the death of 'blind' john fahey ("how can i be a folk?")

"still, this is so dumbfoundingly extraordinary. In a very short while there will be no more of me – and of all the things worldly, of all the affairs and destinies, from then on I will be unaware..." - 2 may 1953, last diary note, ivan bunin.

today in the seaside towns it is a bright sunny morning (but clouding over rapidly) - horsemouth should get out there double quick.

in the last couple of days he's started reading ivan bunin (a russian writer of the turgenev/ chekov variety - though praised by gorky). during the second world war bunin did not flee to america but hid out with his wife and friends in the french alps growing potatoes and living on a starvation diet. the book itself (the elaghin affair and other stories) was formerly the property of prince george's county memorial library (seemingly from jan22 1971 until july 1986) bladensburg, hyattsville and other locations (broadly the region between washington dc and annapolis, maryland. how it then made its way to halcyonandon books in greenwich the lord only knows.

yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the assassination of malcolm x.


also coming from maryland - born in washington dc and raised in the suburb of takoma park - was john aloysius fahey (born february 28, 1939 died february 22, 2001) - horsemouth will be celebrating his birth at the end of the week. today he is celebrating fahey's death. fahey's championing of 'old-timey' music is of course problematic - to a lot of people the old times were bad times and there's no need to be raking all that up again - furthermore he was geographically in the wrong place "how can i be a folk? i'm from the suburbs you know" on the edge of the south (and later in a california totally contrary to his instincts, still later in salem oregon). further the music is difficult to place on a simple folk-art-commercial grid running from pay-the-rent christmastime cheese to collages of modern classical and blues to the somewhat lazy noise/ improv that we think of as radical of his later years (but hey... at least he was working).

that fahey ended his life in poverty and sickness is held against him. that he had drug and alcohol problems is held against him. there is a don't-try-this-at-home-children moralism that alternates with a fascination for the bohemian existence (as if it was planned) that is cut with a modern disdain for anyone who doesn't have a career in the arts that enables them to sup lattes and sit in coffee shops. (by way of compensation at least he had a beard later). fahey didn't die young and leave us recordings and a reputation as a thoroughly nice fellow (like robbie basho whose life and death horsemouth will be celebrating on saturday or the dude from sparklehorse). if he survived long enough to get ugly at least he got paid to make music still.

the unfashionable edges (where it is cheap to live) this is where we are going - from the suburbs we came to the suburbs we shall return.

horsemouth has been watching true detective again (this is the kind of thing fahey should have been soundtracking - this, southern comfort, paris texas, deliverance ...) - it's the scale of america (necessitating good cars and being able to drive), that industrial/ rural mix. the pathologisation of the proles continues, history is a source of danger, modernity an incomplete and botched project.