'water is the least of our problems' (nothing moves, so much is happening)

'it's an interesting period - nothing moves, but so much is happening... 

water is the least of our problems' - catherine austen in j.g.ballard's the drought. 

it's the connection with 76 as well (it is the driest first half of the year since 1976 the papers say). 

76 is the real pivotal year.

the drought and the summer of 76 are seen as emblematic in a number of m.john harrison stories (you know the sort of thing visit a friend in the lake district, friend is going mad, light out for a campsite, baking heat, that night crackly news on the transistor radio of a right wing coup...)

m. john harrison writes an intro to ballard's the drought (an earlyish ballard), he contrasts it with day of the triffids - wyndham is honour bound to preserve the past (to re-establish it after the catastrophe), ballard has seen it destroyed in the internment camps, he affects to want to see it all destroyed again. 

'this article was amended on 26 july. an earlier version had incorrectly said that fisher had taught at birkbeck, rather than goldsmiths'

there's a guardian review of mark fisher's the ghosts of my life. there's a good in memoriam for him over at the LA review of books.

horsemouth thought he had taught at both (!!). he also taught at orpington college (and wrote about it) where horsemouth met him again after talking to him at the noise theory noise conference up at middlesex). 

now horsemouth basically parts company with the enthusiasm of the  CCRU  lot with their takes on deleuze and guattari (brighter than a thousand suns, sonic warfare) and derrida (hauntology) but he has to honour the attempt to theorise music (or to let music theorise) as something important. for a while horsemouth thought some assemblage could be made out of all of this but the more he read the more he realised that the parts were shonkily constructed in the first pace in an excess of youthful high spirits.  

(later the CCRU story becomes much darker with nick land's dark enlightenment - but you know what derrida would say about your 'later').

at heart there was something populist in mark's thinking, an attempt to make connections that would spark. and this got him denounced at least once. he wanted to see something in russell brand, or the corbynite labour party, in zizek's bloated corpse, he wanted to see hope.

it is typical of the step-child/ cinderella existence of academics in the uk (it is a  simple fact that it doesn't pay and you are just throwing good thought after bad) that you can become  so influential and still wind up dead from depression and institutional indifference. 

but it's all here already in the japan lyric. (which in a way is one of mark's points).

-----------------------------

horsemouth is hiding out at TGs. he has fed the cat and kept the cat in over night (as he was instructed). he brought one of the guitars over. there's a little accordeon here as well (horsemouth has been having a play around). 

he's not done any reading yet (he has a history of reading and the master and margarita here).  online he read some government documents about reducing the carbon emissions of social housing (they seem a little confused, to get the required reductions required it looks like you would need to fit heat pumps instead of gas boilers in the properties but then the real focus seems to be bumping the properties insulation up to EPC C standard (which is way too low for heat pumps to work efficiently). 

horsemouth sits on the sofa (which looks out over the estate and usually children playing). sometimes he will get up and look out of the front door at the people running or cycling on the canal towpath (pretty people). the boat people are not stranded in the mud (by the drought or the tide) like their ballardian counterparts but float serene on controlled water levels  living in the ruins of the industrial revolution. 

it's a cool grey day. later a trip up to the cloud forest to feed the cats there. horsemouth will do the double for a few days before relocating entirely there. today the 50th anniversary of the release of the harder they come. tomorrow a walk round with ayesha.