victor sjöström's dream (revisited) - no one now alive need ever die

in the dream there was a magazine with an article about musicians of bremen. no it wasn't an article it was a letter. there was also water on the desk (horsemouth was back at school and it was raining outside). horsemouth contributed to the lesson but he was mocked so he stopped. 

outside it is a grey morning with thunder and rain (like literally someone has turned all the colours down to grey). horsemouth is up earlyish having slept well. 

last night he spent time reading his blogposts from december and november 2021. 

they read surprisingly well - he was mostly back out at his parents in the wilds. he had arranged his six mixcloud mixes (the golden glow - the ones where he picked the tracks and howard arranged the mix) into a sort of festival order (3 of them dated from december - 12th, 18th, 24th and 3 from elsewhere in the years). he has lately been revisiting these. there are some pleasant surprises. 

this morning he re-read his bergman review victor sjöström's dream (an old man regrets). soon the supply of memories from two years ago will stop as the facebook notes tool ends - by november 10th 2020 horsemouth has fully converted to using blogspot as his diary. in doing this he makes much more of his soul available to posterity (assuming anyone is ever interested). writing (1s and 0s) have eaten almost all human existence - what is sacred and protected from it. this is why 'no one now alive need ever die' because we have all left lots of ourselves to posterity (possibly too much to be remembered). 

of course some people fade out while they are alive. a discretion the alienation of modern life made possible. 

in his reading horsemouth finds the following. 

'it is nice to feel useful... this is the feeling horsemouth has decided to give up' 

true horsemouth is still doing the co-op stuff but he is no longer doing the childminding stuff, he is no longer doing the work stuff, the music stuff has gone quiet. 

tonight. the regular phonecall from horsemouth's mum.

tomorrow - another grey day, followed by a zoom meeting (hopefully), followed by the second episode of our mutual friend. at some point horsemouth will listen to his october 24th version of the golden glow (he will share it again so you can listen to it too). 

he has begun reading h.p.lovecraft's the dunwich horror which turns out not to be about old (english) dunwich (sunken beneath the waves) at all but about the new england village of dunwich. it resembles deliverance in lots of ways - poverty, inbreeding, deformity. 

thursday the anniversary of the death of a friend. sunday music and a meal (very civilised)  and the clocks go back, monday halloween, tuesday november starts. we are edging on half way between the equinox and the winter solstice. we make the night journey through the dark quarter of the year.  

'you want nice capitalism? good luck with that...' (the call of cthuluminism)

so writes a friend.

oof. horsemouth has just received a how well your savings are doing letter (and the answer is they are not doing well at all). buy gold might be the answer etc. 

everything is subject to the rationality of the market. but the market is spooked by animal spirits, or, to be frank, it's more like call of cthulu - it is spooked by nightmares of creatures from a non-euclidean interstellar space.

those working in financial markets were the first affected, they were the most sensitive to the emanations. visions of giant pyramids filled their heads. giant pyramids of strange geometry collapsing. 

the UK is not the US. it cannot run permanent budget deficits because it is not printing the world's reserve currency. there is a very limited course of action that the markets (herinafter referred to as the old ones) will permit for a small and misbehaving country like the UK (and it's basically austerity). horsemouth of course welcomes our new overlords (they appear to us as lizards and gill-men because their true forms are too eldritch and disgusting).

but (of course) it has all basically been run by 'the markets' for all of horsemouth's life (the democratic politics out front is but a puppet show, albeit one with real consequences). there was a point, in his childhood where it was recommended he read the communist manifesto (aka. the necronomicon  of that mad arab al hazzared), horsemouth read it and, to his horror, he was convinced. 

lovecraft is (of course) the anti-melville. instead of a beautiful multi-racial proletariat made up of the nations of the world (like the crew of the peaquod) co-operating in joint purpose, the racist lovecraft sees mongrelised wharf trash, mulatto portuguese speakers from dunedin. 

a squirrel is burying nuts in the front garden (or maybe digging them up). 

of course six months ago (hell even one month ago) horsemouth's savings were doing well - they were doing super-well in fact, they were going up and horsemouth wasn't having to do any work for them to do so. he was enjoying the dues of the rentier.  he was riding on the coat-tails of capitalism into the promised land. 

it has been this way for a while. his savings make gains. the gains are wiped out. he always thinks he should have cashed out ahead of the crisis and then re-invested after it (but he's just not that sharp).

the state could tax the rich and use this to fund its ameliorative programs (there are actually possibilities within state socialism that would help people). it is just that it is not going to because the balance of forces is not there. some sectors of the working class will be able to defend themselves (for a while).

in any event it's not like horsemouth is rich and although he's on a somewhat restricted diet he's a way off starving. he may have to review his plan to escape the world of work (aka. exploitation) early that is all.  horsemouth is from a long line of don't bet the farm puritans. horsemouth loves the romance of development but he accepts that some capitalist eras are not favourable to it.

horsemouth is up late and has sat too long over typing this. it is the weekend (horsemouth has made it to the weekend). next week a management committee meeting at the weekend bst ends horsemouth goes round a friend's flat to play some music and have a meal. 

 

'to lose one prime minister might appear a misfortune...' (the black spot has been passed)

on the departure of liz truss in ignominy

look how soft- heated he is. he feels sorry for her. 

that's a harsh and brutal lesson in the opportunism of the financial markets, the british class system, and the utter perfidy of conservative MPs. his heartstrings have not been tugged so much since he saw michael gove alone in a dundee nightclub dancing to techno trying to talk to the youth half his age. 

nonetheless he is glad she's gone (though he would rather have found a less expensive way of doing it than crashing the fucking economy). 

and thus the schlud, the black spot, the runic parchment has been passed and the workers will now have to pay not just for the rises in food costs due to inflation, not just for a proportion of the increased energy costs, not just increased mortgage costs, but for the increased cost of servicing government debt as well. 

there is a way out of it - the debt could be inflated away berin hyperinflation style but this would be a raid on the savings of the workers and the pensioners etc. 

what is interesting is not just that the whole government policy has just fallen apart and with it the post-hoc rationalisations .of various commentators. it turns out that the government cannot just endlessly postpone the paying of debts (as many were arguing) or maybe it could have but it has just crashed that particular bus.

the track we are now on is one of austerity without mitigations, a class war over who gets to pay for the crisis. the interesting thing about this class war is just how far up the middle class this goes - anybody with a mortgage, anybody paying rent.

we may indeed get boris back - on the basis that it is not his fault he was doing his best. 

today a meeting (online) and then the weekend. looks grey outside (but then the sun did manage to shine yesterday).   

  

horsemouth's autumn booster (in honour of the departure of suella braverman)

horsemouth is up. in a little while he goes to get jabbed.  

it's a rainy grey and horrible day (horsemouth doubts the power of the sun to pierce the clouds and reach down a golden hand of hope to the people beneath). the morning exodus is on. 

last nights selection round casa horsemouth  looked particularly fine (in honour of the departure of suella braverman) 

1) alice coltrane - the ankh of amon-ra

2) steve 'peregrine' took - syd's wine

3) nusrat fateh ali khan (+ michael brook) - my love, my heart

4) ravi shankar - track 5 alice in wonderland soundtrack

5) weather report (+ ralph towner) -  the moors

horsemouth is glad to see suella braverman gone (she looked like a bad pony to him). but (of course) she will be back, not enough of liz truss's crew will suffer sufficient reputational damage to sink them in perpetuity (more's the pity). the tory party have just been rolled by the financial markets, scenting weakness the sharks closed in and ripped them to shreds, of course it will be the wider people who pay for this.

the message the people will derive from this is not to anger the all-powerful and all-knowing market, to elect governments approved of by the market and every once in a while to throw their most beautiful children into the volcano. 

the lesson they should take from it is that they have been played - the arrangement of the deck chairs on the SS titanic turns out not to have mattered at all and to have no bearing on anything. the rich get into the boats and float off. the middle classes loyally applaud them (and wait their turn patiently). the stock of lifeboats runs out. comprehension dawns on the faces of the passengers and sailors. the musicians play nearer my god to thee. 

in fact the ship of state will not sink (it will just sag lower in the water). the rat will become the unit of currency etc. sir keir will be elected ('they sir keir him here, they sir keir him here... he's a dedicated follower of fashion'). 

the real issue is the development of self-knowledge and identity among the workers (and the working class as a whole) as having an interest in getting paid so as not to pay for the crisis. ultimately the government will decide who pays for the crisis by bouncing the bill on the weakest class sitting at the table of society - the pensioners (the tory voters par excellence)  may already have been sorted out. 

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

horsemouth is back from being jabbed. he's knocked back two paracetamol and bought some junk food to keep him going. now he will see if his parents' dire prognostications are true (headaches, stiff arm, stiff neck). thanks again to the NHS, to the science of immunology and to the discipline of epidemiology.  thanks to anyone trying to reduce the death and damage that this rare irruption of nature into human society is causing. 

'no se puede robar a los muertos' (you can't rob the dead)

so, in order, a spanish translation of a line from the 1998 BBC production of our mutual friend plus the line as delivered in english.

'he had been living as if he were dead'  - a line from pereira maintains, by antonio tabucchi.

horsemouth has booked his autumn booster jab online. his parents tell him it the after effects really suck. nonetheless horsemouth is committed to surviving the apocalypse (he will survive.he will survive. hey-hey).

the production of our mutual friend  is a little heavy on the actors of the time and they are cast in type (kate beckinsale plays a stroppy young miss - yawn). horsemouth watched a little of the 1976 production - it was grittier and grimier (blood in the bottom of the boat). 

the men who make their living by pulling dead bodies out of the thames stop on the water for a chat. you can't rob the dead asserts one (jesse 'gaffer' hexam), because money belongs to this world not to the next. 

the mountains of dust were (in real life) out by mile end - now they have moved further out to just the other side of the lea river. nicodemus boffin (and his wife) cannot read so they hire a man to read to them - they are off, into the world of culture and books. they are mocked for their pretensions. they are mocked for their simplicity. 

today horsemouth is unsure what to do. it is a grey day. 

apology - a statement of contrition for an action (or a defence of one)

'is there an alternative (that the markets will tolerate)'  

ask  the news reporters.

this is of course the real immediate issue (seeing as the 'all-knowing ' market; has slapped down its own tory fanboys (and girl) for being ideological).

there are bad decisions (horsemouth has made a few of them) and then there are expensive bad decisions (horsemouth has not had the honour- or maybe he has but he doesn't realise it yet). 

here the markets are doing the work of a  'socialist' criticism of unfunded tax cuts for the rich. this time (at least) it will not stick. 

the country has effectively been mugged (in the way greece was mugged) for billions by the financial markets but because it suits our political direction (criticising tory stupidity) nobody is pointing this out. we will nonetheless be paying for it for a very long time to come. 

people are not making a criticism of letting financial markets decide the .direction of the country. the great british   people (in their lack of wisdom) elected this government (an earlier version of perhaps)  - what we are now being offered is a third round of austerity (it may be more than that, horsemouth has lost count). 

of course you can't run a 'prosperous' economy with lots of austerity because it produces too many poor people who are incapable of buying things beyond the bare necessities - what you (the runners of a smooth social democratic capitalist society) want are hordes of solvent consumers living their best life (even if this means whacking in subsidies, in-work benefits  and racking out credit). 

in a sovereign country terrible state debt can be dealt with by inflating it away - this raids the value tied up in people's wages and their savings (unless wages and interest rates rise), it makes people in real terms poorer, but what the hell, needs must right? there are sectors of the working class who can defend themselves against this onslaught, and there are sectors that can't. 

the tories have fucked with their electoral base - the people doing well enough to get by (or think they are doing well enough to get by and that this  makes them virtuous). people now face a long cold winter where they have to work harder to pay their mortgages or  lose their homes (and go back to square one in snakes and ladders). the tories face a wipe out at the polls and can only hope that it is going to get better, something is going to come along, or something else may happen. if the tory MPs mount a coup against liz truss (wednesday) they are mounting a coup against the tory party membership who chose her. 

zugswang - there are no good moves. 

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

horsemouth has finished off pereira maintains (an excellent wish fulfillment novel for liberals). it is fiction and yet the writers mentioned are real, pessoa crops up (and is accused of having 'strange friends' - the recent NLR article on him said as much). pereira does the right thing but he never has to commit to an ideology to do that right thing. it's a pleasant read but it doesn't have the depth of saramago because the moral dilemmas aren't real. . 

later he watched a little of the 1998 version of our mutual friend (london live 9pm) and then a little of the 76 version. it is the 76 version he remembers (blood in the bottom of the boat) - it has the necessary gruesomeness (but it also has a russian voice over that rather spoils things).  

today a bright cold morning. horsemouth doesn't know what to do with himself. he has written the start of a review of the housing conference. he has drunk his coffee. he has found his diary again (for a while he thought he'd left it behind). 

iterations of form (at the museum of the home)

11 years later (to the day) horsemouth visits the geffrye (sorry that should be the museum of the home). he had previously visited with his brother and his family and they had traveled backwards through the exhibits denying the development of form (horsemouth had just read ubik and this sat very well with him). 

this time he visited it with catastro/fille and enza. they did the modern stuff first (as if kind of an introduction to the idea) before travelling right back in time. at a certain point in the iteration of how rooms learn, in the endless wastes of history, catastro/fille broke and ran for the exit. it is kind of like the comic book here -a static shot of a space through time (that turns out to be a living room at some point in time), with anachronistic elements bleeding in from other times. it runs off the unity of place.

in between (and to either side of the timeline and the spiral) there was the garden (and in particular the herb garden) and the front square with its lawn and benches.

they next check in with each other on october 30th samhain. there will be music (from 3pm) and then food (but very little drink - that is the plan). 

later (as he wandered back) horsemouth bumped into john and sarah in london fields - the discussion (at least to horsemouth's recollection) was of lewontkin and stephen j. gould (and coetzee's writings on animals)- the ways in which inequality and hierarchy has permeated our understanding of nature and even biochemical processes (seen in terms of DNA 'the master molecule' providing 'instructions' which are then 'obeyed' by other molecules rather than as a 'mutual aid' of molecules with different properties producing a stable-ish system). our understanding of intelligence is similar - a top-down education and training rather than a networked exchange of knowledge. 

anyway here you see horsemouth living in his head (even while walking back). 

horsemouth is back from a housing conference which was two parts inspiring to one part depressing. the news is of course bad - the government want this, they are prepared to pay that (and the co-ops will have to fund the rest). meanwhile overhead and on the radio traveling up there the government is in crisis and the economy is affected. 

it was great to meet the people connected with the retrofit and the consortium bid (a pleasure to meet you all) and it was great to have people cooking for and feeding him and cleaning (thank you hotel staff). he should now sit down and begin to get on with the work. 

if the work goes correctly the buildings will learn - they will sprout new protective layers of insulation. eventually (further down the line beyond the government funding) they will sprout solar panels - all these measures will reduce the amount of energy necessary to heat the building (to the satisfaction of the people living in it) in winter or reduce the amount of carbon needed to generate that energy (is the theory). this energy is of course lost to the atmosphere (eventually) and so contributes to global warming as does the carbon generated in the production of that energy (becoming that much demonised molecule carbon dioxide).

of course there are lots of green measures that are in fact (on closer examination) less green. but we are up and moving ladies and gentlemen.