the history of the siege of lisbon - jose saramago
mayhew's characters - henry mayhew introduction
triple negative interview
nina power post
exiting the vampire castle - mark fisher
films
gold, white lightning, wallander, downfall, cabaret, shooter, john carpenter's vampires, squatting documentary,estate: a reverie, hell in the pacific (john boorman)
events
byzantium book launch, sean visits, zoe's birthday
horsemouth (metropolitan elite clearly) is a revoke article 50 man - yes the EU is an undemocratic bodge (but so is the UK), horsemouth would settle for something (anything) that didn’t fuck the economy - not because he loves capitalist profits but because he hates worker poverty. horsmouth is not particularly interested in sovereignty - neither westminster nor brussels but an increased worker’s share of GDP.
(is horsemouth alone in being vaguely disgusted that the woman from the tuc and the woman from the cbi are appearing on the news hand in hand)
meanwhile elsewhere in the mediascape cabaret was on (channel 81, horsemouth is warming to it) . we are slumming it, ‘divine decadence’ says liza minelli, peter york an unfeasibly pretty isherwood, bob fosse’s cold formation dancehall grinds, the MC. we play at bohemia, love is victorious, love is defeated, people sell what they have got, the nazis rise, bohemia survives, we get the train out (tourists that we are). rich man’s brecht (but affecting for all that).
last night on the news horsemouth watched the founder of an online petition to revoke article 50 be slapped soundly round the court by an angry young man from up north with an interest in democracy and the will of the people. the soft southern petition founder (long hair, bearded) smiled his superior metropolitan smile - the angry young man (short hair, clean shaven) vanished all the crowds of hundreds of thousands who will gather in london today, of the millions voting online to revoke article 50, and turned the tens marching for brexit down from the north into the 52% (of the people who voted or were allowed to vote muttered horsemouth).
these are secular times so he didn’t claim they had god on their side but it was a close run thing.
farage is widely derided for his rerun of the jarrow march but it’s a canny move - a plucky underdog move for him and his millionaire backers, the problem is timing it’s arrival (and the fact that it’s a fuck of a long way and the fact that most of the marchers are not exactly in the first flush of youth).
meanwhile in paris they have banned the gillets jaunes demonstrations.
saturday (3.30 or so) horsemouth went to make music with howard - to prepare for their april 13th gig at waterintobeer. blue crystal fire (in a reworked waltz-time form) is high on the agenda. next rehearsal this sunday.
horsemouth is quite excited about the idea of using a e-bow to provide a drone but he hasn’t bought one yet - next time - it will come in handy when they are recording the next record.
set list: the reworked blue crystal fire (by robbie basho - good to have a stronger american primitive guitar connection), satan, when the faun met alice, the werewolf, the devil song, all my dreams (if the audience look like they can take it), the worldes blisse and whatever howard brings and wants to play. this is the heart of it. looks like dorothy is coming back in.
horsemouth has been experimenting with tupelo - he may do that for his solo spot.
saturday, after rehearsing briefly with howard, sean visited (hence the irruption of brexitese into horsemouth’s thoughts). sean is rapidly moving away from a sense of himself as british (not that he ever possessed that no) and going the full irish. sean noted that in star trek they give the date of irish reunification as 2024.
horsemouth realises that he is a lazy sod and had better get on with some musical work ahead of his gig.
sunday horsemouth nipped round to minty’s in the evening - they had a few hot toddies (in lieu of not very much at all) and sang and played a bit of guitar - not their best but decent.
oh dear a row has broken out among horsemouth’s friends - well he says friends, some he hasn’t seen in years. both sides he feels great affection for as the people who led him up into the world of theory.
at the heart of it are a number of questions,
firstly - should you sit down in a room with fascists (or even should you sit down in a room with people who sit down in a room with fascists)?
secondly - what is the nature of this left project? is it clear and doctrinaire, like the old left? or chaotic and experimental, like the new left?
finally - does it have demarcations and breaks or does a chantal mouffe style of radical engagement rule over everything.
in 68 marx falls and a whole series of philosophers emerge blinking into the sunlight to improvise clever dickens ways of doing radical philosophy - they find their homes in cultural studies departments and art history departments. in these departments they become a kind of orthodoxy - does this really matter that much? probably not.
but capital adopts the artist critique of capital - that it’s evil and standardised rather than oppressive and exploitative - and the machines happen, we become watched over by machines of loving grace. all of this theory has it’s moment in the sun (but the skies are already darkening).
big things, as greta thunberg would remind us, go on. an extinction event to which we are all invited. the entire european/ enlightenment project lurches to its darkside (tell the congolese about its upside) - history ends and barbarism returns and capital’s instability drags us down into mass poverty. the machines cannot save us even as they radically change us (and we give them to our children with barely a second thought).
ok firstly should you sit down in a room with fascists (or even should you sit down in a room with people who sit down in a room with fascists)?
no, you should avoid them like the plague. horsemouth was never keen on the whole laibach/ futurist/ industrial aesthetics thing - it’s a deeply problematic history. just don’t do it, says horsemouth, be frank zappa not the church of satan.
horsemouth grew up within anarcho-punk which was very puritanical -he understands anathema.
secondly - what is the nature of this left project? is it clear and doctrinaire, like the old left? or chaotic and experimental, like the new left? well you need both. hmmm. horsemouth misses the hippy left.
thirdly - horsemouth doesn’t know yet. the philosophical niceties he’s not up to commenting on.
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on april 13th (in exactly one month's time) but technically a saturday put that date in your diaries musicians of bremen play live
rather than copying over articles from his facebook notes.
it is interesting to be denied access to world wide narcissistic communion - maybe normal service will be resumed or perhaps horsemouth's life will be changed.
filmsinside europe (10 years of turmoil) - 3 documentaries,
cockneys versus zombies, les miserables, redwood,
tin tin (spielberg version),
michael hurley documentary,
late phase (werewolves and retirement homes - again),
wallander,
white zombie
events
brother's eldest's coughtieth birthday dinner
visit to folks in the green
death of beatrix farkas
groundhog day/ imbolc
