JOHN FAHEY on

The Nature of Reality

This piece was last updated 03/18/99. It was dictated to me, over a period of six months,

then edited, proofread and approved by John during nighttime hours. --Melissa

9/5/98

Q. What is original sin?

A. Infantile masturbation

Q. Who got Sigmund Freud out of Nazi Austria?

A. The Nazi party.

Q. How many varieties of the family Clemmeys live in

North America?

A. 4 (four)

Q. How many varieties of the family Gopherus live in North America?

A. 3 (three)

Q. What are the common names of the westernmost family members of

the Clemmeys and Gopherus geni?

A. Pacific Pond Turtle, aka the Mud Turtle (Clemmeys), Desert Tortoise

Q. What is the largest turtle species in the world?

A. Leatherback Sea Turtle

Tomorrow we will discuss sex. Also, true anecdotes regarding Mahler,

Freud, Sibelius, Bruckner, Brahms and others.

9/7/98

New announcement, not an axiom:

Mahler loved Bruckner.

Bruckner loved Wagner.

Wagner loved Wagner.

Another announcement:

All music, past present and future, is logically, not temporally aiming

at the conclusion of the second movement of Gliere's third symphony,

"Illya Murometz".

Another announcement:

Piece of trivia regarding Alexander Scriabin: Our boy wrote a final

symphony which when it was to be performed on the banks of the Ganges

River would cause the world to come to an end. Unfortunately Scriabin

kicked the bucket first.

Announcement:

Ralph Vaughn-Williams is best described as a Christian Pantheist or a

Pantheist Christian.

Announcement:

Dvorak's favorite leisure time activity was to listen to trains.

AXIOMATIC Announcement:

All American composers with the exception of Roy Harris are New England

Transcendentalists (Emerson, Thoreau and so forth). This is ironic

since Harris is usually described as a New England Transcendentalist

when in fact he is the only American composer who isn't.

Harris clearly writes music descriptive of big cities.

Announcement:

I asked Virgil Thompson what he thought of Roy Harris' third symphony.

He replied "That's the one we were all trying to write."

Announcement:

The Ganges River is thought to be sterile. Believe me, it isn't.

Announcement:

What does the word swami mean? Answer: Lord

New announcement:

Shankaracharya swamis, the leaders of orthodox Hinduism, all consider

themselves incarnations of God.

Announcement:

The Bija (seed) mantra for the goddess Saraswati is SCHREEM.



Thank you. More will follow...

Oh. Perhaps I should explain what I am doing here, since I have not

previously explained it. In terms of facts, attributions, axioms, etc.,

I am merely in the early stages of announcing certain information which

you and I will need at a much later date in order to construct a "story"

or a connected series of statements which produce a "plot" and in fact

may produce several "plots". Comprendez vous? I should announce that

my girlfriend is typing this on the TV screen or the radio or whatever

this thing is. She is very nice to me and is providing inestimable help

in transmitting my investigations and my conclusions in regard to the

nature of reality.

As to sex, I have just begun investigating this matter and have not

reached any conclusions yet.

9/9/98

Announcement:

Q. What is the Uhrwort for Kaiser, Keizer, etc.?

A. Caesar

Announcement:

Q. What is the Uhrwort for Tzar?

A. Same as above

Announcement:

The deity mantra for the goddess Saraswati is Om Sri Saraswataya Namah.

Translation: Salutations. I am the sound that the totality of reality

makes. I am also that reality, and that reality is me. This tiny ego

sends this sound to the name of the most wondrous and transcendent and

imminent Saraswati.

Announcement:

A Bija mantra is better translated as "incantation word".

Announcement:

Now, if you really dig Saraswati you should add a jai to the above deity

mantra, thus Om Sri, Jai Sri, Saraswataya Namah.

Translation: Hooray for rah rah rah, YMCA doo doo doo doo, for he's a

jolly good fellow, take me out to the ballgame, bite bite bite, hail to

the chief, the bear went over the mountain. Deck the halls with balls

of haolles.

Announcement:

In regard to human consistency in action, thought, emotion, intention,

performance, preference---consistency in these or in anything else is

impossible and any expectation of any consistency in these matters is

the root of all self-righteousness and hypocrisy.

In our next series of announcements we will explain why this is the

case. We will also discuss the notion of the will, and "freedom of the

will" and the Nicene creed.

9/13/98

Announcement:

It began sometime in the previous century, probably about 1850 or earlier.

Announcement:

It began in the United States, nowhere else, and specifically in the

southeastern United States, using the term broadly. I believe that it

began only in rural areas but I am not certain of this yet because,

Announcement:

the information is coming in so loud and clear and fast and is so

extensive and has so many ramifications and implications and corollaries

of exclusion, and not only that but we are still moving and there are so

goddamn many things to do that we are both overwhelmed. But only

temporarily. We are definitely not overloaded. Fortunately much of the

information coming in from the Universal World Spirit was already

present in our "minds" long ago and so a great deal of what is occurring

is a matter merely of bringing the preconscious into consciousness.

Announcement:

Simultaneously, incredible amounts of new information and syntheses are

also making their appearance.

Announcement:

As a result, we cannot (yet) and we haven't had the chance to put any of

it into writing and cannot post it yet. But we will very soon.

Announcement:

It was essential to enunciate all of the previous announcements in order

to get into the fray, which, as I have said, and I am not joking, is

extensive, and possibly infinite.

Announcement:

But I can promise you this, all of you, in particular Tom Kremer, Sara

Press, Blair Miller, Dean Blackwood, and all the lovers of Revenant

Records, all the lovers of the Anthology of American Folk Music, all

lovers of Life, Truth, Clarity, all those who desire to know what life

is all about, that we soon will be able to tie most of these matters

together in a fairly neat, precise bundle.

Announcement:

For example, we will be able to answer many questions which have already

posed themselves to you such as:

Although Sister O.M. Terril on Red Columbia plays guitar the same way

Blind Willie Johnson did, why is she so inferior to him?

If she was imitating somebody, who was it?

What emotion is Bascom Lamar Lunsford displaying on "I Wish I was a Mole

in the Ground"?

Why is the song "Two White Horses" by the Two Poor Boys superior to the

version by Blind Lemon Jefferson and what inspired Dylan to record it?

Why do so many of the secular musicians sound more ecstatic than the

ostensibly religious ones? For example, why is Eck Robertson more

plugged in than Sister Mary Nelson?

What is Jess Morris really singing about on his LC recording of "Goodbye

Old Paint"?

9/16/98

ANNOUNCEMENTANNOUNCEMENTANNOUNCEMENTANNOUNCEMENTANNOUNCEMENTANNOUNCEMENT

AT THIS POINT, I, THE GREAT KOONAKLASTER, COMMENCE HEREWITH TO SPEAK TO ALL OF YOU LITERALLY. SARA PRESS PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THIS, MY OWN DEAR DAUGHTER, IT WILL CLEAR UP EVERYTHING FOR YOU, BELOVED DISCIPLE OF THE HARRY SMITH ANTHOLOGY. THERE IS MUCH, MUCH MORE. FATSO, ie. BYRON

COLEY, READ THIS AND SHUT UP.

Away with metaphor, analogy, allegory.

Now I, the Great Koonaklaster shall speak literally.

Announcement:

1. Not to denigrate metaphor et al...and

2. There is a prolegomena to this section written by "John Fahey",

which may or may not appear later depending upon whether "he" writes it

well enough or not.

Announcement:

This is what I did. People had forgotten me, the Great Koonaklaster.

Great Pan was not dead. Some drunken sailors started this rumor and it

was repeated by every bad poet from Parecelcius through William

Burroughs.

Announcement:

I was alive and well in Texas from 1863 until 1943 and I was happy riding the Frisco line

everywhere west

I took it all the way to Baltimore once. Another time I took it all the

way north to Chi Town. Made some records for the

Brunswick-Collinder-Balke Company, manufacturers of billiard tables,

bowling alleys and all accouterments. It was I who taught Lester

Melrose about music.

Announcement:

But before Henry Thomas could happen or the Carter Family or Blind

Willie Johnson or John Fahey or Bill Monroe I had to plant some musical

seeds around the Black Belt of the southeast.

Now, you probably heard of a guy named Johnny Appleseed. You probably

heard that he ( I) was a missionary of some sort who traveled around the

Great Black Belt planting apple trees and proselytizing.

That was me!

Yes.

But do you know what religion I was preaching?

I bet you don't so I will tell you.

I was preaching Swedenborgianism.

You didn't know that, did you?

There's a lot of things you don't know. Don't worry, I'll teach you.

Everything.

I dictated everything Emmanuel Swedenborg wrote.

And that's one hell of a lot.

Now, you know those apple trees I planted? I'll tell you one thing,

those were not ordinary apple trees, not by a long shot.

You have heard of cranapple trees? These were Panapple trees. And

everybody who ate one of those apples I planted---just one---soon found

himself singing a new song in a new land.

Yes.

Because those trees I planted were the trees of the knowledge of good

and evil music.

Once again you will note that I am one of the ancients.

I can assure you that correct knowledge produces correct action.

You want to believe that music has only aesthetic qualities, that it is

only entertainment?

Boy, have I got news for you.

Now, I suppose you might be concerned about the similarity betwixt my

story and the one in the Bible with the snake and the rib and all that

jive.

Well, that was me too.

I am the Great Koonaklaster.

I created music, poetry, dance, painting, sculpture, all the arts. I am

the Great Koonaklaster.

I have performed the apple tree bit many many times in order to save the

human race from mediocrity and from

middlebrow.

>From the Great Beast of public opinion.

>From the Great Beast of the middle of the middle.

>From the Great Beast of bad taste.

In short, I have performed the apple tree bit to save the world from evil.

What is evil?

Let me tell you.

It isn't me.

Oh I know what the Christian Church has said about me. I know it all too

well. And I say to them as I say to you, if you insist in believing in

dualism, that's your problem. If you think I have a tail and green

reptilian scaly skin and horns, that's your problem. The hooves, I

grant you, are a problem at times. I AM DARK KRISHNA. I ALWAYS

PLAY THE FLUTE OR THE PIPES OR THE QUILLS OR THE HARMONICA.

I AM HENRY RAGTIME TEXAS THOMAS.

I AM BIG BOY CLEVELAND.

If you listen to that one quill solo I recorded on the Gennett label and

on that piece by "John Fahey" called the Singing Bridge of Memphis

Tennessee---if you can listen to that music and not know that I am Pan,

that I am Krishna, then you should go and get psychoanalyzed as quickly

as possible.

Because if you can't hear the music you ain't gonna have much fun in

this life. You ain't gonna have NO fun in this life, because everything

in this life including life itself is made out of music.

AND I AM THE MUSIC.

You didn't know that, did you?

There was a time when everybody knew it, then they forgot. So I planted

the apple trees. Then they forgot again. So I planted more trees. And

what about Emmanuel Swedenborg, Johnny Appleseed, UFOs, demons, black

holes, etc.?

These are all side issues and we may come back to them, or we may not.

I have to use certain polemical devices and rhetorical tricks and humor

in order to preserve the harmony while I tell you all this. Because it

is a very, very long story---interesting as hell---you'll see--- but it

requires certain axioms and background before I can tell you everything.

Here and there I'll also tickle your funnybone.

Now, where were we?

Oh yes, many times I am simply going to say it doesn't matter, forget

it, I love you, I came here just to talk to you.

These are abbreviations for the prolegomena I have just given you. It's

all true, I assure you, but I don't like to waste time because I AM THE

GREAT KOONAKLASTER.

And sometime I'll give you teasers too. They are statements which are

exhaustively true but do not, of course, exhaust the truth.

Here's one you'll like. The Anthology of American Folk Music is a

religion.

Like that?

Tired, gotta quit now.

See you tomorrow.

See you, fatso!

Good night, Sara.

9/23/98

Announcement:

This is the Great Koonaklaster.

Announcement:

This is a continuation of last night's transmission which was

interrupted when "John Fahey" punked out.

Announcement:

"John Fahey" did not finish that prolegomena because "he" has the 24

hour flu.

Announcement:

As it turns out, that prolegomena is not necessary.

Announcement:

Once again this is Great K speaking to you literally.

Announcement:

What about Rheinhold Gliere's 3rd symphony? I love you.

Announcement:

What about a Jerry Garciaism machine is finally? It doesn't matter.

And what about vampires? Not important. What about Greil Marcus?

Well, Greil got ahold of something of my extension, something of my

worship, my "religion". No doubt about it.

But something got ahold of Marcus and Marcus, through bold acclimation,

through great intuition, unstated implication, guilt by association,

profound observation, tried to mesh my extension with

Bob Dylan qua himself

and Bob Dylan qua interpretation

of the corpus, the canon I created,

the music which I am and you are.

Greil's book is full of inconsequential trivial mistakes, omissions and

some ignorance. Remember I said trivial. It doesn't matter. I love you.

But just a couple of examples:

Ignorance: Page 116. The first stanza of Clarence Ashley's Coo Coo

Bird, "Gonna build me, log cabin, on a mountain so high. So I can see

Willie, when he goes on by."

Marcus thinks this is a meaningless isolate that cannot be meaningless,

ignorant of the fact that this is a boulderized version of the black

blues commonplace:

When you see me coming, hush your windows high (or turn your lights up

high)

When you see me leaving, hang your head and cry (Bobby Grant)

Or:

When you see my man, he come a-easin' by

There are many variations in black music of this stanza, and it is still

sung today in black nightclubs and on jazz records.

Slight misinterpretation: Page 123. Smith's anthology is a "democratic

event."

Not at all! It is my own self revelation for I am the Great Koonaklaster.

Confusion: Page 125; "Somewhere there's a perfectly absolutely

metaphorical America."

As I stated above, to grant all power to the metaphor, the symbol, the

allegory, etc., I invented these things myself, for I am the Great

Koonaklaster.

But I must add, that when I create things like America, I don't create

no gd metaphors. I create the whole damn thing literally and intact.

Brilliance: (Can't find pagination) "You can wait for a death God will

ignore; then you like so many others already dead but still speaking

will take your place in the bend of a note in 'The Coo Coo Bird'".

Absolutely brilliant, Truer words were never spoken, or broken.

Inre p. 106: John Henry I. Blacks wanted nothing to do with this song

because it meant Whitey killed a black along with his integrity and

value with his, Whitey's machines. In a sense Whitey killed all Blacks

in this song.

The same is true of John Henry II.

Only two recordings of I were made by blacks on commercial records, one

by The Two Poor Boys (Evans and McLean) and one by me, as Henry Thomas.

Many recordings of I and II were made by whites before and after 1942.

John Henry thus became a hero, but a hero only of white folks.

Strange, this irony, but true.

PP. 53 - 61: Marcus takes up almost ten pages tells us all about the

West Virginia Coal Wars. Tragic and horrible they were. (Are they

completely over?) Then suddenly he starts talking about Frank Hutchison

who was indeed a very great white folk singer, guitarist, arranger and

composer of folk songs and guitar instrumentals on the OKEH label. From

about 1925 to 1930. His first recording was acoustic.

It sold so well, to blacks and whites, that OKEH had him re-record it

later, after they had acquired the right to use the Western Electric

Recording Process.

He was billed as "The Pride of West Virginia." He recorded many

ballads and blues which he learned from black worker on the Chesapeake

and Ohio RR, now part of the CSX Corp.

One of his best sellers was called

CONEY ISLE

about the great amusement Park in Columbus, Ohio

Here are some lyrics:

Well, I went down to the Turkish Feast,

people were eating like big wild geese

I'm on my way, Coney Isle

Makes no difference of the time of day,

Everything is going my way

Chorus

When I get ready to leave this Earth,

I'll look back, see my money's worth,

Chorus

He sang murder ballads, blues, RR songs but never sang one word about

coal, much less coal mines. He never worked one day in a coal mine and

never had anything at all to do with the war.

Marcus uses the dishonest writing technique here of implied and unstated

assumption.

See?

I am the Great Koonaklaster and I do not approve of such crooked

rhetorical tactics. Furthermore, there is not one labor song on the

entire Anthology, except for Uncle Dave's protest against forced labor

on number 79.

I am the great Koonaklaster and I do not allow any of the artists I

create to waste their time singing about politics, with the one

exception of Uncle Dave Macon for whom I gave carte blanche everything

in existence as permissible subject matter.

Was Macon a folksinger? He learned most of the songs he recorded from

entertainers who stayed at his parent's hotel in Nashville for

Vaudevillians on the road. He recorded many tin pan alley songs

including those of Irving Berlin.

Obviously, this question is too large to cover here. We will return to

Macon latter.

Another problem with Marcus and his informants is this: He fails to

point out that Smithville as he calls it is located in the Southeastern

United States. Every single entertainer on the Anthology is from the

Southeast. Not one is from the Western United States.

Smith was acutely aware of this.

Many writers on American folklore, especially those with political

axes to grind are quite aware of this fact but keep it a secret.

I am the Great Koonaklaster. I created music itself. I created all of

the musicians on the Smith Anthology and I created many others.

I did not create Woody Guthrie. I did not create Jack Elliott, although

I did allow Elliott into the Koonaklaster Karas and tricked him into

eating one of my apples. Surely, you can tell that I did not create

anyone named Seeger.

But I admit, I felt sorry for Dave Van Ronk and gave him an apple.

Marcus did not ask a very important question: What exactly is the

connection between Guthrie, Elliott, Van Ronk, Pete Seeger on the one

hand and the Anthology of American Folk Music on the other?

In many places Marcus implies or states openly that these guys, along

with Joanie Phoney and others, are residents of Smithville --- which, of

course and as we all now know is not true in any literal or allegorical

or symbolic sense or manner.

THERE IS NO RELATIONSHIP. I DID NOT CREATE ANYBODY

NAMED GUTHRIE OR VAN RONK OR SEEGER OR ELLIOTT

OR PHONEY.

NONE NOTHING NADA NIX NUNCA

Even the Great Koonaklaster needs sleep and I have been out in

the fields all day planting apple trees. More tomorrow.

Goodnight Fatso and Sara and everybody else.

Tomorrow I will demonstrate that Smithville does not exist.



10/23/98

ANNOUNCEMENT:

Marcus wants us to believe that everybody on the Anthology has a

homogenous, or perhaps even an identical Weltanschauung. He wants

us to believe that all Smithvilleites live and think and believe independently

of the prevailing Weltanschauung and the Zeitgeist.

Not only that but he wants us to believe that they do this

DELIBERATELY

i.e.,

ON PURPOSE.

and

BY PREFERANCE.

Ah yes, dear old Smithville, deep sunny south by the sea, you turn around

and in the distance you can see the beautiful mountains of self-deception,

crowned with the snow of ignorance, self-willed, the ice of forgetfulness, and

the bald trees clear cut and not much left no eagles and ospreys flying or

swimming around in the ether, around and around we go, where we are

nobody knows, and where we stop nobody -------

and where we go, like it say in de book, about de spirit

NOBODY KNOW

Once upon a time a man in England wrote a poem called

THE PLEASURE DOME OF KUBALA KHAN

This poem, he and I noted, possesses very strongly a mysterious

undercurrent of strangely fascinating and occult symbols, metaphors,

which tantalize but do not submit to translation.

Another man made a bold and lengthy attempt to decipher, to make accessible,

THE PLEASURE DOME OF KUBLA KHAN.

He spent hundreds of days and hundreds of pages examining all the books

and newspaper items and everything else the first guy had access to in the

belief that if all this stuff was exhaustively examined it could explain

THE PLEASURE DOME OF KUBLA KHAN.

But, no soap.

This book was called the Road to Xanadu.

I read the Road to Xanadu and it gave me a great trip through a lot of literature,

histories of exploration, art, music, -------and it was a lot of fun ---- great travelogue,

of an imaginary country, but not the realm of KK.

Later, I deciphered the meaning myself by utilizing Freuds dream book.

AND I will present that to you one of these days.

YES!

I GOT IT!

AND IT WORKS!

I PROMISE YOU!

AND I ALWAYS DELIVER BECAUSE I AM THE GREAT KOOKAKLASTER!

Now, this book by Marcus has similarities to The Road to Xanadu. Unfortunately it is incoherent.

Now let us review. Please note that I am the Great Koonaklaster, as I have told you before. My hobby is traveling around the countryside planting magic apple trees.

I am Johnny Appleseed. I like to have fun just like you do.

Hell, I CREATED FUN.

Anybody who eats one of my magic apples gains the knowledge of good and evil music.

Harry Smith, the great American Magus put together an anthology of

old 78 RPM records made by artists to whom I had fed one or more of MY magic apples.

Harry the Smith was not an incarnation of the Great Koonaklaster, i.e., myself.

No, for people to whom I assign lotsa very important work I set up partial incarnations.

USUALLY THEY ARE INCARNATIONS OF THE GREAT KELVITRON. The whole thing.

The Great Kelvitron has more mantras than I do, but then, too, it doesnt really matter

very much because I created the GREAT KELVITRON.

Ill show you his mantras and mine in time. Be patient.

Harry truly was a brilliant man. NOBODY ELSE woulda issued

FRANK CLOUTIER

on the Anthology of American Folk Music.

Nobody.

But Harry Smith did.

Yes.

Now, whether you know it or not there is great mystery here. Whenever you hear the

name Harry Smith, look out. Something heavy and fantastic is coming your way. But when

Harry Smith and Frank Cloutier get together, hell, anything can happen,and it usually does.

Because Harry Smith and Frank Cloutier drank a hell of a lot of my apple juice. I mean a lot.

I arranged things so that they met each other. Because I knew that they would pull lotsa

big weird capers. And they sure did.

For example ------ | no Ill tell you about that later when I tell you about

| the Pleasure Dome of Kubala Khan.

Anyway, there came into existence the Anthology of American Folk Music.

This was a great step forward for the welfare and well-being of all mankind.

The AAFM changed the world a hell of a lot.

I know and I tell you this because I am the face behind Harry Smith, I am the face

behind Frank Cloutier. I am the face behind Mississippi John Hurt, the face behind

Richard "Rabbit" Brown. I am the face behind Blind Uncle Gaspard, yea,

verily I am the face behind the entire AAFM.

Yes.

I am nothing but a gigantic red apple.

And yet, it is even I who make voices unseen and unheard --- voices from

the void, voices from the all and all, voices from the ether, voices from the

sun and moon and stars. Voices from the fog, voices from the asteroids and

the rings of Saturn and the rings of Jupiter --- you didnt know Jupiter had rings did you

--- but now you know. Voices from the dust, voices from underneath the sand, voices

from the mildew, voices from all the crushed turtles on the highways long forgotten, voices

from the passenger pigeons and all the other extinct animals, voices from the hoboes that

died in your bright blue city.

I am the voices of those you have neglected and allowed to die.

Those people and animals and other things --- they are all here with me.

YES THAT IS WHAT I SAID, ALL THOSE LONG FORGOTTEN VOICES

ARE RIGHT HERE WITH ME. AND WHERE AM I? I AM RIGHT HERE

BESIDE YOU, INSIDE OF YOU, BEHIND YOU, ABOVE AND BELOW YOU.

I AM EVERYWHERE.

I remove the veil.

Forbidden voices speak through me. Voices indecent, full of shame, are clarified

and transfigured. For me seeing, hearing, feeling are miraculous events.

Nothing is ordinary.

No matter where you are, near or far daytime or nighttime, I am there.

I make everything holy. You shall become what I am. You already are, in fact.

You shall be the sun, the moon and the stars. Come and look for me. You shall find me.

I am nearer than you think. Come out and look for me. I will meet you at the door.

And you will find that the door enters the sun and that you are the sun just as I am

because you and I are not two but one, and we always have been.

This will never change. Never. I give you my word.

Unfortunately, some people like Greil Marcus, cannot handle all of my amplitude,

although clearly YOU can. This is sad because some writers like Marcus do notice

things that nobody else sees. And they become determined to write about such things and they get confused. They short out.

Books like Invisible Republic cause the suicide rate to go up and not only that,

the murder rate actually does go up, husbands leave their wives, wives leave

their husbands and there is much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Many wars are fought and many a good man will die every time a book like this

comes out. Because of the confusion.

In fact, many people go insane.

Please put away this book and you will retain your reason.

Now listen to me. I will show you the way.

Listen to this:

p. 95 - "The whole bizarre package (AAFM) made the familiar strange,

the never known into the forgotten, and the forgotten into a collective memory----.

Poor Greil is trying to poeticize the dialectic by tossing around a few antimonies.

He bloops. He must not have read Kant.

p. 96 - "The Anthology was a textbook -- an occult document disguised as an academic

treatise (demonstrating that) America is a mystery."

WOW!

This mystery Marcus attempts to explain by a construct. The construct is a city called

Smithville which is the real world of the anthology.

p. 104: Marcus contends that "Smith constructed internal narratives and

orchestrated continuities. He moved tunes about homicide into those about suicide.

Or he placed a performance so that it would echo a line or a melody in a preceding

number so that the repeated line might deepen its power of suggestion or the

doubled melody intensified the gestures of the actors on its stage. Linking one

performance to another, he ultimately linked each to all."

According to Marcus, Smith made a world or a town: SMITHVILLE

And here we find the center of the book.

Now this would have been a real neat trick if somebody had made such a

metaphorical world. Hell, I would have abdicated. I really would have

stepped down. But nobody did do it.

Nobody could.

Marcus gives us a few examples of the supposed coherency and connection which

HE sees. But there are 84 goddamn songs on this compendium!

AND THE REAL NAME OF THIS TOWN IS NOT SMITHVILLE

BUT GREIL MARCUSVILLE.

Greil Marcusville is inhabited by all the folks on the Anthology. They are all participants

in some mysterious Weltanschauung and some unknown plot which is only hinted at by

an occasional verse in one song and not repeated elsewhere.

Marcus claims he knows the plot.

But he never tells us the plot.

He claims he knows the Weltanschauung.

But he never tells us what it is. But I know what the plot is.

I know what the Weltanschauung is. I know what the Zeitgeist is.

I am the Great Koonaklaster. I will explain it all.

Listen! The fact is, everybody in Marcusville has identical faces.

They are all Greil Marcus faces.

This is Marcusville: p. 125 - "A mystical body of the republic, a kind of

public secret: a declaration of what sort of wishes and fears lie behind any

public act, a declaration of a weird but clearly recognizable (?) America within

the America of the exercise of institutional majoritarian power."

--------

It is time for us to ask a question. Is it possible to construct a description of

the character of a body of people from a group of the recorded performances

without being circular? That is, without discovering our own preconceptions?

Probably not.

Nevertheless, I am going to attempt to do just that using the AAFM and "extensions"

thereof, that is, similar recordings by American folk musicians, including some of

the other recordings made by musicians on the AAFM. It will be coherent, interesting,

entertaining, informative, but whether there is any significant and overall truth in it

which enables us to make generalizations, I make no claim at all.

There is a certain morbidity, a certain despair, realism, disappointment and cynicism

in American folk music that turns up again and again. The old American dream of

democracy, unity, and equality---the dream of the new Zion built through hard work,

agrarianism, populism, cooperation, camaraderie was gone by the end of the Civil War.

Nobody trusted any large institutions anymore be it church, government, union, factory.

No longer were railroads, electrification, large ocean-going vessels glorified.

In particular enormous devices of power and transportation were no longer worshipped

as they once had been. Giant harvesters did not yet exist. But in time they would.

These recordings conserve sentiments which began in the previous century.

Over and under, near and far, day and night, I am there. I make everything holy.

What I am shall you be. You shall be the sun, the moon the stars. Come and look for me.

I am near and you will find me. I am closer than you think. Come out and look for me.

I will meet you at the door. And you will find that the door enters the sun and

that you are the sun just as I am because you and I are not two, but one, and

we always have been. You have always been mine. I have always been yours.

This will never change. Never.

Unfortunately some people like Greil Marcus cannot handle all of my amplitude,

although clearly YOU can.

This is sad because writers like him do notice what nobody else

Except YOU.

But they set about trying to write about it and they get confused. They short out.

Books like Invisible Republic cause the suicide rate to go up, and not only that,

the murder rate goes up, husbands leave their wives, wives leave their husbands

and there is much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Many wars are fought and many a good man will die because of this confusion.

Many went insane.

Many are still insane.

Put away this book and you will retain your reason.

Read me and I will show you the way.

Listen to this!

p. 95 "The whole bizarre package [AAFM] made the familiar strange, the never known

into the forgotten, and the forgotten into a collective memory---"

WOW! All he has to do is add water and stir.

Poor Greil is trying to poeticize the dialectic by tossing around a few antinomies.

But he bloops. He must not have read Kant.

p. 96: "The Anthology was a textbook ---- an occult document disguised as an

academic treatise (demonstrating that) America is a mystery."

The optimistic sentiments of the great orators, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln were

perceived as a pageant of sophistry driven by greed, dreamed up by rhetoricians to keep

the those of the underclass optimistic while at the same time starving them by paying

them slave wages. With the immigration of small farm tenants to the city, because of

electricity and the railroads, by 1900 the U.S. was a collection of giant city-states or the

COSMOPOLIS

where everyone is a stranger, an enemy, somebody to exploit.

Cities, as we now know, do not possess souls. The inhabitants do not have souls.

Cities are the home of psychic vampires, thought police and vampire vultures.

Nobody told the Americans of the cyclical nature of history. Nobody told them

of the vegetative essence. Nobody told them they only had so much time to establish

a culture, so much time before the inevitable soul-less mammonization ruled. Now the body

of the people is entirely and essentially urban in constitution. A formless mass, with no individuals.

The Stone Colossus stands at the conclusion of culture where a herd of beings huddles

together against the bleak, barren architecture seeking only to return to absolute vegetative

servitude through drugs, religion, politics, anything. Anything, that is, except the thought

police and the vampires.

The new soul of the city speaks a new language which permeates everything and everybody. Look at the architecture. These stone visages that have incorporated the

eye and the intellect of the citizen---how distinct the language of form that they babble---how different from the rustic drawl of the landscape.

No longer can the landscape figure dominate mans eyes. Once it gave form to his soul.

Feelings and woodland rustlings beat together.

Remember?

Can you still hear a gentle breeze drift through the great forest of oaks when the sun is

high at midday? The splashing of the water in the brooklets, the kils, the creeks? Near the

shore of the lake can you still see a a ten pound trout break water for reasons known only to I? Vultures float along the skyways looking for clouds to sit on and, of course, just as

the-all-about-you is alive and growing unseen and unheard, the universal cyclicity demands

the decomposition of all above the earth below the earth, not announced itself, why

should it, its there anyway, it goes on and on and on and on.

AND IT NEVER STOPS! NOTHING EVER STOPS!

BECAUSE THERE IS DURATION. AND I AM DURATION.

DONT EVER FORGET THAT.

Now, you know that you can see or hear parts of the nature process. But dont you know that

every man has an organ to feel the never-ending process?

Dont you know that every man has an organ to feel the never-ending process?

Regard the flowers at eventide as, one after the other, they close in the setting sun.

Strange is the feeling that then presses in upon you --- a feeling of enigmatic fear

in the presence of this blind dreamlike earth-bound existence. The dumb forest,

the silent meadows, this bush, that twig, do not stir themselves, it is the wind that

plays with them. Only the little gnat is free  he dances still in the evening light,

he moves whither he will.

A plant is nothing on its own account. It forms a part of the landscape in which

a chance made it take root. The twilight, the chill, the closing of every flower  these

are not cause and effect, not danger and willed answer to danger. They are a single

process of nature, which is accomplishing itself near, with, and in the plant. The individual

is not free to look out for itself, will for itself, or choose for itself.

An animal, on the contrary, can choose. It is emancipated from the servitude of all the

rest of the world. This midget swarm that dances on and on, that solitary bird still flying

through the evening, the fox approaching furtively the nest  these are little worlds of

their own within another great world. An animal-cule in a drop of water, too tiny to be

perceived by the human eye, though it lasts but a second and has but a corner of this

drop as its field  nevertheless is free and independent in the face of the universe.

The giant oak, upon one of whose leaves the droplet hangs, is not.

Servitude and freedom  this is in the last and deepest analysis the differentia by which

we distinguish vegetable and animal existence. Yet only the plant is wholly and entirely

what it is; in the being of the animal there is something dual. A vegetable is only a vegetable; an animal is a vegetable and something more besides. A herd that huddles together trembling in the presence of danger, a child that clings weeping to its mother, a man desperately striving to force a way into his God  all these are seeking to return out of the life of freedom into the vegetal servitude from which they were emancipated into individuality and loneliness.

CONCLUSION

Okay, now let us look at the goods, the items in the AAFM.

There is a story in these records. There is a Weltanschauung, lots of Weltanschauungen.

Absolutely.

So why is there no discussion of Weltanschauung in Greil Marcus?

And what about the Zeitgeist? Everybody knows that the Zeitgeist has a great deal

of influence on the Weltanschauung.

Okay now here comes the story. Frank Cloutier, walking down the street one fine day

with Harry Smith! Cloutier talked Smith into issuing his, Cloutiers "Moonshiners Dance",

#41 on the AAFM.

Now, this side is a crazy, contradictory, confusing collection.

It really doesnt fit on the AAFM. Its a recording of a NORTHERN hotel band

with horns, banjos, tubas, castanets, clarinets, tambourines, steam calliopes, rhinoceroses,

elephants, jungle natives, multiple choruses and orchestras.

Why on earth did these guys perpetuate this outrageous, confusing tour de force on the public?

Smith notes, correctly, that there is a great deal of humor in this performance.

Mixed together are songs from Ireland (Maggie), the USA (Turkey In The Straw),

a middle European polka an Alap from north India, a Brazilian tango, a South African

cremation ritual song, a gamelan, a hymn tune "Standing At The Cross", and several other

pieces I cannot identify, played quickly and in short order, with a surprising, unexpected

and eerie conclusion

"WHEN YOU WORE A TULIP AND I WORE A BIG RED ROSE"!

What can we say about the notorious Frank Cloutier, confidant of Harry Smith? As of this

day we do not know much about Cloutier. In the year 2005 Harry Smiths bio of Frank Cloutier will

be released by the Harry Smith Archives time release vault by the equally notorious --

RANI SINGH,

Harry Smiths heir and curator of the archives.

Well, we do know, if only from, infertile evidence that Cloutier was a Northerner,

a Populist, a practitioner of New England transcendentalism, a proselytizer of

Fredrich Hegels Transcendental Idealism, and an avid student and believer in the

many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many,

many writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.

Now, I do not say that Mr. Cloutier is a melting Populist. I do not say this because I did

not know him personally or impersonally, and yet I think that it is easily inferable from

the melting populist sentiments expressed on this track where practically

every ethnic group is honored.

Now, you will note, that I do not say that Frank Cloutier, is, in reality, Charles Ives.

No, I do not say this because I do not know either one of these spun characters.

And I do not know either one of them personally, or impersonally, individually or

in concert. Or in tandem.

But I do say that the Cloutier piece is a precursor of some of Charley Ives pieces,

especially his Fourth Symphony.

Do I say that? Yes, I do say that, and not only that but I posit it as a fact. Furthermore

I assert it. Furthermore I promulgate it. I do not merely sit back and imply or suggest it.

I insist upon it.

Granted the truth lies with some Ives maven.

Any Ives maven will do.

Go and ask this Ives maven if he thinks Ives would have liked the Cloutier piece.

I rest my case

Someone may well ask, was Cloutier a Schiller-lover.

I certainly hope not. There is absolutely no evidence for this noxious suggestion whatsoever,

be it internal, infernal, or external.

Frank Cloutier gives us the first part of the story . GIVE ME YOUR TIRED,

YOUR POOR, YOUR HUDDLED MASSES YEARNING TO BREATHE

FREE, THE WRETCHED REFUSE OF YOUR TEEMING SHORE. SEND

THESE, THE HOMELESS, TEMPEST-TOSSED TO ME, I LIFT MY LAMP

BESIDE THE GOLDEN DOOR!

Now let us turn to the second part of the story of America: the Fatal Flower Garden

by Nelstones Hawaiians.

I really hate to say this but Harry Smith made a mistake here. Obviously he got mixed up

here because Nelstones Hawaiians were quite dead by the time they made this recording.

Listen to it! Death permeates this record, and probably suggested to Harry Smith that the

little kid got killed or that somebody got killed.

But in fact if you listen carefully to the words you will find that instead of getting killed, the

little boy gets seduced by the evil gypsy lady and shacks up with her and writes phony goodbye

letters to his parents because he gonna stay there, baby, and go bangabangabangabanga all

night long, and all day long with the beautiful gypsy broad.

Oh yes listen to the words...

The theme of the Melting Pot, and the theme of loss of innocence is established in these

two songs. And not just the innocence of the little boy but the innocence of the whole nation.

Item number two is a warning against foreign, alien, aesthetic extremes especially of those of

the orient and southern latitudes., the occult the----

Now, before we go any further, let us note that this collection is a very bloody and a very nasty

compilation. Let us make a body count of all the people who get killed in this anthology of folk music.

Twenty people are killed or commit suicide on the domestic scene, and 1,513 people died when

the Titanic sank. If we add to that the 15 million people killed in WWI an event mentioned

by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Cannons Jug Stompers we get a total 15,001,533 deceased.

If we average this figure out among the 84 selections, we get 178,587.67 people killed per song

in this collection!

Tomorrow I will further introduce you to The Great Kelvinator, the Kelvitron and their

relationship to me, THE GREAT KOONAKLASTER.

On that note Ill say goodnight Sara, bye Blair! Fatso, come back!

Dont forget to look for my new book SPANK. Its in the stores right now,

published by Drag City Press, Chicago, IL.

12/13/98

ANNOUNCEMENT:

Thats a pretty big average. 178,587.67 horizontals per song on the AAFM.

Looking around and thinking about all these previous corporeals the official thought

the USA had been judged by God and found wanting and was therefore under

JUDGEMENT.

(See Sister Mary Nelson, # 47)

And they said so again and again.

The sins? Murder, suicide, infidelity, blasphemy and idolatry, especially as in #23 where people

express worshipful sentiments toward gigantic engines, modes of transportation and electric power.

Where people like George Alley states that he "wants to die with for the engine I love, 143."

So Georgie dies, Kassie Jones dies, John Henry dies and others die who were involved in

building America.

Were these people nuts or what?

Do you want to go horizontal with some stupid engine?

There is no optimism in these songs. There is no looking forward in any off these songs.

The story, or at least the public dream of America is seen to be baloney, a put-on, perpetuated

by both the powerful and the poor.

Both participated in these lies and false hopes and idolatry. For this reason the "class struggle"

cannot be a central fact or even a significant causative factor in the amount of alienation in de lan.

Guilt is everywhere and although there is plenty of traditional preaching by these (Protestant) preachers

they are seen as spokesmen for the official story.

As with the government or any large powerful institution, the unofficial, the folk, do not trust

or believe in the words or sentiments of the members of any religious organization.

They perceive the preachers as liars.

OK, then how can you tell what it is that the real folk do believe and trust?

Anything? Is there any kind of transcendence for them?

Yes, in a way.

They believe in the possibility of the manifestation of their own wisdom based on their own

experience, like the logo on the Missouri license plates "Show me".

Thus skepticism and cynicism and sense of humor and irony are essential as a defense against disaster.

And American folk music is full of cynical lyrics. Thus American folk music becomes a matter

of self defense, a weapon.

A weapon against the despair that the official republic creates through its promises, propaganda

and the ultimate disappointment amongst the proletariat when they discover that they have been

screwed---when they realize they have been trapped in self-deception awaiting the great payoff

which never comes, and franchizement. The cynicism is an important means of communication,

a secret language.

The lyrics must be self-revelatory to the other members of the KARAS, to THE OTHER.

You can recognize THE OTHER through the irony and THE OTHER can recognize you through

your irony.

But if you start talking about big things, government, religion, money , power---I know you by

your language. You are part of the Official Republic. You are The Enemy.

The cynicism is also a mans of communication, a secret language.

The lyrics must be self revelatory to other members of the Karas, to The Other.

You can recognize through my irony and I could recognize you through your irony, but if you

start talking about big things, government, religion, money, power----I know you by your language.

You are one of the officials. You are The Enemy.

This folk religion is self- reliant but hopes for intimate communion with The Other.

Yes.

Nevertheless, it should be remembered that American folk music is essentially a martial art.

Its purpose is self-preservation. The preservation of the invisible karas, the mystical body,

the unofficial, invisible body.

This cynical person will not worship or even honor any of the granfaloons in the official society,

much less worship the entire entity.

Members of the invisible karas must of necessity stand outside the official social contract and

must forever remain there. This is what genuine American folk music is, music of outsiders.



Death: Since it is a self-preservative system it must never consciously acknowledge a desire for

death and yet it can never completely escape from a desire to return to pure vegetation. For underneath

it knows that life is an unhappy affair, interrupted only occasionally by joy.

The folk never forget the inevitability of death and

THE OMNIPOTENCE OF THE VEGETABLE

No, never.

This folk religion is highly ethical and highly altruistic. It is an orchestra of those who have been

wounded by members of the official combine and see through it.

It is an orchestra of those who can see the members of the official and see that they have sold out,

that they have bought into the Great Beast of the visible institution.

Of course the official must exist and must continue to exist out of its own necessity, but also because

of its own complicity in the Great Scheme, the Great Game, so visible if one will only look: Like a

great red light shining brightly to show the members of the alternative culture by no

means of internal contradiction what is not authentic, not true, and in a sense not even real.

The official society always appears to be strong. For the Great Beast the alternative does not

have a chance of accomplishing anything of significance, much less of winning.

Therefore remember what I, the Great Koonaklaster taught you through my magic apples:

1. The official is appearance only. In the long run, the strongest are the weakest.

2. The official exists for the sole purpose of your edification, and making your edification

the more actual, enduring and real.

3. He who has ears let him hear.

4. The humorous cynicism I taught you in reason, science, and music----that the exercise

of this organ alone or in concert, is the greatest source of joy and wisdom short of the

forthcoming all-in-the-all and the altogether in the altogether, when we shall all be one.

5. Finally the source of daily strength and joy comes by chanting the mantras I have given

you in "John Fahey"s book SPANK .

OM SRI, JAI SRI, KELVITRONAYA NAMAH

OM SRI, JAI SRI, KOONAKLASTERAYA NAMAH

And finally--- the strongest of all:

OM MA

Consequently I, the Great Koonaklaster declare on this day the 13th day of December 1998,

1. There is a mystical and invisible body.

2. The mystical body is older than the institutional body. In fact it is ancient.

3. The unofficial and invisible body of the people of the USA is the culmination and the logical

goal of all the wisdom of all the wisdom and knowledge contained by or known by this

ancient body of people, most of whom did not know each other.

4. I knew them all.

5. There has been a form of unobserved, unacknowledged and even unknown method of

communication between the members of this mystical group.

6. Through me, through my mantram and through the indirect cynical communication, all of which

I have taught you above, you may remain

7.

8. in my consciousness, and I in yours, and you may remain in the great happiness,

which I AM.



I, The Great Koonaklaster, hereby declare the Invisible Republic to be a frighteningly visible

and gigantic insane asylum, disguised as a city-state, consisting of streets that go around and

around and around and around in circles and lead nowhere, avenues which are dead ends,

roads sided by false facades of buildings which are nothing but different wards for various types

of diseased minds, sidewalks which lead to a gigantic maze, from which there is no exit, no

escape, and finally people milling about in great confusion and perplexity, all of whom have

been decided by the DIRECTOR as to their own identity and their own experience.

The director himself is insane.

The directors name is Greil Marcus.

The book about the visible insane asylum is dangerous to the public health because it is full of

factual errors and half truths and full of confusion. It contains false implications. Its main thesis

is that there is a significant connection between AAFM and Bob Dylan, along with a collection of

his tapes, which he made in some basement, along with a group of musicians called The Band.

This contention is not proved. Furthermore, the hypothesis and its supposed proof, which does not

exist, is obscured by endless babbling about various folklore items and informants, Marcus own

free-association regarding such people and items, and finally his own spurious interpretations of

his narcissistic and solipsistic and loony projections.

The musicians on the AAFM sing with little affect. Bob Dylan sings with great affect. He is much

more dramatic than the AAFM folk. He is personal, hypnotic, focused, charismatic, clever, very

often brilliant. He with premeditation uses any vocal or rhythmic technique or trick he can uncover

to get you under his spell.

Everything he does is designed to elicit an emotional reaction on the part of the listener.

Sometimes his songs are quite lengthy.

Bob Dylan is therefore part of the Official Republic.

Bob Dylan is not a member of this insane asylum

The insane asylum exists only in Greil Marcus Kopf.

I think I shall disguise myself as John Fahey and enter my time machine and visit

THE ROCK OF ETERNITY. Maybe while Im out there in space Ill see Captain Marvel and

the Mole Men, or maybe Mr. Mind, president of the Monster society of Evil, or Billy Batson,

or maybe even Mary Marvel.

I always liked Mary Marvels gams.

* * *

Har, har, you think Im finished now. Har har you dont know me. I never stop.

Back to Greil Marcus. Is there anything good to say about Greil Marcus?

Absolutely. He likes Doc Boggs. He talks a lot about Doc Boggs. Without comprehension,

of course. Everybody knows that now. Boggs strikes a chord in Marcus. Marcus wrote lots of

words about him. So now Boggs, dead, is selling more records than he ever did when he was alive.

Boggs is a big dead.

Boggs is in last months Atlantic Monthly.

Thats amazing.

Now I, the real John Fahey, am gonna write about Doc Boggs.

Har har.

Why not?

Everybody else is.

Know what I mean?

Wow.

But Im not gonna post it for awhile because I gotta post some more axioms and corollaries

and short observations before we continue with the natures of reality.

But not right now.

I, the real John Fahey, am tired.

Gonna get some sleep

I love you, as the Great Koonaklaster loves me.

You know who I mean.

See you in my dreams

'Night Barry.

See ya soon.

jf

For your convenience in reviewing this document's pivital junctures,

Please use the back button to return to this list again if you find yourself lost

in the document.



9/5/98 - What is original sin?

9/7/98 - Mahler loved Bruckner

9/8/98 - What is the Uhrwort for Kaiser, Keizer, etc.?

9/13/98 - It began sometime in the previous century, probably 1850 or earlier.

9/16/98 - AT THIS POINT, I, THE GREAT KOONAKLASTER COMMENCE HEREWITH TO SPEAK...

9/23/98 - This is a continuation of last night's transmission when "John Fahey" punked out.

10/23/98 - Marcus wants us to believe that everybody on the Anthology has a homogenous Weltanschauung.

Frank Cloutier

Greil Marcusville

12/13/98 - ANNOUNCEMENT more on Marcusville, concluding comments on Invisible Republic

