Charles Ford lived a century ago but is still frequently mentioned today: the “inspired clown” (as screenwriter and playwright Ben Hecht calls him) haunted the New York Public Library, collecting reports of unusual occurrences , and devise wild theories to explain these events.
The impact of Ford’s death has not been widely appreciated. But Joshua Blu Buhs makes a strong argument Thinking New Worlds: A Cultural History of Charles Ford and His Followers The eccentric author cast a long shadow, leaving his mark not only on the world of Bigfoot hunters and UFO enthusiasts, but also on literature, with fans ranging from the avant-garde of modernism to Pie extends to science fiction.
Ford also has a political legacy, if not within the mainstream left and right, then on the outer edges of our ideological maps, where cartographers have scrawled “Here Comes the Dragon.” Ford founded the Fortian Society toward the end of his life, and although Ford was wary of the group (he called it a collection of “freaks”), its leader, novelist and screenwriter Tiffany Thayer, — but kept the group alive for decades. While its members range from socialists to fascists, with most possessing anti-authoritarian impulses, you can imagine this is a group that views everything with suspicion. Thayer himself is a fierce pacifist (and prolific conspiracy theorist) who writes in Fortean publications Suspect An attack on World War II and the Cold War.
While Booth’s fascinating study demonstrates the libertarian leanings among Ford’s followers, from the San Francisco Renaissance to the Discodians, it also shows the less liberal-friendly side of this milieu. it doesn’t ignore those numbers was flatly rejected Fortian Association. Thayer, for example, had been trying to get HL Mencken on board, but Mencken dismissed Fort’s work as “exaggerated mumbo jumbo” – although he praised the man for “making the most exaggerated mumbo jumbo enjoyable”.
