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By Harry Partch Submitted by Inflatable Sushi Date: 2002 Nov 24 Comment on this Work [[2002.11.24.18.00.2767]] |
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#1 It's January 26, I'm freezing. Ed Fitzgerald, age 19. Five feet, ten inches. Black hair, brown eyes. Going home to Boston, Massachusetts. It's 4:00 p.m. and I'm hungry and broke. I wish I was dead. But today I am a man. #2 Gentlemen: Go to 530 East Lemmon Avenue in Monrovia, for an easy handout. #3 Marie Blackwell, age 19. Brown eyes, brown hair. Considered pretty. Here's where I live: 118 East Ventura Street, Las Vegas, Nevada Object: matrimony #4 Dear Marie: A very good idea you have there... I too am on the look-out for a suitable mate. My description (no description follows so he evidently got his ride.) #5 Possible rides January 16: 58 January 17: 76 January 18: 19 January 19: 6 January 20: 11 To hell with it, I'm going to walk. #6 Jesus was God in the Flesh. #7 Looking for millionaire wife Good looking, very handsome, intelligent, good bull-thrower, et cetera... All you have to do is find me, you lucky woman. Name's George. #8 Here's wishing all who read this if they can get a lift and the best of luck to you. Why in hell did you come, anyway? Damn it anyhow, here I am stuck in the cold. I've come 2700 miles from Chi, Illinois. Slept along the highway. Slept in open box car without top. Went hungry for two days (raining, too). But they say there's a hell, what the hell do they think this is? I'm on my way, one half of desert to the East, then back to L.A. to try once more. Car just passed by. Make that two more, three more. Do not think they'll let me finish my story. Hoping to get the hell out. here's my name: Johnnie Reinwald, 915 South Westlake Avenue, Los Angeles. + + + + (BARSTOW dates from the Depression, Harry Partch's "hobo days": a period in which Partch was "on the rails." It comes from the guts. "The scribbling is in pencil. It is on one of the white highway railings just outside the Mojave Desert junction of Barstow, California. I am walking along the highway and sit down on the railing to rest. Idly I notice the scratches where I happen to drop. I have seen many hitchhikers' writings. They are usually just names and addresses - there are literally millions of them, or little meaningless obscenities, on highway signs, railings and walls. But this - why, it's music. it's both weak and strong, like unedited human expressions always are. It's eloquent in what it fails to express in words. And it's epic. Definitely, it is music." - Harry Partch, from THE CARMEL PINE CONE, 9/26/41) |