gigs, books, films, events march 2020

gigs (streamed)

zali krishna (various), gwenifer raymond, jacken elswyth (drat missed the brighde chambeiul)

books

• pages from the goncourt journal -edmond and jules de goncourt.
•  illness as a metaphor - susan sontag 
• pan - knut hamsun (part) 
• theory of film - s.kracaeur (start) 
• the leviathan in the state theory of thomas hobbes: meaning and failure of a political symbol - carl schmitt (finished) 
• carl schmitt's critique of liberalism: against poitics as technology - john p. mccormick 
• the songlines - bruce chatwin (finished) 
• the girl with the golden eyes, gambara, the unknown masterpiece - balzac 
• the temptation to exist -e.m.cioran (plus introduction by susan sontag) 

 films the killings of tony blair (george galloway) captain chronos (vampire killer)

 events visit serpentine sackler gallery, jackson c.frank day(S). coronovirus lockdown, the ides of march, equinox, british summer time starts,, hollis frampton fortnight

a howard special

oh look howard has been busy... but dude it's better with the guitar.

the body of king boris

first some alice coltrane  for you.

mainly horsemouth liked this article for the illustration which is a parody of the frontspiece of 'leviathan' by hobbes (but with a king boris instead of a king charles).

we (the people) give our assent to the state because it protects us. we are the little blobs that make up the body of king boris. and this is what is going on at a deeper level with the state behind its democratic normal operation the people are sovereign so they make the state sovereign so that it can make the necessary decisions (even if those decisions involve the suspension of normal democratic operation or civil rights). 

(now horsemouth would argue that the state in normal operation is in fact considerably less 'democratic' than people take it to be - but that's bye the bye - that there is with the guardian, and indeed the UK ruling class as a whole, a certain blindness to what s beneath them, to what has been produced as a consequence of their actions.)

the article argues for the 'niceness' of democracies against the 'autocratic harshness' of one party states.

but what is 'nice' about the continuing dragooning of non-essential construction workers and non-essential shop workers into work? what is nice about the continued failure to provide proper PPE to doctors and nurses? what is nice about the belated and haphazard treatment of over 7 million workers who are self-employed or earn to little to qualify for sick pay? what is nice about the prevarication and delay in the coronavirus response (one that will cost thousands of lives)?

and finally, what was nice about this most recent decade of austerity and its effects on the NHS, social care and the underlying health of the people?

is bringing in the measures that will prevent death really 'autocratic harshness'?

the really interesting thing about the state's response to the pandemic (even given all the delays and failures listed above) is that in the support provided for people to stay off work, housing for the homeless etc. it shows what they could have been doing all along.

but whatever the alleged 'generosity' of the 'democratic' state now (or the efficiency of the one party state) it will all have to be paid for in the capital markets later. this could be the moment that finally breaks the rule of dead money over the lives of the living, or it could just be the beginning of another bout of debt slavery. 

theresa may announced that the austerity caused by the 2008 banking crisis was over (but the next day the 'hostile environment' against claimants was still in operation and the cuts had still happened). when this is over we face austerities to pay for brexit, we will face austerities to pay for the corona virus. but who is this 'we'?

horsemouth suspects that it will once again be the poor. we were sacrificed by our rulers in austerity, we were sacrificed to the economy in the run up to corona virus, and those who survive we will be sacrificed to it again after.

but this is not a done deal. we are in a pivotal moment. when the pandemic has run its course the country (and indeed the world) will look very different.

carl schmitt, the weimar theorist of the state of exception, fan of hobbes (and later member of the nazi party), is the man behind the reassuringly english hobbes that runciman is not mentioning. but walter benjamin (writing in response to schmitt) would encourage us to see it another way,

 'the tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the “emergency situation” in which we live is the rule. we must arrive at a concept of history which corresponds to this. then it will become clear that the task before us is the introduction of a real state of emergency...'
- walter benjamin, on the concept of history, thesis 8 
(horsemouth has probably posted this before)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b08h0cc8

the case of the mysterious voice

‘the radio has been going for days now and at night it’s so annoying. I think it’s coming from above anyway. so annoying. like water torture.’

‘it’s not music, just a voice. it was on last night and it’s on now. a woman’s voice just talking. I can’t work out where it is coming from. I have to wear earplugs and a cushion over my head to block it out and sleep.’ (howard text message 6.05am)

‘I’ll see if my neighbour can hear it’ (howard text message 6.05.51am)

‘actually I can’t hear it now’

horsemouth is up. it’s a bright sunshine-y morning. today and tomorrow are due to be sunny (but correspondingly cold at night). horsemouth has his coffee (thanks sten). the sun shines in his window. in a bit a bowl of museli and a cup of tea. later a sunbathe and more reading. later still the tv news and then probably elementary (horsemouth is very regular in his tv watching habits - it’s one gag, ‘yes watson I have solved it already’ endlessly repeated).



in takoma park in 2018 they held the thousand incarnations of the rose festival.
a festival of american primitive guitar, when will they hold such a festival again?
in 2016 horsemouth was in porto, when will he get to go again?

we are living through the key event of our times - one for which there will be a before and an after (one which makes 2008 look like the chimps tea-party it was). the world has profoundly changed (and it is not just that the music has stopped and death has entered the room).

and for now we wait. horsemouth is being good. he is staying in. putting off going shopping. perhaps the odd walk for exercise. he doesn’t yet have a mask.

oh what a beautiful morning (oh what a beautiful day)

triple negative  have had a gig cancelled (here is the unused backing track)


on the plus side musicians of bremen volume four is nearly mixed (says howard) and people seem to like amharic (horsemouth and howard’s best ali farka toure impression).

yesterday horsemouth read the e.m. cioran. his thoughts on national characters are so-so but his advantages of exile and his some blind alleys: a letter work better for horsemouth,

here the exile seeks revenge and cioran warns off a friend from a career in literature (bemoaning the state of being rumanian). horsemouth is about half way through but he will have to reread.

at 26 cioran moved to paris (he is like kundera, he must get out). they both fulminate against the exile community.

 ‘i have no nationality - the best possible status for an intellectual’ says cioran.
 ‘the west - you aren’t even part of it’ replies his friend.

summertime - and the living is easy (digital homesteading in the plague years)

RIP kenny rogers. outside the sun was shining (it seems to be hiding right now).

we are a long way off summertime (horsemouth’s favourite season - he hates being cold).

a friend was (briefly) doing bar work (during the apocalypse? that’s his job out the window). as they sprayed every available surface with disinfectant summertime played. summertime - and the living is easy, this is he genius of these songs, they are joyful songs written in misery (later written as if from misery). it’s that mixture of happiness and sadness, of joy and rage.

there is, of course, a division between those who must go out into the streets and labour and those who can afford to stay home/ work from home..

horsemouth has to admit that his is the kind of apocalypse he would have chosen - the apocalypse of staying in and reading books - because it suits his already existing lifestyle, it suits his (mild) agoraphobia.
actually the travel to work does suit him - because it gets him out of the house and structures his time, he will have to learn how to live without that.

does this apocalypse suit his desires and aspirations? - to be feted as a culture hero and rewarded accordingly? horsemouth’s motivations are unfailingly low, so no. but that’s basically just a dream.

yesterday zali played (a streamed performance live from graz) and very good it was too. horsemouth is honoured to know a class act. otherwise horsemouth made some efforts to tidy up and put the vacuum cleaner round (you can tell he’s getting bored). sunday is agnes martin day.  the world will change (it will stay the same). less transport. less travel. more working from home.

digital homesteading in the plague years. the world will change (for some).

"[let] your ruddiness [be] mine, my paleness yours"

last night sten was out in central london - tottenham court road, kings cross, euston. all deserted. a few people wandering here and there, one or two people in the pubs, nobody in the restaurants, the waiters looking at their phones. he says he often has to pinch himself, as if to wake up, to remind himself that suddenly we are in a global event.

what do we do now? we wait.

horsemouth’s lockdown is not airtight enough he realises. he would probably want shoes off at the door, wash your hands as soon as you come in, separate knives, forks and dishes (this sort of thing). he thinks daryll’s lockdown is solid enough (he never sees him despite sharing a house with him). everyone else is over committed to activity.

how goes his hoarding? he’s probably ok for coffee (himself and sten were joking that they had enough to last til june) but he could do with getting in more veg and more rice (and more fake meat). he has (of course) enough books to last him several times over.

today it’s a grey morning. horsemouth much prefers it when there is sun - he can sit outside on the steps or in the back garden and read. today he might go out for a walk (he’s been in four days solid and feels no better nor no worse).

in italy they are singing from the balconies. I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore 2.0.

this evening is big in the run up to nowruz (iranian new year - the equinox) with lots of jumping over bonfires, singing "sorxi-ye to az man, zardi-ye man az to" literally meaning "[let] your ruddiness [be] mine, my paleness yours"

on the re-introduction of the vulture (a most useful and sagacious bird) and the recent popularity of sky-burial

posted recently a 2012 video drone composition for ebow, zither, monotrons, oboe and percussion with location footage from the brixham - torquay ferry.

well today has sunshine ladies and gentlemen (so it is already a major step up on yesterday).

ladies and gentlemen we are witnessing (and to a greater or lesser extent participating in) an event. the kind of thing that irrupts into history texts and gets a sentence (or two) before we return to the problems of kings and matters of trade. the concerns of prior times now seem strange inappropriate ghosts - a bill to add two additional floors to tower blocks without the involvement of the planning office for example.

presumably this little wheeze was all ready to go three years ago (but then grenfell happened) and so (with regret) had to be delayed.

the theory of disaster capitalism is that when the disaster man comes knocking the neo-liberal politician, in search of new ideas, reaches into his brief case and pulls out a report from a neo-liberal think tank roughly predicated on the withdrawl of the state from some area of social life and the handing over of that function to the wisdom of the market (by means of government contracts with large lawyered up organisations). in the normal course of events such proposals would get scrutinised and amended and watered down but under the pressure of events all sorts of 'radical' proposals get nodded through.

the opponents of disaster capitalism put their faith in their booksales,the democratic process and a green new deal (something like medicaid only bigger - come to think of it wouldn’t that have been really useful in the current... oh never mind) but horsemouth fears that events will get in the way (as did brexit).

and so to the re-introduction of the vulture (that useful and sagacious beast) and its incorporation into various flags and crests in place of the lion. you thought they would replace the rarely seen and frankly reclusive unicorn? a beast many people (whisper it) view to be a complete fabrication and fantasy? not a bit of it - it is the old-fashioned patriarchal lion that must go while the savage though perhaps imaginary beast of the scots gets to stay.

the sun is shining horsemouth will therefore hide in plain sight in the sunshine ladies and gentlemen. he is still waiting for his sector to evapourate online and into work-from-home. normally he would be struggling to keep working but this year he has decided to up stumps and back to the pavilion early.

lament for the destruction of the sudanese republic

another great weirdshire compilation featuring sharron kraus, jacken elswyth, nancy wallace


somewhere in bruce chatwin’s the songlines (p.170 - thank you google books) there is such an epic poem of this title (written on rather a lot of pieces of paper sellotaped together) written by a grandson of the mahdi. horsemouth has finished reading songlines (thank you long train journeys and days off sick).

La République Soudanaise was a briefly existing political entity formed out of french sudan (french occupied sudan) broadly (and confusingly) covering what is now mali. it lasted from november 1958 until 20th June 1960 when it was absorbed into a combined state with senegal (the mali federation). this only lasted until 20th august of the same year when the two counties split one becoming the republic of mali (lead by modibo keita) and the other senegal.

this is however NOT the sudanese republic discussed in bruce chatwin’s the songlines. there the actually sudanese sheik s. writes the epic poem lament for the destruction of the sudanese republic. exactly which sudanese republic he is referring to make take some time to discover.

horsemouth once saw salif keita and his band making use of a pedestrian crossing in kentish town (the one just by the tube) before a gig up at the town and country club. he lacked the courage to go up and say hello. horsemouth finds the music from all the regions mentioned amazing.

it’s a grey day outside (ok no to be fair the sun is breaking through). horsemouth has had his coffee and had the heating on while he typed this. his main mission for the weekend is to determine whether he is in fact sick or not, he cannot of course tell yet whether he is suffering from the modern fashionable ailment or merely some plebian and disgusting cough and cold.

work seems to be drawing to a close for the year and horsemouth’s instinct is to draw it to a close sooner rather than later. he’s not so fussed about the money (he has savings he can afford a ‘bad’ year). he’s worries about the timing. he worries about the practicalities of it. he should have the chat.

as sten noted this is exactly the sort of apocalypse horsemouth would have wished for - the apocalypse of staying in and reading books - and yet horsemouth struggles with his desire to be useful, to do work, and not to let people down.

'populism, efficiency, or both' (rainmaker's coming)

ok bad news people - McCoy Tyner has died. this album recorded by rudy van gelder in 1970 with gary bartz, wayne shorter, ron carter, elvin jones, and alice coltrane on harp on three tracks

horsemouth had the morning off on friday (because gasp, yes gasp ladies and gentlemen) he turned down work. he just had a wafer thin booking in the afternoon and then he was done for the week.  what will he do over the weekend? not very much. he has his timetable for next week (and it seems bearable and sufficient). of course he still has a cold (dripping nose, sometime cough).

horsemouth (as you know) is of an apocalyptic frame of mind. a crisis is about to intervene - a crisis antithetical to the logic of capitalism (trade, interaction, increase) but ‘thetical’ (is such a word exists) to state biopower (travel restrictions, immigration controls etc.). like any decent zombie outbreak horsemouth expects state power to be revealed as distinctly insufficient (not that they won’t try). he sees this as an irruption of reality into capital’s dreaming.


horsemouth usually thinks of politics as an exercise in rainmaking - you need rain, they promise to make it rain, you pay them, perhaps it rains, perhaps it doesn’t, perhaps it rains eventually (but they get to keep their money either way). trebles all round.

the other side of it we will all be beaten to make up for capital’s losses (like 2008 and austerity all over again) but this time the hand of the state will have been strengthened both by the powers it will have adopted and by people’s recognition of the fundamental fragility of life. alternatively the people may emerge with a better understanding of their actual real strength faced only by a state that has been exposed as a fairweather sham.

the government makes big noises about its concern for the regions but has nothing to offer ideologically but a rerun of spurious unwanted devolution, terra nullius ‘redevelopment’ or centralised ‘efficiency’. some unstable amalgam of these strategies will likely be sufficient. it is less about ideological coherence and actual results than opportunities for rainmaking.

jackson c. frank days

‘here there is no law but the arcade’s penny claw hanging empty’ 

his true life would make you cry (look it up).

he is born today (march 2nd). he dies tomorrow (march 3rd).

between those days the boiler at his school will explode. he will be hideously burnt.

in his hospital bed he gets to meet elvis. they will give him a guitar to distract him from the pain.

he will move to england and be feted on the london folk scene. he will be much better known than nick drake.paul simon will produce his first album.

he will return to the states and collapse into mental illness.

when he is ill and on the streets, just before his rediscovery, a kid will shoot him in the eye with an air pistol.

he will lose the sight in that eye.

he will record some songs.

he will struggle on in poverty.

 he will die aged 56 of pneumonia and cardiac arrest.

(march 3rd)