things are so fucked up nobody has any idea what is really going on (but anyway. that could never happen here.)

good morning. good morning.

it's friday and the bin men have been. they have taken the rubbish rubbish but seem to have disdained the recycling. horsemouth doesn't think this is a big problem (the recycling doesn't stink, it's good to get the rubbish rubbish properly gone). all hail the binmen. 

2021 was a bulgakov centenary year (well 130 years of mikhail bulgakov) and horsemouth is enjoying black snow. everybody gives bulgakov's narrator excellent advice about negotiating the fraught world of the theatre (it's just that he can't bring himself to take it). 

typical chapter title? 'chapter 13: I perceive the truth' 

horsemouth is a late and incomplete adopter of the incredible string band. he finds the flitting between genres in their songwriting a bit irritating but once in a while they settle and make something really awesome. of course as an improv/ compositional trick it's genius. their playing as well is always super good taste (never too much/ never too little). 

on 13 march 1851 the first forward (or futures) contract was signed for 3,000 bushels of grain (to be delivered the next year) and we were off. what had not yet been grown or made (always present to some extent in capitalist valuations) was now factored in. 

last night there was an adaptation of michael dibdin's cabal (1992) on tv. horsemouth was kind of shocked to discover how late these books were written. their main preoccupations are the bank ambrosiano scandal (1982) and the aldo moro kidnapping (1978). they are a kind of anglophone reception of leonardo sciascia's things are so fucked up nobody has any idea what is really going on paranoia. 

now once upon the time this was viewed as purely an italian malaise (but now the whole world is in some conspiracy theory/ fake news quagmire). there is a point of contact with the bulgakov - the art of living in a society where the slightest mis-step or mis-statement can result in you being shipped off to siberia. bulgakov plays off onto life in the theatre, dibdin runs it (gogol style) as bureaucratic comedy. 

but anyway. that could never happen here. sagely remarks horsemouth. 

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a grey morning and cold but also the gateway to the weekend. horsemouth still has a disgusting cough. he doesn't have far left to go with black snow. part two is twenty odd pages compared to part one's a hundred and forty.