Sometime last Monday, the one millionth page-viewing of The Allen Ginsberg Project took place. Thank you anonymous page-viewer. We sort of like the idea of not knowing who you are. Thank you all our page-viewers, all our visitors, all our regulars – and, while we’ve got you here, an on-going request, please don’t be shy in getting back to us on individual posts, using the available “Comments” button).
Now, on with our regular “Friday Round Up”.
Well, a relatively quiet one this week. Patti Smith (and collaborator/accompanist, Philip Glass), apparently, rocked the house with “The Poet Speaks“, their homage to Allen, at the Edinburgh Festival on Tuesday night. Here‘s David Pollock’s rave review in The Independent (Patti evokes Whitman in her sweet encomium – “Allen, despite Allen, contained multitudes”). Here‘s another review.
El Habib Louai (whose Arabic translation of “America” we featured a few weeks back) and Paul E Nelson (who has also been featured on this blog) got together last night at the North Cascades Institute as part of their Beats on the Peaks event. Paul previews his talk, and features audio of El Habib Louai, (from Sunday, reading at the Spring Street Center, in Seattle) here.
Hilary Holladay, whose biography of Beat legend, Herbert Huncke we featured last week, is herself interviewed here.
Nanao Sakaki – We’re always pleased to spread the word about Nanao Sakaki. Here‘s Steve Heilig‘s recent appraisal/paean to him in the Huffington Post – “Nanao Sakaki Breaks The Mirrors – An Appreciation of a One-of-a-Kind Poet”.
Memes – we’ve asked you to be wary of before (incidentally, does anyone know the exact source for the oft-quoted but rarely-cited “Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture” – purportedly by Allen?). Alexis C Madrigal in The Atlantic tracks down, this past week, the “fakelore” of a visual artifact, (a meme, it turns out) of a supposed Burroughs-Kerouac moment.
William Burroughs Centennial next year. What will you be doing to celebrate on February 5?