‘the victors stood guard over an empire of rats’

last night he watched november an estonian film in the black and white folk horror mode - enjoyable but slight. the dead come to visit once a year on all souls (dressed in a stainless white). they need to be fed and given a sauna. it is possible to make assemblages of farm tools and then to do a deal with the devil at the crossroads to bring them life.

ben has been mulling over la jetée again. horsemouth sees it ths way. the arrow of time (like the magnetic field) has turned, once we were powering into the future (for good or ill) on the express train of capitalism, now we have turned round and have become aware of the carnage that brought us to this moment (with horror we watch the wreckage pile up behind us).



the gesture to turn around has its origin not in the ecological collapse, nor entirely in our growing awareness of our ‘progressive’ history as a history of barbarism but in an unpeeling of the suture of the arrow of time with the arrow of progress. we have become cautious about these assemblages.

‘nothing sorts out memories from ordinary moments. later on they do claim remembrance when they show their scars. that face he had seen was to be the only peacetime image to survive the war. had he really seen it?’

we turn round and find the origins blurry, we find memory selectively picking the scenes for their importance to us now. photography helps us, film helps us - for we can look again. for some it would be enough to turn forward again to contemplate the sunny vistas of solar farms, the cold voids of interstellar travel, to accelerate and jump the shark of ecological collapse into outer space.

for others the golden heroic years of capitalism (the hauptmotor) are over, it’s damage to the planet is integral to it and can no longer be ignored. in the west capitalism itself has collapsed from space exploration to doing up shops in shoreditch and a weary and peevish rent seeking (the grubbing of profit before it even happens). 

our future is that of the estonian peasants - great material poverty in the ruins of technology. our future is not in glorious interstellar technicolour but in the black and white of snow and mud (well maybe not snow). they are showing snowpiercer on tv soon. the train charges through the snow of a frozen world, a complete world and class society of itself, at the head the controller, the decadent party goers, at the back the surplus people.
thanks to john for leaving the copy of november. antony for showing snowpiercer one time (years ago), thanks to kate for having taken him to see la jetée (decades ago at the ICA), a benefactor (SparkzMxzXZ) for having uploaded it to youtube.

‘here till here is there (again)’

horsemouth dreamed about being in a pub called the latin troll. he also dreamed about doing chemistry. still eventually he awoke. it’s a grey day outside and the heating is on.




the late-era incredible string band compilation is going well (it’s calmer than the earlier stuff).

in a week’s time the UK will leave the EU. except that all the difficult trade and tariff stuff is still to be negotiated. we are already collectively poorer (horsemouth doubts anyone he knows is feeling it yet - maybe john in porto where the pound doesn’t go as far), but the real harm is yet to be done.

london (services - mostly exempt) will be damaged the least, the north and the midlands will get a right royal fucking and probably need state aid to avoid reverting to the stone age. the north of ireland and the fisherman are out in the cold briny sea. it’s all academic now. the government has (and will have for a long time) a straightforward majority to negotiate/ fail to negotiate all this shit. and if they fail, if there is suffering, the EU/ migrants/ EU citizens here can take the blame. 

there was a discussion of paul kingsnorth’s 2008 book real england recently - paul had put his finger on the dissatisfaction with modern globalised britain, the one that surfaced as brexit, rather than say class war, as the actual expression of anti-globalisation. of course it is this sentiment that has put the tories in power with a large majority but put them in power with the task of making the fantasy a reality. but of course it doesn’t have to actually work, it just has to provide the continued opportunities for getting into power.

this sentiment built up because it could not find expression in the political system (look at ukip, more votes than the snp but only one MP and him a tory). brexit argued the problem was with brussels but really it was with westminster,, and really it wasn’t with westminster it was with the whole never to be elected apparatus of capitalism, a globalised capitalism.

crisis is of course opportunity (if you have the capital to exploit it). the pound falls and overnight the opportunities to buy up and gain rent from british infrastructure, housing, capital become cheaper. people will still have needs that they will have to meet even as they have less actual money to do it. people think things are bad? there is a lot further it can fall.

we enter the year of the stainless steel rat when only the slippery will survive. the sources of death will be many, you will have to be smart and quick. (here horsemouth reproduces god’s speech to the rabbits from watership down.)



while he typed this the incredible string band album played. now he will put on live at the village vanguard again (john and alice coltrane, pharoah sanders, rashied ali, jimmy garrison, and some dude called emanuel rahim on percussion - who turns out (as john points out) to have played on lots of things and on his own latin jazz albums). he doesn’t expect much from it, late era john coltrane is too dense and fire-y for his tastes mostly, he likes things striped down a bit. he prefers the simpler cosmic love of alice coltrane and pharoah sanders.

actually the 'again' is pretty nice. there's a dirty great jimmy garrison double bass solo, pharoah sanders and john coltrane don't go the full seattle.

horsemouth king of the witches (golden years)

47.2 should be the moment of peak happiness (say the economists) but the grunts report something different (ungrateful wretches).

horsemouth was having a moan (as he usually does) but a friend pointed out that he had good health, good friends, good music, access to all kinds of other art and culture, shelter, clean and hot water on tap, an indoor toilet that he doesn’t have to manually empty, an indoor bath/shower, a warm bed, cheap beer from aldi and lidl and what's left of the NHS should he become seriously Ill. plus he gets the whole summer off work (not that he makes best possible use of this).

horsemouth must report that he is indeed in the midst of one of the calmest (and most productive) bits of his life. by embracing the power of the small and doing his level best to avoid conflict (unlike his younger self who would row with any fucker anytime anyplace anywhere about seemingly fucking anything, and indeed, this seemed to be required).

indeed these are the golden years (bowie at first tried to interest elvis in the song, horsemouth notes the similarities with edwin starr’s contact).

later horsemouth goes to a meeting of the communal endeavour. he will see if he can maintain this panglossian enthusiasm in the face of actual unpaid contact with humanity.

back home he watched the reptile (hammer horror filmed at the same time as plague of zombies, the black death in cornwall, white girls in saris etc.) on the horror channel and then found simon, king of the witches on youtube.

I won't go (just one more)

howard has been playing the nylon strung guitar that horsemouth left round his (with a capo on the 4th fret). he’s produced two fragments (one finger-picked in 3s the other strummed and in 4s) with the same vocal refrain. horsemouth suggests making a  collage of them together rather than re-recording them or through composing it. it/ they will go nicely with (the incredible) string bandish one (also a recent howard production).

yesterday (day) horsemouth did some reading (he finished off american overdose) and went for a wander round the green (nothing to report). later he went out for beers with howard. the murder mile was rammed so they adjourned to a pub round the corner (horsemouth remembers venturing in there with tim and darsavini once when it was a black pub with old dudes playing reggae 7s, howard remembers being in there and downstairs for music nights with an ex). now it is a pleasant IPA and food serving kind of place, spacious and clean and kind of striped of interest (it could be anywhere).

horsemouth was being a little careful (after the mari lwyd drinking debacle of the weekend before) but by the end (two and half pints) he’d warmed up and would gladly have had one more (but you know that’s how it starts horsemouth just one more). it used to be said of horsemouth (in his previous incarnation) that he was a kind of gremlin who shouldn’t be fed beer after midnight but now the dangerous point would seem to be the transition between afternoon and evening.

they’ll be able to take a look at the music stuff over howard’s half term in four weeks time but they’re not going to be able to get everything completed on musicians of bremen volume four (or whatever it ends up being called) until the summer.

horsemouth has spent some time (with the help of ian robertson) identifying the records in the incredible string band/ something in the air clip. the first record in the pile is  blind faith - blind faith. but the first one we see is jethro tull - this was (horsemouth had to look this up online), then a record by the bonzo dog band (this was the one he needed ian's help with), the rest, kevin ayers - joy of a toy, gong - camembert electrique, the byrds - sweetheart of the rodeo, mc5 - kick out the jams, and syd barrett - the madcap laughs, he recognised easily.

once again nipper shows us the only way forward is uncompromising hostility...

footage has emerged of nipper (the his master’s voice dog) attacking the recording and reproduction apparatus. (https://giphy.com/gifs/nipper-kzyBS23xdC2gcFKVHd) it is usually taken as read he does this because he thinks his own voice being played back to him is somehow the voice of another dog hiding in the apparatus and that that voice cannot be his as it is not coming from his own body.

in fact nipper attacks the recording and reproduction apparatus as he realises the full horror of capital’s attack upon the aion - the empty, unstructured, creative time in which we (and all other animals) truly live (if we did but know it). nipper hears himself barking. he realises the capitalists have invented a time machine one that makes some aspects of the past (at least) repeatable. a vista of endless standardised repetition opens out in front of him. a time of fordised expression. nipper attacks. another part of his brain realizes immediately that now that they have stolen his bark that’s him out of a job. nipper attacks.

once again nipper shows us the only way forward is uncompromising hostility.
--------------------------

horsemouth  is reading american overdose: the opioid tragedy in three acts by chris mcgreal. (don’t worry culture vultures he will return to the apollinaire - it’s very enjoyable).



on the subject of recordings (but in a different key) horsemouth was listening to musicians of bremen volume two. this is the one horsemouth tends to neglect (because he's not on it much) but it is great. nice to hear all howard's obsessions and his way with a tune all in the same place. horsemouth does a bit of guitar and slide on 'blackwall tunnel' and then sings (reedily) and plays guitar on 'noah'.... other than that it's solid howard, and that's what makes it an interesting listen.

horsemouth’s 4th day at work of 2020 (the red ladies of the apocalypse)

horsemouth has just seen the extinction rebellion red rebel brigade (here the red ladies of the apocalypse) preparing to cross waterloo bridge. he admires the theatre of it. soon there will be a waterloo sunset but progressively this is now getting later and later on in the day (this horsemouth regards as a good thing). however there will come a point where he does not know what to do with this extra daylight and it will come to reproach him.

yesterday horsemouth hid in the library. he read a little of art forum december 2019 (the review of the year) - marina vishmidt reviewed one of the 12 books they’d selected, byron coley mentioned going to a gig by michael hurley (the original author of the werewolf before horsemouth got his paws (or should that be hooves) upon it), who is (miraculously considering his first album cam out in 1964) still alive.


 


'rather than allow the argument to take a philosophical turn (which would very soon have a sterilising effect), I prefer to carry on with my task’ - claude levi-strauss, from honey to ashes, the second volume of the series that began with the raw and the cooked.

(brackets added by the editor). in this levi-strauss tries to convince us that honey is the opposite of tobacco.

it is horsemouth’s 4th day at work of 2020 and he has just finished it (he is now free to relax until the afternoon of monday the 13th). his plan is to go to the mari lwyd and meet a number of people (glyn, max etc.) and then do fuck all over the rest of the weekend (possibly a little light babysitting and writing up his mari lwyd adventure (if there is anything to report)).

horsemouth continued to read frances steegmuller’s biography of apollinaire - apollinaire falls in love with the english nanny of the fish-skinned countess (the countess is married to baron unicorn say the locals - mocking both the baron’s growths on his head and the countess’s eczema). the countess drives a car (she drives like a maniac), the baron has gone to normandy and committed suicide.

horsemouth's new years message 2020

horsemouth has survived 2019 and at some point in the night (and with fireworks) it has become 2020.

in 2019 the tories won again (it’s not that they always do just that they usually do). politically it continues to roll in the direction of the eco-apocalypse and the total surveillance society (ah well we can’t say we weren’t warned). but horsemouth survived.

he played two gigs - one a duo gig as musicians of bremen, the other as part of peter, paul and enza (and no they didn’t do a cover of puff the magic dragon). he has worked on musicians of bremen volume four (which is nearly here). he wrote this blog (and the other one over at facebook). he read a fair bit (though not with the concentrated effort that he has managed in previous years), watched a few films, and went to a few gigs. he didn’t manage a foreign holiday.

things at the collective endeavour move at a slow but steady pace. work continues to roll on (perhaps this year will be a better year with more work - those are the preliminary indications). the house has survived having work done on it. probably more next year too.

in 2020 horsemouth will see musicians of bremen volume four released, he will probably do a few gigs in support of it. (quite how they’re going to play any of it live he has no idea yet).