Hugh Musick, An Unauthorized Biographical Note

The progeny of an ethnomusicologist and a neuro-biologist, Hugh Musick spent his youth in the 1930s among an hysterically tone deaf cannibalistic hill tribe in central Borneo. Embraced for his tuneless, but enthusiastic singing, Musick became an honorary tribesman only to be promptly cast out for his incessant humming. Abandoned by tribe and parents, he fended for himself eventually making his way to a port town where he boarded a merchant sea vessel bound for Cleveland, Ohio.

Hugh Musick, Khartoum, 1903

Newly arrived in America, Musick found a job with the Crane Candy Company where he labored daily with nougat. During this period, the owner’s son, the poet, Harold Hart Crane befriended Musick. Although they had little in common, Crane enjoyed watching Musick strike co-workers often and enthusiastically with a large wooden ladle.

Musick’s growing prowess in the candy factory did not go unnoticed. A kindly-hearted shop foreman nominated him for a Guggenheim Fellowship to further his confectionary studies abroad. Shortly thereafter Hugh Musick left for Brussels, Belgium where near total indifference awaited him.

The Belgian Years marked one of the darkest period’s in Hugh Musick’s life. However, it was during this period that he began wandering the streets of Belgium collecting odd bits of paper that he would later fashion into strange postcards. Returning to his grim room in the Le Cochon region of the city, he commenced writing strange stories inspired by the postcards.

Although his current whereabouts are unknown, Musick continues to make the postcards and write corresponding stories to two mysterious individuals with uncanny ability to seemingly grow taller with each passing year. These individuals known only as Vlad and Luigi insist they have done nothing to encourage the correspondence. Only time will tell.