Sarah down with stomach bug. We watched video, Joe Gould's Secret. I had to go & read the book (by Joseph Mitchell), which we happened to have in the house, since it was a favorite of Sarah's father (born in Manhattan) (Up in the Old Hotel).

Gould is definitely a relative, though I can't seem to trace him on Google genealogy. He told Mitchell his family settled near Boston in 1635 (likewise); "the Goulds were the Goulds when the Cabots & the Lodges were clamdiggers."

Interesting Mitchell/Joyce connections (Mitchell's fascination with bars, and with Finnegans Wake, which according to the intro, he read "at least six times").

I recognize a number of personality traits. Both in Joe Gould, & in the Gould world (New England crusty) he left behind.

His phantom Oral History. Much of local Stubborn Grew grew out of, & refers to, an oral history project I did in the old Af-Am section of Providence, along Benefit St. (the first thing oral history prof. Allen Smith asked me was, "are you related to Joe Gould?")

Bluejay leads Henry there, as part of their catabasis.

& the bookends in FW, basically.

Pound mentioned Gould as an unknown "native hickory". He was a friend of EE Cummings & Aaron Siskind. Apparently Siskind's Village studio was one of the repositories for Gould's strange notebooks.

It's got me wondering whether Siskind allowed a photo of his to grace my first book (Stone) because of my name.

p.s. Is McSorley's Ale House still in business?