'benjamin continued to cultivate unpredictable alliances. in december 1930 he sent a letter and a copy of the baroque book to the authoritarian theorist carl schmitt, for he had used schmitt's political theology to expound the doctrine of sovereignty in the seventeenth century.'
- esther leslie, walter benjamin, critical lives.
'9am two hours of writing without eating, washing, or analyzing emails... the aim is not to get involved in domestic activity...
9pm I keep out of restaurants. I've taken the view that eating with other people is a waste of time...
10pm I don't have a TV... so I listen to music...' - colm tóibín, telegraph magazine, 22nd june 2024.
horsemouth will deal with these in no particular order
he too keeps out of restaurants (but that's because he can't afford to eat in them). horsemouth doesn't have a TV in his room (in either herefordshire or london) this much is true - but he does have a laptop (which in many ways is much the same thing). and this he tends to type on while on the bed.
he often watches the news with his mum because he can't face watching tv dramas. he finds them 'insubstantial' as colm puts it of the tv news.
like colm (and this may be the only point where their lifestyles interconnect) he tends to fall asleep if he reads on the sofa. see the bourgeois lives of the rich and famous coincide with yours in the humble and mundane, isn't that miraculous.
a few days ago horsemouth actually listened to a radio show on the radio (while sitting out front in the sun) this is practically unheard of. to tell you the truth he wasn't sure radios even still worked. interestingly (in terms of listening to music) neither does horsemouth have record decks nor even a CD player anymore (he could at a pinch listen to CDs on his laptop - yes it is that old).
one thing he listened to online was an RTE documentary on vagabond percussionist michael o'shea (horsemouth will put up a link to the archived version when it becomes available)
benjamin was greatly exercised by radio, as 1931s reflections on radio shows. horsemouth pulled the esther leslie quote because he has always wondered about the connection between benjamin and schmitt. (via schmitt we get to agamben but also to the other side of that weimar politics).
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and this brings him to the election.
in the election horsemouth expects to see victory for a dull starmerite labour, near destruction for the conservative party and the rise of reform - but horsemouth only expects that rise to be produce a less than double figures number of reform MPs (annoying though they are). the barriers to entry of a first past the post system are vast and reform's real work is to split the right wing vote (it is the next election horsemouth worries about).
a friend is reporting that she will be voting on principle in this election rather than tactically voting lib dem where she is to get the incumbent tory out. horsemouth sees it - people want a more wholesome way to exercise their democratic rights than to vote for the lesser of two evils. they don't want to be made complicit in any of the horrors to follow.
would horsemouth recommend a 'tactical' vote for reform to get out the tories? no he would not.
would he recommend a tactical vote for the tories to keep out reform? er. maybe.
he wants the conservatives crushed and exiled into the wilderness - and on the other side of this he does not want them destroyed so thoroughly that they are not a thorn in the side of reform. he wants reform and the conservatives to contend with and annihilate each other rather than one to emerge the victor. he wants that right wing vote to stay split.
once labour has a functioning majority the size of the majority is irrelevant. in fact a larger majority may serve to weaken the power of those on the the left. horsemouth wholly supports the opportunity of creating alternatives to the left of labour providing they can really get in (once again the first past the post system effectively prevents new parties from entering parliament).
novara media has interviewed two disgruntled tories recently peter oborne and peter hitchens and horsemouth finds what they have to say very interesting.
it remains to be seen, after the election. how useless labour think they can get away with being - they cannot afford to lead the country back into austerity (but they have no real mandate to do anything else).
here it is a grey morning in the valley. (strangely - the weather is predicting 24C when the sun shines).
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