a busy day

comrade S was arguing that dense  is not just a welsh thing (how very very dare he - he's not welsh!).

last night the rivals of sherlock holmes - late victorian sleuthery. taken with sten and a glass of beer - windsor davis made an appearance as a flat-foot cop (but strangely without a welsh accent). 

today is a busy day. horsemouth goes to perform child portage duties this am (and possibly this evening as well). 

meanwhile across town there is an eviction sponsored by the communal endeavour. an eviction horsemouth? that's not very generous is it? the short life property comes with a built in eviction (that's how the communal endeavour get the property by promising faithfully to leave it when requested to do so by the owners). there are grim complicating factors (which horsemouth won't discuss) so horsemouth does hope it goes well in the sense of not as badly as it could go.

horsemouth doesn't see the alternative but more worryingly he doesn't see anything that can be done in mitigation - there is nobody to call who it would make a difference to call (and there should be). it is all now in the lap of the gods. 

jim bermingham, a former housemate of horsemouth's and london busking legend, has died. jim busked all over europe and made enough to live comfortably. his death horsemouth discovered a day late. he had lived, he had travelled he had busked. horsemouth once posted something on dulcimer player michael o'shea (another london busking legend and creator of a new musical instrument) and jim had replied that he knew him (and had in fact saved the mo chara (o'shea's new instrument) from a bonfire on a beach one time). paddy phoned him up to tell him and enza messaged him. paddy and horsemouth reminisced about the stoke newington  scene in the mid 80ies.

when jim came round to be interviewed for horsemouth's house he brought his resonator guitar (a national if horsemouth remembers correctly). paddy says he has a CD of jim's music (horsemouth remembers him doing a good version of fields of athenry). horsemouth has asked for a copy.  

cross the rainbow bridge jim and move towards the light. 

this evening horsemouth has to do a presentation (under potentially less than ideal conditions). it's a little stressful, horsemouth has been rehearsing. 

a year ago horsemouth was interested in the flux weddding and zefiro torna and he was writing well. but he'd already made the bad decision to leave london for the duration of the plague (history falls out from this). his plans for this year are basically the same - finish up as early as he can and be off. 

'the kid calls it right (most of the time)'

wait horsemouth has to go look out of the front door. hmm no rain and snow yet (it's just cold).

this morning door to  door child conveyancing services. last night a visit from the out of town senjor S (looking almost healthy after his brush with vitamin B12 deficiency). 

horsemouth must say he is shocked to discover that vitamin B12 deficiency is real - he always assumed it was bullshit dreamt up by doctors in an attempt to discourage people from going vegan. a dietary project fear if you like. comrade S is the second person horsemouth has met who has had it (so keep taking the marmite).

horsemouth is a lazy morally compromised lacto-vegetarian these days (so he's probably safe - maybe). 

comrade S was on good form (denouncing horsemouth as being 'not a proper hawkwind fan'  within ten minutes of getting in the front door). he reads the blog (there was a test) and has taken up listening to the hawkbinge podcast on horsemouth's recommendation, 'the kid calls it right (most of the time)' being S's opinion. S was a particular fan of fable of a failed race (which is also this is the age of the micro-man  on hawklords lest we forget).  horsemouth denounced it as a dirge (it was this that led to the accusation of insufficiently proper hawkwind fandom).

the latest discovery gila (popul vuh in folk mode). 

'are you really just going to sit around and wait for your pension?'  asked S. (see he has been paying attention).

S recommends that horsemouth covers space is deep (and probably has a free cartoon book with the CD). 

horsemouth found himself woken up early by difficult moments (ones in the future this time). frankly he is keen to get the year done (but he suspects there's more bollocks to be had before it is done). 

'how do you get around life-as-you-know-it being over'

 'what we call isolation in the political sphere, is called loneliness in the sphere of social intercourse. isolation and loneliness are not the same.' - hannah arendt, the origins of totalitarianism, p.625.

for hannah isolation was not being able to act together with other human beings (politically as it were), an isolation that could just as easily occur in work wheras  'loneliness concerns human life as a whole'. there was solitude as well - strangely where one may not feel lonely when there are no other people around.

'man in so far as he is homo faber tends to isolate himself with his work, that is to leave temporarily the world of politics.' 

if you remember this was the point against which richard sennett was trying to argue in his the craftsman. there's a similar point in the greeks where the artisans cannot take part in the governing of the city because they are too busy working. 

it popped out of the discussion of hannah arendt's the origins of totalitarianism that horsemouth listened to last night (and so horsemouth plans to do a little reading). it was a discussion pulled off course and away from this particular book by biography, by arendt's affair with her teacher heidegger, by heidegger's subsequent descent into fascism, by the quotability of the banality of evil, and probably by fred stein's photo of her (as perfect a picture of an intellectual as was ever taken). 

enthusiasm for arendt began again in 2016 (at least in terms of book sales we are told) as all round the world people (trump and brexit and modi etc.)faced up to popularism and adopted arendt's description of it as an alliance of the elite and the mob. 

(against popularism horsemouth proposes poplarism)

horsemouth also listened to programme (god bless the beeb) on john wyndham's the day of the triffids. this is a somewhat strange novel (british science fiction is always somewhat strange, the graft never seems to fully take). it is an apocalypse and a rebuilding. full of post-war anxiety about the shape of society.

'it must be, I thought, one of the race's most persistent and comforting hallucinations to trust that "it can't happen here" -- that one's own time and place is beyond cataclysm.'

just as the panel grapple with the strange silence that the pandemic lockdown caused being like the strange silence of blinded london,  we grapple with the anti-vaxxer/ anti-lockdown conspiraloons arguing that the isolation produced in society by the lockdown and mask mandates  is motivated entirely by the desire of the state for totalitarian control rather than for reasons of disease control. 

'how do you get around life-as-you-know-it being over'

to horsemouth they are another example of the elite and the mob - it suits those in the elite who want to return to a fully active capitalism (whatever the death toll) to have people on the street arguing for it. this alliance has not died off because brexit has been done but become a permanent fixture.  

and yet we are moving into the time of compulsory vaccination/ vaccination as a requirement to be allowed to work (look at greece and germany) - there are those in the elite to whom compulsion and the police look like the only tools in the box, the only solution to any problem.  

potentially there is, the other side of the pandemic (if indeed there is ever an end), a backlash against the scientists (they made us wear masks). 

last night pasta and pesto for dinner (red kidney beans, fried onions and peppers) and the evening's musicians of bremen tune on the banks of the susquehanna horsemouth and howard try to get all indian. a river song. 

also last night a documentary on COUM transmissions and the early industrial music people. horsemouth couldn't help noticing the gentrification (of both hull and hackney).

horsemouth continues speechifying in his head. he has a presentation to deliver on wednesday (assuming it happens). 

once again horsemouth's head will float down the river

why oh why oh why oh why...

is life never easy. 

muses horsemouth.

(he is live from the trenches of the latest debacle). 

the situation is stressful and horsemouth has taken a while to get his head right.

but just as horsemouth has got his head right another participant has let the system get ontop of his head (no dread no). 

horsemouth is trying to work out whether things can go ahead or whether they have to be postponed or whether indeed the best strategy would not in fact be to bow out and to let people get on with their drama without him.  

once again horsemouth's head will float down the river. 

he is reminded of the chair of another organisation who described the task as herding cats. horsemouth would wish to see less charismatic drama and more dull bureaucracy. 

oh well guess he finds out monday. or maybe he won't find out wednesday. 

horsemouth will go for a walk. he normally finds this helpful. 

-------

how dense (in the south wales meaning of the term - dense meaning stupid (by analogy with thick)) is horsemouth? for the last month he has been bemoaning facebook's failure to show him a note from a year ago in his memories at the same time he has been remembering that the facebook notes tool was closed down at the start of november last year. it has taken him a month to realise that facebook is not longer showing him a notes entry from a year ago because they don't exist.

ahem.

he blames it on stress. 

last night a bottle of beer and an underwhelming 80ies tv horror - from the annals of the journal of psychical research (allegedly). the theme music (and titles) were decent - the theme music by an ex-member of tears for fears. 

horsemouth listened to a talking politics podcast on the supply chain and demand crisis woes of capitalism (and thus in fairly short-order, the people) but none of it has gone in. he's waiting on the arrival of the hawkbinge podcast (but they might want to shuffle it nearer to christmas). 

 

recovering old notes (unearthing forgotten horrors)

a friend was just asking about recovering old notes from out of the maw of history (well facebook) - look horsemouth has just managed to see a note of his (from a day that is not today) for the first time in at least a year. (what's it called? the last post (hardcore will never die).) interesting. apparently there is a way of searching activities by date (who knew). 

horsemouth is back from a babysitting gig early doors and so has put the coffee on and started blogging.

a name popped out of conversation - steve goodman. now, once upon a time (a long time ago), horsemouth wrote theory and he wrote reviews, and he wrote a rather uncharitable review of steve's book sonic warfare, he was stretched a little thin (it was a double review) and was attempting (and failing) to assimilate a lot of deleuzian thought on music (and on theorising) in a hurry. horsemouth has always felt guilty about this because steve was friendly and helpful every time horsemouth met him. 

what was the consequence of this review? well steve went on to successful careers in music and academia. andrew mcgettigan (who horsemouth had taken a sideswipe at in the second part of the review) went on to a successful career in academia (and wrote excellently on university funding). 

so, other than a few bruised egos, no major harm done. 

so what got horsemouth's goat? well basically it was the end of the utopian phase of theorising inspired by rave and its descent into a dystopian register. horsemouth had been caught up in the early enthusiasms of this wave - erik davis's cross-fertilisation of deleuze's difference and repetition and african poly-rhythm being used to theorise breakbeats, thoughts on bass frequencies hailing the body directly inspired by barthes' the grain of the voice, and a  general enthusiasm for deleuze - mark fisher, nina power,  kodwo eshun, the CCRU.

to be fair everybody he met at the time was friendly and helpful. (except for mark fisher who horsemouth found distinctly grumpy). horsemouth was delighted to find a world where music was taken seriously. 

but by this point horsemouth was falling out of love with this early assemblage people had made to theorise rave, he thought it was theoretically weak and a poor response to both the original theorists deleuze, barthes etc. and to the collective experiences of the people  involved in the scene. but to be fair steve goodman was heading out of it also (but into turbulent flows and media ecologies and dystopian registers).

(of course the fact that something is a poor response is not necessarily a problem in deleuzian thinking. a response can be poor and yet still productive.)

later there was a similarly theoretically poor application of derrida's work as hauntology. 

horsemouth failed to respond to what was new in goodman's book (this he regrets) and he should have taken greater care with the tone of the review. 

it was a mis-step and the last thing he wrote for publication (publication). everything else he wrote for mute he is happy to stand by. the funding for mute was cut everybody had to focus their attentions on building contacts to ensure the magazine's survival. people got sucked back into the world of work and in 2008 the credit crisis came along and then the student struggles (and then in 2020 the pandemic came along). 

horsemouth transferred his attentions back to making music (musicians of bremen)  and to blogging (publication but not publication). he dropped out of connection with that world but writing that stuff was very good for him, it focused his reading and his writing in a way that blogging doesn't. 

yesterday was bandcamp friday (again). horsemouth has finished his coffee (wait let him check the pot - nope there's still some left - inspiration or at least this blogpost, will continue for a while longer). 

word seems to have popped on his laptop (which is an interesting moment). horsemouth guesses he can write everything in notepad, lots of things will be attached to emails and can be previewed, hell a lot of it actually exists on paper. wednesday horsemouth delivers a speech (he does hope it goes well). he has no idea what he will get up to over the weekend. yesterday a walk on the marshes with TG and then in the evening (pre-babysitting) the blood on satan's claw (from whence the tag line unearthing forgotten horrors).  

normal service is resumed

sorry people horsemouth hasn't been with you for a while because of broadband problems. hopefully this marks a return to service. he has been taking the opportunity to read bulgakov's the white guard. 

last night (well the night before last now) horsemouth was sandbagged. he'd just got ontop of the speechwriting thing when there was the phonecall. 

this is the blogpost horsemouth would have put up yesterday morning had not the broadband thing intervened. 

an old friend. about another old friend (who is not well). this friend is getting evicted (stressful - not what you want when you are ill). it is difficult and stressful to navigate getting yourself rehoused when you are well (never mind when you are sick).  er. and are being evicted by the communal endeavour (mind horsemouth's guilt).

special pleading (horsemouth's mitigation). 

after the second world war lots of council housing was built to house the working class. but in the 80ies the tories began to sell it off or get rid of it by bureaucratic means (sold to the council tenants themselves at knockdown prices or handed off to new management organisations). soon it  was all in profoundly short supply. furthermore rather than let out flats to tenants with rights (such as the right to be rehoused) the new bureaucratic management agencies would often prefer to lease then to tenants without rights - such rights as to be rehoused for example - through co-operatives and housing associations such as the communal endeavour. 

and so we end up in the situation of the communal endeavour evicting its tenants on behalf of a new bureaucratic management agency. 

why would the communal endeavour accept such an iniquitous deal? perhaps as the only way to get people housed (and that temporarily). 

it all has to go down to the wire. horsemouth feels so useless. 

understandably faced with this situation horsemouth has had a guilt seizure. there's this, and there's the presentation, and they are both on the same day.  and there's another friend in a hospice. 

this is where his blog post from yesterday morning would have ended.

yesterday horsemouth went to see his friend in the hospice. he felt paradoxically better for having done something (even if it is basically useless) because at least he had done something. he does miss travelling about the place (there was a fair amount of that with work).

whilst having a hunt around on his computer last night (as he was locked out of the internet) horsemouth found the first cut of the fall of the house of fitzgerald (featuring scenes that did not make it to the final cut). the final cut is indeed better. 

horsemouth's savings continue to appreciate (though not by much) because capitalism is in a cheerful-ish mood. horsemouth finds their (slight) increase reassuring because it counters (though only in part) the decrease caused by horsemouth being obliged to cover his living expenses without the assistance of work. that part is still nice to see (despite its implying that capitalism is feeling cheerful and optimistic).  

tonight maybe some babysitting (maybe not). and then it's the weekend. horsemouth is looking forward to christmas (not a sentence he would usually write).  

on rehearsal (yes. but what does horsemouth actually want?)

'... you ask me the secret. it has just one name: again.' - miroslav holub, ode to joy. 

if horsemouth has another character defect (we are sure he has many) it is a tendency to try to plan ahead. he tries to render the uncertain and dangerous future safe and predictable by having practiced extensively for it beforehand. of course this insane behaviour is not always a complete and utter waste of time (it just seems like it). 

circumstances conspired...

of course the question we need answered (ladies and gentlemen) is what does horsemouth actually want?

horsemouth is feeling more chipper than usual having done a spot of babysitting (it went well thanks for asking). it is nice to feel useful (and yet this is precisely the feeling horsemouth has decided to give up). 

horsemouth has been reading meirion bowen's biography (in the contemporary composers series) of michael tippett, it's a bit dull. duller (by far) than michael tippett's own account of himself (as collected in moving into aquarius). horsemouth walked up into walthamstow (up via the valley of the agapemonians, returning through the industrial estate) to raid the oxfam. the original owner has placed a newspaper clipping (a 70th birthday tribute by david cairns) in horsemouth's copy (oxfam £1). 

so who (or what) connects robert marsh (author of victorian egypto-shocker the beetle) with the inland waterways association? why it is robert marsh's relative robert aickman (himself a horror author and editor) and later influential figure in the revival of england's waterways. horsemouth watched his the hospice a few nights ago - he thinks it as that english take on the kafka-eque. 

it's a grey morning. in a bit horsemouth will resume his temporising behaviours - the radio news, the guardian, the world at one, an afternoon walk, the opening of the curtains in the living room. he has finished the coffee (he retains a vain hope there will be just a little left in the pot should he look - yes. result). tonight the rivals of sherlock holmes (then probably more michael tippett and robert aickman). 

he has reconstructed a list of songs horsemouth(folk) has already recorded that could be just copied to a CD (further copies burnt off and a cover made for it). perhaps 2022 will be the year for the release of historic horsemouth material. howard will probably release a solo album in summer (horsemouth thinks). horsemouth should woodshed up some new material so he is in a position to record (even if he is not sure where he would record). 

similarly he is constructing a list of tunes for his next golden glow mix (should that ever happen). 

something will come together when horsemouth puts his mind to it.