'like all dreamers I mistook disenchantment for truth' (sartre)

'There are two ways of making investigations, one is to look at flowers on horseback and the other is to get off your horse and look at them. If you look at flowers on horseback, you'll only get a superficial impression, as there are so many.' - mao. 

mao admonishes the intellectuals to get off their horses and take a closer look - thence the 68'ers into the factories, horsemouth escaped this by becoming the horse.

horsemouth has been out to sunny northwick park. the library was very good. he read a little of alternative communities in 19th C. england by dennis hardy, which has photos of the agapemone commune at four forks, spaxton in somerset. there the poet david grubb (beneath the visiting moon) used to play organ as a boy and the class structure of victorian society was intended to be taken directly over into heaven (and indeed was as they all successively died off). earlier there was also a co-operativist commune just opposite mount pleasant sorting office (the co-operativist and economical society, spafields, clerkenwell 1821-24, george mudie, owenites (basically)).

horsemouth also read the introduction to althusser: a critical reader by gregory elliot. there were accounts of althusser's funeral, derrida quoted a passage from for marx, in fact from bertolazzi/ brecht the famous essay.

'Yes, we are first united by an institution – the performance, but more deeply, by the same myths, the same themes, that govern us without our consent, by the same spontaneously lived ideology. Yes, even if it is the ideology of the poor par excellence, as in El Nost Milan, we still eat of the same bread, we have the same rages, the same rebellions, the same madness (at least in the memory where stalks this ever-imminent possibility), if not the same prostration before a time unmoved by any History. Yes, like Mother Courage, we have the same war at our gates, and a handsbreadth from us, if not in us, the same horrible blindness, the same dust in our eyes, the same earth in our mouths. We have the same dawn and night, we skirt the same abysses: our unconsciousness. We even share the same history – and that is how it all started.' 

balibar noted that althusser wanted 'to be at once totally a philosopher and totally a communist'. 

later (camberwell) horsemouth killed more time in the library first with a guide to ranciere and his re-readings of the french utopians (and literary wannabees). these he used to split himself off from the althusserian project (he was one of althusser's disenchanted) - an icarian commune in egypt, who knew? a small green book in an odd format winked at him from the stacks, it was germano celant's the record as artwork (1977 fort worth art museum) - a photo essay on futurist, dadist, conceptual art recordings. it featured michael snow's musics for piano, whistling, microphone and tape recorder (seemingly the basis for the noise and capitalism book cover).

horsemouth's grandfather (on his father's side) was born yesterday in 1908 - at one point, just after the second world war there was a plan to go help found an agricultural commune in new zealand, but at the innaugural meeting in london horsemouth's grandfather realised he was the only one who knew anything about farming (so with that harsh yorkshire practicality that was that). it does however answer the key utopian question, 'how do you get to utopia? by rainbow or railway?'

you too could be this good (if you were just prepared to apply yourself)

horsemouth (like many an old man) has been waxing enthusiastic (nay sentimental even) over music. don't worry gentle peoples soon he goes to work and labour discipline will be restored.

the thing with morrissey is that he can make horsemouth laugh, he can make him cry and (just as often) he can annoy the fuck out of him all in the same song - morrissey is a knob and a racist (horsemouth cites 'bengali in platforms' from viva hate as evidence - 'life is hard enough when you belong here' fuck you morrissey) and horsemouth was never as keen on johnny marr's guitar playing as others were (but that's when he did his best work) - it's the songwriting that makes him but it's not just the songwriting that makes him - dylan is similarly a knob but his songs don't get horsemouth where morrissey's songs get him...

horsemouth feels that morrissey knows what horsemouth knows (and vice versa) and they're from the same place (even though he doesn't and they're not). horsemouth gets that same sense that he gets from old soul songs that someone has reached inside his chest and said what he wants to say but better than he could ever say it.



but just one other thing - here's jeff buckley singing 'I know it's over' and 'the boy with the thorn in his side' (beautiful young man, tragic death, beautiful voice) but it's not as good - it's the limitations of morrissey's voice (even though he has clearly worked on it) that make these songs so amazing.

one thing horsemouth notes is that morrissey can swap from (genuine) emotion in one line to northern epigramatic 'wit' in the next - it's the catches in language that he gets working for him, stop me if you've heard this one before, in the great tradition of songs (not) saying what they mean - this is why his best work is with johnny marr because the songs have enough musical energy to take you on and deliver their emotional charge when the singing has stopped. but also in the sense of the song texts being fragmentary - not fully through composed - not holding you to one subject position.

there is of course something different about an older morrissey and a crowd full of turkish women and english expats singing along with I know it's over (as on one clip of it on youtube) compared to just a young(ish) morrrissey singing it. as he has thickened out and grown older he has worked on his voice to become the crooner his songs called for.

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and so onto the sage of wimborne robert fripp - here what horsemouth likes is the abscence of emotion other than the pleasure of watching clever people do a smart thing very well - the sense of you too could be this good (if you were just prepared to apply yourself). horsemouth grew up in a difficult time for rock music, it was bill glover who introduced horsemouth to king crimson the record that worked best for horsemouth was red - a stripped down power trio engaged in a reformation of rock music away from the baroque, formulaic and lumpen excessess of nwobhm - the new wave of british heavy metal.



this fripp followed up with league of gentlemen and his frippertronics experiments and discipline. discipline is of course the sound of a death by drowning in talking heads envy (just as signals by rush is the sound of a power trio drowning in police envy) -

fripp had hired adrian belew (who'd worked with talking heads) both to produce the screams and glitches of talking heads guitar but also to do david byrne's nervy new yorker (10 parts caffeine to 1 part german expressionism). horsemouth loves the way the two guitars work together and the rest of the band works (god bill bruford - what a drummer!). later this populist impulse fails and we are just left with immaculate shining technique... and the result is very boring.

horsemouth realises this is a harder sell - compared to the smiths and morrissey  it has the disadvantage of making the work and thought that went into it obvious (indeed that's its selling point) you too could be this good (if you were just prepared to apply yourself). it is an idea of music making as work and as craft.

but similarly if you were prepared to apply yourself to the craft of song writing you too could be as good as morrissey.

sample footnote from a russian novel - ''life is beautiful' quotation from mayakovsky (who committed suicide aged 30)'.

this is why russians are geniuses.

horsemouth (you remember him don't you?) is back with you again having worked (3 hours actual work - two and a half walking in and back). tomorrow he does the same (ok a bit more) with less walking, friday is some hellbooking in the wild west (jesus fucken' christ - the north west - they probably have fucken' snow out there) and horsemouth still with some cough and cold thing. next week he's back to his regular bread and butter bookings (hopefully).

the footnote quoted as the title is from benedict erofeev's moscow circles - a samizdat novel the phrase for 'self-published' would be sam izdatel'stvo, by analogy with the state publishing house gosizdat this became samizdat. as benedict notes the first production run (of one) sold out immediately. the town name omutishche is translated as 'slough of despond' (but slough would probably do it). in the uk the translation was published by writers and readers (it even still has the reviewer copy press release lettter still inside it probably from october 1981).

horsemouth is tired and headachey and the light is poor - he may snooze.

today horsemouth did a preferred learning styles survey - he scored zero as a 'reflector', he doesn't reflect on what happens - this is quite interesting don't you think? (the learning styles are -activist, reflector, theorist, pragmatists). horsemouth simply doesn't care - whatever is behind him is in the past - onto the next thing. (but maybe he only says that)....

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if horsemouth remembers correctly one of boris pasternak's autobiographies (safe conduct) ends with the death of mayakovsky - ah he's found it - here it is -

 'Suddenly, outside, underneath the window I imagined I saw his life, which now already belonged entirely to the past. I saw it move obliquely from the window like a quiet tree-bordered street resembling the Povarskaya. And the first to take its stand in this street, by the very wall, was our State, our unprecedented and unbelievable State, rushing headlong towards the ages and accepted by them for ever. It stood there below, one could hail it and take it by the hand. Its palpable strangeness somehow recalled the dead man. The resemblance was so striking that they might have been twins. 

And it occurred to me then in the same irrelevant way that this man was perhaps the State’s unique citizen. The novelty of the age flowed climatically through his blood. His strangeness was the strangeness of our times of which half is as yet to be fulfilled. I began to recall traits in his character, his independence, which in many ways, was completely original. All these were explained by his familiarity with states of mind which though inherent in our time, have not yet reached full maturity. He was spoilt from childhood by the future, which he mastered rather early and apparently without great difficulty.'

(away the) crow road - 'you may bury my body down by the highway side so my old evil spirit can catch a greyhound bus and ride'

the wonderful internet (the gift that keeps on giving) has returned another one of horsemouth's endeavours to him - crow road a track by pressure of speech from the early 90ies on which there's a bare smidgen of his guitar playing (in a slide-y blues-y style). pressure of speech were essentially micky mann, although various other people were involved at various times (andy james, luke losey, dj stikka). micky's inspiration (or so he said at the time) was a childhood prank in scotland involving climbing up into a tree in the middle of a rookery with his mates then letting fly with catapults and bangers until the whole colony was in uproar.



horsemouth's inspiration, in responding to the track, was less adventurous. less experiential (or indeed phenomenological) and more literary.

 'You may bury my body,  down by the highway side ooh, So my old evil spirit, can catch a Greyhound bus and ride' 

sang robert johnson on 'me and the devil blues' - this is the inspiration for horsemouth's blues-y noodling. to horsemouth roads were important in this song because of the expression for death in iain bank's novel the crow road 'he's away the crow road' (this was what he assumed micky was on about - such is the cast of horsemouth's mind). micky had a synthesizer sample that sounded like a crow cawing and by scrapping the strings horsemouth could make a similar cawing noise (but more multiple crows rather than crow) - one of horsemouth's early guitar heroes was adrian belew, a guitarist who claimed not to be influenced by other guitarists but only by zoo animals and spent a lot of time working out how to make animal noises on the guitar - see l'elephant, lone rhinocerous etc.. this is horsemouth's contribution to this genre.

while horsemouth is confessing his guitar for hire activities during the years of rave his high point was probably being sampled for lush3-1 by orbital - he comes in at 2.58 under some double time high-hats - his inspiration here was his brief studies with folo graff of orchestre jazira at jenako arts in hackney (god bless the LEA, floodlight and adult education in general). horsemouth was a big fan of the interlocking, layered guitars in african music and wanted to use that to make something my life in the bush of ghosts like. nobody else was very keen. for attempting to invent brooklyn afrobeat in hackney in the 1990ies horsemouth's band was soundly spanked - did he say spanked? he meant ignored.


he has to say orbital made his guitar sound amazing but it's a very subtle part and the tune probably doesn't need it.

there were a few other things connecting pressure of speech and bush house (terrible name) horsemouth's band - the tracks x-beats and x-on from the first album art of the state derived from mixes micky had done of a bush house song exxon valdez - it was a good tune, horsemouth co-wrote it with ross (mostly) round the guitar part - maybe he should try saving it from the jaws of history. of course micky's mixes are entirely his.
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horsemouth went out to see richard youngs play at the balfron tower community cabin. he kind of expected to see people he knew demonstrating against this sort of thing on a platform of keep chrisp street crap (then no-one will want to come here and it won't get gentrified and we can carry on living here). a much more realiseable platform than keep hackney crap horsemouth feels.

richard youngs horsemouth has seen before (john clarkson reminded him) at st. pancras old church - there he claimed to have not enough song to do the performance and played it all over again. what horsemouth mainly admires about him is his crowd control (ok he has an interesting voice too) but like david thomas broughton his main interest seems to be playing with audience expectations/ performance conventions.

it was all too much for one young man who invited him to fuck off at the end (before stomping out). the other lot on tom james scott (as a duo) made a very nice series of drones, pluckings with some cassette players a guitar an autoharp and some hand bells.

when it was over himself and john wandered up the blackwall tunnel approach to the gentrifier's arms in search of that craft beer (he's hooked). horsemouth has done two weeks off - he'll probably go back to being good for a week or two longer (err. tomorrow). this morning horsemouth is a little headachey. tonight he goes to a birthday.

'speak out of grievances against wall street: a peaceable assembly on the steps of the federal hall memorial building...'

on may 19th 1774 in new york a mass meeting was called to discuss a tax boycott - it produced the first call for a continental congress but also gathered together tradesmen and mechanics calling for the future form of government to be democratic - from his position on a balcony gouverneur morris (chief justice of new jersey and part of a family that owned most of the bronx) was perturbed.

 'the mob begin to think and reason. poor reptiles! it is with them a vernal morning, they are struggling to cast off their winter's slough, they bask in the sunshine, and ere noon they will bite, depend upon it. the gentry fear this.' 

one of the things horsemouth found interesting about occupy was their determination to reinvent politics away from the party form beginning with their commitment to consensus and debate - two things horsemouth hates especially as they usually take place in meetings (a third thing horsemouth hates). there were social technologies for these - the wavy hands (horsemouth hated those on principle) - the mic checking (horsemouth liked this) and an avoidance of voting.

david graeber in his account of occupy the democracy project expresses a clear contempt for the democratic party and its institutions seeing it as a party of the managerial, educational elite with little to offer ordinary working stiffs practically except an incomprehension of why they would vote republican - to graeber the republicans invite the people to contribute, to sacrifice, to do what is good for the community, they are not overtly cynical about the US and its policies - graeber is much more interested in the republican populists and their seeming anti-elitism.

in part horsemouth thinks this is why graeber has produced a historical account of democracy in america (he claims it was an accident - it was 6 months later, he says,  he was on the steps of federal hall, the birthplace of the bill of rights, he hadn't expected to be called upon to speak). graeber is going back to its founding to reveal the putative ruling class's fear and distrust of democracy, the limited and unfamiliar meanings this term had at the time and until recent times, and yet the tradition of direct democracy among the people.

horsemouth will let you know more as he reads more.

 horsemouth has an abridged de tocqueville round here somewhere. he remembers seeing a photo of a flood damaged copy of the same edition from red hook (some people had gone up to help out with the flood relief).
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 it appears as if horsemouth will not be playing the next albino cafe bohemia shindig (gentlemen he wishes you all the best), shame it was just the right date too (though it does clash with the plinth/owl service gig -hmmm actually, no never mind) - he really should investigate playing elsewhere (as suggested by mr. nick) but he's a lazy sod (and a bit shy too).

of the 5 opportunities to play musicans of bremen have had 5 have come through horsemouth - 3 of these he's played as a duo with john smith, 2 solo (the first an impromptu 2 songs, the last a full set with guest spots from john smith and andrew minty). horsemouth needs to spread himself thinner, to find other musical investments/ engagements in addition to this.

ladies and gentleman the mule is available for work.

practically (and for himself) he should do more work on playing gentleman john - a fine ballad type song that highlights horsemouth's wordplay, as does the devil song (in need of a facelift), work up satan your kingdom must come down, still too short to be comfortable, as is legs (which is why he didn't play it), he should get a decent arrangement on the worldes blisse dirge, see if there's more to be had in fanfare for the common mule, develop more confidence in his singing of all my dreams, look back through the horsemouthfolk songbook and the songs he brought to musicians of bremen and see what can be rescued, continue writing clever boy, noah...

for satan... there's something between mic-check and lining out a hymn today.

yesterday horsemouth went t pick up his brother's youngest from after school club - he also went into the center of town to deal with some library fines.

'the head which governs us is no more than an ideal stomach'

it's all very well fantasising about this work lark as being morally improving but let's face it most of it is donkey work.

horsemouth is back from a sojourn dahn sahf - up early (ring ring 8 am less than magnificent), seaside towns tramway, jubillee line, overground, zone 2 hugging (avoiding the center), out at denmark hill (past the wicker wolf and geese), a walk up the road. arriving early horsemouth hid out in camberwell with a cafe breakfast until it was time to work and then discovered he wasn't needed for the morning. evading security (frankly unenthusiastic about having a non-registered donkey on the premises) he sauntered nonchalently into the library and hid himself in the philosophy stacks - pulling out the cambridge companion to foucault and jacques ranciere's chronicles of consensual times (a collection of articles from a brazillian newspaper from 10-20 years ago, so as up to date as it needs to be) from whence the title to this piece - there was the 'head' of society and there were the 'belly' of the poor - now that everything is ruled by economics the head is in fact a belly (p.3).

curiously both georges canguilhem and foucault (in les mots et les choses) and jacques ranciere (in a piece describing the partitioning of bosnia along 'racial' grounds including the 'race' of moslems) use the same part of a story from borges - the one about the different categorisation of animals in ancient china - animals that flock together, animals belonging to the emperor, animals that have just spilled something etc. in showing us what seems to be an arbitrary means of division we are made to think about the divisions we think of as natural.

for ranciere the regime of consensus under which we operate is portrayed as one where 'we have come at last to live in times of peace' on condition that we accept 'there is no more than what there is' (kind of a restatement of the TINA - 'there is no alternative' preached by margaret thatcher and critiqued by istvan meszaros - the kind of whining bullshit politicians always come out with until they see votes in saying the opposite) - anywhere the people don't accept this they are by definition backward because they are not oriented towards a future that is distinctly lower-case politically (the future is TINA, history ended, the markets won and they don't work very well) but strangely upper case 'The Future' technologically .

'enlightened classes, enlighten yourselves' says flaubert - but horsemouth no longer can because the books remain safely locked up in the library.

on his way home, after nearly succumbing to a chugger, he charity bookshopped it, returning with an uncorrected proof copy of david graebar's the democracy project - an account of the occupy movement where he neatly points out that all this democracy and freedom of speech stuff wasn't in the original american constitution but in the amendments to the constitution because the founding fathers did not want them to be there. apparently there's democracy day tuesday next week - 750 years since the first english 'parliament'.

at denmark hill railway station a touching parting scene was happening - horsemouth remembered having that much emotion in his life but then he flinched and turned away.

death and taxes (here come the painbirds)

apparently goats eat christmas trees (now we know).

ok so horsemouth has some work for tomorrow (that should make most of his weeks rent) and he has a meeting to go to tonight. he should probably shave off his moustache ahead of schedule (leaving him with just a goatee beard). horsemouth did his taxes. during one of his more fiscally successful years horsemouth let somebody rat out on about 600squids worth of invoices - of course (after tax etc. he would only have seen about 400 of this but still - dirty feckers - he cursed them). what should have alerted horsemouth to the quality of people he was working with was the phrase 'sorry for mucking you about' in one of the emails - it's just a bit casual don't you think? like it's something they say often...

at one time horsemouth had quite a bit apart from his main employment on the go - he didn't entirely trust it and wanted to have something in reserve - but he let it all slide and now he regrets this. conversely various of his friends have expanded their work outside of main employer - diversifying, hedging, treating capitalism with the caution it deserves...

conversely horsemouth is good at finding furniture, clothing etc. - he's up a portable (cloth) cupboard and thick river island sweater. the sweater horsemouth hasn't warmed to yet - it looks like poor compensation from the universe to him, the cupboard he's found a place for and will begin to fill it up with clothing in his dream last night he cursed someone and then almost immediately (when challenged on it) felt bad about it and offered to take the curse back (something you must never do). fortunately the cursee stomped off unforgiven. later, the dream seemed to reward him for being steadfast (he was fooling abut with some blond girl).


having done taxes horsemouth moves back to death - something he has recourse to lyrically rather a lot - should he attempt alan and duncan's song? what about the sparklehorse's song (here come the) painbirds? 
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edmond de goncourt is getting to watch zola win acclaim with goncourt and his brother's realism formula - over the years book after book (in the correct chronological order) of zola's the human comedy comes out and goncourt is there to witness it (and listen to all of zola's whining). for edmond the world is emptying out - turgenev, flaubert, balzac, jules de goncourt are all dead - 'I had a friend. he fell ill. I nursed him. he died. I dissected him.' he takes to be du camp's motto after du camp publishes an account of the last years of flaubert's life.

spem in alium (40 part motet)

so tonight horsemouth observed a vote to buy 3 bedspaces of social housing - on the way there he passed a concrete nibbler working into the evening under spotlights in the rain to tear down an estate of social housing. you can see his point can't you...

horsemouth is back having circumnavigated the south east of the city in good company. there are photos - sadly horsemouth, in the process of mis-explaining parallax has been caught making the universal 'it was this big gesture' , he's also seen holding forth outside italo svevo's house in charlton. horsemouth has since read more to improve the tour guide experience.

they then went to re-enact blow up in maryon park before taking the silvertown ferry back (one of the last great clanking electro-mechanical experiences to be had in this city). it was there that horsemouth and ant-knee split off from the main party (who were carrying on to east ham in search of a dosa) and returned by the docklands light tramway.


at the start in st.alfege greenwich (the first time horsemouth has ever been inside) there was a conversation with a royalist old lady in front of an organ once believed to have been played by thomas tallis(but no longer). the leader of the tallis scholars (james burton?) rehearsed the choir. greenwich had fallen on hard times once the royal palace had moved she said - hence the large number of well preserved houses.

horsemouth is continuing to enjoy the goncourt journals but by now there is only one of them jules having died in a distressing fashion of syphillis - first he loses his sense of tact, then his pronunciation returns to that of a child,

'over that beloved face, once so full of intelligence and irony, that shrewd and wonderfully malicious countenance of the mind, I can see the haggard mask of imbecility slipping minute by minute,'

in a restaurant he cannot use a bowl properly and people begin to look, edmond reprimands him and he begins to cry 'his tense, trembling hand sought mine on the tablecloth'. they both break down in tears. on 20th june 1870 jules de goncourt dies in convulsions.

edmond, the older brother lives on , and after a few months begins to write again - witnessing the prussian invasion and the commune and its supression. he lives (and writes) on to 1896.
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 it is only just slightly over two weeks since horsemouth's gig (as the musician of bremen) but already he has forgotten it. he has discovered he has misunderstood tallis's spem in alium - it is not that the writer of the text puts his faith in others (as horsemouth would be wont to assume) but that he doesn't put his faith in others but only in god.

fragments of unremarkable style (sweet earth flying)

horsemouth's mood has been being improved by the goncourts (and by marion brown). having said anything (or having had anything said to him) victor hugo pauses to take note of it - and it is all later used in his books much to the chagrin of his children who would like him to leave something for them to put in a biography. at her death (20th august 1863) the goncourt's servant rose is revealed to have been robbing them blind - later they write a realistic novel of the lower orders germine lacerteux and so acquire zola as an acolyte. 14th february 1863 st.breuve and flaubert argue about copyright - st.b is against flaubert is for (at some point flaubert claims to have native canadian ancestry). 28th february they meet turgenev (a genial white bearded giant).



6th may 1974 marion brown and band record sweet earth flying - to horsemouth's ears the piano players (muhal richard abrams, paul bley) appear to be getting the best of it.

after this he may be off to charlton in search of italo svevo.

horsemouth folk archive holdings

a history of music in england - walker,
the penguin book of english folksongs- r.vaughan williams and a.l.'bert' lloyd,
folk song in england - a.l.'bert' lloyd,
music of the people - edward lee,
the penguin part-song book - leslie woodgate,
an introduction to english folk song
- maud karpeles,
the oxford book of carols -
 an english song book - noah greenberg,
american ballads and folksongs - lomax and lomax (on loan from another institution).
related holdings

 the lore and language of schoolchildren - the opies,
blues people - leroi jones,
english church music 1650-1750 - christopher dearnley,
the common people - gdh cole and raymond postgate,
a dictionary of british folk customs - christina hole,
 akenfield - ronald blythe,
the oxford book of death - dj enright,
the wordsworth dictionary of proverbs