

internet connection wifi runaround

horsemouth was quite proud of the last blogpost he wrote using the lewis carroll letter-writing/ george maciunas art administrations thing.

yesterday

horsemouth supposes what he will have to do is wait for his brother to finish work for the day (and then turn the router off and on like he usually does). 

ok bell-ringing booked. (must tell mum). 

the heating oil is ordered (it is expensive). horsemouth doubts the wisdom of ordering it now but it may not be any better by the start of next winter/ later on in the summer etc. he will then either curse himself for a fool for having not ordered more or curse himself for a fool for having ordered too much too early. 

there's a trip to the doctor's for his mum one morning next week. horsemouth has worked out the bus going down he wants to check the timetable for the bus coming back (1058 or 1258 he guesses to be ready for the 1120 or the 1320). he suspects the appointment is in the sweet spot of journey, long wait, appointment, even longer wait.

can you tell that he is not looking forward to it? 

he thinks one way round it is to go for food/ coffee etc. 

the wifi is absolutely giving him the runaround (but at some point soon his brother will pack up for the day and then horsemouth can sort that fucker out with absolute router brutality).  

that did it. if not horsemouth would be stuck out here with no communications.  

good bells. horsemouth is out of the avoiding disasters bit and into the productive work. the angel of grosmont afterwards. 

today. horsemouth has no interest in going to a garden centre (the day's proposed activity) he just wants some seeds so he can grow some food - it doesn't strike him as unreasonable. misty morning. trip to the garden centre has been cancelled. 

the week after. horsemouth will be hiding out in the wen again. 

yesterday horsemouth took a walk round up onto the common via abbeydore crossroads (and then back down via dicks pitch).  after that he got irritated. but really there's no need. 

some advice on letter-writing (flux administration)

tuesday the 19th of march 1872 and the reverend kilvert is off visiting;  

'I called on my old friend richard meredith of colva, the land measurer, who lives in bridge street., just above hay bridge. I used to go there and talk to him very often but I have not been now for a long time. he seemed very glad to see me, for he was much exercised in his mind by the errors and heresy of the nicolaitans... 

I am ashamed to say I know as little as he did and care to know less...'  

from there on the conversation moves on to the masons (about a page's worth of description) and then onto the praying habits of two jews from poland whom meredith had met in an inn in neath. 

horsemouth has been much concerned with letter writing 

(or rather the fact that he is not doing it). 

lewis carroll offers some advice on letter-writing (how to begin a letter, how to go on with a letter etc.), and in particular how to keep a letter-register of your correspondence (something horsemouth has not yet succeeded in doing because he has not yet succeeded in writing any). 

(horsemouth has checked his dover edition of the unknown lewis carroll but does not find the essay there. he does find reproductions of lots of carroll's photos and some of his drawings.)

we might find a parallel in colby chamberlain's  fluxus administration: george maciunas and the art  of paperwork.

'maciunas tampered with the structures of bureaucratic modernity to establish new models of collectivity...' 

well it's a bright and beautiful morning and horsemouth has his coffee. his brother is up visiting. horsemouth has seen to the chickens. in a bit, when he is sure everyone is up, he will go and get the bin from the bottom of the drive. 

today a meeting. 

'what is the commune, that sphinx so tantalizing to the bourgeois mind?'

'on the dawn of the 18th of march, paris arose to the thunder-burst of “vive la commune!” what is the commune, that sphinx so tantalizing to the bourgeois mind?

“the proletarians of paris,” said the central committee in its manifesto of march 18, “amidst the defeats and treasons of the ruling classes, have understood that the hour has struck for them to save the country by taking into their own hands the direction of public affairs ... ”

but the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes...' 

- karl marx, the civil war in france, from the third address, may1871. 

but of course this begins not with karl marx's summing up but with the people of paris defending 'their' canons and this happens on march 18th 1871. 

of course the sphinx does not deal in riddles but in specific prophecy. 

the commune/ the pandemic

horsemouth has been reading more of adam tooze's $hutdown - an account of the pandemic in terms of its economics and the actions of central banks. capitalism was saved ladies and gentlemen (huzzah!) by the incurrence of debt (boo!) which we will now all be repaying until the end of time. 

and the current war upon iran will not help either.

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beautiful morning out there. misty, but sunny, but cold. horsemouth woke up round about 6 but stayed in bed until 7. he has his coffee (let him take a sip - ah that's better). weather looks good until sunday. 

when the dust settles

kilvert has decided he must leave clyro. 

'mr. venables told me I must write next week to the bishop to give notice that I mean to resign the curacy of clyro on july 1st...'

horsemouth is putting some effort into understanding the grand scheme 

it is no longer his concern but he feels concerned (you understand).  

marike (at the time of some previous grand scheme) had a thing about pots of money - the government might not want to pay to house poor single people but it might want to pay to train people in construction skills, so maybe a scheme that did both might succeed in getting funded (and so on).

by way of comparison the modern situation appears much easier. 

there is government money to bring cold old social housing up to a decent standard (an energy performance certificate C standard). indeed for a brief period it looked like there were two pots of money that could be used,  one deriving from the fines levied upon power companies when they misbehave (the energy company obligation (ECO) with this made available to those in social housing). and a designated government scheme for social housing. 

but the government are winding up the ECO scheme after many poor installations (so that is no longer available) and the money from the government scheme has to be spent by a particular time (fast approaching). 

the ambition is being shaved off the great plan leaving the mission of compliance for as many properties as possible. 

and when the dust settles it will be possible to see what more needs to be done and what money remains to do it. but it won't be horsemouth doing this because it is no longer his business (in the metaphorical sense of that). 

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hey the weather looks good clear through to sunday! cold at night mind you, then a greyish day and then sun.

horsemouth has his coffee.