in which we lurch from crisis to crisis (the harms of writing)

'the fragment is the intrusion of death into the work.' - theodor adorno aesthetic theory,  as quoted by gretel adorno and rolf tiedermann in their editors' afterward. 

horsemouth has clonked himself in the eye (well rather on the eye socket). he will go up and inspect the damage in a bit. other than that it is a perfectly fine morning and sunday passed off without incident. 

he has been reading andrew brown's book fishing in utopia: sweden and the future that disappeared. now brown (the son of a diplomat based in sweden in his youth) eventually marries young, to a swedish girl,  and he settles down to a life of poverty - working in a sawmill, fishing, long winters, and living and thinking mostly in swedish. 

except he doesn't entirely, he buys a typewriter and begins clanking out english prose. his journalism is published in a few other places but mainly he writes for the spectator,  he is sucked into that maelstrom of self-regard. 

it is characteristic of horsemouth that he is not interested in brown's fly-fishing, the lure and bait of this memoir, his still spot out on the water, but rather in the book as a writing memoir. because the course of things is not smooth brown is compelled to reveal the harms of writing. 

he would often write on the train and he writes well of the joy and mania that writing induces.

'... sometimes there would be far more. I would sit there with a sense that great waves of understanding were breaking inside me and the hissing and bubbling foam spread luxuriously over the whole world. there was nothing that I could not write, nothing that I could not see or understand...

from where he is now he can see himself clearly back then.  

'all this ebullience was tethered to the knowledge that someone in london cared what I thought... there were competent people who liked my jokes, and who shared my dislocation from the universe.  the magazine did not seem at home anywhere in the world, and I liked that. it guaranteed the safety of perpetual exile. to have no roots in the world meant that one could float over anywhere in it, like the inhabitants of swift's flying island, and call down advice or abuse on the peasants below. this suited my temperament. less and less seemed real to me on the ground where I was living.' 

the marriage will break up. he will return to england and become a journalist for the independent. the sweden he knew of militant egalitarianism and conformism will die when olaf palme is murdered, and with the financial crisis. 

that's roughly as far as horsemouth has got with it. he's about half way through. he should persevere. 

meanwhile (lest we should be able to forget) in other news of great things the spectator has given us we have the boris johnson government. 

'we lurch from crisis to crisis while serenely maintaining a poll lead.' say the tories to themselves as if in shock, as if in wonder at the suspension of political gravity. 

someone has reviewed horsemouth's guitar online (the washburn OR6CE oscar schmidt resonator). 

'to me, this (guitar) sounded marginally better than a plastic toy'. (ouch!)

now. horsemouth has always liked this guitar (well he didn't so much at first but it really grew on him). it does have a distinctive sound (and not everyone likes it) but it does record well. you either like it or you don't shrugs horsemouth, for the money it's rocking.  

yesterday howard called round. 

they drank about a bottle of beer each in total. there was no pizza (horsemouth is out of pizza and howard had eaten already). the hohner has gone back to howard's to give him a sweeter guitar  to further improve his fingerpicking on (he's pretty fucking good already). now that guitar really does have a pretty tone. horsemouth now has his two prettiest guitars (the laramie and the resonator) out on display and ready to play. everything else (the two classical guitars, the guild dreadnaught) is bagged up. 

howard has a whole tranche of new songs ready to go (probably an album's worth) and good they are too. heaven knows when he will get round to recording them (such is the nature of the world).

so much for horsemouth's writing for the day. from where he is now can he see himself clearly?

well he's bored (and a little stressed). he has to finish writing the thing he promised. and eventually he will find out if it is good enough to do what it needs to do. he is resistant to his task and he needs to step up his game.