'there is no philosophy in california'

'there is no philosophy in california' - josiah royce

after the planting out of six of the broad bean plants horsemouth has realised that it is going to be a cold night (down to 1C) tonight and the next few nights. he has therefore scattered some straw over them in an effort to keep them warm. hopefully they will survive. (he had forgotten that april is the cruellest month)

today horsemouth has been feeling a bit anxious (about the same thing he was feeling anxious about yesterday). now he has some figures (though they may not be exactly the right figures) he can start preparing a story that explains them and their significance. 

as usual when he is anxious he starts writing in the hope that it will enable him to get things in perspective (and mostly it does). he's done some reading in an effort to ease his worried mind (the joan didion - the wheat barons versus the railroads, the railroads owned the land, the peculiarly corporate nature of agriculture in california).  he has walked around.

it is, as his mum notes, a beautiful day. 

the way to deal with communal endeavour anxiety is to think of it as a bureaucratic task - the members have a perfect right to refuse the rent rise and if they do the finances of the communal endeavour are fucked (technical term) for about the next six years, there should be just about enough money to do what needs to be done (if we stretch out all the tasks to 2030), but there's unlikely to be enough money for luxuries (so that's that problem solved - no luxuries).  

last thing yesterday the ten o'clock news (more carnage and lies). 

this evening horsemouth is having an adventure - he is going bellringing (allegedly). let's see how that goes. (let's see if it takes his mind off things). 

lakewood exists (basil, coriander)

horsemouth is up. it's about half seven. he just went for a quick wander outside while the coffee was brewing (in the golden hour before the sun ascends into the clouds and we get what we get). he has just sneezed.  he has gulped down the coffee to get it while it is still hot and fresh. in a minute he will head downstairs to get a second cup. 

yesterday, because he writes this in the morning, it is a 100% in the morning blogpost, he is here in the present moment (and you will read it later), he went to bed early. the news was just going to be carnage.  see, almost immediately he is not here in the present moment but somewhere else. 

before he slept he read joan didion's where I was from - the ancestors who get the urge for going. didion is keen to contrast people's images of themselves as self-made and the reality of government subsidy - alfalfa, cotton, the flood defences ('I learned to swim... before the dams'), the railroad. as a child she gives a talk in school assembly on how the californians are self-made people before realising that most of the children are the descendants of okies, recent immigrants, refugees from the dust bowl.  

the spine on horsemouth's copy is broken (he paid eight pounds for it and the spine is broken). it breaks clear through to the text at the start of a chapter 3 ('lakewood exists...'), the chapter 3 of part 2.  

there is clearly more to read on LTC rolt's landscape... book, more to read of agricultural machinery and steam power. 

yesterday also the planting out of six of the broad bean plants (he will do more when they come up) and the potting up of more seeds (basil, coriander). 

there he's just added one of howard's golden glows from yesterday. there is one for today also but horsemouth posted that last year. he's wearing a jumper and his clean (non-muddy) pair of trousers. 

today, perhaps, a journey to the t-junction to deliver the eggs, and the bin (rubbish this time) must be walked down the drive.  his  mum got a lift up the garage yesterday so there's a copy of the saturday torygraph to read also. almost certainly a walk on the common. 

ok there's more coffee downstairs. he's going to go and get it. 

'is it sunny or cloudy in the land where you live.' (april theses)

after raining in the morning all of a sudden it has dried up and the sun has come out. the black cat has come to visit. 

it is the anniversary of lenin's arrival at the finland station (now before you all start horsemouth knows this didn't work out so well). horsemouth's particular school of social justice warriors tends to take against the party-building variety of communism in favour, horsemouth would argue, of varieties of thought where these problems (how to have a successful revolution for starters) are magically solved by economics or by the people.

in this regard horsemouth thinks himself a tad naive. 

ok horsemouth spoke too soon - the skies have opened, the cat has retreated to the cover of the trees (or made a run for home). 

aaargh! horsemouth's brain keeps running catastrophist scenarios. his next encounter with the communal endeavour is a week off, in a way it is the waiting he can't stand.  ok he's had a phone conversation and now feels much calmer. 

the counter-factualists are broadly divided between those who think the problem lies in the idea of a party separate from the working class (and that if you pretend this separation doesn't exist then everything will be ok sarcastically adds horsemouth) and those who think it is the force of circumstances alone drove the russian revolution off course and into tyranny. 

or some muddle of the two.

'the people need peace; the people need bread; the people need land...' (april theses)

at the time lenin's speeches were not universally well received (even among the bolsheviks).

'lenin’s speech was attacked from all sides, only kollontai speaking in support of it...' - carr, as reported in mario tronti's a message from the emperor. 

so where are we now (over 100 years later)? let's just take one shall we...

the people need peace

as horsemouth writes this the world's attention has slipped from palestine (34,000 people dead almost all civilians) to the sabre-rattling between israel and iran (with the US, britain and france leaning in and intervening on israel's side). the world's attention has also slipped from the conflict in ukraine (180-220,000 estimated dead) and the conflicts in myanmar, yemen etc. 

the syrian civil war (613,000 dead) is last years thing. similarly afghanistan, iraq etc. 

you would think the world would get sick of the bloodletting. 

RIP loren goldner

horsemouth saw him speak twice and was impressed by his ability and willingness to engage with the arguments of his critics  fairly and clearly - both with his marxist critics and with the stepney youth who wanted to know what all the people gathered in that meeting room were doing there. 

crisis! that's over. said fukuyama. said gordon brown. said everybody. (it seems like a distant galaxy far far away)

but guess what happened? the 2008 financial crisis. 

so you are wrong about the instability of capitalism until you are right about the instability of capitalism, and then (soon enough) they will tell you that you are wrong again. 

capitalism understands itself in its own terms not in ours. 

all this and melville too.

 

anniversary of the third half day of recording musicians of bremen stuff 2022

musicians of bremen · No Name Resonate

 the day's new recordings 

the only non cover of the day a guitar solo recorded on the resonator and then with the hohner12 string added on top. horsemouth is thinking of naming it guitar piece (for pier marton) and because he's reasonably confident no-one is going to get that joke he'll explain it here. 

'with roots in the performance art and body art of the 1970s, marton's early works are visceral, psychological confrontations with the viewer. guitar piece is a darkly comical, angry work, in which marton hits a guitar against his head in a rhythmic (fashon), yelling "music!" in an accelerating fury until the guitar splinters into pieces.' - electronic arts intermix performance for video  on vimeo. 

horsemouth thinks he saw this with a student. he basically takes it to be about rage and frustration with art. nonetheless horsemouth thinks this could work as a track (with a few nips and tucks), he's pleased with how it turned out (perhaps apply some distortion to the resonator).  

you and your sister (recorded with howard's valencia nylon strung guitar) this came together really quickly. probably another result and ending up on high rise strutters' ball. (guitar resonator, banjolin, vocals, trumpet-impersonation). rhythm still a little baggy. ah well fuck it. 

yesterday the goldfinches were out in the garden and there was a rainbow. horsemouth planted some beans but held off on planting out the first of the broad beans. this means he will have to clear space for them and work out how much space they will need. soon a phonecall from his brother. 

and now it is the morning. it is grim and rainy (so much for yesterday's sunshine). ok it's just today (according to the weather forecast). 

horsemouth's 2000th blogpost ('the homer class for the galician girls')

yes it's horsemouth's 2000th blogpost. (what a long strange groovy trip it has been.) 

'the homer class for the galician girls. the one in the green blouse, sharp severe face; when she raised her hand she held it straight out in front of her; quick movements when she put on her coat; if she raised her hand and was not called on, she felt ashamed and turned her face aside...' -franz kafka, diaries, 15th april 1915. 

it all began as a response to the great 2013 myspace blog dieback with horsemouth's first post on blogger on saturday 22nd june 2013. (there's a whole pre-history as well of horsemouth blogging away on the now defunct myspace, starting 24th november 2006). 

for much of this time horsemouth was also using the facebook notes tool to blog daily - at least as far back as 12 years ago until that ceased in october 2020 and horsemouth transferred his daily blogging habit to blogger. 

here you see a south-facing photo from his flat in pop(u)lar of the time of the great myspace blog dieback. the laramie guitar, a bookshelf (horsemouth recognises some of the books), the sun dust 2 or maybe it's sunny savannah 3 paintjob (fashionable but expensive). through the door you can see the wreck that is the kitchen (painted all white like something from pasolini but with black floors and counter tops -  a legacy from the previous inhabitant). 

really horsemouth should have used the sun dust in the kitchen also (but he did not). 

in the kitchen if you squint you can see the card-meter for the gas (the key meter for the electric was in the hall). horsemouth hated these mean spirited (and expensive) machines. 

yesterday horsemouth went off out to deliver some eggs (not to his usual delivery at the crossroads, ok more of a t- junction, but further up the hill, and curiously at another t- junction). . he crossed the field behind the abbey, across the river, down the lane and up the hill. he has been invited out bell-ringing (which he will go and give a go next thursday).  

the beans continue to throw up little bean plants in the greenhouse (no sign of anything from the leek seeds yet). he watered the peas he had planted and planted some carrot seeds. 

it's the morning. horsemouth has finished viriconium. the characters are trapped in huddersfield dreaming of escape to this wondrous city.

'the thousand incarnations of the rose'

horsemouth has finished fucking with the drains (for now). 

the puddle that generates by the kitchen drain horsemouth thinks is mostly down to drainage from the banking above it rather than overflow from the drain itself. horsemouth's parents had the outside brick-paved round   and the corner is a little lower where the kitchen drain is and so the water collects there and doesn't drain off. 

puddle explained and we move on.  

horsemouth is going to have a go at drying it off. (if he fails that's proof positive it's coming down from the banking not up from the drains).

the drain itself has some kind of u bend thing before the waste pipe heads of to the inspection cover where horsemouth can get the rods in. there's nothing much to do but try and rod out as much of the congealed fat and rotted food waste from one end and pump it out through the other.  by 'nothing much' horsemouth means putting your hand down there and attempting to scoop out the blockage, dump drain unblocking shit down there (both of which he did also). 

he seems to have got it so that the sink will now drain again (woop de fucken' do). 

ultimately the only real cure is to dig it all out and replace it (otherwise it's just going to continue to be chronically shit). 

fortunately there is (effectively) a whole other kitchen with a kitchen sink just round the corner in the kitchen with a straighter run of pipe to the septic tank. (the septic tank another reason horsemouth doesn't want to put anything too toxic down the pipes). 

anyway horsemouth has stuck his clothes in the washing machine and had a shower  and washed his hands numerous times and hopefully in about 36 hours he will stop smelling the drains on them.  with a bit of luck nothing will get infected and he won't get sick. 

this is (sadly) not the first time horsemouth has wrestled this particular drain (but with a bit of luck it will be his last)

up above steve albini makes perfectly sensible arguments about the record industry as was. horsemouth supposes we should really have a discussion about how it has changed in the last 13 years since the interview. not much, horsemouth thinks it is into its new stable pattern.

'the thousand incarnations of the rose'  was a 2018 american primitive guitar festival played in takoma park (john fahey's birthplace and hometown but named after a robbie basho tune). all the key figures in the scene played. in a way what john fahey did - start an independent record company, have a career outside the record label system, refuse to have his song used in a movie (by punching out the director antonioni (allegedly)) - is very steve albini, is very in that DIY punk way. 

it is the anniversary of a 2019  musicians of bremen duo gig down at sunny waterintobeer (the one with martin and nick doyne-ditmus). no doubt horsemouth will repost some of the photos in a few days.

counterfeiter, forger, murderer

'you have to wait for the book to manifest in the marketplace.' - ken sanders, rare book dealer. 

rough play in the book trade (as told by ken sanders). 

mark william hofmann american counterfeiter, forger, bomber, murderer. horsemouth remembers another forger, this time a british one, the tale told in the pages of the literary review but he can't find it at the minute. it didn't end with bombs, murders and a life sentence. 

lots of rabbit chasing behaviour. crow has just done a raid on the food in the hen coop. 

yesterday horsemouth wandered over to the village on a shopping mission. (he only fell over in the mud once - the result of an unwise shortcut decision). he sowed some peas. and planted some leeks in the potting shed.  

ah great! backing up kitchen drain. (let's just leave the bollocking thing alone until the morning shall we). 

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

‘no matter how you feel, get up, dress up, and show up.’ - sonny rollins, the notebooks of sonny rollins.

interest piqued. philly joe jones on drums slaying it (rim shot on 4 (at the start mostly)). G dorian and A aeolian apparently. 

it is the morning. horsemouth is up and has his coffee. he sitting up in bed wearing the daniel johnson t-shirt, a shirt, the black pair of jeans, socks, underwear. his reading of viriconium goes well. he has the anniversary of the last day of recording for horsemouth in 2022 coming up. no kafka until the 14th. the coffee is beginning to do its evil work. 

the coffee has done its evil work (time for more coffee). a beautiful morning (a dew not a frost). when he was asleep horsemouth was dreaming about exploring a deserted house but he became stuck ascending a rickety collection of boxes (and then he woke up).