I never knew there was a culture of paper airplanes in this town. This story reminds me that when I first got here I would see messes of cassette tapes all over the place, spaghetti-like squalls of magnetic detritus busted out of their plastic casings. I wanted to collect and re-spool them, imagining they contained communications that someone wanted forgotten. At the time answering machines used cassettes, so I thought it was at least possible that corporate miscreants intentionally dismembered these tapes as a way to destroy evidence of some wrongdoing. And in those days it was not uncommon for people to send voice letters on cassette. I wanted to intercept something like that.
More likely it would just be commercial music cassettes, though.
I sorta blanched at the headline, which refers to Harry Smith as just some guy. The headline had me thinking that MessynessyChic.com had uncovered a truly obscure eccentric and not a well-known Beat
figure. All good, though.
