a very ubik thing to do (one liners and cosmic tragedy)

horsemouth has been having a philip k. dick re-reading session at the moment (castle, androids, scanner darkly, valis, radio free albemuth), he has some of PKD's non-science fiction (those will probably be next).

valis and radio free albemuth are related. the publisher asked for a rewrite, he gave the original manuscript to a friend (this is radio free albemuth) and then utterly rewrote it (and this became valis). after his death the friend came forward with the original manuscript of radio free albemuth (which horsemouth is really enjoying this time round - last time he just thought it was inferior to valis). 

valis has the one-liners and cosmic tragedy, radio free albemuth sticks closer to the 'events' (the move to southern califormia, the pink laser beams etc.) it has the advantage of the character of president f. ferris freemont (666 see) who drags the US down into fascism in a nixon/trump style. both would go well with an adam curtiss documentary (and indeed that's exactly what horsemouth watched last night).

horsemouth's copy of ubik seems to have vanished (which is a very ubik thing to do). 

today horsemouth goes to impersonate george lansbury for a voice over for a friend who is making an animation about the famous poplar rate rebellion (an early outbreak of municipal socialism). he tried to do some research on george lansbury but ended up being distracted by historical accounts of the development of the lansbury estate in poplar. 

now of course some of this is now scheduled for demolition under plans to redevelop chrisp street market (curiously enough in its 70th anniversary year) some of it the result of  the live architecture exhibition, conceived as an adjunct to the main festival of britain exhibition in 1951. this was the dome of its day, visitor numbers were low, sabotaged by poor transport links. 

now horsemouth grew up in the valleys of south wales (as you know), he went to lansbury park junior school in caerphilly near the large and modern lansbury park estate. he remembers a teacher telling the story of lansbury and the rate rebels. when (later) he lived in poplar he was very pleased to see the mural in hale street.

anyway he will walk over. he may try wearing a suit and a grandad shirt to attempt to get into character. 

in the paris commune on this day in 1871 goncourt observes the policy on art. 

'in the place vendome the scaffolding has been put up in readiness for the demolition of the column' 

'the venus de milo is hidden... it is thought courbet is on her track, and the silly employees fear the worst if the fanatical modernist lays his hands on the classical masterpiece'.  

next week horsemouth has a day of work (which he has foolishly agreed to and which he will have to sort out monday morning), an online meeting of the communal endeavour, and a meeting about future work (or the absence of it).