Geoffrey Smith

“William’s weekend with his friends, Geoffrey and Maggie, was turning out to be neither restful nor enjoyable. Things could have been worse, of course: there must be weekends during which the hosts’ house burns to the ground, one of the guests murders another, the hostess is arrested in extradition proceedings or the guests are all poisoned by the inclusion of death’s cap mushrooms in the stew. Such weekends must be very difficult indeed, not least because of the wording of the thank-you letters that one would have to write. The disaster, whatever it was, could hardly be ignored, but must be referred to tactfully in the letter, and always set in proper perspective. Thus, in the case of the mushroom poisoning, one would comment on how the other courses of the meal were delicious; in the case of the hostess’s arrest, one would say something comforting about the ability of defence lawyers in the jurisdiction to which she was being extradited”

“...it is one thing for experimentation to take place: it is another for it to acquire critical mass – or, to use a different metaphor, for ripples to become a wave....One sign was the emergence or re-emergence of an international audience that actually sought out artistically challenging films.””

“Designed to be heard precisely in the order laid down, it [Anthology of American Folk Musiccompiled by Harry Smith] anticipated the sort of musical collage that would become perhaps the most widely practiced American art form: the personal mixtape of favorite songs.””