'as if the events of the world might become legible'

'I felt this mirroring all year as I translated the novel in quarantine, as if the events of the world might become legible, rising through the ink shadow of the page.' 

- laura marris from states of plague: reading albert camus in a pandemic by alice kaplan and laura marris.

horsemouth often returns to 2020. he thinks of it as the great reset but for many people worldwide and close to home it was work as usual (but with the added fact of death). for him it was,as he usually jokes, the apocalypse he would have chosen, the apocalypse of staying in and reading books. one of the book's he read was camus' the plague together with sontag's illness as metaphor.

by this point in the pandemic he had hit his stride with it - he posted the hanged man from the carnival of the end of the world tarot - the hanged man is upside down (deprived of contact with the ground and so deprived of the possibility of acting) but he is flying along being carried by an owl (so it's not all bad). in the tarot cards that horsemouth is familiar with it is not clear whether his hands are tied (though they look lie they might be), it is not clear whether circumstances have forced him into this role or whether it suits him to act so. 

maybe from where he is he can read the events of the world.

horsemouth has made it to friday. he has made it through the long and treacherous week. the (working) week (lest we forget). he read some documents. he plans to read some more and attend a meeting. yesterday a walk on the marshes - a model being photographed in the long grass, her dress alternately black then white. 

horsemouth ('a scholar and an antiquarian') has been reading the case of charles dexter ward by h.p.lovecraft. it is autobiographical in a way - the life of charles dexter ward in providence rhode island is strangely like the life of h.p. lovecraft in providence rhode island.

today horsemouth is unsure about. he thinks he has to do a weekly meeting.(he has borrowed ian's laptop once again to do it). thereafter he is free.  

.

horsemouth: enemy of enterprise, anti-growth, pantomime horse.

last night duncan appeared in horsemouth's dream (this morning actually) he was heading upstairs and paused to look down. 

what a terrible calumny. that people could be anti-growth. that they could be against the very thing that renders us all more prosperous (and some more prosperous than others). thus is general prosperity for the many produced out of the selfish desire for gain of the few (isn't that wonderful, look how wonderfully realistic it is, look how it effortlessly handles that contradiction, look at good come out of bad in the final reel like the silver lining on a cloud that makes getting soaked an aesthetic experience). 

horsemouth admits it freely. he is anti-growth. he has looked online but cannot find the anti-growth coalition (for he would join it if he could, pantomime horse though he is). he can only conclude that it is a secret society of wreckers aimed at increasing interest rates and so stopping people from owning their own homes (no wait wasn't that the actual effect of government policy). 

how can anyone be anti-growth? 

grow sounds terribly ecological but as our aged king points out if you grow the crop of poor people that will leave less space for those wonderful animals (and consequently less opportunities for hunting). 

malthus says horsemouth's father. bollocks replies horsemouth. 

in this the aged king is surprisingly prescient - the growth of the economy implies the destruction of nature, the rare earth metals for those computer chips and solar panels won't mine themselves, just as it implies a continuous action of primitive accumulation, the dispossession of native people from their lands, slum dwellers from their slums, peasants from their fields to make way for agri-business, 'local' populations to make way for air-bnb flats and pale ale joints. 

horsemouth is anti-growth (or so he says). capitalism must be ended or there will be ecological catastrophe. that there are limits to growth strikes horsemouth as a truism and as a plain objective fact. of course resources and goods can always be redefined, one man's rat is another's meal and so on. 

now horsemouth is not the smartest mule in the team and you should probably not take your prognostication from him. 

in which horsemouth regrets that ecological catastrophe is the most likely outcome. 

capitalism will reconfigure to a green capitalism and probably de-grow, that is living standards for the poor (for the vast majority of the earth's population) will decrease beyond bare survival for many millions possibly billions. the west will build walls to keep out the climate refugees. this is our future. and it is indeed our present. (gawdelpus).

look at us now. scrambling to insulate our houses before winter.  

of course the invocation of the holy spirit of capitalism (growth) by truss and kwarteng does not mean that it will manifest in these difficult times. in many ways western societies have lost the recipe and indeed cannot compete in attracting capital with that giant china bubble. mere production has been outsourced to china and to legacy cities at the edge of government consciousness - only the re-division of the world into warring blocks can help restructure capitalism into a form that permits western growth. 

and what we witness is this re-division of the world into warring blocks, the gas and wheat shocks from the loss of ukraine, the vast restructuring of supply chains (post financial crisis, post pandemic, post ukraine war). these are the symptoms of the change. the giant cold war with china to come. 

what horsemouth broadly thinks is that (sadly) capitalism will not collapse. that there will always be new commodities -the rat  for example, the insect burger, soylent green, that there will be some kind of green transition to solar panels and pedal power and not heating your home in winter. the poor are in many ways piloting this scheme already. 

the world is a giant game of pass the parcel and within the parcel is debt, the reckoning (the bill) for the speculative games of capitalism. there is no end to the game because the debt always needs to be paid but quite how much will need to be paid can never be made clear. 

the losses crystallize around us.

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

it's a beautiful sunshine-y morning out and horsemouth has sat too long over typing this. there's a piece to be written on recent stock market attempts to turn music into an asset class (and how this has been working out for them). soon horsemouth will be finding out how his savings are doing (they are heavily stock market implicated) - broadly horsemouth views it as the equivalent of hiding it under the mattress, as long as it is no worse than that he is happy (if it is better than that he is delighted). 

ok his stomach is grumbling and the coffee is finished - time for breafast.

crime story (at the mountains of madness)

horsemouth dreamt his drum and bass records were getting played. he distinctly remembers. he distinctly remembers looking down at them on the turntable (except they weren't going round because he could read the labels). such is the nature of technology in dreams. 

this probably follows on from horsemouth's discovery of a gunshot john peel session from 1991. he then watched a video (see another antiquated technology whose name has migrated onto later digital technologies) of MC mercury being interviewed in the back of a cab following the release of (essentially) a solo track by him under the gunshot name. mercury gets to tell the story of gunshot a leyton/ leytonstone/ walthamstow rap crew.  horsemouth thinks he saw them once (or maybe twice), once at the old city poly student union, once up in archway (does that make sense?). 

horsemouth bought crime story/ no sell out on 12" at the record shop on islington market on his way back from work one day and the rest (as they say) is history. he saw them with fundamental at city poly (at that point a duo) who he saw again at WOMAD one time who were great fun (and horsemouth loved the music). earlier there was overlord x later there was silver bullet - horsemouth's knowledge of UK  hip-hop is distinctly patchy (no hijack, no demon boyz), it wasn't until jungle/ drum and bass that he felt he understood a scene. 

horsemouth thinks he is being interviewed by all city steve who interviewed a friend of his a while ago (about the early UK graf and BMX scenes). 

how should horsemouth record this in his monthly list of his cultural activities? should he separate out the podcasts, radio shows, blogs and vlogs from his books and films? 

horsemouth is reading h.p.lovecraft's at the mountains of madness which is the missing link between edgar allen poe's  gordon arthur pym and the thing/ alien (arguably gordon arthur pym is an offshoot from rime of the ancient mariner). a few years ago he listened to an excellent series of podcasts which were (as if) the case of charles dexter ward (and other lovecraft tales) told as if by a modern investigative journalism podcast (and very good they were too). august derleth writes the introduction. 

at the mountains of madness  is another bookbox find (the one on the way to aldi) - he returned with about 10kgs of groceries (and retired to bed). 

friday horsemouth attends an online meeting. next week his american friend is back. next weekend he goes to a not-online conference. the week after the management committee meeting. 

horsemouth (unauthorised autobiographer)

'good things do not continue'  - paul bowles.

here he is (your boy horsemouth) live from the 4th of october. he (at least) is making some effort to continue. 

he is not yet sure if anything significant occurred on this date or anyone famous or musicianly was born or died on this date (he will find out later) the calendar system is pretty much a bodge anyway. he types this siting up in bed wearing a jumper and a fleece. 

horsemouth has his copy of two years by the straight  by paul bowles out (in truth he never put it away after the last time he read it). 

'an even more unpleasant prospect is having the british tv crew and animateurs arrive week after next to do that interview...'   remarks bowles on the 3rd of october 1987. the next year (10th oct) he is being advised to go to paris to be interviewed by french tv for the sake of his career. he has an unauthorised biographer over to stay with him (that is someone writing the story of his life who he does not wish to have writing the story of his life), the unauthorised biographer even puts on concerts of paul bowles music (but they are badly played). 

horsemouth used to own a book by jane bowles (the letters he thinks) but he never got round to reading it and so deposited it in a charity shop when he did the move up to h_____y six or so years ago. he thinks he has seen the british tv documentary - it has footage of paul bowles' music being played (perhaps from the concerts mentioned). bowles is  a slightly dull modren composer in the style of late satie, milhaud etc. 

horsemouth has been reading watchmen for the first time in a long time (and very good it is too). 

yesterday a wander down to leyton tube (via the estates round the back of the olympic park) about 7 or 8km all told.

yesterday was also the  anniversary of the filming of fall of the house of fitzgerald  in the teeth of the pandemic (and almost certainly against lockdown instructions). horsemouth tends to re-read the blogposts from that era rather a lot, not because he had anything wise to say about the pandemic but because (in retrospect) it was actually a period of great cultural productivity. (not that anyone has seen or heard any of it).

horsemouth enjoyed making fall...  enormously. he is sad not to be doing more of it (but them's the breaks).

there are of course two problems - the poor scholar's problem, how to stay fed and find time to study, and the poor artist's problem, how to make people aware of your great art. horsemouth has the solution to neither really. like many artists/ musicians he just likes making the stuff and doing the work he can't be bothered with the other side of it (which is of course a crucial failing). 

today horsemouth does not really know what he is up to. some wandering about he expects.   

'where does the crisis go next?' ( the hours of the day and how horsemouth fills them)

'where does the crisis go next?'  -FT 

so it's back. the crisis. the perma-crisis.the omnishambles. the one true crisis. the only true crisis in town.

the crisis of capitalism 

the crisis has many symptoms. the crisis has many (putative) causes. the crisis is a moving contradiction. an infection at the weakest link in the value chain. white bloodcells flood the site attempting to mop up risk and, bursting, release helicopter money and liquidity. overhead. a bestiary of macrophages. we live in fear of the cytokine storm of austerity.

the crisis. (last known sighting 2008) bubbles away hidden in brexit, in the arab spring, in trump voters, in the climate crisis (its unacknowledged step-child). time is running out. time is frozen. time has gone into reverse. is it deja vu we feel or sleep paralysis? has history ended or politics ended? 

can the crisis be evaded or avoided? can bad decisions be untaken? or not approved? can votes be recalled?

horsemouth's stomach is grumbling  and the coffee is nearly gone. he's wolfed down a bowl of museli and he's finishing off the last of the coffee. it is time to move on to other topics.

 the hours of the day and how horsemouth fills them

the morning. this is his favourite bit of the day. he gets to make sense (or at least re-arrange words, to redistribute meanings). he writes this. no he types this. not to produce a physical letter in ink on a physical page of paper (nothing is even printed out anymore) but to produce a change in a file that people will be able to access (if they know it is there, if they care). the metaphors migrate easily to hide the changes in literary production and the audiences who may (one day) read it. 

the evening is another easy bit of the day. the pressure to do is off. there is food to be cooked and eaten and there are films to be watched. ultimately there is recourse to sleep. if there is stuff to be done (meetings etc.) then that means (in theory) something is happening. sometimes there is TV,  TV news or even a film.

the afternoon is the difficult bit of the day. this is where horsemouth needs a task to fill in his time and feel useful. in the afternoon he often acquires a two-dwarf mood (grumpy and...).

the night. horsemouth sleeps pretty soundly. he does not recall his dreams for long upon waking. 

the activities

horsemouth has mentioned writing (not that it is writing you understand). he has failed to explain what it is he is writing and what, and who, is this writing for. 

he should probably mention walking. this is where he gets to think (and discuss with himself) but without being able to write anything down (or at least only in a very limited fashion in his notebook). beyond that there is shopping, mostly book shopping or actually in its modern incarnation hunting for books. horsemouth will often structure his walks round checking a book box (or garden walls) locally. at one time (more when horsemouth worked) it would have been a charity shop or a second hand book shop but he will often alibi longer walks with this (up to walthamstow say). 

yesterday (for example) he too the rare decision to walk west rather than walk east. 

his reading is largely dictated by what he finds (he is an omnivorous reader, a library cormorant), but sometimes he cannot generate the enthusiasm to read very much and has to return to tried and trusted favourites. 

playing guitar and singing (and learning songs or writing new ones) this he does much less than he should. similarly he has a number of other instruments round the house which he could learn to play/ learn to play better. horsemouth has let his music slide he needs to start putting effort back into it again (and to investigate new musical partnerships). 

listening to music this he does much less than he used to (the amplifier for his hi-fi is dead at the moment - his CDs look at him reproachfully). he has plenty of books to read (and plenty of CDs to listen to) but it does not always work for him. 

going and visiting friends - this (again) he does much less than he should. he was pretty solitary before the pandemic and the threat of death confirmed him in this. he tries to arrange regular walks with with friends (e.g. TG early in the week). he has a generalised plan to do more of this (before the pandemic kicks off again). 

going up the pub and getting drunk.  this is not a daily activity (or even a weekly one) but horsemouth enjoys it. 

going out to films, gigs, parties etc.  these are pretty rare (monthly activities if that). he has not been to see a film in a cinema in at least a year (and probably before that a decade). at some points he has watched loads of DVDs (from the library), now it is whatever he can find on youtube. he does not partake of TV series (in the main). this is (in any event) an evening activity. 

ok the time has come to finish this off, to post it up and to get on with the business of the day. 

that moment (the sudden collapse of confidence)

horsemouth supposes that the point with instantly everything is in ruins (once again) is that nothing has really changed.. the people are the same, the same sun still shines and rain is still wet, everything physical is exactly as it was but despite this billions (trillions) has been knocked off the value of peoples savings/ labour/ future activity. 

how can this be? if what is being measured is something objective how can the market get the value so completely wrong? (it is the same moment of disbelief that he had with the financial crisis. in that moment.).

the answer of the worshipers of the market is that it wasn't wrong but that it is becoming more accurate as events (brexit/ gas shortages caused by the war in ukraine/ crazed budgets by economic illiterates) happen. curiously no one seems to be pricing-in a tactical nuclear exchange yet. 

horsemouth's reply would be to ask why we are running the world on such a fragile operating system - one prone to the sudden collapse of confidence, one prone to such wild oscillations.  

'the lurch of what feels like dystopian science fiction (and or disaster film) into really existing actuality,'

it is of course these fluctuations that make speculation possible and rewarding and in this fashion enable a more efficient extraction of value from the people actually doing the work. (plus the appearance of mutability and flux hides the essential activity going on (this transfer of value). it is a magic trick with a slapstick hiding an underlying process. 

horsemouth is back from yet another party (what another one horsemouth? yes another one).the congregation sang nonsense songs and the children toasted marshmallows. horsemouth succeeded in drinking moderately and they fed him. it was good to see everyone again after such a long time. at a certain point he threw himself out of the door and wandered over to the bus station. his clothes still have a slight barbecue flavour. 

other than that horsemouth read science fiction (and most affecting it was too in a flowers for algernon kind of way) in the sunlight on the front steps. soon the book will be done. 

today a grey day. the regular phonecall with his mum in the evening.   

instantly everything is in ruins (once again) (the retreat from moscow)

 'there arises from a bad or unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind'  - francis bacon

sleep paralysis and the end of history

there are lots of games with time. (things are said to be stuck. things are said to be going backwards. things are said to be progressing keenly into the future. the characters are said to appear on the stage dressed in the costumes of the past. history is said to be over replaced by an era of universal social democratic beneficence)

'the lurch of what feels like dystopian science fiction (and or disaster film) into really existing actuality,'

wrote a friend of the covid crisis and the dragooning of the working class onto the death trains and off to the death factories while the middle class worked from home..

we have just had another lurch. 

the government had (of necessity, for perfectly reasonable reasons but woefully executed) racked up the debt during the covid crisis - and also realised it could not run another round of austerity to pay for it (because there has to be some economy on which to pay taxes). 

then the unfinished business in ukraine struck and all of a sudden there was a global gas shortage  - strangely the government elected not to pay for the ameliorating measures via windfall taxes on the energy companies (the sensible approach)  but by racking up more debt (and then, for ideological reasons they decided to bung in a few tax cuts for the ultra-rich while they were at it). 

the debt markets demurred and said they wouldn't be betting on this pony. and all of a sudden it all gets wonderfully more expensive. instantly everything is in ruins (once again). (it is like we were travelling in the time machine) because everything you see is made up of future earnings and debts to be paid at as yet unagreed interest rates . hard times produce their own demands for wage restraint and austerity (for penitential lent) but this may not be the feelgood party that capitalism likes but hey someone somewhere is making money out of it. 

what will happen? either a wonderfully executed pirouette or a death march into austerity and debt (the retreat from moscow). who knows things may be so bad that tory MPs elect to collapse their own government two years too early  and go to the polls and into political exile. (don't bet on it - parliamentary wages are good and the current chances of getting re-elected poor, they'll klingon). 

it is tempting to believe it is all deliberate (and that someone somewhere has a plan) but horsemouth doubts it. 

the weather is predicted to be a shocker for the weekend (but here it is sunny). a friend is off seeing other friends (this is good). there is a railstrike (hail the railway workers!). horsemouth stayed in last night (he was being good). he's due to go out tonight (being bad)). 

(p.s. horsemouth has been for a walk (it is sunny, autumnal and beautiful out there). his usual counter-clockwise route initially to the east. he has discovered he is interested in reading clarice lispector (because he has discovered that she is brazillian) after a quick stop to peruse his saved-from-a-dustbin copy of the FT.)