Harry Smith
The Crazy Mycorrhizal Network of The Man, The Myth, Manteca, Mysterioso, Milk Into Milk
There have been many long nights spent DJing at the Ace Hotel. And every once in awhile I walk over to the wall featuring a painting of Harry Smith, from when he lived in this concrete footprint when it was still the Breslin. It’s based on a photograph taken by Allen Ginsburg performing his alchemical trick of transforming milk into milk, and I take sustenance (or is it Vitamin D?) from that.
Harry Smith is carbon for weirdos. Or maybe more like tungsten, a rare periodic table element you never knew about yet proves to be fundamental to our modern life. He played an outsized yet wholly invisible role in my own understanding and appreciation of the visual and aural forces of the 20th century.
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