open letter to everybody in the network

'well, theoretically everyone should be interviewed about everything they do....' 

-  oral history interview with ray johnson,  april 17" 1968. conducted by sevim fesci, archives of american art. smithsonian

ray johnson began experimenting with mail art in 1943. (he gets a mention in roselee goldberg's  performance art on the basis of his involvement with 'happenings'.) mail art gets a chapter in stewart homes's the assault on culture and then there's the wikipedia entry. these are the sum total of horsemouth's research materials. 

for ray johnson correspondence is,

'a way to convey a message or a kind of idea to someone which is not verbal; it is not a confrontation of two people. it's an object which is opened in privacy, probably, and the message is looked at. there are incredible degrees of subtlety of the possibility of interpretation because two people speaking, such as we are doing here, we can say something; I can say something, you can disagree. I cannot agree with something you say; we can bicker; we can argue; we can try to make our point. but you can't do that (with correspondence)'

-  oral history interview with ray johnson,  april 17" 1968. archives of american art.

as if to dramatise this the interview itself gets off to a rocky start. 

johnson isn't interested in the questions (or the question and answer format).  

the tape had to be stopped several times. 

now usually face to face communication is held up as the gold standard of communication (it's why our leaders have to meet each other at conferences, it's why there are meetings), but here it is held as inhibiting the possibilities of the work. 

horsemouth is reminded (by a pin on pinterest) that pop stars used to spend time answering fan mail.

howard mentioned some mail art (at some point in the 1990ies). he showed some photos from the time of postcards stuck to the wall. (zoom beers - sunday afternoon). 

other than that horsemouth can't tell you what howard is up to (it's all very hush hush). 

bookpilled is back from mexico. he has some new books. he has a book auction coming up. he's looking well and sounds cheerful. 

horsemouth is off to open up the abbey in a little while.