a hot day (lammas/ anniversary of the release of musicians of bremen volume four)

it is the fourth anniversary of the release of musician's of bremen's album volume four (or it will be tomorrow)

horsemouth hasn't worked out anything to do to celebrate. it is in any event lammas the next turn of the wheel of the year (or it will be tomorrow).  

yesterday

the engineer's visit for the broadband and the phoneline went well (horsemouth thinks). 

he blamed the poor quality of the sound on the phone (it was a hot day so horsemouth did not remember to point out that the sound was just as shit on the second phone). the guy argued that the router should be downstairs next to the main input (and so indeed it now is). should people wish for ethernet connections then they'll just have to sort it out themselves. 

the phone up in the office seems to be out. he was gone before horsemouth noticed this. it seems to horsemouth that people can use zoom or some kind of internet telephony or use their mobiles (if there's any signal). 

horsemouth's mum has noticed a leak from the black alkathene pipe feeding the water trough up on the banking. they have been visited by people from the commons water people and they have clamped the pipe to reduce the flow. horsemouth will now go and purchase a valve, an insert and then with his trusty hacksaw saw through the pipe and fit the new valve. hopefully that will all go ok. 

there's no particular need for the water trough - such sheep as visit will be fine without it. if the leak can only be reduced that's not fatal either - all it is doing is irrigating a hedge. 

when he is done he will bury the pipe so that it is no longer his problem. 

he says 'feeding the water trough' but in fact horsemouth's father had bodged the repair - unable to find a fitting that would actually work he had just stuck a plastic bag ontop of a cork and hammered it into the pipe. 'a classic john bodge' as the guy from the commons water put it. horsemouth can just imagine his father's fury when the repair wasn't going well and his cackling laughter when he hit upon a bodge for it. 

there's some stuff relating to insurance for mum's car (but horsemouth has farmed that off on his brother). earlier in the baking heat of the day his 80plus year old mum was determined to do some weeding in the garden and it took horsemouth a while to dissuade her. 

(this is probably why he was in such a foul mood most of the day).  

that and the fact that it was hot. the heat is only pleasurable when you have nothing or not much to do (and as you can see horsemouth was a little busy). 

he has the anxieties relevant to the task and some social anxieties round the bell-ringing (it's his turn to buy a round). 

he had a whole book based blog for you but he will do it another time.  ok wish him luck and he will see you on the other side of task hell. 

books, films, gigs, events july 2024

books 

- nlr sidecar review of thomas heise's work and on the french elections

- anna pavord's 'landskipping: painters, ploughmen and places', and, inspired by a reference in it  to 'byng's tours: the journals of the hon. john byng 1781-1792' edited by david souden

- 'the adventure of the boscombe valley mystery' and 'a scandal in bohemia'  some of 12 sherlock holmes short stories in 'the adventures of sherlock holmes'

- archival materials in the exhibition  'organic music societies: don and moki cherry'

-  anna neima's 'the utopians: six attempts to build the perfect society'

-  anastasia curwood, 'the hunter and the farmer: jean toomer's model of masculininty' 

- more in common's report on the general election 2024 and michael gallagher, 2024. election indices dataset

- review of the harry everret smith 'fragments of a faith forgotten' exhibition 

-  LRB blog 'fever dream', william davies 

-  'the teachings of don juan: a yaqui way of knowledge' by carlos castaneda (excepting the structural analysis)

- richard seymour, majority without a mandate (nlr) and james butler 'what is a majority for?' (lrb)

- the WIRE: interview with the woman from harrga, review of the reissue of john fahey's 'proofs &  refutations',  al karpenter gets an interview. in the november a primer on jazz and poetry. in december a review of a barbara dane movie. 

- NYT 'the nazi jurist who haunts our broken politics' jennefer szalai

gigs

ruth crawford-seeger 'three chants for women's chorus' at the QEH foyer

films

- some wes anderson paris set thing

- mark gatiss on aubrey beardsley

- the rick beato video, the real reason why music is getting worse, and andy edwards response

-  a prom of orchestral arrangements of nick drake's songs 

- LRB sean o'hagan at the republican national congress

- the estate agent's video for the house on the common

- lots of reaction videos

- LRB the golden notebooks of nadine gordimer and patrick mcguiness 'back to bouillon'. 

horsemouth has lived with the internet for how long now?

yesterday a visit to the queen's wood (horsemouth and his mum had an ice cream). on the way back a stop-off at tescos to buy some food his mum wouldn't have to prepare (but would have to cook anyway).

this followed on from a visit to the ancestors' graves in far off stoke prior. there was an attempt to visit leominster but it was decided that the queenswood would be shadier and more relaxing. (and so it proved). 

the grave yard in stoke prior churchyard provided the opportunity to see who has died of the people mum went to school with, to identify the houses where they lived (and where various relatives lived). in truth horsemouth felt very brave heading out into the heat. 

the internet has been well buggy of late, horsemouth has booked an engineer for the afternoon (let's see if they show up or if the service magically improves itself).

of course the internet is horsemouth's lifeline but it is also his addiction. 

horsemouth has lived with the internet for how long now? (for long enough that he remembers dial-up modems, bulletin boards and netscape). more than half his life. it seems inconceivable not to be able to look literally anything up while recumbent on your bed. it is, in many ways. the technology that made lockdown possible. he barely bothers with the tv and radio. 

it's the morning (a coolish morning). horsemouth has unleashed the chickens and watered the veg. he has also wandered the milk over to the fridge in the garage. today (if horsemouth remembers correctly) a day off. tomorrow the end of the month. thursday more bellringing and the anniversary of the release of musicians of bremen volume four.

in the solitude of the first waking hour

hail the moleman! (horsemouth has said this before)

the moleman is the genius artist and we are all just squatting in the ruin of his genius. 

the devil take your architect and your CD collection. 

horsemouth is typing this into some strange variety of notetaking software (one note) because the pesky internet is off yet again. (garn)

does he have anything deep and meaningful to say? nope. 

so this is NOT 'an entirely written in the morning blogpost' then, is it horsemouth? 

'the grey penumbra of dream persists, and indeed, in the solitude of the first waking hour, consolidates itself.'  - breakfast room, walter benjamin, in one way street. 

this is why the entirely written in the morning blogpost is valuable. 

and here we go.

'keep a bit of internet somewhere safe in case it runs out' (advised a friend).

what would horsemouth do if it all ran on (the internet outage he means)? 

well he'd probably nip back to the city and he'd probably remember the things he has stored locally on his various computers for a rainy day.  for instance he has a copy of one way street by walter benjamin with the susan sontag introduction just sitting there on his dad's old laptop from a previous visit. 

'it is understandable if a person grows tired and takes refuge in death' - walter benjamin, quoted in susan sontag's introduction to his one way street. 

ok the internet is a little buggy this morning but horsemouth seems to be back on (intermittently).

only really august now (and entirely written in the morning blogpost)

an entirely written in the morning blogpost. (it's nice to see the young people dancing to drum and bass, don't be confused though she does start with some electro). 

horsemouth has just been out to the garden and cropped some runner beans and some peas (this follows the lettuce he lifted yesterday). 

the runner beans are disappointing - beautifully coloured but small (he has learnt his lesson the seed pods need to be much more bulbous). the peas he seems to have judged it quite well - a few are drying out but most are succulent and the right size. 

he has his coffee. 

there's only really august now for things to grow in (though the weather can often be decent all the way out through september). that means the second lot of runner beans that he put in (actually the third lot because the first lot were eaten by slugs) will not have time to flower and grow (maybe, if there are any,  they could be mange touted). 

people used to grow runner beans just for the flowers (and horsemouth can see why). 

similarly with the second round of peas. with the carrots and the beetroot he will just have to see. 

with the tomatoes and peppers he may get lucky and get some. green tomatoes can be fried or ripened on window sills. 

it's a beautiful morning. 

yesterday horsemouth's uncle steve visited (one of horsemouth's dad's work colleagues) they chatted and horsemouth showed him where dad's ashes are buried. 

practice, record, release, tour, repeat

'it could be like this on every beach...

and better yet, it wasn't even necessary.

- figure of the mouth' 

this is from an auto-translated facebook photo caption. the photo shows a wire litter basket in the shape of a fish at a beach. 

did horsemouth post the rick beato video (the real reason why music is getting worse)? anyway here's an answer video (by proglord andy edwards). 

broadly horsemouth likes andy's point that bands know that practice, record, release, tour, repeat won't be make them any money anytime soon,  but that they do it anyway (because it's how they like to do things). 

on the other hand being a 'content creator' on youtube will make them money (and get them seen by way more people), andy knows this, but they don't want to do it because it is beneath them (would be horsemouth's view). it is not what musicians are mainly interested in doing. 

horsemouth has come round to the notion of the necessity of supporting other people's musical endeavours. 

but then again it's nearly august and horsemouth has to start getting a move on himself. 

he has of late only really rehearsed eyepennies  (and he hasn't rehearsed the line he really needs to rehearse in there). what else is he going  to bring? well broadbury down and am​á​rach (as long as he gets on and re-learns his guitar parts).  howard was talking about bringing falling snow. 

we are coming up to the anniversary of the release of volume four on august the 1st. horsemouth will have to work out some way to celebrate it. 

musicians of bremen have a gig august 24th down at waterintobeer. they will be going on first. 

yesterday horsemouth got up to very little. he woke up late and wandered about with a slight hangover in the morning and had a snooze in the afternoon. today his uncle steve visits (one of his father's work-mates).   

keep a bit of internet somewhere safe in case it runs out

 'fruit tree...

they'll stand and stare when you're gone...'

nick drake. there was a prom of orchestral arrangements of his songs (and those of his mother molly drake). seemingly the arrangements that were used on the albums themselves by robert kirby were not used unaltered. maybe using some of  the harry robinson arrangement for river man. lots of younger arrangers on the gig sam gale, peter riley and jochen neuffer and tom trapp.  

nick drake was a miss for joe boyd - and he couldn't understand why. the stuff that missed at the time is now famous (vashti bunyan, nick drake), the stuff that was a hit at the time (the incredible string band) is of its time. 

interesting horsemouth experienced an internet outage. he edited some photos, he watched some clips, he has listened to some mp3s. he's back. he'll try again in the morning. 

he has slept in. the internet is still on the blink. horsemouth will have to find the phone numbers to get in touch with them. (phew it has just come back on). 

'keep a bit of internet somewhere safe in case it runs out' advises a friend. 

horsemouth was contemplating having to read actual books, watch tv and write in a physical diary.

 

the earlier humanity does it the less of us are going to burn (high ideals and crazy dreams)

sorry this is going to be a long one folks...

so horsemouth attended a lecture on what we can expect from the new labour government on the housing front (his major area of interest). 

so first off who are the crew?

the ministry of housing, communities and local government (minClog) is headed up by angela rayner. 

as you may note that levelling up is gone. 

angela is keen to get many of those powers gone as well by means of devolution round the regions (on the basis that is has worked so well with scotland, wales and northern ireland where any housing fuck-ups are now no longer the fault of westminster). this is just as well because angela will also be handling the role of deputy prime minister (think john prescott in drag) and so may not have much time and attention to devote to this housing lark. 

jim mcMahon OBE MP is minister of state and has local government  background. as does matthew pennycook MP 'unlike some previous housing ministers, he was recognised as having good experience in the housing sector, having tabled numerous amendments to the renters (reform) bill during the previous parliament' to quote wikipedia. 

er. so what do they want?

well they want local authorities, private developers, housing associations etc. to build lots and lots of housing and solve the housing crisis for them.  

but the essential problem is that the tory government have, in the past few decades, mercilessly shanked the social housing sector forcing costs that should be paid for through rent rises and thus housing benefit (or its equivalent) onto social housing bodies themselves and thus  forcing them to cut their services and their home building programmes. 

broadly any social housing provider with any sense would probably wish to get out of providing social housing and instead move into building properties for sale alibied by the minimum amount of 'affordable housing' (and this, indeed, is many HAs real strategy). 

now the lecture said none of this. (or certainly not as baldly as horsemouth states it). the assembled great and good inside housing looked forward to the opportunity but wanted more financial certainty. there was other stuff they would like to see, much clearer lines of finance for development for example. 

so will they get it? 

it takes time to build. the amount of housing needed to be built to take us back to where we need to be is vast. at the end of a decade of building at their current targets they will have begun to make a difference. 

but horsemouth doubts they can meet their targets because things are too fucked.  

take home message? things are going to stay fucked. 

later a meeting of the communal endeavour (over the magic of zoom). 

the majority of it is same old same old. but the decarbonisation stuff is starting to happen. now the main meeting for this will be september the 16th. and the reports into decarbonising the properties are delayed.

so, er, actually it's not starting to happen.  or at least not as soon as horsemouth would like it. 

now because no government money from the social housing decarbonisation fund is being used gas boiler upgrades can be used to bump some properties up to the EPC C performance standard. and in these cases job done. tick. target achieved. government happy (so far). 

based on the government estimates (these are based on a fabric first/ insulation first strategy) the communal endeavour has about half the money it needs get the properties up to an EPC C standard. in some ways the question is really what is the best way to spend the money - to warm up the most members first, or to warm up the coldest house first. 

but all this doesn't really decarbonise the house because fossil fuels are still being burned to heat it (they are just being burned a bit more efficiently). 

similarly with insulation. 

the point (for horsemouth) about adding the insulation is it makes adding an air source heat pump possible (and thus fully decarbonising the property). 

a note here. solar panels and batteries can drastically reduce electricity use and judicious use of various tariffs can drastically reduce electricity bills but the majority of your bill is the cost of heating the property (and that heating is usually done with gas).

if the co-op goes the boiler renewal route we are effectively putting back fitting air source heat pumps until after 2035 in those properties. 

this may actually be a realistic timetable (in terms of the amount of money the co-op has in the reserves or has coming in)  but horsemouth is disappointed not to be able decarbonise earlier - the earlier humanity does it the less of us are going to burn because the less C02 we are going to put in the atmosphere. 

horsemouth just wants to come up with a strategy where they are doing the right thing with the resources they have and then he wants to succeed in persuading the people in each house that it's the best plan and er... so on. 

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

so horsemouth wrote last night. of course the disadvantage of writing the blogpost the night before is you don't have the pleasure of writing it the morning after. here a grey day perhaps a visit to town to do some book shopping. 

'biography as autobiography' (a fine day)

another entirely written in the morning blogpost 

‘there is always something left over, something that doesn’t add up' - thomas heise

'he used dashes, commas, semi-colons, colons and full stops almost indiscriminately...' - david souden on the punctuation of the honourable john byng. 

this evening a zoom meeting for the communal endeavour. mid-day-ish a zoom meeting with inside housing  on the likely outcome (for housing) of a new labour government (that being a labour government that is new rather than government by new labour). 

this evening an orchestral version of the works of nick drake. 

thursday evening more industrial ambient dub techno whatever to be had from dave webb/ webb dave / wave debb. horsemouth will be out bell-ringing (probably) so will have to listen to it later. 

horsemouth was looking at a list of books he bought ten years ago. 

he could certainly do now with a bluffer's guide to hannah arendt (the portable hannah arendt), the norton critical edition of alice in wonderland he still probably has, enemies of promise (cyril connolly) he still has, the david hendry noise- a human history of sound and listening he does not remember seeing. it's the kind of book he would buy (a book to help with an earlier project) and just file away in the hope that one day he would return to it. 

hannah (like thomas heise later) is engaged on some kind of diagnosis of german society (at least in her first work rahel varnhagen sometimes described as 'biography as autobiography'). from there horsemouth journeyed on to a discussion of hannah arendt's own archives. there's a chance he's just shoved the book in a corner (he has a specific corner in mind).  

here, with the books he has, horsemouth has mostly been reading anna pavord's landskipping: painters, ploughmen and places, and, inspired by a reference in it  to byng's 16th june 1781 visit to tintern abbey, byng's tours: the journals of the hon. john byng 1781-1792 edited by david souden.

horsemouth: a retrospection (this being a certified head-nodder)

an entirely written in the morning blogpost (excepting the title - the title horsemouth found last night in sir arthur conan doyle's the hound of the baskervilles, well, the 'a retrospection' part).

horsemouth has been reading some sherlock holmes. the adventure of the boscombe valley mystery is believed to be set in 1889 or 1890. it is one of 12 sherlock holmes short stories in the adventures of sherlock holmes, it is set near ross-on-wye (and hereford gets a mention). the gazetteer identifies some likely sites. 

it's a greyish morning but not cold. 

today is the anniversary (52nd anniversary) of alice coltrane live in berkeley an amazing recording.

it was the anniversary of the release of super session yesterday. horsemouth once sampled the guitars and the break from the start of season of the witch - it ended up on a friend's tune in the days when the rules around sampling (and the ability of record companies to detect sampling) was much more lax. it's an almost perfect breakbeat for that era, funky and relaxed with a nice firm 'one', a certified head-nodder. 

when the 'free for all' era of sampling was over horsemouth became much less interested in the music (and the music became much less interesting). a colourful sampledelica was replaced with a penitential and copyright compliant lent. 

and then music production changed again. 

but it is the changes in the consumption of music (unlimited free streaming) that have most profoundly changed the music and the way we listen to it. in the attali scheme of things we are out of the era of repetition  and into an era of composition where everyone is involved in an improvisation of music. look at reaction videos - the presenters are being paid (via a share of the advertising revenue) to listen to the songs viewers recommend, the listening to of music has been commodified and become a spectator sport (nearly).

'the monstrosity of human ego..'

antibes,  july 21, 1968. pharoah sanders: tenor sax, lonnie liston smith: piano, norris "sirone" jones: bass, najeed shabazz: drums, nathaniel bettis: congas. (sorry horsemouth missed out posting this yesterday). 

yesterday was a very pleasant day. horsemouth got out for a wander down by the abbey (and back). from here on in decent(ish) weather until thursday.

late afternoon a zoom call with howard. howard did something with bells once but the zoom call ran out before they could get to discuss it. horsemouth has asked for a letter on the topic. 

biden is not contesting the election (the donors have spoken) but horsemouth thinks trump will now win it whoever the democrats run. 

'the monstrosity of human ego..' remarks sean o'hagan at the republican national congress. trump has been told to stay on script and sound presidential but he can't help himself and veers off into trump rally crazy territory. 

'this constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. a people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong... with such a people, you can do whatever you want.'

horsemouth encourages the reading of hannah arendt's the origins of totalitarianism because he thinks that is what is going on. he encourages the reading of carl schmitt also because it is the intellectual justification of what the powerful are up to in defence of their wealth.

schmitt is the theorist of the limits of liberal democracy and precisely the moment when the state's authority is broken down (weimar germany) and needs to be refounded (er. nazi germany - that went well). but schmitt is also the theorist of the re-foundation of west german state authority after nazism in the federal republic. trump has (probably) not heard of schmitt so it is worrying that vance and his backers have. vance himself may turn out to be a liability, or an irrelevance soon forgotten but if the rich men behind trump are reading schmitt approvingly that is seriously bad news.

on the other hand j.d. vance quoting schmitt may be just j.d. vance being a show-off and twitching aside the curtain. there are broader questions about the stability of liberal democracies but there's no  ideology to the super-rich owning the politicians (they are just acting in defence of their wealth). 

it is a rainy grey day (yesterday by the time you read this).

 it is a rainy grey day (yesterday by the time you read this). 

horsemouth continues his experiments with narrative time and 'real' time.

he has two books he could be reading.

- landskipping: painters, ploughmen and places by anna pavord. she grew up near the sugarloaf near abergavenny. 

or,

- a scandal in bohemia, from sherlock holmes's greatest cases. (the action takes place on the 20th of march 1888 allegedly. it is strangely not a case of detection, holmes is organising the theft of a compromising picture from an opera singer). ok he's read that one and is on to a case of identity. 

the discovery of both of these are products of moving the books around. 

horsemouth is quite entertained by the estate agent's video for the house on the common. he played it to his mum while they had their saturday afternoon beer. they discussed what it would take to get the house up to scratch. 

today (as will be) the weather looks better (but cooler). 

indeed it is a sunny but cooler morning. horsemouth has his coffee. 

horsemouth, of late, has been watching lots of reaction videos - where people claim to be listening to a piece of music for the first time (often watching the youtube video for the first time) and you get to watch their reaction, listen to their thoughts. the model is not the radio show (where they are recommending and playing you the music) but  one where you get to watch them listen to music you have recommended.

you often get duos (best mates, couples) so they can have a chat about it and one can be typecast in  one position, another in another. it is, like karaoke, guitar hero, covers bands, a way of inserting yourself into the musical process other than by listening to music for yourself or playing it yourself. this is (of course) very attali. 

today a walk horsemouth thinks. 

utopier & visioner

 

horsemouth is having a listen to the somewhat hazy organic music society of don cherry (and various other collaborators). yesterday  was a hot and sticky day and horsemouth was not inspired to do very much. a friend noted that the 'music matches the weather beautifully'. 

view of archival materials in the exhibition  'organic music societies: don and moki cherry.'

things are more complicated than horsemouth imagined. 

what he did do (yesterday and the day before) is move the bookshelf out of his room and down into the conservatory (and populate it with most of the books that were formerly in it and on it - but not all of them). he moved the hi-fi and the log baskets out to do that. he has wanted to do this for a while. 

he has knackered one of his rucksack's straps doing this. 

he's not sure what to do with the remainder of the books from on top of the bookcase that can now no longer go there. he's tempted to get his mum to sort out some books to keep and some books to go. 

he is skipping the 10pm news to write this. 

he's waiting for the day four roundup from the republican national congress (he pities the poor journos stuck there with trump crazies for company. 

ultimately horsemouth would like to move more of his book collection back. 

having finished anna neima's the utopians  he is looking for the next thing to read. (curiously, being surrounded by books, he feels uninspired). 

horsemouth is up, he has his coffee, it's a greyish cool morning. the garden is a riot of growth (most of it weeds).  

the role of occupant behaviour in retrofit success

it is yesterday. horsemouth has his cup of tea. it is warm outside. he aims to take notes here on a lecture on the role of occupant behaviour in retrofit success.

'the cheapest energy is the one that is not consumed'

efficient energy design of the building, then the efficient energy devices. but first the efficient energy design of the building, a fabric first approach.

we need to be aware of potential unintended consequences. we need to think about real houses lived in by real people. there is plenty of simulation research but not many case studies of already existing houses. we need robust solutions that are scalable and cost effective. we focus on what is quantifiable and measurable but really we should focus on what the people say. 

people need more information, better commissioning and more control. hand over is important. by the second winter people improved their energy usage as they got more used to tech.. 

fabric measures are straightforward but changing heating systems is big. never underestimate the amount of support that people will need.

later that evening horsemouth went bell ringing. he is pulling the tail at the minute with the person instructing him pulling the 'sally'. he's just trying to keep it in 'time' at the moment - he was sent to the tenor bell that in many of the ringing patterns just rings in the 6th position - it does not move 'up' or 'down' the order (it does no 'work' in bell ringing parlance). there was another person there who had just started. it's only horsemouth's second visit. 

he should be mainly focusing on getting a nice even pull. 

and after the bell-ringing? the pub. the angel in grosmont he believes  (over in welsh wales as his guide put it). this seemed lively. the village  has a church and a market hall and behind that a pub that seemed to be very lively. there were musical instruments all over the walls and in the far corner some people were meeting to sing folk songs by the sound of it (wild rover etc.).this morning horsemouth doesn't feel so bad, he managed to get in some water and some paracetamol. he took care to drink more carefully than last time. 

in a few minutes horsemouth will finish off his coffee and wander down to open up the abbey. 

'at this point all cards are on the table'

'at this point all cards are on the table' - the sage of texas

it is 50 years of bridge of sighs. horsemouth has been watching loads of reaction videos to bridge of sighs by robin trower (both the album version and the old grey whistle test live version). people dig the guitar sound and the riff, then they dig dewar's singing. pink floyd come up as a comparison often.

while the guitar sound is pure hendrix (a comparison people seldom make for some reason) the tempo is funereal - and this is what makes it sound doomy and modern. it could be black sabbath in some ways. robin trower just digs into the riff and sits there. 

this is a written in the morning blogspot. 

horsemouth is puzzling over the trump assassination attempt. he is rapidly coming round to the conclusion that the only thing to do is go full conspiraloon on it - trump (and the trump supporters) were shot by the secret service while they were shooting at the alleged shooter (who had only gone to the event with his gun to protect trump as was his constitutional right).  the FBI, the CIA, the clintons, the cubans and the maff were all in on it but the golden horde (who had been flown in to a nearby airforce base on a c-5a galaxy earlier) were not needed to mop up afterwards. 

andrew marr made the argument horsemouth made - that trump/ hitler/ all the despots are the product of social forces and thus assassinating them early doors will not give you peace. as soon as he heard it uttered by another horsemouth found it less convincing. 

it's a beautiful morning out in the wild. this evening horsemouth goes to bell-ringing class but first he must go and unlock the abbey. he has some time to finish writing this before he goes. 

the music? - the woman from harrga (and triple negative)

the fix is in boys, the fix is in (the heavens of 'public opinion' move)

'the thing that I kept thinking about liberalism in 2019 and 2020 is that these guys have all read carl schmitt—there's no law, there's just power.' 

j.d. vance, soon-to-be president trump's running mate, in  jennifer szalai,'s the nazi jurist who haunts our broken politics,  new york times, july 13, 2024.

horsemouth is watching the heavens of 'public opinion' move. this is (of course) not the confused sea of voices that is the real opinion of the public but an averaged and cleaned up unitary voice.

so what does this voice say? 

trump showed 'courage under fire', he seems 'genuinely emotional' at his adoption as republican candidate, his tone seems 'presidential', even biden cannot fail to refer to him as 'the president'. there are voters who see him as god's anointed. 

why even bother having an election, the media has decided. with a neat switch he has become the unity candidate who can bring america back 'together'. 

of course trump could still lose it and return to his previous status by returning to the attack but then he has people to do the attacking for him. his new vice president elect vance for example. 

biden is on the back foot, his mental acuity doubted, his words examined, 'the bullseye should be on trump' mr. president, isn't that unnecessarily violent?   

the fix is in boys, the fix is in. 

horsemouth remembers a similar switch with obama. where he went from 'could never get elected with that name' to saviour of the nation in a few short weeks. 

vance is an interesting character - an american politician citing the nazi jurist carl schmitt -  a personal friend of curtis yarvin, who writes neo-reactionary toss under the pen name of mencius moldbug, someone with ties to silicon valley libertarian venture capitalist peter thiel and all that money. 

it truly is a nightmare. 

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

horsemouth has come to the last of the six utopias discussed by anna neima in her book the utopians - aldous huxley and gerald heard's trabuco college. the shortest lived (perhaps) but also the transitional one from inter-war utopia to post war counter-culture, the set up for the hippie commune. 

the marinus van der lubbe reichstag fire photo

so we have it 

the marinus van der lubbe reichstag fire photo

bluesky - check

american flag - check

blood - check

clenched fist - check

heroic composition -check (iwo jima flag photo) look at those diagonals!

that about wraps it up for biden or whoever the democrats choose to run. from here on in it is trump's to lose. 

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

horsemouth has headed to the hills early in any event. 

and he's up earlyish too. (this is a  'mostly written in the morning blogpost', or at least horsemouth hopes it will be).  the internet is crawling in (it's like the days of dial up modems). he's already taken the milk over to the fridge in the garage. 

horsemouth can't believe that the assassination attempt was anything other than real - it's at the limit of the range of the gun for example, the would-be assassin was seen. 

it is important to understand that trump is just the vehicle for the profound dissatisfaction of many americans for the economic and political situation they find themselves in. nonetheless it has its character because of his character. if he had been shot and killed there would have been rage but it would also have taken time to find a new vehicle but in the end the eventual  republican candidate would probably have been some other scenery chewer. 

and meanwhile in france the will of the people to have marine le pen's party in political power has been frustrated by a popular front of the left with the macronists. the left now become the people who kept macron in.

'the arrival in power of the far-right has only been delayed...' -  secretary general of the CGT sophie binet.  benjamin noted of the last of the last french popular front that there was no real content to it, there was no actual connection with the workers (and here we are again). 

just as here the labour majority (2/3rds of the seats in parliament) is based on 1/3rd of the votes (from the 69% of the registered electorate who actually voted). it is not exactly a crushing mandate even for a labour party that campaigned on a 'we will be competent (but no different)' ticket.  

as horsemouth has remarked, he has headed for the hills already. 

the end of all songs

'one can and does believe that one will escape from living in circles.'  - katherine mansfield who spent part of the last year of her life at gurdjieff's commune. 

horsemouth has been reading anna neima's the utopians: six attempts to build the perfect society, one of them is  gurdjieff's commune at fontainebleau in france.

another one of his visitors there, and a subsequent founder of a utopian commune back in the united states was the poet and author jean toomer (whose writing was an inspiration for much of marion brown's georgia trilogy). he founded a short-lived commune at  bonnie oaks near briggsville, wisconsin (near the town of portage) together with his later wife, the author margery latimer. this commune is largely missing from his wikipedia entry but can be found in hers. 

the aim of this commune (in toomer's words) was;

'to eradicate the false veneer of civilization, with its unnatural inhibition, its selfishness, petty meanness and unnatural behaviour.... adults can be re-educated to become as natural as little children....'

he also held some unfashionable ideas about the role of men and women in this set up.

frank lloyd-wright and his wife olgivanna (who had nursed katherine mansfield when she was at the gurdjieff commune) founded an architectural school called the taliesin fellowship inspired by gurdjieff's teachings. 

'I do not want you to have the idea that taliesin is a school, or a community. it happens to be our home and where we work, and these young people are my comrade apprentices: no scholars. they come to help, and if they can learn-well, we are very happy...' - frank lloyd-wright to RIBA in 1939. 

its surviving members run an architecture school in paradise valley arizona. 

it is nice to see the decadents get an outing (after the aubrey beardsley documentary). ernest dowson the decadent poet who drank himself to death gets an outing because michael moorcock lifted his poem the end of all songs as the title piece for moorcock's novel the end of all songs. and so, by curious process, buck dharma of the blue oyster cult ends up picking up those lyrics and using them for a song (they often used other people's lyrics - patti smith, helen wheels, sandy pearlman, murray krugman, richard meltzer, harry farcas, don waller(?), jim carroll, ian hunter, michael moorcock himself).  

in a bit horsemouth goes to unlock the abbey. after that breakfast. it is a cool grey morning. after that a phonecall (horsemouth suspects there is bad news). 

the electorate are berated for not being interested in the democratic process

 a 'totally written in the morning' blogpost. outside it is a beautifully sunny morning (that won't last).

'we are now required to provide photo ID in order to vote... a candidate does not actually have to  produce photo ID in order to stand...' -  professor tim wilson.

such are the anomalies that accidentally happen when ideas are implemented in a hurry (no blame). 

something like 400,000 people may have been denied their legitimate right to vote in the last election by the requirement to show photo ID.  

'ethnic minorities were disproportionately affected, and were twice as likely to be turned away than white people.' - more in common.

unsurprisingly fewer people voted in this election than in previous elections (and the electorate are berated for not being interested in the democratic process). 

voter suppression on grounds of race is alive and well (we will see if labour have the courage to remove it). 

beyond those on the electoral register who did not vote there are the millions not registered to vote, those denied their vote as a result of brexit and immigration changes,  those unable to physically get out and vote. those marginalised from politics by the unwillingness of political authorities make election materials available in the language they use (horsemouth is thinking of the sign-language deaf community here but  it apples to many other linguistic minorities), prisoners in jail etc. 

and then (of course) there is the extent to which the votes themselves under the first passed the post process do not produce parliamentary seats in the proportion for which the people voted for the parties (as measured by the gallagher index). 

above all there is the extent to which the levers of power are not actually present in parliament but elsewhere. 

anyway the election is over - those of us that were allowed to drop our 'X' we can now go back to political sleep while our betters get on with running the country. 

horsemouth is still reading anna neima's the utopians - currently they are with gurdjieff and his institute for the harmonious development of man. democracy is less of a problem here (gurdjieff is an old style guru). 

horsemouth listened to wadada leo smith (trumpet) and amina claudine myers (piano)'s central park's mosaics of reservoir, lake, paths and gardens (recorded: november 8 & 9, 2021 sear sound, new york) and the  popul vuh piece shown above. 

last night fireworks over the military base (or perhaps beyond).

horsemouth likes talking (he'll talk to anyone). horsemouth likes writing (similarly). 

today (when you read this)

'nurturing the self, respecting individuality, loving beauty and seeking peace' - kobayashi tatsue, on his deathbed aged 104 remembering his few months at the atarashiki mura (new village) commune. 

horsemouth walked into the nearby village to buy a loaf of bread etc. (two miles there and two miles back)

he walked back chatting with the guy with the two dogs. the guy with the two dogs was off to take a look at the house on the common that is up for auction. they sat on the bench and rattled some more. and then horsemouth made his way off to his mum's. 

his mum has had the chicken shed re-roofed so there was the waste from that to add to the (prospective) bonfire. this involved unblocking a gate and carting off a rounded girder. (he hopes the chickens are properly appreciative). 

it's the morning. horsemouth has been out to water in the greenhouse (the great smell of tomato plants when they are watered).  horsemouth has some leeks and some pepper plants he should put in. other than that he hasn't done any flowers (with any great success) this year. he should get out and get the gooseberries in (before the birds finish them all off), similarly the strawberries are being battered by the squirrels. 

today (when you read this) his mum will be off to the local garage/ filling station to pick up the newspaper with the tv guide (the torygraph) and the herefordshire times. 

horsemouth shows you one of howard's golden glows - he does hope you enjoy it. 

here the strange sensation that maybe the permacrisis is over but that nothing has been fixed. 

into the mill-pond with it

 oh dear. yesterday horsemouth had a meltdown. 

the dental practice where his mum goes has closed down. the new lot have taken over and they have sent out an invitation letter but someone has incorrectly sized it and the phone number has been cut off.

an article on one of the local websites claims the number is still the same (but that number does not work - it goes straight to voicemail, or rather it would if the voicemail wasn't full). horsemouth has seen the new signage for the practice (in the self-same article) - this claims the number is the old number too.

the nhs dentists website still gives the old dental practice details. 

horsemouth tried phoning around and emailing around and looking things up on facebook (that font of knowledge) but no joy. 

horsemouth pronounces a fuck it on the whole enterprise. it will come right or it won't. 

'she had a job as an allocator (she wouldn't give us a little piece of paper)' sang the co-creators once upon a time (with a mounting sense of frustration). that's if horsemouth had heard them correctly.

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

(ok he's calmed down. he's back to his usual 'happy go lucky' self.)

minty has 'gifted' horsemouth some old copies of the wire. in the october 2023 copy, in the boomerang  section a review of the reissue of john fahey's proofs &  refutations where he took up throat singing, apparently his throat singing on red cross, disciple of christ today was mixed out of the final record but some of it did make it onto the mill pond double 7".  

fahey does a good job (in a strange way he sounds like robbie basho even when he's howling like a wolf). 

also in the october issue al karpenter get an interview and discuss triple negative ('london's more-obliterated-than-deconstructed urban folk unit' as the wire describe them).  in the november issue a primer on jazz and poetry. in december a review of a barbara dane movie. 

it's a grey morning. ah well it saves horsemouth from having to water the garden. at some point the plan is for him to walk into the nearby village to buy a loaf of bread etc.  er. and walk back. next week it is horsemouth and his mum's turn on the abbey rota - going down in the morning to unlock it, going down late afternoon to lock it back up. 

he's been reading the utopians. they are with mushanokoji and his attempts to found a utopian commune;

'in 1918, mushanokōji took the next step in the development of his philosophy by moving to the mountains of kijō, miyazaki in kyūshū, and establishing a quasi-socialistic utopian commune, atarashiki-mura (new village) along vaguely tolstoyan lines... the commune also published its own literary magazine, atarashiki-mura... however, mushanokōji tired of the social experiment and left the village in 1926; a dam project forced it to relocate to saitama prefecture in 1939, where it still exists.'

horsemouth's golden notebook (start as you mean to go on)

'this election was bent....' - mark francois, former minister and chair of the european research group (who was unable to vote in the election for the new chair of the 1922 committee.)

oh you beauties!

first day back and it looks like the tories have already fucked up the election of the person responsible for overseeing the election of the new conservative party leader (and thus the person most able to stop the party activists having a big/ any say in it). 

only 61 out of the 121 conservative MPs got to vote. (the rest were given the wrong time or perhaps weren't bothered). horsemouth would point out that there's not that many of them left - only two of the previous 1922 committee for example - so it should have been a lot easier to get around everybody. 

there is a certain irony if tory mps have been victims of er. voter suppression. 

start as you mean to go on says horsemouth. 

horsemouth is attempting to refuel, once he's refuelled normal service will be resumed. 

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

it's the morning. and what a beautiful sunny morning it is. horsemouth has just been out to water the garden (but it had rained overnight). instead he moved a bag of corn into the shed - carefully, he's not interested in putting his back out. the runner beans and the peas seem to be on their way. the spinach and the cabbages are good. he can see that the beetroot and the carrots will come. it's all looking pretty good (but not as good as it used to look when his dad did it).

so the 25th housing minister in 25 years (matthew pennycook - who?). the overall responsibility with the (doubtless very busy) angela rayner. ed milliband (gromit) at the department of energy security and net zero. starmer and streeting (beavis and butthead) in the top jobs further privatising the NHS (that'll work look at the water industry). 

a plan to decarbonise all houses

phew. so no news. well there is news. (is there?)

it was about 2 years ago horsemouth was getting the EPC rating for his house (it was a D with a score of 65). a whole consortium sized thing was about to take off (but then it didn't). now finally it looks like the communal endeavour may have, by the end of the month, a plan  to decarbonise all its houses.

they may not have all the money but they will have a plan. and once they have a plan the haggling can commence. 

two years ago horsemouth was having discussions about decarbonisation and fuel poverty and insulating housing while the temperature outside lifted up to nearly 40C.   

but this isn't the news horsemouth was thinking of.

three years ago (the end of this month) horsemouth was getting the goodbye email from his boss (one of the better ones) and, the day before, the goodbye email from the office (bye bye gosia, bye bye lucy too).

since then he has lived on his redundancy cheque, a small works pension (beer money essentially), and advance on that pension (that made it smaller and, crucially, increase more slowly, probably a bad move), the interest on his savings and, in the final analysis, his savings themselves.  ah well and yet he lives. 

this month analogous to january (a monday the 1st) and to april too. 

ok maybe there isn't any news. 

he went for a quick walk on the common (and saw a deer - he thinks). he also fell over in the mud (not so clever). 

today (as is coming up) - the journey of the eggs and then the taking the bin down the drive. perhaps a walk into the village and back. horsemouth will plant out more of the runner beans (and possibly do some weeding and hoeing and watering  - tomorrow is allegedly a grey day but with no rain). 

it's a beautiful morning here but horsemouth has to make a phonecall (and he won't be happy until he has done it). he's in the little moment of sun before the sky turns grey. 

next week horsemouth and his mum are on the abbey rota.  

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

ok he's done his phonecall. (this means another phonecall). but now it means he can return to worrying about other things. 

he worked some of his way through the gallagher index calculation for the unrepresentativeness of parliamentary elections. it's a funny beastie. now because the difference in the % of people voting for a party and the % of eventual seats in the parliament is squared parties that get a small percentage of the vote and few seats have very little impact on the eventual score. plaid, snp, dup, the lib-dems are almost perfectly represented their % of the vote translated almost perfectly into their % of seats. 

but that is not the case with the other parties.

reform (for instance) got 0.77% of the seats in parliament but 14.3% of the vote, their under-representation is 13.53, this squared is 182 but this is much less than the  29.5% over-representation of labour (which squared is getting on for a whopping 900). similarly with the under-representation of the greens (6,18% so squared about 37) and (whisper it) the tories (5.1% so squared about 26). 

thus the major cause of the high gallagher index score is the over-representation of labour, the under representation of  reform, the greens and the conservatives has a considerably smaller effect on the figure. 

in an idealised two (major) party system the maximum gallagher index score would seem to be about 50 but should be much smaller

'playing music... reading books... going on long pointless walks....' (the waiting rooms of shrub hill)

'back on april 19th (2018)  horsemouth imagined his post-work existence; 'playing music and reading books and going on long pointless walks....'  what of this list has he failed to achieve?'

this is basically horsemouth's strategy whether he is in the city or the countryside.

and he is back in the countryside.

but first a journey to hereford on the evesham route (rather than the 'change at newport' route). this horsemouth did because it's cheaper (£72-60 rather than £96 odd pounds open return) and also because it gets him into hereford where he is more confident of the buses (what the times are and that they will actually run - but to be honest it's the same bus). this time he even managed to get the bus up the golden valley from pontrilas (well as far as abbeydore anyway). 

there may be an even cheaper way - up to birmingham new street (on the slow train) and then down to hereford. 

soon enough horsemouth will be on the over 60ies senior railcard (one third off - probably a physical railcard - one year £30, three years £70, these will pay for themselves within a few journeys) but until then needs must).

at worcester shrub hill there were beautiful grade II listed waiting rooms. the exterior is decorated with  majolica ceramic tiles made by maw and company of broseley.

sadly horsemouth didn't have enough time to visit them because they were over on the other platform. 

instead he had to take a three minute train to worcester foregate street to catch the train to hereford. had he taken the next train out from paddington it would have been a single journey - but then he would have missed the waiting rooms of shrub hill. but this would have saved him some time hanging around for the bus in hereford. 

a walk into town to look for books (horsemouth was still spoiled by the book-boxes of london and so was unable to put his hand in his pocket) 

followed by a sneaky pint in hogarths (the pub itself suffering from a hangover after the football). 

tuesday (as it now is) a long pointless walk (weather rainy in the morning, grey in the afternoon). the garden needs weeding but still horsemouth is pleased to see that stuff is actually growing (that's the main thing). he has taken the milk over to the fridge in the garage. 

he has put a summery mix from howard from this day in 2018 at the top of the page. he hasn't got the guitar out yet. there are probably things to say comparing the elections in france with those we've just had (in terms of keeping right wing candidates out of office) but probably not today. 

 

least representative election ever!

it's sunday afternoon when he types this. he plans to be off into the wilds monday morning. 

horsemouth has missed his opportunity to go for a wander up the park while the sun shone. he did get out for a book-box wander this morning (nothing nothing nothing). (and later he did get in a wander over the marshes). 

he has listened to the news. (oh look now it is actually raining).

he is pondering the election results more 

but not to the extent of calculating the gallagher index for it himself  you understand.  

the gallagher index is  a measure of how unrepresentative elections are.  it compares the percentage of seats a party received with the percentage of the voters voting for it, i.e. how well expressed the wishes of the electorate at the ballot box are expressed in the parliament. it counts over-representation and under-representation as the same thing. 

ok the gallagher index is in for the 2024 election. it is 23.67. this is a high figure and so we are  in the top five in the world for unrepresentativeness of recent elections. it is large even for uk parliamentary elections. 

in fact (by this measure) it is the most unrepresentative uk election result in 79 years. 

election year     gallagher index

1945                 11.62 

1950                 6.91 

1951                 2.61 

1955                 4.13 

1959                 7.30 

1964                 8.88 

1966                 8.44 

1970                 6.59 

1974 feb             15.47 

1974 oct             14.96

1979                 11.58

1983                 17.45

1987                 14.95

1992                 13.55 

1997                 16.51 

2001                 17.76 

2005                 16.73 

2010                 15.13 

2015                 15.02 

2017                  6.47 

2019                 11.80 

2024                23.67

(based on gallagher, michael, 2024. election indices dataset at http://www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/about/people/michael_gallagher/ElSystems/index.php, accessed 07/07/24).

low turnout is the story of the election (though this doesn't affect the gallagher index). .  

the conservatives lost nearly half their voters. reform is the story of the election. their  14.3% of the vote (up from 2%) sunk the tories (but it gave them only five seats) and these two factors together allowed other parties to edge past the tories. 

labour won fewer votes than at the last election, at 9.7 million in 2024 compared to 10.3 million in 2019. nonetheless, labour won 412 seats with this,  an increase of 211 from 2019 (such is the magic of first passed the post). 

the fact that labour was on course for victory (and that it has been thoroughly crap in opposition) emboldened people to vote for parties to the 'left' of it - notably the greens (four seats)  and pro-palestine campaigners  (five seats if you include corbyn). there are an awful lot of labour candidates who survived this by the skin of their teeth (wes streeting survived, jonathan ashworth did not).  

despite this support for reform in the country is much bigger (14.3% of the vote) than support for the greens (6.8% of the vote) or for the liberal democrats (12.2% of the vote). 

next time the conservatives have the choice of uniting with reform or destroying them or inviting them into coalition government (the better to destroy them). the remaining tory MPs are much more of that brexiteer persuasion than their predecessors (even as there are less of them). 

all of this stores up problems for the next election (which we will all have to face in due course). 

horsemouth heads off into the wilds having failed to do many of the things he said he'd do (ah well).  he voted (his main intention) and he saw a few people (but not all the people he wanted to see).  he got in a wander with TG, and a visit to the pub with minty, max and antknee, and two rehearsals with howard. 

fragments of a faith forgotten (the art of harry smith)

fragments of a faith forgotten: the art of harry smith ran at the whitney museum of american art from october 4th 2023 to january 28th 2024. there were three days of events too. sadly horsemouth was on the wrong continent (never mind the wrong city) to go. 

he will have to make do with a few short films he has found online. 

so yesterday horsemouth was out at howard's from about midday on. they sat in the downstairs living room and they played some guitar (the dulcimer stayed upstairs this time but the 8-string ukulele came down).

amárach from volume four got looked at. they both struggled to remember their parts and then resorted to playing through the track a few times to remind them. they also had a look at blindspot (probably not a runner) and fallen snow and they've looked at broadbury down (in horsemouth's guitar powered version) before.  

howard has worked up a version of townes van zandt's waiting around to die and they already have a version of pastures of plenty (woody guthrie/ practically everybody) . horsemouth's version of go your way my love (norfolk traditional usually known from the anne briggs version) did not get looked at but then they looked at it last week. eyepennies (sparklehorse) got played through again and recorded again (sounds decent).

quite a few of howard's got looked at. howard works for two more weeks and then he is free (until he has to go back to work again). he has a plan to record a whole tranche of his unrecorded songs. 

horsemouth thinks if he sits down and puts the effort in himself and howard can put together a good show for their upcoming gig on the 24th. 

and er. after that they went up the pub. the football was on but they managed to hide in the back garden with a pizza - horsemouth had a pint and a half (very sensible) and howard had two. howard had his phone with him so they listened to music - all the good times are passed and gone (mr.fox) and high on a mountain top (loretta lynn) antithetical but similar songs. 

at home horsemouth watched some paris set we anderson thing for a bit (but he found it too annoying).  and so to bed. 

at the sidmouth folk festival (early august 2nd to the 9th) jim causley and miranda sykes start the week with a celebration of sabine baring-gould, pioneering victorian folk song collector and author. 

'fourteen year fever dream'

'those who would endeavour to extirpate evil from the world know little of human nature.'  - boswell's london journals, 6th july 1763.

yesterday a grey day. rain begins (not clearing fully til monday). 

horsemouth is enjoying reading anna neima's the utopians: six attempts to build the perfect society. he has finished the section on rabindranath tagore poet and founder of a utopian community. the film-maker satyajit ray studied at his school (er. as did future prime minister of india indira ghandi). 

horsemouth is on to dartington hall. 

if he gets bored he will swap back to the carlos castaneda. carlos has been flying with silver crows but after a night of terror where he was seemingly attacked by a doppelganger of his teacher don juan he has abandoned his magical apprenticeship. 

'what is it that is coming to a close? this fourteen-year fever dream of failures, absurdities and outbursts of reaction...' so asks william davies in his article in the LRB. 

there is a tendency to view the madness of the last 14 years as originating from the tory party but horsemouth thinks it originates from the people - the post financial crash austerity drove them crazy. the belief is that if the government is sensible and dull that will be enough to save us (horsemouth doesn't think so). 

the election brings a number of questions. horsemouth opposes reform (charitably it is an anti-immigration party that contains some racists). that four million of horsemouth's fellow citizens have voted for it is deeply worrying but their support is about where ukip's support was in 2015. that they have picked up new voters (anecdotal) means they have also lost earlier voters (interesting). 

let us be blunt about this, it is reform's splitting of the right wing vote that has brought down the tories - otherwise the tories could still well have been in power. it is not that the people have chosen labour. 

the first passed the post electoral system is a very strange beast - it gives the appearance of clear decisions by the electorate on the flimsiest of majorities. it does this because of vote splitting. horsemouth is waiting to see the gallagher index for the uk 2024 election. he supposes he could calculate it himself if no one will calculate it for him (now there's a task for a rainy day).  

the labour party have an opportunity to move the dial in british politics by changing the economic conditions under which many millions live. horsemouth thinks they will fail to seize this opportunity and so the madness will continue. 

horsemouth is taking a look at the weather back at his mum's for the next few weeks (where he will soon be). dew it looks awful - certainly for the first week (mostly rain and not too hot) and then the second week (some sun but mostly grey). we are still up on a generous 16 hours of daylight a day. 

in theory a practice with howard today. 

brave new world (how does that t-shirt go?)

liz truss, jacob rees-mogg, alex chalk, gillian keegan, johnny mercer, penny mordaunt, grant shapps

we may never need these names again.

horsemouth is a little hungover and slow this morning. (no he wasn't up until late at night waiting for the portillo moments). 

sadly kemi badenoch, suella braverman, james cleverly, priti patel, robert jenrick, and jeremy hunt (hammer of the nurses) survived. they go into opposition to fight like rats in a bag over the top job.

once again four million or so of horsemouth's fellow citizens voted for nigel farago's racist party (you can't say that people didn't get to see them as they are) this time they got four seats out of it (but then again four seats fell to independents running on pro-palestinian tickets, one of them displacing the odious jonathan ashworth). 

the greens get four seats and win north herefordshire! the tories keep south herefordshire (but only by about 1,300 votes over labour which is interesting in and of itself).

as usual on a morning after drinking horsemouth feels remorseful. he feels he has blabbed and babbled.  he hopes he wasn't too much of a pain in the arse. he can only hope nothing bad comes of his foolishness. 

before he got to the drinking part he went to see the marian choir perform ruth crawford seeger's 3 chants for women's chorus  at the QEH foyer. he walked down (about 6 miles) and he walked back from the pub (about three and a half miles). adding up the distance he walked is making him feel virtuous and is making up for his blabbing and babbling last night. 

isis and osiris day (war on the bullshit)

OK HORSEMOUTH DUNVOTED

today is isis and osiris day - the day (well rather the night) that alice coltrane and her band recorded isis and osiris at the village gate in 1970.

it's the outlier on the album - a track recorded live in concert with jazz bassist vishnu wood playing oud (rather than the tanpura of tulsi sen gupta on the rest of the album) and charlie haden is on bass. 

now isis and osiris (the wife and the husband) - osiris is slain by his evil brother set (god of god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence, and evil foreigners). osiris the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation.  isis resurrects her slain husband osiris, and produces and protects his heir horus. (you can see why alice coltrane may have liked the myth). 

as horsemouth types this the election campaign is over. horsemouth calls war on the bullshit. (hell he just published this and donald banks status quo also). as conservative backbencher charles walker quipped (after the liz truss debacle) 'there is nothing as ex as an ex-MP', but  ex-MPs won't happen without your help.   

horsemouth  went to bed early the better to get up early in the morning and vote (and after this he will have five years to repent). he walked into the sun to the polling station (remembering to take his only piece of photo ID). he walked in behind a little girl and her mother. everybody was pleasant and helpful. he was crossed off the list and given his voting slip. he went to booth put in an X on the card and popped it in the box as directed. job done he thanked the poll workers and headed off down the street passed the people coming to vote (clutching their passports). 

horsemouth is feeling all virtuous and civic minded. 

the night of 4th july 1963 carlos castaneda is allegedly with don juan and having a flying on jimpson weed (datura) experience. he wakes up naked in a field near the datura plant. don juan comes and finds him (bringing his clothes). horsemouth suspects many people's nights will be like this. 

tonight horsemouth may be going out to see minty in the evening. he may try to get into town to see a free classical music thing at the QEH 7pm (ruth crawford seeger - stepmom to pete seeger but before that avant-garde composer).  he will let you know how that goes. 

yesterday he went to the oxfam walthamstow (about 5 miles all told). he's up the utopians: six attempts to build the perfect society by anna neima (a.n.other charity shop - one squid). 

'my notes on my first session with don juan are dated 23rd june 1961. that was the occasion when the teachings began...'

'this book is both ethnography and allegory' - walter goldschmidt, foreword to the teachings of don juan: a yaqui way of knowledge by carlos castaneda. 

'during these early conversations I took notes in a covert manner. later, relying on my memory, I reconstructed the entire conversation. when I began to participate as an apprentice, however, that method of taking notes became very difficult... don juan allowed me - under strong protest, however - to record openly anything that was said. I would have liked to take photographs and make tape recordings, but he would not permit me to do so.' - carlos castaneda, introduction to teachings..., op cit. 

'... castaneda's work was accepted as factual by many when the books were first published, the training he described is now generally considered to be fictional.' - carlos castaneda wikipedia entry. 

horsemouth has started re-reading the teachings of don juan and is finding it vastly enjoyable. he would have first read it when he was 14 or so. he took it to be factual. he has since read richard de mille's writing on castaneda (which contends that it is fiction). 

how does it start? with an undated ('summer of 1960') and unlocated ('in a border town') first meeting with don juan, then a discussion of the term diablero, then a shaggy dog story (undated) - ok well, in fact, a giant coyote story (that might be a  diablero - a witch or wizard in animal form). 

the book is a joy to read and 'carlos' (the central character who is supposed to be the author) is an engagingly stupid apprentice. later, when he reads de mille, horsemouth will become impressed by what a fluid and efficient liar castaneda is, how well he writes, how beautiful is his collaging of academic texts, and how comedic his parodying of academic style is. 

of course fahey has been here before. in his thesis on charlie patton. 

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did horsemouth have a day without spending money?

he did not. he thought that might be a good idea and then realised he would have to cook some starch because there was no bread in the house. then he realised he would need some margarine for the bread. at the shop he became tempted by a cheese and onion pasty. by now we are up at £4.49. 

hopefully he will manage to avoid further expenditure.

it is the birthday of franz kafka today.  the kafkaesque will come later. it is one of the keywords of the 20ieth century (together with catch 22).  

horsemouth is reminded he should add rashied ali (born july 1st) to his jazz musicians who adopted islam list. 

horsemouth is hanging around to vote. last night he cooked something vaguely curryish - tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, onions, peas, rice. he still has plenty of rice left over (that will be today's meal). 

'I hear you are giving up all your bad company (but I beg I may not be included in their number)'

ok horsemouth is back from an exceptionally stinky wander down the greenway (aka. sewerbank prior to 1990) with TG.

the walk - the homestead to becton alps, roughly 6.1 miles, two and a quarter hours (possibly a little longer because they got lost trying to find the entrance to it in fish island, the continuance round pudding mill lane, and stopped for a tea at one point.

in the foothills of the becton alps horsemouth pleaded tiredness rather than ascend it and they got the bus back to stratford and were thence off about their separate businesses on the overground. 

the title quote (repunctuated) from lord eglinton to boswell on this day in 1763. 

as they walked along they talked. there was a discussion about jazz musicians who adopted islam; 

the list he would probably give (off the top of his head) would be; 

• yusef lateef, (born william emanuel huddleston) multi-instrumentalist, composer, and a prominent figure among the ahmadiyya community. 
• art blakey also known as abdullah ibn buhaina after he converted to islam for a short time in the late 1940s.
• ok maybe not pharoah sanders (he may not have fully converted but he was certainly mining the concepts tauhid etc.).
• ahmad jamal - born to baptist parents, jamal became interested in islam and islamic culture in detroit, where there was a sizeable muslim community in the 1940s and 1950s. 

of course there are loads more. 

in the folk music world  there were various sufis - richard and linda thompson, cat stevens (yusuf islam), in the rock world pete townsend,  and, in the american primitive guitar world, robbie basho.

horsemouth usually goes on about alice coltrane who became a hindu, carlos santana and john mclaughlin, but there was a period where john fahey was showing an interest.

er. and then there are the scientologists... (incredible string band, chick corea etc.)

horsemouth remembers the nicky skopelitis album from the time. it was the kind of thing he was very into - kind of worldy but rocky too. horsemouth has a big block of these CDs recorded on axiom (hail bill laswell) kind of in the island livery. he's hearing parallels with can in the arrangement (and no it's not just the presence of jaki liebezeit on a few tracks). 

after his walk horsemouth basically slouched round the house enjoying the pleasant sensation of virtuous inactivity. today he has no plans. the election campaign crawls to a close. tomorrow kafka is born. 

exile - (untimely death) - relics

'friday 1st july 1763. mr. johnson, dr. goldsmith and I supped at the mitre. I has curious ideas when I considered that I was sitting with london authors by profession...' - boswell's london diaries 1762-63.

a friend who has left london is wondering where to live. they are nostalgic for the city (as it was) but know that they cannot afford to come back. they cannot afford to live here. but also they cannot afford to live there (in the prosperous south). 

both places have gentrified. but beyond this rents have risen drastically in both places even without gentrification (this has happened in porto, this has happened basically everywhere). 

add to this places in the uk have gone rightwards post ukip/ post brexit/ post boris/ post reform or perhaps this material has just been acknowledged and risen to the surface.

benjamin - kafka parallels discuss. 

exile - (untimely death) - relics. horsemouth is making progress with benjamin's berlin childhood around 1900, essentially a farewell to the city (exile) but also a relic. 

the night before last's beer trophy - aeron bergman and alejandra salinas's telepathy a collection of writings inca press.

'their early works are among the first experiments with folk and laptop electronic music. this is especially noted in... porto: folklore fragments volume 2. the track 'water jota in 1213442' from the former consists almost entirely of water drop sounds, arranged according to the structure of a folk dance; the artists themselves comment on such concepts that the record "considers the past, while not repeating it."' - wikipedia entry. 

in the night we have passed the mid-point of the calendar year. 

wait a minute horsemouth will just turn the calendar over to july. 

wednesday the (re-)birth of kafka.

thursday horsemouth votes (don't forget to take ID). there are some free modern classical music things down at the QEH towards the weekend (horsemouth may well wander down). 

horsemouth is up. he has his coffee (but it's cheap supermarket coffee so it's no great shakes). it is a beautiful morning outside. he's due to be going for a walk with TG. TG wants to attempt some long walk (horsemouth will see how he feels). a fox just passed by within five feet of him, rat running up the front gardens, having an explore. the hazelnut trees in the front garden are growing well shading out horsemouth's flat in summer. it all looks very verdant and cool. 

wait horsemouth is going to check his emails to make sure TG has't cancelled. 

above a discussion of changes in the musical commodity.