in the library sat opposite a dude in an 'I didn't go to work today...' t-shirt

today is hot and sunny (horsemouth is hiding - for a little while - in the library). yesterday was himmel fahrt - the day german men head to the mountains with trolley-loads of beer. horsemouth forgot to mention it.

this is as good a way to celebrate ascension day as horsemouth can think of - other than playing ascension very loud - he played ornette coleman’s free jazz instead (like really, really really free).

instead horsemouth and sten watched a richard curtiss film about time travel and the middle classes (horsemouth and sten are children of this particular institution) and had a bottle of beer each.

time travel (like film) gives you time again (and as such it is haunted by the ghosts of what might have been). this works well because many people are haunted by the ghosts of what might have been too - the job of richard’s film was to reconcile people to this (or at least to propose a way of doing this). the tension is between the singing of the sirens of memory and the possibilities of the present moment (faced with the disruptive possibilities of the present moment many people take refuge in the siren’s (sweetly) singing).

richard has his central character relive life each day (but a little better than he did first time around) - so far so groundhog day. at the heart of this all for richard (of course - in these modern times) is the family.


next there was a film staring orlando bloom as a 20th century humanist born early enough to participate in the crusades - not even liam neeson as his dad could save him (and the presence of jeremy irons in full mission mode didn’t help either). then something strange started to happen - life became itchy and uncomfortable - the dishwasher wasn’t working properly, a bill hadn’t been paid, the room was a little untidy (ok very untidy).

this morning horsemouth and sten discussed the musicians they had known - and measured their potential against their achievement. people prefer the story that they won through with their superior talent (rather than the one where they just got lucky and then knuckled down and just got on with the work).

subsequently (this morning) horsemouth has felt a little siren struck but as he converts it into writing it seems to be clearing. he goes this evening to hide out in the forest and fiddle about on the internet - there is an allotment too (joy of joys).

as usual, when work ends, horsemouth gets a little anxious, then when work begins again, he gets a little grumpy.

the recording angel and the forgotten

just a quick post - bbc weather says it will be sunny this morning (before clouding over) so horsemouth needs to get out the door. he's been reading the jaron lanier (dreadlocked computer scientist and author of 2010's you are not a gadget - barbican library sale 30p) - as lanier notes we fit ourselves to the computers (because we're smart and flexible and they're dumb and inflexible), similarly, as evan eisenberg (the recording angel) or michael channan (repeated takes) or jacques attali (noise)or even theodor adorno would note, we've fitted music to our notation and to our recording devices and to our society and its ideas of production. 

there is, as usual when people struggle to find the elusive quality of consciousness, a musical metaphor. lanier takes against MIDI, he takes against notation as well, pointing out that south american indian flute music was only noted down (and so fitted into the notation system of the conquerors) in as far as it was 'nice tunes', not in response to the sonic  idiosyncrasies of the instruments themselves and their 'non-standard' tunings  (we may add that the social function of the music was not noted down by time-travelling anthropologists/ ethnomusicologists either).

lanier takes against web 2.0 - where we atomise our very selves into their searchable database - and then they aggregate it as if we had no individuality - the data wants to be free - the data doesn't want anything, it is we who want. he favours the earlier more idiosyncratic era of the web, when everybody had a homepage with flashing text and animated gifs etc. and all hand coded. but for horsemouth web 2.0 brought back that easy self-publishing (after dreamweaver and ever more complex html had taken designing web pages out of the hands of the interested amateur). and this aggregation up to a higher level, lanier is suspicious of it, arguing, against the wired enthusiasts, that people don't really know what they mean by that. but in a way, horsemouth supposes, as propaganda, it is a digital hegel, lifting things up and making them more spiritous legitimises the lower (and more messily material) layer. 

just as sound recording broke the immediate connection between sound and action and made it reproducible (putting many live musicians out of a job but also giving them access to their work in a new way) so keeping blogs etc. (or even just writing stuff down) changes our relationship with our thoughts (and makes them reproducible). of course (with the world wide surveillance) the nsa get a look, and the google advertising algorithm  - move along nothing to see here - but then soviet dissidents, gogol,  just about everybody from the earlier age were burning manuscripts when they thought they'd been indiscreet.  

few photos exist from horsemouth the punk years this was because few photos were taken, people didn't want to leave any evidence lying around - now horsemouth is pleased when such photos turn up. there is a campaign to allow people to be forgotten. if horsemouth were to go 'on the lamb' now he'd have to forswear the internet (the pattern of searches would be the same), he'd have to forswear his supermarket, or at least a loyalty card (the pattern of searches would be the same). these days horsemouth is harmless and law abiding  (truth be told he was pretty harmless back in the day - and only marginally less law abiding).

ok bbc weather promised him sun - horsemouth is off out.