good morning. good morning.
today horsemouth is up with a slightly snotty nose and a sore throat.
yesterday was not a successful day.
horsemouth was back from an abortive mission to meet up with howard at walthamstow queen's road station which horsemouth succeeded in losing despite having been there several times before (but coming from the opposite direction).
howard was (in any event) prevented from travelling by fucked up rail replacement buses and returned home defeated. there is a slight scheme to meet up later.
it was glorious out there and everyone was looking awesome. but horsemouth ended up back home and self-medicating with a beer. part of the problem was being hungry (never attempt to make a decision when you are hungry). another part of the problem was not having an a-to-z or a smart phone. another part of the problem was not having any credit on his existing stupid phone
horsemouth has failed to make the adjustment to summer yet (it is as good to be here as anywhere, there's no hurry, please stand in the fucking doorway like a dick it looks very stylish).
the mismatch between the glorious external conditions and horsemouth's mood caused him to become morose. it took him a while to shift it.
on the upside someone mentioned mike ladd. horsemouth was very keen on welcome to the afterfuture and even keener on gun hill road (if that was possible).
there was just a great era of alternative hip-hop. the early anticon mixtape is just one of the best things ever.
any love for company flow?
earlier a slightly bored horsemouth (in search of distraction) had wandered up to the powerscroft road book box. there he picked up a copy of murakami's the strange library.
now this is a strange little tale but the physicality of the book itself is more reassuring,
first on the cover itself is an outsized version of one of those little cardboard wallets that librarians used to stick library tickets into (before storing them in date order that they were due to return - if horsemouth has understood it properly). within the endpapers are a facsimile of that american notebook marbled design. the pages are (as if) stamped FILE COPY or RETURNED at various intervals, another page has a date of issue sheet printed on it (when formerly they were stuck in library books and stamped by the librarian (so you could see how many times before the book had been loaned out).
of course all these things have gone EPOS now (ok ok electronic point of sale - it's probably not called that but it is a very similar electronic stocktaking procedure). there is a library computer etc. he could look up the precise terms online (but why bother).
inside there are plenty of illustrations (murakami gives you their source). often from compendiums of similar items (keys, shoes, birds, feather, donuts). these are shown as the item is mentioned in the text. horsemouth will have to reread it to understand better what those do.
horsemouth probably should try some other library related fiction to go with it (borges for example).
he also picked up a translation of albert soboul's book the sans-culottees: the popular movement and revolutionary government 1793-1794. the theory is that current revolutionaries (in that they are neither the aristocracy nor the bourgeoisie) are descended from them. one idea here is that the historical record needs to be carefully read for the facts that don't fit with our current understanding, that the past contains possibilities that we have missed.
eventually horsemouth got a handle on his unruly emotions. he settled down to watch blake's 7 (he now has just one episode to go). one of the great things about the 70ies was its pessimism, it is not the universe of star trek, the federation is an evil fascist entity, the whole thing is 1984 with space travel, our would be revolutionaries (or mere pirates) end up shot down (though perhaps not with the thoroughness of bonnie and clyde).
tanith lee got in another episode. chris boucher was script editor. the series was re-commissioned beyond its useful life, blake would only return if he could be definitively killed.
horsemouth should finish off the e.m. forster biography (which has been good).
today probably a walk with TG and then a meet up with howard later (maybe).
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