To Lead the Mind Away

Joanne Hsieh and Jesse Roy, who last year regaled us with their song of Sam Patch, have produced another Patersong especially for New Jersey as an Impossible Object. From Book III (The Library), their rendition of Locust Tree would beat Williams reading it hands down, although were he to be backed up by Allen Ginsberg on harmonica, Marcia Nardi on bass, and Joe Gould on the spoons, he might have provided more competition.

For there is a wind or ghost of a wind
in all books echoing the life
there, a high wind that fills the tubes
of the ear until we think we hear a wind,
actual .

to lead the mind away.

Drawn from the streets we break off
our minds’ seclusion and are taken up by
the books’ winds, seeking, seeking
down the wind
until we are unaware which is the wind and
which the wind’s power over us .
to lead the mind away (96)

(Click on image for song. Joanne Hsieh on piano and voice; Jesse Roy on guitar and voice; Recorded and mixed by Jesse Roy).

Sam Patch!

"There's no mistake in Sam Patch." Songsters Joanne Hsieh and Jesse Roy regale us with this Patersong of the man who lept the Passaic falls and became famous for it. Click on Sam's image for their leapin' lyritudes. Joanne writes from the field: "Well, Jesse and I actually visited Paterson a little while ago just for the hell of it, to maybe get inspired to write a song. We took a super 8 camera and got some footage (as of yet undeveloped) of a condemned old mill or factory. It said no trespassing but we did anyways, and we witnessed some stunning industrial decay -- forces of nature at work creating impossible monumental beauty. The film ran out and it may have been all underexposed . . . but we'll see. We also went in search of the Paterson Project, a Jevohah's Witness establishment encompassing many acres where they train ministers, produce bibles, etc... but no one we spoke to knew what the hell we were talking about, even the people at a local blue collar diner where we ordered too many french fries which we had to take home. What a trippy place. The doggie package containing the french fries is still in my freezer as an artifact of our sojourn." Well, Old Man Google says the bible camp she talks about is in Patterson, NY, not Paterson, NJ, but who can tell as you go head over heels into the mist and spume?