Today is the official publication date for Cosmic Scholar by John Szwed – “t>he first biography of Harry Smith, the brilliant eccentric who transformed twentieth century art and culture”
We’ve been eagerly anticipating this – see here
Publishers Weekly last week selected it as one of their books of the week:
“In this vividly detailed biography, music scholar Szwed brilliantly captures the life and legacy of the enigmatic filmmaker, folklorist, painter, producer, anthropologist, archivist, Kabbalist, and alchemist Harry Smith (1923–1991). Gathering information about Smith’s “scattered” life from incomplete archives (much was lost during Smith’s stints living on the streets), Szwed paints his subject as an influential force in American art, admired by the likes of Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, and Allen Ginsberg….Drawing on extensive research to fill in his subject’s emotional states, Szwed sensitively renders the extraordinary, bizarre, and ultimately tragic life that Smith “devoted… completely to art, in some ways turning (that life) into a work of art, his own personal surrealism.” The result is a masterful ode to a “strange and singular character” in American arts”
Kirkus Review had, earlier, given the book a similarly laudatory review – “A revelatory portrait”, they declare, “of a unique pop-culture figure”
Dwight Garner’s New York Times review we’ve quoted from earlier (see here) but the whole piece is very much essential reading so worth quoting again:
“Szwed, who has also written biographies of similarly protean figures such as Sun Ra, Alan Lomax and Miles Davis, is a perspicacious reporter. He wrestles this material into a loose but sturdy form, as if he were moving a futon. He allows different sides of Smith’s personality to catch blades of sun. He brings the right mixture of reverence and comic incredulity to his task.”
and he concludes: “Read this book with a YouTube tab open on your laptop, in addition to Spotify. There’s a lot of material to tap into, and you’ll want to. (Harry) Smith added a great deal to the national stock of peculiarity. He was the worm at the bottom of American culture’s mezcal bottle. You slam the glass down, because his experience still makes you feel alive.”
See also Kevin Canfield’s review in the San Francisco Chronicle
Tomorrow, August 23, 2023 – 6 p.m. at City Lights Books, John Szwed can be heard in conversation with Raymond Foye
and on Friday (September 15), he’ll be talking with Bret Lunsford. in Seattle at the Town Hall
Harry Smith Centennial this year, so there’s plenty more Harry celebration, not the least, in New York, the upcoming Whitney Museum exhibition – Fragments of A Faith Forgotten – The Art of Harry Smith (opening September 28):
“This major exhibition introduces Smith’s life and work within a museum setting for the first time and includes paintings, drawings, experimental films, designs, and examples of Smith’s collections of objects ranging from string figures to found paper airplanes. Seen throughout this hybrid display of art and ephemera are signs of the esoteric, fantastic, and alternative cosmologies basic to Smith’s view of culture. The exhibition proposes new ways to experience diverse strains of 20th-century American cultural histories.”
Raymond Foye is editing a book of Harry’s Naropa lectures
A collection of essays, memoirs and miscellanea – Heaven and Earth Magic: An Anthology of Writings on Harry Smith is also forthcoming
& for all things Harry – and more – visit the Harry Smith Archives site – under the capable hands of director of the archives, Rani Singh
Buy this book
Awhile ago a friend and fellow music fan who I trade with sent me the John Szwed book ‘Cosmic Scholar’, knowing I am somewhat of a folk music fan and also a fan of Bob Dylan. I was just vaguely aware of the Anthology of American Folk Music from various articles. After reading some of it I was amused at a synchronicity. At the time I was reading a biography of the rocket scientist Jack Parsons. So I was intrigued by his involvement with ritual magick and the notorious Ordo Templi Orientis, and then discovering Harry Smith’s interest in the subject and group. Although not described at all in his book Szwed mentions Harry Smith met Parsons’ widow, fellow artist and ritual magician Marjorie Cameron. Apparently Smith met her through filmmaker Kenneth Anger with whom he shared interests in film technique. Anger also was interested in ritual magick going so far as to incorporate rituals into his movie ‘Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome’ which starred Cameron. Dennis Hopper managed to meet these people also, and Smith. He acted in a movie with Cameron, about a mermaid, ‘Night Tide’. I can barely imagine what went on. Carl Jung would like the coincidences. But then you have the old ‘six degrees of separation’ and Stanley Milgram’s ‘small world experiment’ about connections of people, and the art world is even more tightly knit. I have a slight connection also. I know Los Angeles graphic artist Hugh Brown from our youth and told him about the Dennis Hopper movie ‘Catchfire’ aka ‘Backtrack’ in which Bob Dylan has a cameo as an artist using a chainsaw to sculpt, based on the artist Chuck Arnoldi who Brown knows rather well.