friday 13th october (paraskevidekatriaphobics unite)

it was last friday 13th october in 2017 - horsemouth was out at max's mirkwood closing party to celebrate his book launch at st.leonard's church (the oranges and lemons church). horsemouth played a gig. he still regrets not getting a call-and-response round oranges and lemons going. 

'oranges and lemons (say the bells of st.clements),

oranges and lemons (say the bells of st.clements),

etc.'

it is the anniversary of the arrest of celebrated prison writer silvio pellico in milan in 1820 and the anniversary of the birth of pharaoh sanders (as 13ths of october). 

horsemouth has vowed to celebrate any friday the 13th as dominic cummings day - the day on which dominic cummings fell (thus effectively fucking brexit, turning the country into singapore-on-thames, and in particular levelling up and thus tory electoral hopes). this way horsemouth gets to celebrate it at least twice a year (and some years three times). he can also celebrate the 13th of november (the actual date 13/11/2020).

now friday the 13ths that fall on the same day of the week (as 2017 and 2023) are comparatively rare - typically  there are two cycles, one at 6 years apart and one at 11 years apart. this is because of the strange interaction of properties of days of the year which repeat at 365 day intervals (366 at every four years) and days of the week  (52*7) repeating every 364 days.

just like the beating of closely tuned musical notes it takes them a while to get into sync. broadly the days of the week are moved through at the rate of 1 day a year for normal years and 2 days a week for leap years - for the most optimal (shortest) the 6 years has 1 leap year in it (wheras the 11 year cycle typically has 2 leap years in it). the 11 year cycle is more common. 

2024 is a rare year in that it has a monday 1st january. 

given a list of china mieville, mervyn peake, robert rankin and terry pratchett as a friend's  favourite authors, horsemouth was asked who he would recommend.

horsemouth has never liked terry pratchett (or douglas adams for that matter - ok here horsemouth lies he was a big fan of the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy radio show, the books and the tv series/ film less so). robert rankin he doesn't really know. and so horsemouth must work within the china mieville / mervyn peake SF - fantasy corridor. 

m.john harrison's viriconium series horsemouth recommends (the more space-y kind of stuff by MJH leaves horsemouth cold). 

also as a continuation from the mervyn peake, he recommends langdon jones (who edited titus alone). also worth a look keith roberts, james sallis and many of the writers championed by new worlds science fiction magazine under the editorship of micheal moorcock. moorcock's two collections of victorian and edwardian science fiction (england invaded and before armageddon) are great. 

SF wise horsemouth always recommend pamela zoline's short story the heat death of the universe. 

horsemouth's interest in this stuff was revitalised by outlaw bookseller and bookpilled.

horsemouth generally read books that are translated from another language by preference (he's not sure why - he just finds them deeper and more meaningful). 

RIP alkaline. at the top of the page gunshot in action with MC alkaline demonstrating his upside-down style. 

'in the beginning the universe was created...' (hereford before the rains)

yesterday there was a quick visit to hereford (before it rained). 

horsemouth made book purchases

one was the history of the runestaff (michael moorcock) one squid.

the bbc were talking about filming it but then brexit happened and it seemed impolitic to remind british people about the existence of europe. 

now don't get horsemouth wrong he's perfectly happy to have the brits represented as evil animal mask wearing psychopaths in the grip of national psychosis... he just thinks the timing might have been a bit sensitive, but by 2019 it was already very sensitive, he guesses a remainer at the beeb bought the rights just to piss off the daily mail.

sample headlines; 'granbretan on the licence fee! remainer propaganda that portrays britons as rats!'

a friend remarked that it was a bit 'offbrand'  to imagine the brits wearing masks and horsemouth agreed 'obviously britons never shall be slaves and thus would never wear masks'.

his friend thought the beeb 'only secured the rights to prevent anyone else from filming them'.

today it is rainy and grey and the news on the TV is pure carnage. horsemouth is trying to avoid discussing it. 

he watched a little of an interview with melanie phillips. (he doesn't know if you can see it but there's a link anyway). 

this is a very interesting argument she is making (with which horsemouth doesn't agree). he finds it difficult to identify with a claim to a piece of land based on the existence of the existence of a kingdom (in this case of israel and judah) in the 9th century BCE (before the christian era). 

even given the matrilineal nature of descent horsemouth finds the idea that an existence of a kingdom 3000 years ago then grants the right to the land now utterly insane (unless there's  divine assistance in which case who is horsemouth to argue). 

horsemouth asks the following questions. 

do the descendants of the people who were there before the 9th century (BCE) state of israel and judah not have a prior right to the territory? and if so why shouldn't their descendants have it? if your ancestors come from more than one 9th century BCE state which ones may you return to? how are the competing claims of the different groups of people who lived in a particular area at any time to be judged? 

the history between then (the 9th century BCE kingdom of israel and judah) and 'now' (the modern day state of israel) cannot simply be wished away and the 9th century kingdom and modern state cannot be made continuous except by an argument of great will. her argument functions by an exile from a homeland (israel and judah) which also (in her argument) did not happen (because there were always jews there i.e. there was continuous occupation). 

horsemouth thinks that view, hastily sketched out by her interlocutors at the start of the video and described by her as 'factually incorrect'  is in fact the correct one - that the state of israel is a 20th century project.  

anyway horsemouth's witterings won't save a single person from the carnage so please ignore them. 

at the top of the page the mahavishnu orchestra (remastered and perhaps slowed down and pitched down a tone and sounding the better for it).

having survived since february

'here we are having survived since february. the last day of work in the outside world 14th march. since then lots of staying in and avoiding crowds. has he succeeded in halving the amount of contact he has with humanity? (probably). certainly no foreign travel. no raves. no gigs. only two or three singing events. no discos. no pubs (amazing that). no second hand book shopping.' 

- horsemouth blogpost 14th october 2020.

 “we both lived in new york” “please, try again.”

once again joan didion looks incredibly stylish. even though she must be 80 or so and distinctly frail. the book gets a bad review (the“please try again.”) 

to see the banners of moki cherry in black and white (very strange). 

life continues to hit hard with a cycle of bad news. horsemouth has a theory about the phonecall. let him check it out.  and now we wait. 

last night a TV show on british rail (BBC 4, timeshift, 10 Oct 2023 - 9:00pm - 10:00pm). now late and lamented british rail (BR) was then much reviled despite being ontime (mostly), efficient and cheap to run). beeching swings the axe, engineers work for 13 years to get the advanced passenger train working - so that they can get 150mph while going round the corners on bendy tracks but in the end it is cancelled and the stop gap intercity 125 ends up in service for 40 years. 

it is an ironic moment to be discussing passenger rail and journey times to manchester for sure. 

typically BR had a film unit (continuing the great documentary tradition of grierson etc.) but once again it was rationalised out of existence. 

“we both lived in new york”

“please, try again.”

once again joan didion looks incredibly stylish. even though she must be 80 or so and distinctly frail. the book gets a bad review (a “please, try again.”) 

the banners of moki cherry in black and white (very strange). 

'here we are having survived since february. the last day of work in the outside world 14th march. since then lots of staying in and avoiding crowds. has he succeeded in halving the amount of contact he has with humanity? (probably). certainly no foreign travel. no raves. no gigs. only two or three singing events. no discos. no pubs (amazing that). no second hand book shopping.'

horsemouth from 14th october 2020

in the golden valley

good morning! good morning! here the sun has just made it up over the hill opposite and is illuminating the mist in the valley and the vapour trails in the blue sky. 

horsemouth is up earlier than he would have thought because it is cooler at night. he has no pre-prepared material to give you and no central inspiring topic. 

'I always like to say that the mass media is not behind workers, it’s behind capital, and everybody can sense it. I really understand people who don’t like to appear in front of the camera anymore.' 

so said director srđan kovačević, director of factory to the workers about ITAS, a worker-owned factory in croatia. the course of self-management and autogestion never ran pure and the factory is divided between the youngsters who need to get paid and the oldsters who still believe in some kind of a co-operativism.  horsemouth heard about it in an article in the guardian but of course they return to tropes of 'idealism' and how workers' control can never work. 

it  is of course idealistic to imagine a world where we are not bossed about by guardian and daily torygraph readers (daily mail also).

it is the labour conference where they are preparing for power. it is not of course a given that they will get it but it is looking likely for the first time in 13 years. they are preparing to sneak into office not on a mandate that they will do something different from the conservatives but merely that they aren't the conservatives. once in office events will limit what they can actually do (should they actually wish to do it). this will save them having to make any arguments based on socialist principles.   

the disadvantage of horsemouth's room is that having gotten up the sun blasts straight into horsemouth's eyes. horsemouth likes to be up early he likes to maximise the amount of daylight. the valley looks good in the morning. 

yesterday was an annoying day with a number of unnecessary setbacks. horsemouth (sad to say) lost his temper and had to go for a stomp around on the common until he had calmed down. by the end of it the oven had been affected by the general mood and decided not to work. 

in the end the drama of the world abated and horsemouth watched the long chase  and then psychomania in youtube. today - horsemouth guesses there will be more of the same. 

mainstream commercial nihilism (death song)

here we have robbie basho singing his heart out. he is travelling joyfully to meet his creator. or alternatively you  could run around in corpse paint being evil and burn down a few churches. in many ways there are stylistic continuities between anarchopunk and black metal - a commitment to ugliness, shock and rage, a black and white fanzine aesthetic that disdains DTP. 

as someone who struggled with gestetners, photocopiers etc. to produce anarchist propaganda as a youngster horsemouth is horrified - why would you do that? to communicate authenticity? get  over it. 

horsemouth is (by and large) a happy bunny, ok he's sometimes grumpy when faced by an actual task. 

his third week in the wilderness begins. it's a cloudy morning (but that's ok). 

it looks like the truck may well sell - through local connections. horsemouth's dad absolutely loved the truck (it was just a great big tonka toy to him). horsemouth remembers him  driving through some floodwater up to the wheel arch (relying on the bow-wave to keep the air intake in the wheel arch clear). safely on the other side he stopped, another oldster in a truck made it through the flood water, they chatted to confirm in each other the wisdom of owning a 4by4. at that point some poor working schmuck arrived in an old estate car and had to be directed the long way round. 

yesterday sunshine. horsemouth got grumpy at one point and went for a walk on the common. a whole lot of dog-walking going on.  otherwise he mostly sat out and read. (ok he dug up a few potatoes for dinner).

in israel/ palestine bad things go on - basically horsemouth does not believe in fighting for your rights  he believes in fleeing and becoming a refugee. he realises this is not a solution but then there isn't a solution, there is just more conflict, what do you do then? one side has tanks, attack helicopters and guided missiles. the other doesn't. it reminds horsemouth of the warsaw uprising (or indeed the warsaw ghetto uprising) but he will of course denounce it as terrorism if that is what you need from him (that seems to be the overall consensus).  

'a record of the author's inner preoccupations'

'it's eight a.m. in the morning' sang the rave album (breakbeat hardcore). horsemouth was in some giant super-club in dalston. he must have dozed off at some point because he couldn't see any of his friends and the club was empty. he made his way out. by the time he got to the door (looking strangely like pellici's) the sun was up and about and so were the crowds. someone was pushing horsemouth in the small of his back as if unhappy with the speed at which they were leaving. this made horsemouth a bit annoyed and so he twisted off to the side  to get rid of the impatient follower. 

such was the dream. 

it was then that horsemouth woke up. the sun was shining and it was 8 am in the morning. 

yesterday horsemouth attempted more ivy removal from the front of the house with a long pole. all he succeeded in doing was pulling various muscles in his back. he's going to have to rethink his strategy.  the long pole is probably the way forward. if a crossbar were fitted on it he could stick that under the tendrils of the ivy and pull them out of their current position blocking the vent (and that would be job done). but he probably has to do it from the upstairs window. 

that was someone on the phone they want to buy the truck (bit early for a sunday but fairplay he did sound keen). 

yesterday zoom beers (two) with howard. horsemouth started reading some of abram tertz (whose birthday it is today). 

'when there is nothing else at hand art begins to talk about itself.'  

sinyavsky (who had written and published in the west under the name abram tertz) has been caught, tried and jailed. in the gulag, in the prison camp he can write letters to his wife every two weeks, but he cannot curse out the guards or discuss his actual situation too clearly because the letters are censored. he follows the strategy of silvio pellico (who will be arrested in milan on october 13th) in finding only good and interesting things to write about - the cant of the criminals, the nature of work and of art, and the work of gogol. 

today looks like being a beautiful day. horsemouth will probably sit outside and read again. 

the third week of his time in the countryside begins.