lacking in a sense of purpose and direction

great selection and mixing and great album cover design and illustration by dave field. 

last night horsemouth listened to don campau's show 9pm GMT at the KOWS studios a mix of Jazz and world music.  kowsfm.com 1 PM pacific standard time wednesday . it was good (some of pharoah sanders 'prince of peace', dudu pukwana, les filles de illighadad) but it was a short show. 

horsemouth spends a lot of time moaning about having to work. but then there are days when he doesn't have to work (and then he moans about a certain lacking in a sense of purpose and direction).

he has assembled a full moon timetable for the year (with various fanciful names - the first is the wolf moon on the 28th. 

a friend posted the musicians of bremen video for the track turn yr heater on (from off covers) and praised the production (as luminous in fact. thank you). howard posted over some guitar with lyrics lifted from uncle vanya, horsemouth opined it needed work.

monday the 18th is everything is going to be alright day - the 6 month anniversary of the release of the eponymous tune and with more anniversaries coming up in february. 

things to look forward to today? the further decomposition of capitalism, the lrb podcast (maybe). a walk on the common. perhaps actually get on with some reading. 

 

... and tonight horsemouth h. helliwell 'This is your life!'

horsemouth has just posted off a heavily redacted version of his life story. 

he's had breakfast. he's had his coffee. he's had his first cup of tea for the day. outside it is mild and grey. soon a walk. (he didn't get out of the door yesterday).

phew today he doesn't have to work. (friday he has to work). 

horsemouth likes to keep things brief (you may be shocked to read this having waded through blogpost after blogpost of his turgid prose). his theory of writing is that it's all about the rewrite, editing it down tighter and shorter until it shines. 

in one of horsemouth's mixcloud sessions you will find the espers version of flaming telepaths by the blue oyster cult. they do it very well (in some ways their version of durutti column's tomorrow  is even better). there's a minutemen  version of the red and the black somewhere. there's a metallica version of astronomy horsemouth believes. there's the patti smith original of fire of unknown origin. 

last night he tried to watch some giallos and euro horrors (but the wind wasn't in those sails). his reading has bogged down. (it is difficult to know what you are going to want to read  plus the bedroom light is in the wrong place to enable late night reading). 

moan moan moan.

the silver bees are gonna get you yeah

the last two tracks on thembi (morning Prayer  and bailophone Dance) were recorded in NY on this day in 1971, so 50 years ago today.  the rest were recorded  at the record plant, los angeles, california, on november 25, 1970.  

horsemouth is up. he has his coffee. later he works. he has the window open because the room is becoming a but fusty. 

sad news about ernst junger (whose novel the silver bees republished by NYRB horsemouth enjoyed). it seems he is popular with those of the fascist persuasion, and interestingly enough at two levels too. 

junger survived the first world war with only minor wounding (despite being shot through the lung at one point) and wrote a somewhat enthusiastic account of his time on the front line, for this he gets hailed, by one young reader as 'the inventor of storm trooping'. now horsemouth thinks this is a bad thing. what you read in erich maria remarque (or indeed in hesse and mann, the british war poets) is a great youthful enthusiasm for the war breaking on the harsh rocks of its realities (vast amounts of death and suffering). 

between the wars junger is a critic of the weimar state from the right (sort of like the now oft-cited jurist and political theorist carl schmitt) but, unlike schmitt, he doesn't make the mistake of actually joining the nazi party, and thus he becomes a leading intellectual light to the I may be a fascist (but at least I am not a nazi) crowd - the kind of people who cite julius evola, alain de benoist. etc. 

this enables him to refuse denazification after the second world war. thereafter junger has a long and enjoyable life as a critic of west german prosperity and the economic miracle (again from the right).  

silver bees shows a distrust of technology (but also of corporate society) and as such it is actually perfectly readable as being a reflection on adorno/ benjaminian themes. junger corresponded with heidegger. benjamin wrote theories of german fascism in response to him. 

horsemouth had a productive day yesterday - he not only worked for three hours, he also  wrote reflecting on a project. today will spend some time chopping thing together and posting (emailing) it off.

he finished off watching solamente nero a venice set giallo. which despite an inauspicious beginning is really quite decent (horsemouth liked the soundtrack). 

Charley Says...

in a little while (well at 11) horsemouth goes to work (under the new online dispensation). before that almost certainly breakfast (porridge, toast, marmalade, tea). it's not raining but it's grey skies and the temperature has warmed up (it should be about 7 celsius). 

he works twice today. he's checked out his route to work for the first one (he should do so for the second one).

phew horsemouth has worked. now he's knackered.

he also answered some email questions for an interview. perhaps he could share some of the answers with you.

Q1. what is your story as a musician?

well horsemouth really wanted to get a band together since he was about 15 but he didn’t manage it until 1990. basically he was trying to invent brooklyn afrobeat 10 years too early (and in the wrong place) - so that went nowhere. the singer went off to become the actor noma dumezweni. 

he played guitar on Lush 3.1 by Orbital (if people remember them)… and then (defeated) he gave up for a few years. when he came back he decided it was just for the fun. in the co-op he met howard, they collaborated on two CDs of music by co-op members (there were always lots of singers and players in the co-op), and then started making music as musicians of bremen which is still ongoing. 

peter holmgren played bass on one of the songs, and later on horsemouth played a gig with him at the housing co-op hop and a few years later he played a gig there with enza on vocals as well  (as peter, paul and enza).why paul he has no idea. 

Q2. you two (enza and horsemouth) collaborated (along with catastro / fille) on the film the fall of the house of fitzgerald. tell us about the project, your motivations, what you wanted to achieve with it?

horsemouth thinks enza wanted to mourn the loss of her flat, the kandinsky mural she’d done, and other artworks,

kandinsky was a part of various russian art movements but he also lived in germany and was a part of dada and later taught at the bauhaus. while we tend to remember these art movements in terms of the artefacts that left behind and their manifestoes they also had a history of performance practice, of doing performances to complement/ extend / bring to life their static works of art. horsemouth supposes that was one part of it. 

filmwise there are those kenneth anger and sun ra type films, where they are dressed up in costumes doing strange pseudo-magical things. 

finally horsemouth supposes there was mr.benn. basically it was just a game of dress up, it cheered us up during lockdown. thanks once again to former co-op member catastro/fille for filming it, editing the results and for the use of her music. without her it couldn’t have happened. thanks to the other musicians also. 

3. Where do you think housing is on the current political agenda? 

nowhere. worse than nowhere. 

horsemouth thinks (personal opinion) the tories see social housing as just warehousing potential labour voters. so why bother? but the other parties are not much fucking help either. they won’t be building anything like enough social housing to make a difference to the low-paid. nobody is coming to save us, we have to help ourselves, because, as the single homeless, we are on our own.

4. Do you think the housing situation in London is likely to change as a result of the pandemic?

with the ‘working from home’ revolution cities have got a problem. it means less people will want to live there so more property might be available (both short-life and to buy) and so rents and house prices will probably level off a bit. the gentrification will die back. 

looking into his crystal ball horsemouth thinks that probably the government will offer the commercial property sector large sums of money to convert the empty offices into rabbit hutch sized homes (jenrickvilles), and at some point there will be a fire… 

in 1985 there were about 2 million less people in greater London than there is now and there was still a housing crisis.  the cause of the housing crisis is capitalism.-

5. Do you see your futures as staying in London? 

as long as horsemouth has work and the rent is cheap(ish) he's staying. The fun will come back when the covid goes. If the work goes horsemouth would probably leave the city and live somewhere cheap and coast it until his pension, brexit has fucked the idea of retiring to the south of Europe (somewhere sunny). 

quick fire questions 

- who are horsemouth's heroes?

Gerrard Winstanley, Alice Coltrane, Malcolm X, Theodor Adorno, Karl Marx, Harry E. Smith.

- what was the last record you listened to?

it’s all youtube now. (marion brown ‘bismillahi 'rrahmani 'rrahim’ with harold budd on celeste and little bells). 

- the last thing you read?

balzac ‘A country doctor’.

- favourite london building?

knock it down and build social housing.

- best caf in east London?

horsemouth can’t afford to eat out anymore (even if there wasn’t covid). (Curry Hut)

 

  

here there's a frost and coffee ( and there will be a three part list.)

the issue with the krapp putsch is whether it is ceasarism or dictatorship or fascism (or even a coup attempt)  - the dictator is elected by the political structure to have absolute power for a fixed time period (in time of war for example), or once elected dictator decide to hold on to power (ceasarism). they don't arise proclaiming a  fascist ideology but can arise just as easily out of liberal democratic ideology. 

the golden emperor instructs the mob to burn down the crystal palace. the mob marches up the hill and attempts to burn down the crystal palace. no blame. 

it was poorly prepared (but then was it ever envisaged that it would succeed?). it's more in the line of a public relations event  - a of creating an event that shows the policy proposal (of er. take back control)

even after the invasion of the capitol and its repulsion many republican politicians continued to argue against ratification of the election result. a large proportion of republican voters believe the stories of the stealing of the election and indeed support the attempt to occupy the capitol. 

they provide a new base and low level membership for the republican party. now the republican party can either spend the next five years fighting its own base or it can work out a way of pretending that there is no contradiction between their interests and those of its more militant members.

in one scenario trump slits out to the right of the republican party and splits their (and his) vote. 

in another scenario he shuffles off into retirement (keeping his head down for fear of prosecution) the republican party elects a smarter version of him (ted cruz for example) and does well in five years time having had a night of the long knives moment with its more enthusiastic supporters and a productive sit down with the bankers.  

really we were fortunate that trump was so dumb. 

can the golden emperor actually be brought to trial? 

horsemouth should go back to his reading of hannah arendt's the origins of totalitarianism  but the print is small, and the light in his room is not good. the last time horsemouth looked we had just finished a dark reading of hobbes and were on to the lack of an effective contradiction between nationalism and imperialism. 

outside horsemouth's window there is a frost and red berries (and small birds feeding on them). horsemouth will get up and sit where he can see them. cold and clear skies. an egg for breakfast. 

last night horsemouth chatted with howard and drank two bottles of beer. they started with a discussion of guitars. later he watched spirals with is mum. 

horsemouth continues to hide out in the wilderness  far away from the seaside towns and the salt marshes. he was supposed to be going out for a long planned walk with enza (but he is still out of town). oh well plenty of time when he gets back.  the next thing they are doing together is an email interview about the fall of the house of fitzgerald. 

horsemouth is up and he's having his coffee. outside it is grey and damp.

yesterday was payday. horsemouth made the rent for the month (well a notional four weeks). overall he's still a grand better off (as a result of furlough) than he would be normally. he pauses to notice he's written 'we' in the diary. 

horsemouth is in the bottom 1% of earners in the country (it's true - he looked it up). but it's ok because he's not particularly bothered by money (as long as he has enough to live on). he could work more if he put his mind to it but he's decided (particularly in the light of current circumstances) to step back from the pursuit of money. he has cheap(ish) rent, he's a vegetarian. you can't even buy second hand books at the minute. he is sunk beneath taxation (but still has to pay national insurance). 

he is also paying into a works pension, 'saving' if you like, so he could also dip into his savings to the amount that he is saving into his works pension (this would give him an additional £2k a year (enough for the odd bag of chips and an afternoon in the pub). the rent is the major expense (by a long way). 

you will be familiar with these 'musings' of horsemouth if you have read his blog for any length of time. really it is just an effort by him to assert authority over his (somewhat challenged) economic circumstances. 

horsemouth is paying to be where the work is. but is this any longer necessary? he's also paying to be where the fun was - but is this going to come back? and now that horsemouth is older he has different notions of fun that might require a different expression.  

brexit has neatly fucked any notion of 'retiring' early to an EU country with sunshine by making the maximum time you can spend there 3 months in any 6. (ok you can still apply for residency says john). 

if the covid becomes seasonal (as horsemouth suspects it might) then horsemouth (and many in his generation) are looking at lower life expectancy (assuming they don't die still in any of the early waves) and also a limited social life.  

there were a number of points where paganini horror  looked like it might become a class proposition (whenever donald pleasance appears for example). horsemouth was a little disappointed by the 'play paganini backwards' routine - surely they should have swapped the melody for the harmony and vice versa? 

a friend has opined (somewhat controversially) that trump is not a fascist and the shenanigans on capitol hill were not a coup attempt. 

horsemouth doubts that trumps bedside reading is the journalism of mussolini, or the jurisprudence of carl schmitt, or the economic theories of the strasserites but horsemouth is of the opinion that the ideological prerequisites of fascism are pretty light - one big boss man, plenty of obedience, a contempt for democracy. as to it not being a coup horsemouth would be more inclined to believe it was a coup if they'd brought sleeping bags (intending to occupy) or if they'd sounded out the military to make sure they were onside first. 

still early days - if half the people who voted for trump believe the election was stolen, if a proportion of the trump rioters were made up of ex-service people, and given high levels of gun ownership, this is a dangerous situation. the temptation is to minimise it, point to the stupid bison hat, and laugh it off.

the expectation is that democracy is so firmly founded that it cannot fall the reality is that it is a thin layer of plaster covering some distinctly destabilising economic facts and social tensions. is this the high point of it? probably not. horsemouth supposes this is the equivalent of the the kapp putsch.  

there was due to be a zoom chat with howard (about his guitars) but howard was too knackered after work last night. they may do it tonight. 

yesterday a walk out to the abbey. 

 

a domestic conversation. recorded in the style of 'on keeping a notebook'.

 'there's a letter'

'look! there's something in it!'

'could be a postcard.' - domestic conversation. recorded in the style of on keeping a notebook. 

'if I knew what this book was about I wouldn't be writing it.' - a day in the life of joan didion, susan braudy, (1977).

 a day in the life of joan didion

horsemouth has been reading lots of snippets of joan didion on google books, introductions mostly. (often the most carefully written and the endlessly revised bits of books).  she really is very good. such seemingly harmless set up lines. 'during the blue nights you think the  end of day will never come...'

hemmingway and mailer are big influences. she thinks in terms of sentences and their weight. she taught herself to type by copying out hemmingway introductions. orwell too, orwell is in there.

she discusses orwell's why I write. she notes the weight of this phrase. the even strokes. she discusses and discards orwell's motives for writing (egoism, historical enthusiasm, aesthtics, to make a living). she discards them all, including 'to make a living' but both her and her husband made a living as writers.

'I write entirely to find out what is on my mind, what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I'm seeing and what it means... I'm not very interested in psychic cause and effect, in why I am the way I am, why you are the way you are...' 

joan didion is not writing this to you from a soviet gulag (not making the argument that this cannot stand) but instead from the demi-paradise of california. this love of the mythic california (of the moonlight drive) is all through her earlier books, as is the horror of it. she does not repudiate it until where I was from, where she suddenly sees the life of her family not in terms of the pioneer myth (redeemed by merely having got there and thus entitled to acres of free land) but in terms of the vast subsidies (for the railroads, for irrigation, for the aerospace industry and the military-industrial complex) that enabled california's colonisation. it's a chinatown moment. 

she has left california. she took her family back to new york city. there her husband and daughter have died leaving her with an apartment full of dangerous memorabilia. 

the blue nights,  those evenings in the northern hemisphere when the sun seemingly will not set, round about the summer solstice, but we all know the end of the day will come. thus they cannot really be separated even if we tell ourselves in what we experience that they can. 

this tension repeats in the tension between sound and silence in a documentary on free improv. for there to be the possibility of a sound there must be the possibility of silence. it's lovely it's all the new thing new york jazz guys (and the guys from chicago too) but  they've grown old... look there's marion brown, and john tchicai, and alan silva and roswell rudd...

it is a relief to return to these themes (writing, music) after the insanity on capitol hill. but of course we are not out of the woods. we are at the opposite end of the year from the blue nights. the days are short, the nights long, the time in between brief. and we are further north. the world is in a strange condition. alan silva with buddhist robes, john tchicai with buddhist curtains, like venerable monks.