'the willow sees the heron's image upside down' (repair the web of time)

allegedly a haiku by matsuo basho (repeated in chris marker's sans soleil). above a short film by chris marker on art installations on some mudflats near san francisco made out of driftwood (and now sadly gone). horsemouth sees the sense of it. mudflats are fragile habitats and you don't want art fans tramping through them destroying the plant cover in search of an aesthetic experience. 

the mudflat sculpture park (here's another film by ric reynolds) makes it into harold and maude. the idea is replicated up in humbolt bay (in the town of eureka) and at various other places in SF. horsemouth thinks of it as of a piece with jean varda's marine utopia. 

horsemouth has continued with his chris marker researches - notably jean-piere gorin's appreciation of sans soleil  and some youngster and their appreciation of la jetée/ 12 monkeys. some are clear that marker is aware of the invention of morel, of time recycling, others pick through his sources (notably alan resnais je t'aime, je t'aime and hitchcock's vertigo).

it is typical of horsemouth that he hadn't realised chris marker was french (why he has an english name doesn't he?).  

the appreciation of  john berger's ways of seeing  continues as does a rather engaging/ infuriating discussion series on population. the west (the first world) is ageing - soon it will be short of workers to pay for its old people (unless the old people keep working or unless it imports new workers or it accepts drops in the material quality of life (at least for some)). the direction chosen by his horsemouth's fellow countrymen is into population decline and senescence (by means of low(er) immigration). the direction of travel is japan - a quiet world of old people. 

in sans soleil  an older japanese couple conduct a funeral service for their missing cat - because the cat is missing they will not know the correct time to do it so they are doing it anyway 'to repair the web of time'. 

horsemouth is up. he has his back to the radiator and he has a cup of coffee on the go. today the funeral service for jim bermingham - horsemouth is out of town and so will not be going, he wishes everyone the best with it. 

today the usual. he thinks he will be staying in over the weekend. next week (at some point) back to the seaside towns (a friend has a birthday, another friend is coming over). 

finally pink floyd playing jugband blues (which is so good).

the moment of influence (it is not over) TRUMP WINS

first off  hail the deposers of colston! (and hail the jury that acquitted them). 

few thing inspire horsemouth with hope. few things make him think things are getting better. this does. 

a beautiful golden sunshine-y morning out here. (but later on cold and rainy)

yesterday up on the common horsemouth met the guy with the mohican. (the cardiacs fan. he's doing well). meanwhile the clean up the wye campaign makes it into the daily torygraph business section p.5 under the headline river-polluting companies are starting to clean up their act. of course all this hides the fact that the river is dying because it is full of chicken shit. the local (tory) MP is interviewed and says all the right things meanwhile shifting the blame across the border and ignoring his own government's role in gutting environmental protection agencies. 

today is the anniversary of the january 6th run around in congress. 

the Qanon and militia schmucks who went are feeling the wrath of the state (ok if they'd have been black they'd probably have been shot dead on the day and those jail sentences would have been measured in decades but still). 

bison horns or no, maybe they aren't the story, maybe the eastman memos are? - the memos showing that trump had a plan and a mechanism to steal the election.

you may not believe that the government is literally run by satanic paedophiles but how about metaphorically believing that? how about claiming to believe that as a wind-up? horsemouth himself is not above claiming our leaders are lizards (it's why they can't sweat etc.).

the BBC reporters interview the americans  - they are charming and helpful (as americans are when they are being charming and helpful) but they are mad. the disinvested are fertile ground for the sowing of dragons teeth. the general advises them to look for the moment of influence.

of course it is not over. many have retreated to the base of the republican party and are occupying it in preparation for another run (if not trump then who?). go to the school-boards says the general. 

and in 2025? dust off the eastman memos. an alternative slate of electors. TRUMP WINS. 

'at the end of the third lockdown I went to london...' (red sky in the morning)

soon the anniversary of january 6th. 

it is interesting that ambrose evans-pritchard (then of the sunday telegraph and son of a noted anthropologist) is one of the key spreaders of the early conspiracy theories about the clinton presidency. he writes the secret life of bill clinton but he is basing it on procopius's the secret history which tells the tale of justin and theodora devils in human form sent to ravage the roman empire but this time with bill and hillary in the lead roles. 

it is a necessary antidote to the notion that suddenly things have got much worse and suddenly people have started believing mad shit. it's been going on for a long time now. perhaps the origins of totalitarianism's most necessary corrective is this, that people have been believing in scandal, corruption and conspiracy theories for a long time.   

'... and we haven't ended have we'

'at the end of the third lockdown I went to london...'

it starts to sound like la jetée to horsemouth's ears. a juxtaposition of cataclysmic worldwide events and personal detail. but it's someone off to the national gallery to look at a painting and getting a 55 bus into town walking down through soho.   

'of course, chris marker is dead, so he doesn't have to see it, what la jetée spawned' - terry gilliam on the 12 monkeys tv series. but of course, by means of time travel he could. 

horsemouth imagines our guides to the times the ghosts of chris marker and john berger.

by other means of time travel back from the bbc vaults from 1986 comrade dad - britain under soviet occupation - red guards in a renamed trafalgar square. 

the hitchcock style thriller 23 paces to baker street (blind author overhears murderous conversation in a london pub and starts to investigate) inspires much of the plot and several of the scenes in the crimes of the black cat (blind soundtrack composer overhears murderous conversation in a copenhagen bar and starts to investigate). horsemouth is indebted to the fragments of fear podcast, in which two knowledgeable giallo fans discuss neglected works from the genre, for this knowledge. 

in 23 paces... it's the 73 bus that is of interest (but in its further kensington reaches which, being west london, horsemouth never has reason to visit). 

horsemouth is still out at his parents. last night a frost this morning a red sky. 

'a rising tide lifts all boats'

horsemouth dreamt about a party. the 2 metre rule (if there is one) was not being  observed. people seemed to have been returned to a younger age. (gosh it was fun). horsemouth was given permission. he said thank you. 

horsemouth is awake late (it's 9am) that shows how good the dream was. there were toasts (in some undefined spirit). possibly to keep our boy asleep. 

it's the 50th anniversary of the publication of ways of seeing (there's a bbc appreciation on all this week) and it's the 20th anniversary of the physical institution of the euro as the currency of the eurozone. 

in fact countries have continued joining even after the eurozone crisis (aka. the greek sovereign debt crisis) revealed the problems with it and some have even adopted it as a currency unilaterally (kosovo, montenegro, the four european microstates, with partial use in various states in financial or otherwise difficulty,  cuba, syria and zimbabwe for example). 

of course the problem for poor areas (of the eurozone, but this is a problem with all currencies in general) is that their prices become linked to the prices in the rich areas, areas with different strength economies become tied together and lose their flexibility to vary how much the currency can actually buy to meet local conditions. people from the rich areas of the eurozone can always show up and purchase things with their wealth that the poorer people living on the edges of it cannot, prices are driven up and the poor of the regions become unable to afford things like housing. to keep the whole project on track the centre must distribute aid to the regions (and when times are not so good for the populace in the centre this is not very popular). 

the theory is that 'a rising tide lifts all boats'  but this requires careful management.

of course this problem exists for any two disparate regions linked together not just the first world and teh third world, but germany and greece,  london and the north east of england, or even west london and east london. 

the euro requires other changes as well, changes in the language. it is one euro, two euro (except in britain where it is one euro,  two euros etc.). the cents of it are differently said across europe.

of course horsemouth is no particular fan of nations but neither is he a fan of supra-national bodies. except that he is, he views them as a necessary stepping stone to world government (which he regards as a transitional stage to world communism - but he digresses). 

in fact it is less world government that interests him but rather proletarian internationalism - that the workers of the world see that they have no country (erm. except that they do, rather a lot of them). 

horsemouth watched a giallo (the crimes of the black cat 1972) heavily indebted to argento's animals trilogy but also to bava's fashion house set blood and black lace. it has moments of great style (and moments of tacky sadism and gore). he found it having heard it discussed on the podcast fragments of fear. 

yesterday a zoom call from john in far off porto. he had been reading adolfo bioy casares' the invention of morel (kind of a recycle time drama) after he realised that he didn't know any argentinian writers. (horsemouth can only name you two - casares and borges).  horsemouth was watching a fan video for robbie basho's bardo blues when he realised he was watching an excerpt from a film of it (this enabled him to track down the film).

yesterday also an email from sean. 

on books: 'if one book wearies me I take up another'

concorde crashed. sabotage. the metal panels folded it up and it shot off to crash somewhere further east. horsemouth fell to the ground and attempted a 'duck and cover'. shrapnel and bits of metal fell near horsemouth cutting down power cables. horsemouth got up and made a run for home. the people were still out in the street market though and this slowed him down. 

earlier in the dream horsemouth had been trying to organise a film show in the park on sunday (such are horsemouth's dreams at 3am on a monday morning). 

horsemouth was reading montaigne's essay on books (a topic close to horsemouth's heart). 

montaigne's honesty is refreshing. 

'I may be a man of fairly wide reading, but I retain nothing.'

'if one book wearies me I take up another.' and earlier,

'if  I come across difficult passages in my reading... after making a charge or two I let them be.'

for plain delight  montaigne favours the decameron and rabelais, he has fallen out of love with ovid and ariosto, though virgil and terence meet with approval. 

for authors useful to montaigne's own project he favours plutarch and seneca (who he finds in agreement) over cicero ('to tell the truth boldly... his style of writing seems boring to me'). he favours the historians (and particularly those who held high office and knew the actual affairs of state).

montaigne is a follower of the modern cultural studies style of annotating books the better to understand them as he reads them. (he tells us this in passing)

'I have more than once happened to pick up again, thinking it new and unknown to me, a book which I had carefully read several years earlier and scribbled all over with my notes.'

he may even write a short summary of the text (containing his opinion of what it reveals about the author) at the end of a book to remind himself of it when he comes back to it. 

yesterday whilst out wandering with his mother a sad discovery. earlier an evasion round the common (horsemouth was not in the mood to chat).  

online in the evening horsemouth re-listened to musicians of bremen volume four. 

the first time back listening to it in a while. howard listens to am I born to die  a lot, but horsemouth does not, he does not like his own vocal on it and he does not feel it works well with the rest of the album (plus current 93 got there before him). ah well - too late to fix it now. 

otherwise a ghost story and some book porn (best russian books of 2021) and some book shop porn (hurlingham books in fulham and skoob). the second halcyon exists (john has been there) but it is not the magical cave that halcyon was (ah well). oxfam st. james' street walthamstow is good, the salvation army near the william morris museum yields the occasional beauty. of late horsemouth has taken advantage of the neighbourhood enthusiasm for putting out books once read and for 'book boxes'. 

horsemouth will soon be potlatching his own books (the better to get mobile) if anyone is interested. 

today (no doubt) more of the same. 

blog breakfast news walk tea one o'clock news desultory faffing another walk faff dinner read/watch/listen shower sleep (perchance to dream) and repeat.

welcome to 2022: 'I cannot vouch to other people for my reasonings...'

Soylent Green Opening Scene from David B on Vimeo.

 [A] horsemouth is up. he has his coffee.  [B] it seems colder and clearer out.  [A]he was dreaming about being a roadie (of sorts), punk rock nick seemed to be leading the crew. after the gig horsemouth was left behind but he ended up in a tower block with loads of musical equipment. there was also a hump-backed bridge but there had been a flood and water was flowing over it.

 [A] 'and what can anyone understand who cannot understand himself' remarks montaigne in the footnote. horsemouth was reading his way through m.a. screech's introduction to the complete essays (a housebrick of a book).

 [A] montaigne of course does the thing. he retires from life and makes use of his time to study. at first this does not go well. his mind turned on itself and he had to turn to writing to stabilise himself. for the studies of the time he has a major advantage in that he is probably the last first language speaker of latin (having been raised in that dead language by a very forward thinking parent). 

[A] that said he writes in french. he wrote and he rewrote, resulting in a text littered with letters { [A], [B], [C]'s} to indicate the order of the texts writing or its additions. 

[B] ok that's enough of that [A], [B], [C]ing. it disrupts the easy flow of the text and the easy flow of the ideas. 

last one horsemouth swears

[A] as  dante placing the virtuous pagans in a reasonably comfortable bit of hell (but hell nonetheless) montaigne has to accord the arguments of the classical philosophers the weight they have in debate round him and simultaneously handle the fact that they may not be as good a fit with the teachings of the church as is often claimed. he handles their thought with a careful patchwork of their own procedures to produce the desired result of conformity. (or so screech says of his commentary on an apology for raymond sebond).

[B] from here on in horsemouth will pretend that he writes without emendation or editing and that he never has second thoughts. 

... and then we are on to the essays themselves where montaigne can stretch out at length. 

let us look at book 2 essay 10 on books.

'I cannot vouch to other people for my reasonings. I can scarcely vouch for them to myself...'

there is even sunshine outside now (it is often more sunny in the mornings when horsemouth is writing than later on when horsemouth does manage to get out for a walk). montaigne is pleasantly doubtful and a good companion. in preparation horsemouth listened to a bbc essay series on him. 

the book itself (being housebrick sized) is a bit too big to take out onto the common to read. it is impractical. horsemouth suspects it is too big for its binding and will thus prove difficult to read without damaging it. it was a gift from horsemouth to his father (it accords with his father's strategy) but as a single paperback it is unusable (really it does need to be split into separate books). horsemouth guesses there must be a collected essays round here somewhere (which would be more manageable). 

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

in addition to jai guru horsemouth remembers he has the beginnings of a song called spaceship modelled on gnossienne no.1  but in a ska/ cabaret style. 

he'd got the first few verses and has an idea for the middle 8.

here he is attempting to follow howard's advice about making lists.

actually he had already made the list - making lists and writing things down is one of the main ways he forces himself to get things done over his natural laziness. people sometimes find this disturbing that horsemouth has a plan. that he likes to plan ahead. invariably a mob will arrive at some point (with burning torches and sharpened pitchforks) and horsemouth will be forced to flee.

today (the same as yesterday) a walk and a wander.  

the first day of the new year (and we are now on to a different round of the game)

it was the warmest new years eve on record. over the hill (either up on the common or down in ewyas harold) they let off fireworks.

but that was last year and we are now on to a different round of the game. (horsemouth is of the opinion that the day starts in the morning and so does the new year). 

traditionally this would be the part of the year when horsemouth would feel the absence of structuring tasks upon his time. there would be not much to do but to listen to music, read and go for walks. and indeed it is so. 

today is the day when additional problems will start at the border with the EU (additional documentation will be required for import or export). once again british politicians will feign outrage that having left a club they are not allowed the benefits of membership. they will pose as defenders of the will of the british people against a sell-out in westminster and evil authoritarian EUrocrats.

sadly we are still not out from under that particular game.

and in another continuing game the coronavirus pandemic is now in sync with itself - daily cases, hospitalisations and deaths are all now increasing by a third. this is the trend on the up buoyed by christmas and then new years eve celebrations which will take about a month to work through (and then it is just a matter of waiting for it to hit top again). 

it's a grey morning. last night horsemouth watched a bit of pupi avato's la strelle nel fosso (the stars in the ditch)  as part of a season with his  the house with the laughing windows (la casa delle finestre che redondo) and tutti defunti... tranne i morti (all dead...  even the dead?). all feature the same cast and are filmed in the same marshy cold region of northern italy (near bologna) but they are respectively a semi-improvised art movie, a giallo (slasher) thriller, and a pink panther style slapstick comedy of the who is going to get murdered next variety. the giallo had subtitles.  

so horsemouth has to get on with difficult second album (aka. volume three part two) now that he has announced it.  but he has no material for it yet. well he has a number of parts for a song called jai guru grown from elements within across the universe and he has a list back in london of other songs he has written or attempted to learn once upon a time some of which may make it.