equinox

horsemouth has survived until the vernal equinox (again) - this alone would be cause for rejoicing, but in addition he had an idea for a lyric on the way home.

looking out at the greyskies horsemouth finds it hard to believe that soon in will be summer, and yet it is so, we are entering the bright half of the year, soon it will be the solstice. horsemouth has celebrated by putting up a link to orbital's version of the equinox theme music (which if he remembers correctly had commentary by 'the voice of dr. who' tom baker, from whence comes the meat beat manifesto sample burning with ecstasy (he believes). he listened to chime (orbital's best track) and lush 3-1 (which features a young horsemouth in african guitar mode - he comes in about half way through under the double time hi-hats). this is horsemouth's 15 seconds of fame.

ok horsemouth should get on with some spring cleaning (or perhaps a snooze) - later

horsemouth has been having a nostalgia binge - first the stooges, then the 12 dreams of dr. sardonicus by spirit, then hawkwind - in particular a shot of dancer stacia from the start of the video for silver machine. the first time horsemouth ever saw hawkwind as part of a documentary on science fiction writer michael moorcock, m.john harrison cropped up, climbing a rock face somewhere the bubble machine creates bubbles, the audio generators burble to themselves and then assume an upward trajectory, the ascending guitar riff kicks in, stacia salutes, lemmy starts to sing.

.

later horsemouth will probably listen to the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy which horsemouth heard when it was first transmitted 36 years ago (when he was about 13/14), as improbable as it seemed the rumour that the theme music was by the (unfashionable) eagles turned out to be true. horsemouth pretty much knows it word for word and sound by sound.

horsemouth was a nerd avant la lettre, studying science, playing dungeons and dragons, reading science fiction, listening to hawkwind and the friday night rock show, computers hadn't quite happenend yet, space travel was over (but nobody knew it yet).

this years books (to the end of february)

ficciones - jorge luis borges,
and a threefold cord - alex la guma,
blues people - leroi jones,
beneath the visiting moon - david grubb,
gustav holst - imogen holst,
the lover - marguerite duras,
train dreams - denis johnson,
the people's land - hugh brody,
travel arrangements - m.john harrison,
unfinished woman - lillian hellman,
a handbook on hanging - 
the prisoner - thomas m. disch,
magic hour - jack cardiff,
summer in baden-baden - leonid tsypskin,
hadrian VII - fr. rolfe.

what does horsemouth love about his flat?

well he loves the light - the light that being on the 3rd floor gives him, the light from the sun that shines through his windows in the afternoon making certain places bright sunny and warm. (one thing he needs to do is to rearrange the furniture to take better advantage of this).

he also loves the heating - however grim it is outside he can be toasty in a matter of minutes...  and he loves the internet connection (so he can write tedious toss like this). the hi-fi system does not work well enough to be loved.

he loves the sofa - but not as much as he loves the bed - it's just not as comfortable.

... and he loves the shelving (and various boxes etc.) used to store and display all his cultural product until the glorious day when he can actually get round to reading or listening to it all.

the kitchen, the bathroom, the toilet, the cupboards - these are all very useful but they don't excite his love (not even the new work surface in the kitchen), they are insufficiently aesthetic. the fridge he has warm feelings for - it keeps the beer cold and preserves food long past its sell-by date. the coffee pot he only loves in the afternoon - in the morning he is not awake enough to be grateful. 

his balcony he does not love yet - for he has not tidied it up in preparation for summer.

the big mirror (from jiska's) he loves - it just bounces so much light back into the room. his tilak table (one of his few' spends' on furniture) he loves, the chair that he found in a similar style he does not (because it's a bit too heavy and he stained the wood oak which is too dark)

but most of all he loves the door that (after a hard days work and the commute from hell) he can close behind him.

target with four faces

last night horsemouth developed a sudden interest in jamaican saxophonist and early free jazz musician joe harriott, and in particular the cover of his 1960 album freeform - a faux anthropological assemblage involving a toby jug, some wooden boxes and a penny bank in the form of an elderly black gentleman's head and shoulders in cast iron. horsemouth's grandparents once had one of these. the coin was placed in the gentleman's hand, the lever pressed, the hand would lift to the gentleman's mouth, his large eyes would roll up and the coin would slip down his throat into the piggy bank within. as a child horsemouth found this, and his grandmother's singer sewing machine (the legs of which were also in black cast iron) fascinating. they both lived in the same corner of the kitchen.

horsemouth could find no details on who had made the thing on the record sleeve or the cd re-issue - he thought (perhaps) it looked like jasper johns target with four faces (and it doesn't look a lot like that), eventually (after some blade runner style enlargement business) horsemouth discovered two names on the photo - donald silverstein and ken deardoff. donald was a noted music industry photographer doing many covers on the formula jazz musician + work of art, he also photographed jimi hendrix for the axis bold as love cover, ken deardoff a noted record cover designer - could it be that they made the assemblage themselves?

joe harriott also recorded with goan prodigy guitarist amancio d'silva who, later on, taught for a while at jenako arts in hackney (where horsemouth, in the graceland years, briefly studied african (ghanain) guitar with folo graff of orchestre jazira). people (well the guy from agents of chaos) told him amancio was good and that it was a real opportunity to study with him but horsemouth was busy with other things. (this is something he can now beat himself up about).

last night horsemouth should have made music (but, even though he was bored, he was also feeling a little tired).

(may the) sorrows of tomorrow bring you happiness today (the year so far roundup)

last night there were explosions in the sky - horsemouth suspects an art event at cody dock - he supposes barges on the river could have slipped their moorings and gone careening downstream, pushed on by the flood,  crashing into wharves and houseboats. it will be interesting to see if the lego housing/ scaffolding/ cranes have survived. not that horsemouth is taking pleasure in this destruction you understand.

high treason, murder, piracy with violence, incendiarism in state dockyards

last night horsemouth dreamed of a woman with an antique computer collection (and a nice ass).
the title comes from a list of offences for which capital punishment was considered the correct response. horsemouth is now reading the prisoner (which goes quickly).

'he can surely turn the tide, he can push the tempest by...'

horsemouth's mother opined (in a recent phonecall) that there hadn't been 3 rain free days since christmas yet, fortunately his mum and dad are well up a hill, meanwhile the rest of the intervening country is underwater. at christmas horsemouth's dad had to come and get him from newport in the 4by4, having just waded a flood horsemouth's dad and another 4by4 owner stopped to congratulate each other on their collective retiree's wisdom in buying such vehicles, and gave careful and lengthy direction to a fellow road user who had not. it kind of reminded horsemouth of the argument against 'western' development (and in favour of 'alternative development') that what the 3rd world needed was not better roads but more 4by4 high-wheelbase trucks.

horsemouth has been hunting solitaries, hermits, castaways and eccentrics again - this time with the aid of edith sitwell's english eccentrics, gordon campbell's the hermit in the garden,and the lives and portraits of curious and odd characters published by thomas drew of worcester in 1852 (who's presumably under water as well as sod by now). here we find an illustration and an account of wandering minstrels john and robert green and blind singer and musician anne longman. he has also found a copy of thomas m. disch's get paid novelization of the prisoner (one pound library sale)- which is pleasant enough and undemanding.

the grand old duke of york (better must come)

horsemouth has been grand old duke of yorked - he's been marched right up to the top of the hill... and then he's been marched back down again. as usual, after such exercise in the fresh air (and pissing wind and rain) he's feeling greatly refreshed. (ok don't worry folks this is all deeply metaphorical and horsemouth will refrain from providing you with sufficient detail to identify the culprits).

the view from the top of the hill was indeed beautiful, a sunny upland like a jehovah's witness painting, of people and their homes and workers working. there is however a legal problem which ensures this will never be and there has been for at least a year. horsemouth is therefore confused as to why this has been revealed now (after they'd marched to the top of the hill) rather than before. worse still other viable (though less initially sunny) paths were not taken and now people seem to be too knackered to take them.

2013 - the year in books

horsemouth has only been keeping an accessions and readings diary since august - nevertheless he will attempt a list of the books read this year. broadly the books are in order - most recently read first. 

new books of the year: the stalin organ - gert ledig, camilo jose cera - journey to the alcarria, the polish complex - tadeusz konwicki

re-read of the year: the marvellous adventure of cabeza de vaca - haniel long, though it was fun to re-read steppenwolf by herman hesse.

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

two ghost stories (including 'casting of the runes' from m.r. james collected)

7 stories - sigizmund kizhizhanovsky

the lover - marguerite duras 

collected aubrey beardsley - introduction by arthur symonds

the narrow road to the deep north (part) - basho

the stalin organ - gert ledig

germenine lecerteux - the goncourt brothers

philosophy and social hope - richard rorty - liked the lilies

arthur lee - barney hoskins

exile and kingdom - albert camus

(first few stories from) billy budd - herman melville

a month in the countryside - author forgotten

the desert fathers - in penguin

steppenwolf - herman hesse

children and their books - gillian avery, julia briggs

the island - anton chekov

moorish spain - richard fletcher

ishi in two worlds - author forgotten

the prince - machiavelli (last half - not the advice on hiring mercenaries)

hangmen of britain - author forgotten

erik satie - allan m. gilmor

illuminations - walter benjamin (first few essays)

soldier in paradise - louise collis

letters to a young poet - rainer maria rilke (first part)

a good parcel of english soil - richard mabey

october ferry to gabriola - malcolm lowry

fragments - benjamin wilkomirski

the quest for corvo -a.j.a. symons

the blue lamp - colette

in the prison of her own skin,

the golden buttons - violette leduc

a week on the concord and merrimack rivers - h.d. thoreau

the lifted veil - (uncharacteristic gothic) george ellliot

akenfield revisited - author forgotten

report to an academy - kafka

the lives of animals -j.m.coetzee

a murky business - balzac

j. sheridan le fanu - through a glass darkly

camilo jose cera - journey to the alcarria

marie herbert - the snow people 

james boswell - some of  'life of johnson' and some of 'the journals'

the war - marguerite duras

the marvellous adventure of cabeza de vaca - haniel long

old goriot, gobseck - honore de balzac

reveries of a solitary walker - rousseau

abc of communism - bukharin and preobrazhensky

bob dylan - chronicles one

echolalias - daniel roazen hiller

ham on rye - charles bukowski

george perec - life a user's manual

(plus one short story mentioned in it  'into the abyss - by luigi pirandello)

elisabeth gille - dreamed memories of irene nemirovsky by her daughter

the successor - ismael kadare

(gerard de nerval and restif de la bretonne)

richard jenkins - being danish

gavin maxwell - lord of the atlas

rob young - electric eden

j.q. merquior - foucault

the polish complex - tadeusz konwicki

jessica mitford - book on journalism

g.m. goshgarian's introduction to 

louis althusser's 'the humanist controversy'

china mieville - london's overthrow.

in addition horsemouth started a number of other books but made no progress with them that he is comfortable about claiming to 'have read'.,,

the birth of the hero - otto rank,

seven types of ambiguity - william empson

the acquisition of literacy - ethnographic perspectives

iona and  peter opie -  the lore and language of schoolchildren

at the end of the world

sean has been in touch;

'Fascinated by the souf London slavery case. When I first heard they followed some sort of weird political ideology I thought "oh, let them be Maoists, please...."

Yes! They are indeed Maoists!  - Power comes from a bucket and mop! We sing for the future!

Formerly from a Brixton squat, no less....Isn't that the plot of a novel by Doris (farewell then) Lessing...?'

in the light of the escaped maoists horsemouth went and watched a documentary about the villa road squatters of the 70ies and 80ies. horsemouth broadly liked the people both back in the day and in the aftermath of their commitment to radical politics. broadly it all seemed very positive and horsemouth can only contrast unfavourably with his time among a later generation of squatter punks in hackney. the point (horsemouth supposes) is  that, unlike the maoists, they had had the chance/ misfortune to move on.

as usual horsemouth is horrified by some of the people the media found to interview - this from the bbc website; 

'Professor Dennis Tourish, from the Royal Holloway University of London, said followers of Marxism often committed their lives to their beliefs. "They develop a number of organisational rituals of which communal living is one," in this he is correct. but Professor Tourish is (to quote Royal Holloway's website) 'Deputy Head of the School of Management (Academic) and is a Fellow of the Leadership Trust Foundation. His main research interests are in leadership, leadership effectiveness, leadership development and organisational communication.' horsemouth finds it slightly worrying if a professor of management has been studying maoist groupuscles (what was he hoping to learn there?). but on second thoughts he probably hasn't been studying them at all - he's probably just a rent-a-quote. 

Steve Rayner, on the other hand, a professor at Oxford University, studied the particular maoist group involved for a wider 1979 PhD thesis on leftwing groups (PhD, Anthropology, University College London, 1979  Dissertation Topic: The Classification and Dynamics of Sectarian Forms of Political Organization: Grid/Group Perspectives on the Far Left in Britain), and said the group was the "clearest case of far-left millenarianism which I have encountered".  http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1349448/1/D32160.pdf

once upon a time horsemouth was a rent-a-quote. it is the thing he is probably the most ashamed of having done. on the other hand he found living communally merely annoying - like many of his generation as soom as he could return to living in isolation and alienation he did it. 

the interesting thing was that while some of the ex-villa road-ers continues to call for revolution, many had now accepted that revolution was far away (which is pretty much horsemouth's position).

on the subject of the millenium horsemouth was interested to see an album cover suggesting that  'at the end of the world' there will be keith harris, orville and cuddles. horsemouth suggests this is way scarier.

anyway, let's give the last words to sean,

Kind of surprised Horsemouth rates Fahey more as a cantankerous old git than a guitar player; his prickliness was indeed admirable, but.....  isn't it really his guitar playing that sets him apart? There are plenty of argumentative arseholes out there, many at least as capable as Fahey, but they can't play....