are we so bored by the coronavirus pandemic (as a measure of ruling class incompetence) that we can switch back to brexit again?

or will starving kids over the holidays have to take its place? 

‘this mad riddle that no-one knows what it is’ - so danny dyer (in a strange moment of access to shakespearean genius) described brexit. and indeed no one can know what brexit is (in its full horror and mad glory) until it has happened, and is happening day-by-day. but that dread hour is coming. (and now we find out that the software will not be ready in time). 

in the early stages of the coronavirus epidemic the government was indecisive and locked down too late resulting in tens of thousands of extra deaths (march, april, may). but later on the government had clearly learned its lesson because it was indecisive and locked down too late resulting in tens of thousands of extra deaths (november, december, january, february...). oh well no one can blame them for not learning the lesson of the earlier part of the pandemic on the need to lock down early. 

to horsemouth’s recollection what actually happened is that people stopped going into work before the government called a lockdown. people could see what had happened in italy (and to a lesser extent china) and took the appropriate action. people started wearing masks before it was required by the government. he’s not sure there’s anything the people can do to forestall brexit in the same fashion except to refuse to be sundered from europe in word and deed. 

‘horsemouth, creating and editing notes will be unavailable after 31 october. we know that your posts are important, so any published notes will remain published on your profile. however, any unpublished drafts will be deleted.’ - facebook 

over samhain (when the witches are out and the dead come close) something strange will change with facebook and, come the morning, horsemouth will no longer be able to leave his thoughts with you in this fashion. he migrates the best of it over to his blogspot account (ah you're already here).

but it is not a diary, a daily ritual. horsemouth is unsure how he will handle this side of it.

horsemouth missed the anniversary of this his mixcloud mix of influences. thanks to Ze for introducing him to the john surman piece that starts it off, thereafter we are off into more familiar horsemouth territory for nearly two hours. Skip James, Washington Phillips, Obray Ramsey, witchi tai to and more.

the cover photo is from the bbc m.r. james ghost story lost hearts. (which horsemouth also recommends). 

the fall of the house of fitzgerald (not quite the final cut)

strangemouth came up to visit and deposited the rough cut of the fall of the house of fitzgerald onto horsemouth’s devices. horsemouth has watched it through probably about 20 times now. he pronounces himself delighted. in a little while he will watch it again. he thanks his co-directors en za and strangemouth. 

this is the dancing about architecture project (interpretative dance against gentrification). 

even the magic of the cinema is unable to stop the forces of capital. horsemouth cannot work out how to show you any of it (even if he were allowed to). 

horsemouth made sten watch it. (he said he liked it). 

now horsemouth (and his co-directors) have to work out how to distribute it round the globe (or at least make it available to people who might be interested). 

it features music by a number of musicians - including an improv with horsemouth using the zither thing, a track by musicians of bremen (malkin tower from the humming EP) and a track by horsemouth himself (ok strangemouth’s musical alterego whose name temporarily escapes horsemouth as he re-types this) is in there on drums somewhere) highrise strutters ball (this being a version of darktown strutters ball cleaned up for modern sensibiities). sten said the music worked particularly well. 

horsemouth’s ways of working have been shifting for a while. in former decades horsemouth would have battled for a particular vision of the piece, for particular shots and edits, in this decade (and in particular in this year) he is content to genuinely collaborate and allow other people’s visions through instead. 

as soon as they stopped actually filming horsemouth’s work was done (well ok he did help out a little with tidying up after). he does have one request - that they use the above photo of en za that horsemouth took during the dress rehearsals. it’s very strong. plus it shows the medusa crown straight on. the colours and the geometrical shapes are good. 

horsemouth is also up a film poster (A4 ish) and a be-glittered postcard of himself in a sun ra type pose. at the end of the month they will reconvene. horsemouth hears that en za has the launch event planned already. 

in recent nights horsemouth watched night of the demon, nightfall and I walked with a zombie by the director jacques tourneur. all great noir movies with great use of light and shadow. 

we are in the chronology of night of the demon - holden (the disbelieving scientist) has been cursed by the black magician karswell. he is due to die at 10pm on the night of the 28th of october. tonight (in the chronology). to time it exactly right start watching at 8.33pm. 

some thoughts on education on a monday morning

James Lee Byars - World Question Center from Michael Werner Gallery on Vimeo.

yesterday a friend posted a link to james lee byars world question center - an art happening transmitted on belgian tv in the late 60ies which involved contacting various figures round the world (often by telephone) arthur c.clarke, cedric price - ok possibly mostly the anglophone world - and getting them to say which questions they thought were most important for humanity. it looks great (kind of like an outtake from logan’s run). there is a sort of link here to cedric price’s proposed funpalace.

it’s 10.30 on a monday morning and horsemouth is just coming down from a burst of bad temper. he likes the work to be easy. he likes things to work. don’t stick him in a situation that doesn’t work (and especially not first thing), he’ll only get grumpy. 

one difference between IT and so-called ‘real life’ is that IT does not respond to bursts of temper. horsemouth’s experience is that IT requires calm and hopeful optimism to be got working, and time. now he is superficially calm again but in fact he’s till grumpy and would happily smash, rage and break a few things until he feels better. in a bit he will go for a walk. 

the main driver of horsemouth’s rages is insecurity (he is not someone who can adopt a cheery ‘oh well it doesn’t work. never mind’). horsemouth likes to be helpful, he doesn’t like to let people down. it doesn’t help that work has somewhat flexible boundaries and that over the years (and especially in recent times) additional unpaid pseudo-tasks have been added to the original task. horsemouth is happy, up to a point, to muck-in and just get on with it, but that point is that it work. 

horsemouth is very goal oriented. he’s not very process oriented. this is why horsemouth is not actually good at science (despite having studied it). he is not good at sitting there not understanding, trying to work things out, it just makes him anxious. things need to be very calm and peaceful for him before he can successfully do this. 

he supposes he has been harmed by education which, while supposedly being process oriented and about teaching skills is actually very goal oriented. students are trained to experience a release from anxiety and an endorphin rush whenever they get a tick. the focus becomes not understanding the thing in a nuanced way but getting the tick. accumulating lots of ticks. passing exams (there’s a revealing phrase). receiving a certificate (horsemouth is a big fan of the tin man). and becoming a member of the middle class who need never have to worry about these things again. 

much of the purpose of education is not to render people smarter and more able to learn (an emancipatory education) but rather to fractionate society out into different social classes. he’s kind of with ranciere and jacotot on this one. 

there are, given a skills focus, attempts to counteract this with discovery based learning. in this the students are not given the answer but are expected to work out themselves how to find out the answer (often with groupwork). the usual result of this is to set the students whining that they haven’t been given the answer (and pretty soon the teacher comes along and gives them the answer). it is kind of like a virus of emancipatory education that has lodged within the whole to the annoyance of everyone. 

horsemouth normally works out a way of doing things. then stops. once he has one way of doing something that is sufficient. 

the correct response to situations that don’t work is thus. horsemouth tried. it didn’t work. no blame. what’s the way forward? (the problem with horsemouth is that it takes him a long while to become this philosophical).

two weeks to samhain!

it's very slightly over two weeks to go to the celtic quarter day samhain (known to non heathens largely as halloween or’all hallows eve’, it’s a festival of the dead. and at that precise moment, over that very night, the ability to write notes (or blog posts as horsemouth thinks of them) on facebook will be gone. horsemouth has been adjusting to the thought of writing without an immediate audience. it will be an interesting challenge for him. (look at what he is doing right now). 

the celtic quarter days are (roughly) the midpoints between equinoxes and solstices and vice versa. the point where seasons end in earnest and begin in earnest. changes in weather and life realm rather than actions of the sun or the stars. 

meanwhile, last night, while london slept, the city went into tier two lockdown. ‘which means what exactly?’ remarked sten. well it means horsemouth won’t be off to sunny mile end to work on the dancing about architecture piece this morning because we can no longer meet in each others houses (or flats indeed). instead he’s proposing various things to hide his disappointment, purring exercises, music boxes found on blue oyster cult records, burning swords a la hollis frampton (nostalgia). 

what it really means is that three weeks ago the government was too chickenshit to take the advice of its own scientific advisors and go for a limited period nationwide ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown. instead we have open ended regional lockdowns covering half the population with restrictions that make little or no sense and arguably aren’t working for that reason. 

in the struggle against coronavirus march was wasted, summer has been wasted, october has been wasted. but what was horsemouth doing today? he was traveling for work (a still a permitted, nay, required, activity). the city looks sad without its people. 

triple negative have played a gig (under the current restrictions). it was good.

DeboraarobeD prophets seers & sages - the angels of the ages (horsemouth live from the occupied Sorbonne)

14th October 1968 and Tyranousaurus Rex release a remix (we would now term it) of their first single Debora as DeboraarobeD by placing a backwards version of the track at the end of the original track. they do this on the album prophets seers & sages - the angels of the ages. 

it is a pleasure to hear such a cheerful thing in these tempora(ri)ly challenged times. 

horsemouth coughs and sneezes (he tries not to spread diseases). he contemplates reciting show me show me show me (just like heaven) by the cure in the style of john betjman. now he’s thinking richard burton. 

last night horsemouth ran the heating. the sash windows are old and draughty. horsemouth will install carpet between the radiator and the wall in front of the window to direct the heat up into the room (rather than out the window).

yesterday was pharoah sanders birthday. it’s his 80ieth birthday. horsemouth doesn’t have any more pharoah for you until next tuesday’s jewels of thought. pharoah is the link between sun ra and john coltrane and on to alice coltrane, from free jazz to cosmic soul to world music, from blistering improv to universal reconciliation.

meanwhile horsemouth felt a strange and (for him) rare emotion. he will now attempt to write about it without telling you what it is. 

‘sitting in the autumn sunshine on the front step. doodling. passing time. just beneath the surface of the old man who tells you he has got everything sorted and tidied away nicely is the callow youth ... horsemouth long ago learned the trick of being ‘philosophical’ about his feelings - that is to generalize them up and away so it is almost as if it wasn’t him having them. 

it is interesting the different kind of writing that writing by hand creates. life has obliged by providing material. it is nearly the last day of sunshine to be had. 

here we are having survived since february. the last day of work in the outside world 14th march. since then lots of staying in and avoiding crowds. has he succeeded in halving the amount of contact he has with humanity? (probably). certainly no foreign travel. no raves. no gigs. only two or three singing events. no discos. no pubs (amazing that). no second hand book shopping. far lower consumption of coffees and snacks. next to no public transport use. 

sitting in the autumn sunshine, on the doorstep, doodling, passing time...’

the magician and the tarot cards

it was albert bouchard who asked for the tarot cards on the front cover of agents of fortune. the artist (lynn curlee) provided the concept. later he did the cover for black sabbath’s heaven and hell (angels smoking) but he never got to meet the band. the blue oyster cult came over to his studio en masse. 

the magician on the front cover of agents of fortune is probably servais le roy. his last magic show in new york was a disaster, he burned all his equipment and props the next day and retired to new jersey. asrah the floating princess  was the illusion that made him famous. you know the one -the magician levitates his assistant under a sheet and then makes several passes with a hoop so that we can all see there are no strings. later the less subtle ‘sawing a woman in half’ replaced it in most magician’s repertoires. 

there are lots of still photos of horsemouth and enza cavorting (is that a kind of dance?) around in costumes as part of their dancing about architecture performance. some work. some are good but have poor alignment. the ones with the magician’s wand work really well (it is like horsemouth has entered into the straight lines of the painting and rendered them in 3D). 

circumstance has given him the opportunity moving into the world of film making (thanks enza, thanks suke). all is going well (apparently) on the production possibly called the fall of the house of fitzgerald. his music for the party scene (a version of darktown strutter’s ball renamed high rise strutter’s ball) is apparently rocking the spot. 

horsemouth is pleased. he recorded it in a hurry and thinks it could probably do with some tidying up (but on the other hand he thinks it will do). there is also the eviction of the party scene (this horsemouth thinks will go well too, he thinks the music for this will work well). the next step is the more contentious (because more imagistic) dream sequences. the trick horsemouth thinks, is to work with the colours of the fake kandinsky. the burning sword sequence, the collapse. 

the cat’s dream horsemouth thinks can be soundtracked with cat purrings and music box sounds (possibly the ones off the front of the blue oyster cult’s flaming telepaths). he is pleased to have got it shot almost entirely in a black and red palette, he thinks it will look good. 

a very belated september 2020 books, films, gigs list

books 

• the furies - janet hobhouse 
• sergio leone biography (christopher frayling) 
• practicalities (marguerite duras)/ dreams (c.g.jung) 
• travels with a donkey in the cevennes (robert louis stevenson) 
• the dynamics of conflict in northern ireland 
• the first few pages of walter benjamin’s essay on kafka. 

 films inferno, the three mothers - dario argento 'suspiria' trilogy, various giallos (the bird with the crystal plumage, all the colours of the dark, the case of the scorpion’s tail) dr.zhivago (david lean original), all the money in the world, psychomania 

gigs (online) none 

events dancing about architecture death of juliette greco

wearing a mask that is one’s own face

‘creating and editing notes will be unavailable after October 31... published notes will stay published on your timeline’’ 

we have entered the last month of horsemouth’s blogging on facebook and talking easily to his habitual audience. 

horsemouth derives pleasure from the blog in three ways - when he writes it, when he reads it again, when others tell him they have read it. he likes the longform of it, he likes having different years to compare it with, see, in 2016 horsemouth was reading this... 

ok so what has he been up to lately... 

horsemouth returns from the dancing about architecture sessions down in plague ridden pop(u)lar. the mayor of tower hamlets has issued advice that people should refrain from visiting each others homes (suke, enza and horsemouth found themselves unable to take that advice). horsemouth consoles himself with the notion that he is in fact staying in most of the time, working from home (as much as he can), only emerging to shop for food or for exercise, that he has in fact stayed in lockdown. this makes sense to him - he’s an old mule in his 50ies, he has no desire to catch it and die, or even to get sick. 

the day went well and horsemouth and enza had an excellent time dressing up in costumes and arranging party scenes of various creatures. horsemouth hopes suke enjoyed herself as dp - director of photography, charged with marshaling her unruly charges and working out what of their ravings could be filmed. it will take a lot more work to cut it all together (and indeed to find out if they have all the footage they need). 

suke and enza will meet soon. then paul and suke will meet. and then all three will meet to finish it off. 

having fed them during the day enza sent them out of the door pleasantly drunk (in horsemouth’s case on mulled wine, in suke’s case on some cherry concoction). they exchanged musics for a bit until horsemouth discovered an old punk compilation (antipasti no government) and some reggae (54-46 bye bye toots) and they all began dancing. this finally overwhelmed enza’s patience and she sent them on their way. 

after an excellent day of raving and gibbering (in various costumes) horsemouth slept deeply and awoke well into the comedown stage, the mania is abating leaving only remorse and vague guilt. life cannot be as beautiful as our dreams (even when one is wearing a mask that is ones own face and cannot see where one is going, even when one is weaving a magic spell).

announcements and endings (parts I,II,III) (confiding in the evening star)

hmm. facebook has some news for horsemouth. 

announcements and endings part I 

'Paul, creating and editing notes will be unavailable after October 31. We know your posts are important, so any published notes will stay published on your timeline. However, any unpublished drafts will be deleted.' 

the drafts can go. horsemouth can of course merely write his drivel on the front page of facebook  (as a comment) or he can write from exile from the sunny land of blogspot (where he has been archiving his kipple for a number of years already). 

of course this reminds horsemouth of the myspace blogpost dieback of 2013. when all of a sudden myspace died (after a brief spell as my______) taking 6 years of horsemouth’s blogging with it. after remonstration myspace emailed the complainants their blogs. thank you myspace decently handled. you have my thanks. you will be fond in my memories. 

facebook however, continues to be more problematic. (it's evil horsemouth. just admit it)

the change to new facebook about a month ago marked a radical limitation of your ability to access your historical material - wheras before your could nip back to 2010 month by month to look at what you were posting then now all you can get a access to is a list of your blog posts going back only as far as your connection permits (probably about a year). a change sprung with no consultation. 

if facebook disappear even that button all that will be left is scrolling back through your timeline to find your posts. it is ok facebook. (though if you are reading this facebook the offer of a text document containing all horsemouth’s blog posts (similar to the offer made by myspace) would be nice). 

horsemouth is a philosophical mule. the main benefit to him of writing the diary entries (let’s at least be honest about that - it is a diary) occurs when he writes it (the reading and re-reading it later and much later are added bonuses). he can always write more of it. 

for a while horsemouth has been having to go through a fair old palaver to post - over to the notes page (found from a scroll down list on the homepage), click write new post etc. 

horsemouth wonders if he shouldn’t instead get into physically writing (pen and ink) a physical diary again. now horsemouth keeps various work diaries (before he worked - during the great unemployment - he kept a rehearsal diary of his band bush house). indeed he has a box of such diaries going back the best part of 20 years. but they are paltry things, doodles, times and initials, commonplaces and quotations from whatever he happens to be reading at the time, the monthly list of films seen, distances walked. stuff horsemouth will brag about later. 

horsemouth likes such pseudo-organisational workings. 

 announcements and endings part II 

ladies and gentlemen ‘confiding in the evening star’ the final release from the musicians of bremen recording campaign 2019-2020 may not just be the final release from the musicians of bremen recording campaign 2019-2020. it may be the final release ever. 

the reasons lie deep in the psyche of howard and horsemouth. howard is a put-the-show-on-right-here type guy, a downsize and out, abrupt ending kind of guy, horsemouth is a rehearsals, archive and continuity type guy. but essentially with howard’s new job as head of art (and his need to move because he is getting evicted), he doesn’t have time for it. plus he has other plans. 

really the best person to ask about howard’s motivations is howard. 

similarly for horsemouth the coronavirus epidemic has meant that he hasn’t been very keen to go down howard’s to rehearse or play web gigs and of course it has utterly wiped out the possibility of playing live gigs. 

horsemouth would gladly stick the toys back in the cupboard until next year (it’s where they were going anyway) and then resume if there is anything to be done. it won’t be the first time musicians of bremen has ended. horsemouth has done solo gigs (and gigs with guest spots) as musicians of bremen, the musician of bremen and so on. he has also played duo gigs with howard (sometimes adding an additional musician - nick doyne-ditmas for example down at water into beer).

the horsemouth/ howard duo line up has been one of the best working set-ups horsemouth has ever had with another musician and has generated some of horsemouth’s best work ever. 

howard will return with a series of releases of his electronica from the 2000s towards the end of the year. horsemouth is off to make a movie, then he will be woodshedding to consolidate a repertoire for his eventual live re-appearance and initiating/ re-committing to some other projects. there was a promise made to record lou at some point (that may still happen). 

of course musicians of bremen is kind of like spartacus - in that all the rebels are spartacus, in that all farm animals seeking something better than death (via a career in the music industry in bremen despite the handicap of their utter lack of talent) are musicians of bremen. 

horsemouth (canny mule that he is) is moving into franchising. as to part III - horsemouth can’t say yet.  

on the last day of september/ the first day of october (the tail of the scorpion has a sting in it)

the equinox has been and gone, horsemouth, and half the world, move into winter. 

the air is colder and thus can only support smaller droplets of moisture from human breath that may carry the virus. thus the droplets travel further with a cough or a sneeze. it is winter when people are more generally inside in confined spaces staying warm and breathing on each other. when people are more likely to take public transport. when people are more likely to have other respiratory diseases causing them to cough and sneeze and distribute the new virus more widely. 

 coughs and sneezes (spread diseases) 

but  we have survived this far. (huzzah) 

a friend quipped of a difficult/ unprofitable piece of reading that he’d read it in the next lockdown, maybe. 

horsemouth laughed and then realised that it is on its way (imminently) 

stay (the fuck) home mutters horsemouth. knowing that this is truly effective messaging. knowing that his plan for the day and the weekend is not this.

at the start of the crisis there was a brief (socially distanced) visit from mike T, asked of his opinion of the crisis he remarked that by the end of it we will all be better people. which is as dry a summation of the situation as can be managed

so what is in horsemouth’s diary for january; 

1, coronavirus second spike accelerates post the students coming home for christmas 

 2. brexit food shortages 

 3. fall of the USA 

horsemouth found another giallo the case of the scorpion’s tail by the same guy who made all the colours of the dark. both of them begin in 70ies london but the scorpion’s tail rapidly decamps to 70ies athens. once again the soundtrack has it’s moments. 

interestingly the plot resolution that is offered to us does not seem to match the footage used earlier (hence the sting in the tail), the camera has been lying to us. 

horsemouth could only find a version in italian so he’s guessing about the plot really. it’s not as heavily art directed as the argento films (they are the top of the line for this sort of thing) but there are some satisfying moments. 

this weekend horsemouth goes to shoot his/ suke/ enza’s dancing about architecture film. the shooting script arrived via facebook messenger last night. rather than film the sequences in the order they will eventually appear in the film it often makes sense to film them in an order that saves work.