Reviews of three new books about erotica, an Irish childhood, and a local musicologist. Think of the Self Speaking: Harry Smith--Selected Interviews edited by Rani Singh (Elbow/Cityful Press, 186 pages, $16.95) OF SOUND MIND Harry Smith is Portland's unsung hero, our most modern primitive. Born here in 1923, Smith died at age 68 in New York's Chelsea Hotel. In the seven interviews compiled in Think of the Self Speaking, Smith spins tales of his life that are as hard to believe as they are to forget. He was a true technological malcontent: "The things I'm interested in ... poetry, music, philosophy, graphic art, are all done better than I can do them by the Australian Aborigines," he says. Smith did find some technologies essential, like the 78 rpm record. A fanatical collector since high school, Smith discovered that early country, Cajun and blues music was "exotic, in the same way Turkish music is." He assembled 84 cuts from his collection into the Anthology of American Folk Music, a 1952 set credited with inspiring countless musicians from John Fahey to Bob Dylan to Elvis Costello. In the interviews, Smith seems most proud of his field recordings, which include Native American peyote rituals and the street bustle of the Lower East Side. Smith's Dexedrine-fueled responses to his interviewers often circle back to his abstract films, from hand-painted silent images timed to his heartbeat and breathing to collage narratives set to Dizzy Gillespie solos. Near the end of his life, Smith gives a clue about the motivations behind his investigations into the abstract and the primitive, admitting, "It's as if [our] language was built incorrectly for discussing the subjects I really want to discuss." Devan Reiff Mother Ireland by Edna O'Brien (Plume, 129 pages, $11.95) EDNA'S ASHES These days, it's difficult to talk about the Irish memoir without mentioning Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt's unprecedented and remarkably enduring success. Long before McCourt put pen to paper, though, one of Ireland's most prolific talents, Edna O'Brien, wrote her own account of growing up on the Emerald Isle. In 1976, the novelist, short-story writer, poet, essayist and playwright published a slim volume of autobiographical meditations on her childhood in rural County Clare. This engaging work has been out of print for more than a decade, but thankfully it's available once again--perhaps because of the interest in the Irish experience McCourt's work seems to have fostered. Mother Ireland opens with "The Land Itself," a roaming essay on the ways in which Ireland and its people have been portrayed in literary history. From the medieval writings of Gerald of Wales to the later work of J.M. Synge, O'Brien brings together a multifarious set of insider and outsider observations to place Ireland in a historical and cultural context. This piece certainly serves as an adequate introduction, but the strength of the memoir lies in the subsequent chapters. O'Brien's vivid recollections of her school days in a local convent are especially powerful, as are her memories of the impact of popular culture on her friends and neighbors. Though "nothing could be further from reality" than the worlds of Little Women and East Lynne, these fictional utopias offer the narrator and her female peers mental means of escape from the limitations of their lives. By the book's end, O'Brien physically flees her confining rural environment for London (after a stint at college in Dublin), but we know--mostly because she reminds us--that being Irish is inescapable. Distancing herself from her homeland ironically brings O'Brien closer to it. In the end, she suggests, leaving the country is a precondition for writing about it. Jonathan Morrow Richardson (published quarterly by Little More, $25) EROTICA, AFTER A FASHION The name comes from Andrew Richardson, the Brit editor of this amalgam of art, porn, pop culture, erotica and--as if there were a distinction--high fashion. The high-ticket photographic quarterly, which is printed in Japan, is a pornographic and fun--yet unmistakably artistic--celebration of sex as fashion, not just as fantasy. Its inaugural issue features an eclectic mix, including animation stills by Takuya Imamura, an interview with adult-movie superstar and Richardson cover girl Jenna Jameson, erotic fiction and poetry excerpts from books such as Richard Prince's Why I Go to the Movies Alone, and an exhaustive list of the 1998 AVN (adult industry) Award winners, which features an award for "best anal-themed feature." Primarily, though, Richardson is all about photography, much of which owes a heavy debt to Benedikt Taschen, who helped popularize porn with bright, pulpy assuredness. Ranging from exceptional to downright gross (e.g., a photo of a cat's penis), Richardson boasts the work of Harmony Korine (writer of Kids and director of Gummo), Takashi Homma and Terry Richardson, whose "Born to Crawl" spread features the magazine's sexiest picture: a girl washing a car with her top hitched up, her chest pressed to glass. This in-your-face photo is what makes Richardson the success that it is: With or without the politics, it's art that shows a genuine appreciation for, and enjoyment of, porn. Kim Morgan - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published March 31, 1999