‘bibliometricians are the curse of the age’ (horsemouth sunk beneath taxation)

could this be the mash-up of robbie basho's 'mountain man's farewell' and 'il grande silenzio' by sergio corbucci (beloved of the broadway market cafe occupiers) - indeed it is.

horsemouth is cited hardly anywhere but then, mind you, he doesn’t have to justify his employment on the basis of how many times he has been cited.

as horsemouth has remarked earlier he is now earning so little that he fails to bother the tax system (instead the tax system bothers him - watch his usual panic in january). (next year/ next term sandwiches, salads, a flask of coffee and more taking the bus for horsemouth).

last night he watched cat o' nine tails an early hitchcock-esque giallo thriller by dario argento with a soundtrack by ennio morricone (as indeed does il grande silenzio)

nature boy live at the village gate / school of the gravel-pit chapel, paradise fields, hackney (girls)

horsemouth failed to go out for a beer and a sun-at-night with max sunday night. on this day in 1965 john coltrane recorded a version of nature boy  at the village gate. nature boy  was written by eden ahbez who chose to spell his name with lower-case letters, claiming that only the words God and Infinity were worthy of capitalization.

‘don’t start with the good old things but the bad new ones’ cautions bertolt brecht

but on the other hand horsemouth sat in reading a book on london gardens - in particular the loddiges of paradise gardens hackney (of which horsemouth thinks only paradise row near the top of bethnal green road remains - no he’s wrong it’s just down from opposite the town hall).

‘oh the incredible profit by digging of ground’ - thomas fuller, the history of the worthies of england, 1662.

based on his p60 (horsemouth is not so much groaning under the weight of taxation so much as he has sunken beneath it) he has resolved to start taking sandwiches to work, and a flask of coffee, and to take the bus more, to do more gleaning and rag picking, to drink in pubs less (to brown paper bag it more).

his find for today is nature trails volume one- richard williamson, and a copy of the ft and grauniad from last week (mondays recycling day in bloomsbury - the kind of neighbourhood where they still read newspapers).

the visitation of alice coltrane by the spirit of igor stravinsky (spring rounds)

ravi coltrane’s father died young so he grew up listening to his mother’s choice in music which was orchestral music - specifically the firebird suite and the rite of spring both by igor stravinsky. this actually wasn’t unusual among jazz musicians at the time - charlie parker had quoted bits of the rite of spring, also ornette coleman (sleep talking), hubert laws, miles davis talks about studying the scores while he was at the julliard music school.

alice coltrane ended up recording the "spring rounds" section on the album eternity, and she had arranged excerpts from the firebird on lord of lords.


she says this of her inspiration to record the piece.

"on march 20, 1972, I was blessed with the good fortune of receiving a visitation from the great master composer...after a warm and intimate discussion on the subject of music, he said, 'i wanted you to receive my vote....'" stravinsky went on to hand Coltrane a vial "of clear, colorless liquid," which, like her namesake in lewis carroll's alice's adventures in wonderland, she swallows.

horsemouth has got his dates wrong (having copied it down in a hurry). in a way the 20th is a better date (it’s more equinoxy).

in which ‘there is an equitable distribution of prizes in accordance with poetic justice’

horsemouth has been caught wishing it were may already (freudian slip - oops) - this is largely because he fails to make proper use of his time - last night he failed to invite someone up the pub (and failed to suggest that someone should put their comments in an email). over the weekend he failed to go out and meet people (wandering round pop(u)lar instead) or engage in any music. neither was he in hereford for the weirdshire weekend, nor at stick in the wheel’s do at cafe OTO (for which someone had some spare tickets), nor at the nominees in paper dress vintage.

on the plus side he may have sorted out a gig invite...

he did however read violette leduc’s in the prison of her skin (small town french childhood misery memoir by a lover of sartre - and serious threat simone de beauvoir thought) and he has started on another life by yuri trifonov (soviet era novelist in touch with the 19th century style of deep and satisfying characterisation). sadly though he has become immediately distracted by dave van ronk’s the mayor of mcdougal street -(NY chancer makes it big on folk scene and becomes the inspiration for llewellyn davis). dave was big and clumsy (and left-handed) as a child - so much so his irish grandmother said he’d been swapped for a swede up at the hospital.

bernie wrightson has died (one of the few comic book artists horsemouth could tell you the name of) (ok er... frank miller, dave gibbons, stan lee (?), matt boyce, sean o’connor, dan barker). horsemouth only really knows his work from swamp thing (which dan lent him way back when) and there’s a classic book’s frankenstein - wrightson’s work is dark and big and busy and epic.

the king is gone but he’s not forgotten...

in which everything is confronted by its opposite and revealed as something else

later horsemouth goes to a meeting. a committee he is on was asked to buy something. they bought something. doubtless there will be trouble.

horsemouth is under the protection of the equinox - tomorrow, thursday, friday he works, wednesday he has off.

at the weekend there is the anniversary of igor stravinsky’s visitation to alice coltrane (the one after his death) that lead to her recording excerpts from the firebird on her album lord of lords. may 28th is the anniversary of an expanded john coltrane quartet playing nature boy at the village gate. may 29th is the anniversary of the birthday of harry smith. shortly thereafter it will be the end of the month and horsemouth will be publishing his read, listened to, visited list. april 6th is the anniversary of alice coltrane recording sita ram and oh allah with tamboura player tulsi (both from universal consciousness).


yesterday (as you know) he went for a wander round pop(u)lar - today he is in the centre of town.

horsemouth has been wandering around his old hood taking a look at the new build toss (speckled brickwork - check, julliet balconies -check, gym - check etc.). he has been largely recreating various journeys that he made with paul clark and max ‘crow’ reeves back in the day. he walked across the red bridge from canning town to hope (the northern bit of the isthmus on which trinity buoy wharf rests between the nilotic mud of the thames and the nilotic mud of the lower lea). once upon a time this was a prime industrial site with bessemer mills, before that the vicar instituted swimming lessons for the local schoolkids.

there is, said a friend hiding out in devon, nothing to do in chrisp street market on a sunday - so horsemouth was in the library fiddling about on the computers.

he’s been a little bored and to be honest he’s been a little boring. he needs to get on with things. he made some efforts to dazed and confused by led zeppelin in the morning (a well constructed misogynist pile of toss utilising ‘found’ lyrics and some truly excellent riffs) - perhaps he can get a woman to sing it (and thus escape the well-founded charge of playing misogynist toss).

the tragedy of theresa may (and her little pony)/ the house always wins

poor theresa may. poor her little pony.  it was almost tragic.

so horsemouth opined at the cesura/ acceso launch gig at cafe OTO.

there was a violinist (with noise), a poet (with a microphone that cut out) and a pianist who morphed into a dubstep producer (god the tech is good these days) and a writer discussing technology.

there’s a magazine and new book(let) by howard slater on music and politics (horsemouth’s kind of thing). 

there was john and darsavini and antony and others too numerous to be mentioned.

ah. end of the week and horsemouth contemplates (more) beer. having brought home 3 bottle last night (and having shared out two) he brings home two more bottles tonight.

in the private life josh cohen proposes that the happiness agenda (once briefly popular with governments before the return of that old standard the whip-them-back-to-work agenda) as a counter to the declining rate of profit.

it was once briefly proposed that we should drop GDP (gross domestic product) as a means of measuring how satisfied people were with their lives because it had little correlation with how people felt about their lives. (except perhaps negatively - despite having the GDP whipped out of them people still felt pleasure). horsemouth is in favour of keeping it because then we can measure the workers’ share of the GDP - something that has been falling for decades...

 well ok - to backtrack and undo horsemouth's own argument - josh cohen actually says productivity (currently more fashionable).

but of course more entrepreneurial times are also more unstable times with values rising on a whim and collapsing mere months later (and of course in gambling on this the house always wins).

indeed the house always wins because we now have a real-estate mogul for president (president rentier trump - the triumph of the rent). meanwhile... the internet of things promises to tell us more than we could ever want to know about production and distribution and consumption - micro-chipping everything from cows to car parts . but what happens when the product lifecycle flatlines.

do you like it here now? are you settling in?

today is the anniversary of the recording of tracks 1,3 and 5 on expressions by john coltrane (one for the john coltrane festival calender).

horsemouth must confess he’s enjoying his time in the new bode. it’s kind of like being on holiday. he bumped into kell on sunday (what are the odds? well they’ve improved haven’t they).

of course being a pessimist horsemouth assumes something terrible will happen to make up for the fact that he’s enjoying himself (there’s footage of him watching the skies/ checking the water for submarines).

horsemouth has finally cracked and bought something by giorgio agamben homo sacer (successor to foucault and officially pronounced ‘over’ a while ago now) - it must only be about 20 years since he first heard of him.

yesterday was a busy day - horsemouth buzzing off a late coffee (bad boy), drama in the neighbourhood etc. etc. tomorrow (today now) more work - more flats to see - wednesday morning off anyway to recover. we’re up to week 6 of the pre-easter accumulator.



yesterday was the anniversary of the first horsemouth as selector howard as operator mix and of the recording of vilia (from birdland by john coltrane) in the john coltrane festival calender.


horsemouth is not implying that these events are of the same scale. he was going to give you a parallel review of cosmopolis, sedmikrasky and conversation piece but he’s a little too fried.

the grauniad has finally got round to reporting the death of guitarist deke leonard (of welsh proggers man) from back 31st jan. horsemouth remembers this being played on the friday night rock show as a kid and their photo being up in the room where we learnt welsh (for one year) as a 'welsh' rock band (er. together with budgie and that's all I can remember). great band inventive as fuck and with that deeply dry south wales sense of humour - album title 'do you like it here now? are you settling in?'

fight the youth (‘if they suffer it’s no fault but their own’)

urghh horsemouth is disgusted of tunbridge wells- a parliamentary committee (featuring margaret hodge) takes 13 minutes to double the money the royals will receive and meanwhile the youth have their right to housing benefit when they are unemployed withdrawn. this is done while parliament is away so that jumped up pack of property owning rural solicitors won’t even get a chance to wave a beak at it.

online you can see a drawing of horsemouth ranting away about this up at speakers corner.

horsemouth is a little surprised at the passivity of the youth when faced by the war against them and has decided to side with the establishment instead.

dirty fucking thieving bastards. the youth that is. ignorant that’s what they are (and probably racist).

there - horsemouth’s is now a respectable opinion and he may even be invited to appear on the news again. 

horsemouth has been to look at flats out in sunny walthamstow for his co-operative. top floor in wood street, crumbly small block, 3rd floor of a tower block. in the towerblock the living room had been partitioned to give a third bedroom. in the crumbly one there were clear marks of flooding from upstairs - the baby sat in the papoose while the russian mother watched tv, while, in the cupboard small second bedroom, bed on the floor, another tenant waited. of course none of these are houses in multiple occupation because they are all notionally only two bedspaces. ‘you could have more than one bed in here’ sagely remarked the wise beyond his years estate agent.