Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 308

Heads-up for next Friday! (Friday April 7) – Ginsberg Green – “A spoken word & musical gathering honoring the life and Green activism of Allen Ginsberg” – a unique celebratory event, organized by our good friend Patrick Warner, scheduled to take place at The Sprinkler Factory in Worcester, Mass, starting approximately 6 o’clock.

The event will include Ann Charters (reading from Lospecchio Press’ Best Minds – A Tribute to Allen Ginsberg),  Gordon Ball (reading from his Cherry Valley memoir, East Hill Farm), and  Warner himself reading  “selected Ginsberg texts & interviews that exemplify & manifest Ginsberg’s Green Consciousness”.  There’ll also be music – Songwriter/musician, Kevin Keady, one  time caretaker of East Hill Farm, will perform Ginsberg songs including “Gospel Noble Truths” and “Do the Meditation Rock”, and Massachusetts-based composers/musicians, Steve Benson and Jordan Hoffman will perform “original music and atmospherics” to accompany the spoken texts..

It promises to be quite an evening.

A couple of weeks since the last Round-Up, a lot to catch up on, so let’s get right to it. First off Jonah Raskin’s review of Michael Schumacher’s new Ginsberg collection just appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle  – First Thought,   “a collection of articles about him, along with interviews”,  Raskin writes, ” (that)  shows that Ginsberg rarely declined an invitation to talk with a journalist, college professor or admirer.”  Schumacher  “provides an introduction to First Thought that ought to make Ginsberg fans scream with joy.” –  “Schumacher (also)  introduces each of the eighteen selections (including an interview with himself)  that he has made from newspapers, magazines and journals dating back to 1960…”

Lawrence Ferlinghetti ninety-eight years old! – There’s an interview with him here (and an extensive article) for those of you reading Italian –

Interviewer:   Tra poco ne fai novantotto? (Soon you’ll make ninety-eight?)
LF: Novantotto cosa? (ride) (Ninety-eight what? (laughs)
Interviewer: Che ne so… mesi? (I don’t know…. months)
LF: Novantotto secoli? (ride con vigore) – Ninety-eight centuries (laughs vigorously)
Interviewer:  Voglio dire, stai per completare sulla terra novantotto giri attorno al sole? (I mean, you’re on the earth to complete ninety-eight laps around the sun?)
LF: Sì, sto cercando di capire anche come decollare molto presto verso l’atmosfera, fuori nello spazio. (ride di gran cuore)  – Yes, I’m also trying to figure out how to take off very soon into the atmosphere out into space. (laughs heartily)…

June 16 is Bloomsday? – March 24 will hencforth and forever be Ferlinghetti day – see here – and here

We’re missing, sad still about, Joanne Kyger – Various memoirs, see Garret Caples at City Lights, Paul Nelson at the Cascadia bioregional project, her old friend, Ed Sanders:

A recent (short) interview with Joanne may be accessed – here

We’re very much looking forward to Cedar Sigo‘s collection – There You Are – Interviews, Journals and Ephemera, due out from Wave Books in September

 On the occasion of World Poetry Day (sic) Anne Waldman is interviewed

Déjalo Beat, Argentina’s “Beat Generation” show, opened on March 22nd  (closing on 16th of July) – more details – here

Patti Smith, we just learned, bought Arthur Rimbaud‘s refurbished house! – Details (the Architectural Digest story) – here

Bob Dylan’s Archives are now officially open. Here‘s the AP story from Wednesday –  and, yes, it turns out, Bob is going to pick up that Nobel Prize!

The 125th anniversary of the passing of Walt Whitman took place last Sunday (March 26). Here’s noted Whitman scholar, Ed Folsom, interviewed on Whitman – “Walt Whitman – “more important now than ever”

Mourning – and Allen, rock n’ roll groupie that he was, would have been mourning too – the death of the great, legendary, Chuck Berry