the round dance and the jaws of cerebrus

the round dance

'five people in a circle. are they singing? is there an instrument accompanying them? is bruegel announcing the autonomous and tolerant world, at once turned in on itself and in unity?

for my own part. I would like to hear the round dance in the background of carnival's quarrel with lent as the culmination, not the inauguration , of a struggle begun twenty-five centuries ago. I would like to hear it as the forerunner of postpenitence, postsilence, at the back end of the church, not the rearguard of pagan carnival, supplanted by capitalist lent in the foreground.'

- jacques attali, noise: the political economy of music, english translation 1985.

the jaws of cerebrus

hot day yesterday. (hot day today).

'... nous marchions sur un tapis de fleurs qui nous cachait un abîme...'

- comte de ségur, mémoires, souvenirs et anecdotes (1824). 

such was the quote that made it into in the jaws of cerebrus, a radio 4 documentary about global warming (but particularly in the south of europe - spain, greece, italy).

it’s been about 32C out here in the wilds (35C on thursday) and horsemouth is cowering indoors. he knows that his friends in london and the south east have it worse - one is working on a roof, another will be in the kitchens.

he’s just been to the village. he passed two of the bell-ringers mowing and strimming the graveyard - he didn’t stop to lend a hand.

how hot things get changes what work can be done and when it can be done

the heat warps railway lines and overhead power cables and knocks out signalling systems. 

heat and rainfall alter where crops can be grown and where is good for animals. hotter weather causes more evaporation from the sea and then later more (and more sudden) rainfall on land - and thus more flooding.

in france they’ve had to shut down a nuclear reactor because the cooling water was too hot.

ok stay cool and stay safe peoples (and better yet stay in).

an entirely written in the morning blogpost

 a-ha! an entirely written in the morning blogpost 

(unless of course horsemouth carries on writing it in the afternoon)

horsemouth can't decide whether he should blog quick, go do the watering (before it warms up) and then come back to it later, or...

actually yes that's probably the right strategy. 

-------------

ok back after a spot of watering and the milk taken over  to the garage. (32C today maybe 35C thursday). 

... and what's the thing with jacques attali's noise?

noise is a book about the political economy of music. it argues that music is annunciatory - that the political economy of music is ahead of the broader political economy. this (at least) is the rationalisation proposed by frederic jameson in his forward to the english edition - one concerning the interactions between base and superstructure proposed by engels - the relations of production can determine culture but also (reciprocally) the political economy of cultural activities can indicate how the base is going to develop. 

that would be the (broad) thesis of noise translated into marx-speak. 

whether this is an accurate reflection of marx's thought or not horsemouth is not qualified to say. he suspects not. he suspects we are dealing with a simplification by engels that leads us into temporal and causal paradoxes. 

horsemouth was privileged to live through a period when music and  musical production and consumption was changing rapidly as a result of digitalisation - first at the level of production, then at the level of consumption.

to him it seemed that attali's theses around repetition (the huge overproduction and stockpiling of musical commodities) was coming true and that a counter attack was being staged round DJ culture and rave and hip-hop and any situation where the record was becoming a means rather than an end. 

the era being ushered in is one of composition - this is an unhelpful piece of naming by attali. in attali's first attempt at theorisation in bruits (1977) attali sees improvisation as fundamentally hopeful. 25 years later much of rave, MP3 etc. has happened and so attali attempts to incorporate this, but he's not your best source on all of these things. 

it seems to horsemouth a good time to come back to these ideas as AI make inroads into music production and consumption as a precursor to its wider effects in the economy. 

of course (helter skelter - coming down fast), given the speed at which AI is restructuring things, we may not have long to enjoy our new theoretical clarity.

coming next year (of course) 50 years of attali's bruits. 

what must be must be

horsemouth appears to be becoming the guy from the cover of noise:the political economy of music by jacques attali. 

indeed he's a breugel from the quarrel of carnival with lent. 

this was not his intention but as soon as he saw the two pictures side-by-side he had to admit that it was true. 

horsemouth will have to go back to it. attali has a long chapter on the meaning of the painting - mostly about how the four 'economies' of music are  in existence side by side. 

yesterday (in the afternoon) a visit from the guy from the water society. horsemouth had a beer outside in a shady spot and talked nuclear stuff (horsemouth's interest from a long time ago). 

later a zoom chat with someone in far off london. (horsemouth had to have a coffee to recover from the beer earlier). 

horsemouth seems to be moving stuff forward. 

today

well it is due to be hot. horsemouth's plan is to have a cool and quiet day. his mum is off to the doctor's in the village. and in the afternoon there's a delivery. all this is probably a bit too busy (but what must be must be). 

one day (sure you don't want another?)

 '... mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. first with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. it was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said “bother!” and “o blow!” and also “hang spring-cleaning!” and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat...'

- kenneth grahame, the wind in the willows (1908).  

yesterday

 the zoom beer with howard. just the one. not even one. more like a half. howard is reading about the suffragettes and contemplating working until he drops. 

horsemouth advised that this was a terrible idea (the working until he drops bit).

howard has a book about sylvia pankhurst (horsemouth was most envious he's a big fan of sylvia pankhurst). 

así fue - that's how it was. 

last night  fireworks (for the solstice?)

and today the solstice. the sun will have risen back at 04.51 - long before horsemouth will have woken up. he woke up at about 7.30. 

in the week? a heatwave. 

in a bit horsemouth will go around the house closing the windows that were open overnight to let in the cooler air. 

and so (inauspiciously) it begins

and so it begins 

'horsemouth writes about where he is (the golden valley, herefordshire), where he lives (mostly), but he doesn't do it in much detail. you know that he goes attempting to learn bell-ringing, you know that he goes for walks on the common, you know that he sometimes goes down to unlock the abbey, you know that he makes use of the local bus services to visit hereford or abergavenny, you know that he makes use of the trains to visit london (the wen). he has mentioned the chickens, the garden, and such wildlife as he sees...'

- horsemouthfolk blogspot, 19th june 2024.

horsemouth's blog dates back to june 2013 but an earlier one on myspace dated back to 23rd of november 2006. 

at some point it became a daily thing on facebook and then, in about 2020,  when facebook abolished the notes tool it became a daily blog on blogspot. 

soon horsemouth will celebrate the twentieth year of his blogging. 

in a bit horsemouth goes to open up the abbey. 

tomorrow the solstice. 

trial by bells (nous n'irons plus au bois)

yesterday was  a typical day in that horsemouth  was feeling anxious. 

he' d done the chickens. he'd done the abbey. he'd got the bin up from the bottom of the drive. he'd watered the garden and the greenhouse and done a bit of weeding. he'd pegged back the nasturtiums to give the other plants a better chance. 

he'd even been for a quick walk up on the common. 

ideally horsemouth would be able to go and drink without subjecting himself to trail by bells first (but hey-ho). 

but before that there was the locking up the abbey and getting the chickens in. he did some watering as well. 

yesterday a wren got trapped in the conservatory. it took horsemouth a while to shoo it out. eventually he succeeded because it flew into his open back-pack as a dark and safe space. 

musically horsemouth thinks nous n'irons plus au bois will work well (clapping and singing version). similarly he thinks there's a version of le chaland qui passe that could be done (because rob is a big fan of jean vigo and l'atalante). this he thinks is a guitar and vocal one. he's taken a look at learning the words and the chords. 

he should watch l'atalante again. his memory of it is that there is a tune other than le chaland qui passe that plays a similar role in the film and it would be good to get that in too if possible. 

so far he thinks the clapping and singing songs he has sent off to rob have worked well  - travailler c'est trop dur, j'ai vu le loup, mes bourons sont morts etc. largely because they work with the limitations of his recording setup

this is not  to say horsemouth's singing always sounds in tune but because it sounds authentically like it is not. 

the songs with guitar or harmonium have been a bit more problematic because horsemouth's laptop takes exception to recording anything other than the human voice and tries to filter it out as background noise as soon as possible. 

various other recording strategies (hambone, playing rhythmically on the banjolin, recording guitar  etc.) have not yet led to success (or perhaps they will but horsemouth just doesn't know it yet).  

next week it looks like a bit of a heatwave (before fizzling out at the end of the month). 

midnight horsemouth is back from the bell-ringing (and the pub afterwards). the bell-ringing has gone well (as has the pub afterwards). 

the morning a grey coolish morning horsemouth has been over to the chickens and put the milk in the fridge in the garage. in a bit down to the abbey. 

a variety of clouds

so horsemouth watched a lot of je tu il elle with spanish subtitles (and french dialogue at low volume).  he didn't at any point hear the nous n'irons plus au bois song on the soundtrack (as is claimed in various places).

jaques brel used a part of this tine in his anti-war song la colombe (later covered by joan baez)  - 

'nous n'irons plus au bois, la colombe est blessée.

nous n'allons pas au bois, nous allons la tuer.'

in  je tu il elle a woman rattles round her apartment. re-arranging the furniture, dressing, undressing, writing letters she won't send, living on sugar. and then she's off hitchhiking, the truck driver's tale of woe, then she's with the ex-girlfriend (who doesn't want her to stay). 

people (but closely observed). you can see the marguerite duras/ chantal akerman comparison. (the woman is chantal akerman).  

it's the morning

horsemouth is just back from feeding the chickens. 

an aphid crawls across the top of the laptop screen. (go away you silly beast! shoo!)

he should go get the bin from the bottom of the drive soon. this evening bells.  

a variety of clouds. a cool morning. he's probably excused watering.