my very elegant mother just served up new potatoes (oh great now that’s two things I have to remember)

first a mnemonic for remembering the names of the planets in order.

second a criticism of the whole notion of mnemonics.

harry smith first went to university near seattle - as a result of the record drive for shellac during the second world war (it had uses in airplane manufacture) the whole city was awash with old records from the early blues, hillbilly, and cajun era - this was the start of harry smith’s collection (the one that later formed the basis of the anthology of american folk music).

curiously enough he says there were a lot of japanese and chinese records as well (presumably from communities interned during the second world war).

unlike fahey etc. harry smith had no need to go door-to-door on record collecting trips to the south (running the risk of being mistaken for voter registering civil rights activists, shot by racist vigilantes and buried in the woods).

later he finds a record warehouse out in new jersey (but that’s another story).

materials for the study of religion and culture in the lower east side

‘harry was down on another floor, engaged in a long recording project called materials for the study of religion and culture in the lower east side, which included murderers babbling on amphetamine in the streets, jump-rope rhymes, bawdy songs, rap, (the) complete canon of gregory corso’s early poetry...’ - allen ginsberg interview with hal willner, introduction to think of the self speaking: harry smith - selected interviews.

another day for horsemouth another celebration of harry everett smith, anthropologist, ethnomusicologist, avant-garde film-maker, recorder of peyote rituals and the fugs first album, and compiler of the 1952 anthology of american folk music (which basically inspired everyone you’ve ever heard of to pick up an acoustic guitar and start singing those songs again).

"we all knew every word of every song on it, including the ones we hated.” - dave van ronk

ED sanders recounts that smith was the key advisor for allen ginsberg and the fugs's effort to levitate the pentagon including recommending having a cow present to represent the goddess hathor.

the police were careful to keep the cow away from the pentagon.

today it really is 7 days to the vernal equinox.

late in his life (towards his death) harry smith would often ask his carer (rani singh) what she’d done today that was creative (here again he was ahead of the curve). eventually he dies and ginsberg goes to sit with his body in the morgue. later his ghost haunts the film-makers co-op of jonas meekas.

'he tells a strange story... about harry smith’s spirit haunting the anthology basement..'

John Fahey - Yttrium Festival, Chicago 1996 from Tyler Hubby on Vimeo.



'he tells a strange story... about harry smith’s spirit haunting the anthology basement. steps would be heard. film cans would suddenly fly off shelves. he arranged an exorcism to get rid of the spirit but cancelled the exorcism, deciding that he should let harry’s spirit... stay put...'

harry smith alive was an awkward cuss (and an awkward tenant for jonas mekas and the film anthology), dead he was no less so. but as soon as the exorcism was cancelled his spirit became calm (true to the spirit of his pranksterism).

ginsberg went to sit with his body in the morgue (that’s what probably triggered it off).

horsemouth’s back is a bit rubbish at the minute (too much time spent lolling about on the internet - he has found john fahey wearing dark glasses in a dark room and playing lap steel, he has found marjorie cameron, a film of her made by curtis harrington soundtracked by philip harland and leona wood).



he’s debating whether to stay out in the wilds a bit longer (or return to the seaside towns) to see in the new year.

the tracks from the most recent musicians of bremen recordings have come through (howard has been busy)- horsemouth is giving them a good listen.

hail porphyrion (the destruction wrought by a demon emperor)

horsemouth is spending time in the cloud forest. he has fed the forest beasts.

this morning he rose early, ground the coffee, and then wandered off (through the forest) to water the allotment. while he was up there rain fell. the storm clouds have now cleared and it is sunny again. today perhaps a bar-b-cue. he needs to find a power cable for his laptop (then he can enjoy that full internet access thing).

monday/ tuesday - a jam with paul and claire (probably). wednesday - the remove from the forest and a visit to a cemetary.

in the bosphorous a huge enraged whale nicknamed porphyrion was a danger to shipping for the best part of half a century. meanwhile on land procopius speculates that the imperial couple (justinian and theodora) are in fact demons sent to destroy humanity (viz. chapter five: the destruction wrought by a demon emperor). ‘the actions of demons are unmistakeably different from those of human beings’ 

like the andreotti of il divo the emperor prowls his apartments late at night unable to sleep, like him also ‘he could not be trusted in anything except inhumanity and avarice’, like him also he could be very friendly, charming even, but usually gave no indication of his feelings. like trump his pronouncements were random and chaotic, a near illiterate, uncouth, rude, ruthless.

a narrative of the mutiny on board the ship globe of nantucket, in the pacific ocean, jan 1824. and the journal of residence if two years on the mulgrave islands: with observations on the manners and customs of the inhabitants.

here we see a ritualised journey into a symbolic south (seas)  - of the kind made by melville and murnau (we could imagine a murnau - a secret history of metropolis at the triangulation point of horsemouth’s current reading). there are narratives of ascent from the south - of a differentiation of an individual self from community and history, narratives of immersion also, of a return to community.

today is the birthday of harry smith, collector of the folkways anthology of american folk music;

 “had he never done anything with his life but this anthology, harry smith would still have borne the mark of genius across his forehead. I'd match the anthology up against any other single compendium of important information ever assembled. dead sea scrolls? nah. I'll take the anthology.”
– john fahey

in which everything is confronted by its opposite and revealed as something else

later horsemouth goes to a meeting. a committee he is on was asked to buy something. they bought something. doubtless there will be trouble.

horsemouth is under the protection of the equinox - tomorrow, thursday, friday he works, wednesday he has off.

at the weekend there is the anniversary of igor stravinsky’s visitation to alice coltrane (the one after his death) that lead to her recording excerpts from the firebird on her album lord of lords. may 28th is the anniversary of an expanded john coltrane quartet playing nature boy at the village gate. may 29th is the anniversary of the birthday of harry smith. shortly thereafter it will be the end of the month and horsemouth will be publishing his read, listened to, visited list. april 6th is the anniversary of alice coltrane recording sita ram and oh allah with tamboura player tulsi (both from universal consciousness).


yesterday (as you know) he went for a wander round pop(u)lar - today he is in the centre of town.

horsemouth has been wandering around his old hood taking a look at the new build toss (speckled brickwork - check, julliet balconies -check, gym - check etc.). he has been largely recreating various journeys that he made with paul clark and max ‘crow’ reeves back in the day. he walked across the red bridge from canning town to hope (the northern bit of the isthmus on which trinity buoy wharf rests between the nilotic mud of the thames and the nilotic mud of the lower lea). once upon a time this was a prime industrial site with bessemer mills, before that the vicar instituted swimming lessons for the local schoolkids.

there is, said a friend hiding out in devon, nothing to do in chrisp street market on a sunday - so horsemouth was in the library fiddling about on the computers.

he’s been a little bored and to be honest he’s been a little boring. he needs to get on with things. he made some efforts to dazed and confused by led zeppelin in the morning (a well constructed misogynist pile of toss utilising ‘found’ lyrics and some truly excellent riffs) - perhaps he can get a woman to sing it (and thus escape the well-founded charge of playing misogynist toss).

books, gigs, films events november 2016

25th anniversary of the death of harry smith
gigs
 sun at night

books

• cesar birroteau -balzac, 
• the shadow and its shadow, 
• narrative of my captivity among the souix indians - fanny kelly, 
• marx in his own words - ernst fischer, 
• valis and radio free albemuth - philip k. dick, 
• anna akhmatova (biography) - haight, 
• after derrida - nicholas royle,
• the commited men - m. john harrison 

films

• eroica (+ a walk in the old town), 
• la pointe courte (+ du cote de la cote), 
• vampire circus, 
• be kind rewind, 
• faust,
• straw dogs, 
• the signalman, 
• high and low, stray dog, ujiza, the lower depths, dodesk'den (early kurosawa series), 
• red desert, 
• alice (jan svankmeyer), 
• journey to italy (and again with laura mulvey commentary)
• christianne f, 
• the great beauty, 
• moon, 
• the state of things, 
• arabian nights. 

events 

• nisht

the three deaths of harry smith

harry smith claimed to remember three near death experiences (though later on he only claimed to remember two).

 1.) aged 9- 10, up in the pacific northwest, he swims out too far and begins to drown - his life flashes before his eyes in chronological order.

 2.) later he lives above a jazz club in the fillmore in san francisco. after an afterparty with lots of heroin, gin and weed, they all get in the car for a drive. strangely, on one of san francisco's legendary hills the brakes fail. he is flung through the car windscreen, as he lays on the pavement a priest gives him last rites (and, he says, an opportunistic perv feels his balls). this time his life comes back to him differently. 

'a vast panorama. it was like a giant jigsaw puzzle that I could look at all at once, of my entire life laid out, each part fitted together... ...it was as if life was seen in a way where no mistake is possible. that everything fitted together well, it was absolutely extraordinary, that as it says, I believe in St. Mark 'his eye is on the sparrow' 
 'you see, there was like joy because I realized how foolish I was to have worried about the rent, and what people thought of me, and all those things, because they were so trivial in relation to the grandeur of the construction of the universe.' 

3.) that only leaves his actual death - he died at the chelsea hotel 27th november 1991 - all day his assistant (rani singh) tried to get him to go to hospital - all he would say was 'no.I'm dying. I'll die.' 

then he said 'I'm dying' , coughed up some blood and died.

'I saw america changed through music'

it's a grey morning (later in the week sounds better). yesterday horsemouth was bored - he thought it might be a day of events but instead it was same old same old. he failed to go to something he should have gone to. he went down to bow eco park, a tour group paused by the bridge over the railway line to regard london island (recently raised up out of the salt marshes by volcanic activity and already colonised with rent farming tower blocks) and then trooped off across the post modern bridge to... who knows where.

having missed harry smith's birthday horsemouth has been re-reading think of the self speaking (a collection of curmudgeonly interviews). he talks about collecting rare early records that later he compiled to form the anthology of american folk music (arguably one of the most influential collections of recordings ever).

 'I'm glad to say that my dreams came true. I saw America changed through music.' 

he thought the music of blacks and hillbillies and mexicans and cajuns had something to teach us (and he was right).

but smith can't resist putting the interviewer on and laying a false trail, he includes in this list such records as those of jilson setters (as mentioned in jean tilson's book the lost fiddler) secure in the knowledge that those interviewing him will not know that these two were fraudsters mocking up fake appalachian versions of old elizabethan ballads the better to get paid by anglophiles and credulous english people. (indeed setters played the royal albert hall).

but not only was smith an egregious trickster he also wasn't averse to 'earning' his living this way - by hustling.

 j. cohen - 'I've heard people accuse you of living off others - trying to disregard the whole concept of doing things that would earn your living. you've bothered me, my friends, and others in the sense that you don't accept the fact that you have to earn money to be a fruitful part of society. now that's a hard thing for me to say.' 

harry smith - 'certainly, I said it just before you did...' and indeed he had;

 'the purpose of making books on folk songs is to make money. everybody has to eat. we're all trapped in a social system where you have to do something to provide food and shelter. I thought for a while that drinking got me out of food and shelter, but it's a way of living that is pushed underground. thousands and thousands of derelicts...'

 and he continues;

 '... there are certain ways you can evade that responsibility, but it's like, the wages of sin is death. I try not to do that. I've reformed.'

jonas meekas buys smith's film heaven and earth magic and hails him as a genius (here we have the connection with maciunas and fluxus), he lets him have an 'office' in the building for a few years. but pesky interviewers keep showing up wanting to know about folkways records, the anthology, and moses asch. folkways was a cheapskate operation - the compilers of records having to type up their own sleeve notes - smith took this as an opportunity for collage, the kind of collage he applied when sequencing the tracks on the record, to collage magical elements with this music, a mixing on equal terms of high and low cultures, of analysed and analysing. bob dylan got this (perhaps) - but many of the other folk scenesters didn't.

someone has made a recreation of the tarot pack with haitian artists - cards that work (as horsemouth's friend martin has noted) by condensation and displacement but also by collage. it is said that smith once made a tarot pack that was popular with the crowleyites. the haitian artists photographed do great things. it's interesting that many of the poses are in fact mirror images of the cards (as if they wanted to leave some things a bit alone).