‘I was a member of cultish commune but I’m a guardian reader now’

yesterday horsemouth worked and then staggered the length of the city in the rain to deliver his paperwork.

on the way back (to work) he took refuge from the storm in the utopia projects pavilion hidden away in the basement of the courtauld gallery (url - http://utopia2016.com/). there were posters on the walls, books to read (of the I was a member of cultish commune but I’m a guardian reader now variety - two or three recent examples (e.g.Dylan Evans, Tobias Jones)  - and the utopia: a sober survey of a ridiculous belief variety).

in one horsemouth found not only an essay by matthew hyland (broadly predicated on the adorno/ bloch face off) but also a photo by max reeves (youth rave it up during the student riots).

of utopia matthew says the following;

‘we understand ‘utopia’ as an always incomplete alternative, the invocation within the given world of something incompatible with, and hostile to, given conditions. it is a negation of the given and a recognition of something ‘missing’ but also a necessarily imperfect assertion of that which is not -yet.’ - matthew hyland, quoted in utopian pulse, ines dovjak and oliver ressler (eds.), 2015.

frankly horsemouth himself has more and better books on utopia (here at the horsemouth folk archive/ memorial library) and worse ones naturally (utopia is not always so ‘incomplete’ - often it is drearily itemised down to the chicken). the exhibition is light on the french (cabet, saint-simon, the icarians, ranciere etc.), having raised bloch it should make him available.


from horsemouth’s point of view what was more interesting (and welcoming) was a free juke box- horsemouth began (somewhat obviously) with gil-scott heron’s the revolution will not be televised, then something by boris vian, then the isley brothers’ disco-stomping fight the power (parts 1 and 2) (lyrically this and the bassline from the revolution.. are the main ingreedients in public enemy’s fight the power) and hawkwind’s shouldn’t do that (the live version from off roadhawks), really he should have thrown some thomas mapfumo in there as well (er. and some reggae). only a spanish dude was tempted out into playing something latin american.

thomas more writes utopia but in it his proxy cautions the returned explorer not to go meddling in the business of kings with his tales of a well administered society - telling kings not to go to war would be like hitting them with a pigs-bladder he advises. but soon thomas more is dead, executed (you can see he was going to get into trouble with that attitude), and elevated to the sainthood. machiavelli (having been tortured by the new regime) instead writes a little primer, a how-to manual on state craft ostensibly aimed at would be princes, for which honesty he is vilified as the devil to this day and which is still read, but soon he is dead anyway.

today horsemouth works for an hour or two - he has to work friday as well this week. soon it is the easter break and horsemouth will be able to have his coughing fits in peace.