today on his 82nd birthday renaissance man harry taussig (scientist, tarot card designer, american primitive guitarist) releases an album '80'. many happy returns.

horsemouth will put up a link so you can have a listen and possibly buy it as soon as he can. 

today a zoom meeting about retrofit - a meeting about de-carbonising the social housing sector (something the government have volunteered the social housing sector for).  

now retrofitting the old, leaky and under-invested housing stock of the UK is no small and easy task. the government have just had to re-write their plans for getting to net zero (carbon emissions) because the supreme court had ruled them insufficient.

energy used in housing (heating the housing mostly) makes up about 15% of uk carbon emissions. it is something that must be dealt with. the government has made it a legal requirement for the ALMOs, TMOs, housing associations and co-ops to reach net zero by 2050 (and to reach some intermediate targets by 2030). there is some money from government to help begin this process (but arguably not enough). the social housing sector is expected to just suck up these costs (and like it) after years of austerity in which inflation has increased their costs and the government has enforced real terms rental income cuts upon them.

anyway. like horsemouth says a meeting.

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meanwhile in 1865 with the goncourt brothers jules and edmond and their co-authored journal. .

jules (for once) writes about himself (and his elder brother edmond). he writes as if they were not in fact  indivisible. he writes as 'I' not as the 'we' of the brothers. 

'I can feel in myself something of an 18th century abbe and also something of the chronic perfidy of 16th century italy...

edmond, on the other hand, is almost unbelievably good-natured. he was born in lorraine and is germanic in temperament. I am a latin and a parisian.

(it is as if they were their own novel by zola)

the strange thing is that although we are absolutely different in temperament, taste and character, we are absolutely identical in our ideas, our judgments, our likes and dislikes as regards other people... our minds see alike and see with the same eyes.' 

but they will be divided. jules will die after a debilitating disease. edmond will go on alone. 

ok forward to the day (enough time spent here). 

grown deep like the rivers (film calendar)

it  is the anniversary of the death of hollis frampton (jonas mekas filmed his funeral but horsemouth cannot find it on youtube at the moment). both are interested in the calendar - frampton wanted to make a film calendar with a short clip of film for every day  of the year. 

hmmm looks like drama outside (cops in attendance). 

'... my soul has grown deep like the rivers. 

I bathed in the euphrates when dawns were young. 

I built my hut near the congo and it lulled me to sleep. 

I looked upon the nile and raised the pyramids above it...'

there's an art exhibition named after this langston hughes poem with work collected by a collector from georgia (this reminds horsemouth of marion brown's jean toomer influenced georgia trilogy). 

friday horsemouth goes to a zoom meeting. he has been reading the paperwork so that he can take care of business and say the right things. soon enough he will have to explain it to people (that will be punishment enough).

horsemouth is not two (he is one)

once again we are nearly out of the month.

and horsemouth has compiled his books, films, gigs, events list for march 2023 (again slightly early).

he is sitting up in bed wearing a jumper and with the requisite cup of coffee. 

his events for the month include...

'howard visits, horsemouth visits howard, visit to enza. SHDF decision announced. spring equinox (we enter the bright half of the year). death of MC fats. anniversary of the death of hollis frampton. begin celebration of the 72 days of the paris commune....'

it is a grey day but overall the weather seems warmer. friday the inaugural zoom meeting for round two of  the decarbonisation stuff. 

anyway 10 more days and horsemouth is on holiday - he will be able to leave the house politic behind for 8 days. (the house politic has been a bit strained). 

soon after that max's booklaunch. soon after that the AGM. after the AGM horsemouth is technically free (may eve and so forth).

'it is alarming to see, how in every discussion, we are always alone and never make converts. perhaps that is why god made us two.' - edmond and jules de goncourt. 

but horsemouth is not two (he is one). 

meanwhile (in the present day) the people are in the streets of paris

'islands of freedom' - hannah arendt on the 1957 hungarian workers' councils. 

'the new commune held its first meeting on 28 march in a euphoric mood. the members adopted a dozen proposals, including an honorary presidency for blanqui; the abolition of the death penalty; the abolition of military conscription...' - wikipedia article on the paris commune of 1871.

on 28th march 1871 (also in paris) edmond de goncourt (noble, novelist,diary-writer and no fan of the commune) pens these thoughts

'the newspapers see nothing in what is going on but a question of decentralisation as if it had anything to do with decentralisation! 

what is happening is nothing less than the conquest of france by the worker and the reduction to slavery under his rule of the noble, the bourgeois, and the peasant. government is passing from the hands of the have's to those of the have not's, from those who have a material interest in the preservation of society to those who have no interest whatsoever in in order, stability, or preservation...'

here goncourt (though a reactionary) is uncharacteristically far sighted. 

in some ways the 26th march election of delegates to a ruling body by the commune is a distraction (for a lot has been happening since the 18th). what the commune really need to do is to march to versailles to stop the counter-revolution being plotted there by thiers and his republican government. but it is probably already too late for that and besides their troops are not ready. 

later (in 1892) zola will write the novel la débâcle about the franco-prussian war and based on his eye-witness accounts of the crushing of the commune  (he is a reactionary also, his is an unsympathetic account). 

nonetheless this is also an 'island of freedom' in history. 

meanwhile last night (in the present day) the people were in the streets of paris.  but so are the police - the CRS or whatever they are are currently called, moving from corner to corner. it is not hard to see parallels.  everybody was filming it and livestreaming it.

but nothing repeats exactly. and yet in repeating what was hidden may come to light. the people are out on the streets united by an attack upon them all. and president macron would have been in versailles dinning with a king. 

oh what a beautiful morning!

here we see horsemouth (round howard's) playing a little bit of music. the shot took a little while to achieve as the walls and the doors and the ceiling had to be coated in fresh brilliant white emulsion.

this is not where he is right now ladies and gentlemen. he is sat up in bed at home wearing two jumpers and with the window open to let in the fresh air. 

fresh air was one of the things howard and horsemouth discussed while in the pubs of east ham - the members of their respective households have a bad habit of drying their clothes inside the house leading to damp and condensation problems.

horsemouth has submitted the gas and electricity usage figures (meter readings) for his house for the month.  

the house does not have smart meters because the company head (main fuse) installation for the electricity is of an old and considered unsafe to work on type - the youngster horsemouth's power company sent round practically backed away in terror when he saw it. horsemouth's house can therefore not participate in any 'sell your under-consumption' schemes. 

electricity, gas, and the standing charges they charge you for having the gubbins in your home, all these have effectively doubled. 

horsemouth (and his homestead) are using much less of both electricity and gas but their bills are considerably higher than they were. this is one of the major drivers of inflation but soon it will drop out of the governments headline inflation figure (but sadly gas, electricity and standing charge prices will not go back down).  .   

horsemouth's latest book-box discovery is ada or ardor a family chronicle by vadimir nabokov  which is set in a russian occupied united states (horsemouth is finding it a little annoying already and may well abandon it). even though, despite being published in 1965, it is 'the last 19th-century russian novel'.

more about the commune  (and more about the paris demonstrations against the changing of the retirement age) tomorrow.

it's a beautiful sunshine-y day horsemouth may well go for a wander. 

musicians of bremen live from the pubs of east ham

so here's howard in the second pub (grade II listed) - horsemouth proposed the shot (he just liked the colours). 

this is their usual pattern - beer and pizza in the italian run place by the park, then back up to the larger pub on the crossroads for a few pints of volden session (to end it off).

horsemouth almost invariably ends up calling for more beer. howard tends to be the leader of the 'we've had enough/ it's time to go home' party. 

here's horsemouth in the first pub judging by the number of empties on the table by this point they've eaten already. 

they are (of course) not live from the pubs of east ham because they are not playing any musical instruments. 

max has a booklaunch coming up soon.  horsemouth will be playing for sure. the problem for howard is that it is a work night (so we may or may not be getting him). it is the other side of half-term anyway. 

here's more of howard in the second pub. note the great colours of the wallpaper, the natural wood and the charcot type black and white photos of local characters from days gone by. 

earlier (of course) round howard's they had got his guitar out and played through a few things. they had listened to some music (howard is particularly in j dilla at the moment, horsemouth was recommending leven signs). 

horsemouth is currently uncertain what the time is. this is because we have passed british summer time the clocks have gone an hour forward (we have lost an hour) but we have gained more daylight in which to do our allotted tasks (horsemouth does hope he has understood it properly and is explaining it to you correctly). 

today horsemouth doesn't know (maybe a jam with pete).  it's greyish out and not very inviting. he does not feel too bad after his eastern adventure. he puts this down to kind (but expensive) modern beers, eating something whilst drinking and above all afternoon drinking (giving the body a chance to recover). 

 

"charles III do you know the guillotine?"

The Universal Clock - The Resistance of Peter Watkins, Geoff Bowie, provided by the National Film Board of Canada

graffiti left in paris during thursday's march read: 

"charles III do you know the guillotine?"

once again hail the commune!

a french response (to the news charles III woud not be making a state visit to paris just a this very moment).  'ah non, les gars, si vous le voulez raccourci, va falloir le faire vous même, on a les mains pleines en ce moment' ('oh no, guys, if you want it shortened, you'll have to do it yourself, we have our hands full at the moment.')

this is why horsemouth loves the french (they have the correct attitude). 

right now (the now when he typed (most of) this, yesterday evening) horsemouth was a bit moody. he was writing his blog post a little early and cooking dinner.- pasta and chick peas.  

after that he settled down to watch peter watkins' la commune.

this horsemouth has been watching in parallel with the events in paris - he considers them their direct continuation. 

to begin with at the start of la commune (1871) two unemployed teachers mention education nouvelle - perhaps this is pestalozzi, perhaps it is an artefact, a 'productive anarchronism' argued back in time and into the text. there were certainly debates over the need to educate street children (and feed them) and the way the state was closing down the state schools and permitting their replacement by religious institutions (where the children were taught according to their station in life - sewing for girls for example). 

'it does not so much resurrect the paris commune as it refuses the death of this historical, revolutionary moment' argues roxanne panchasi in her essay.if the revolution had been televised.

'making a film is a social act, a political act, a human act of work love and communication.' says peter watkins himself.

but this attitude to his work as a director is rare. horsemouth became distracted by watching the universal clock - the resistance of peter watkins by geoff bowie - . geoff goes to a conference where the aim is to sell documentaries round the world - each formatted to a 47 minute hour (to permit the sale of advertising into the gaps).

geoff  interviews some of  the participants (many of them non-professional actors) in wilkins' la commune about how it made them feel and respond to the actual (historical) commune. 

today horsemouth is off to visit howard (maybe a little guitar).