Beat aficionados, today is the birthday of Herbert Huncke, “the original Beat”. Comprehensive info’ on him is available here, here and here.
American Hipster, Hilary Holiday’s long-awaited biography is due out this Spring (a brief excerpt from the opening chapter can be read here).
and, for those of you who missed it, there’s a quaint story Jonathan Lethem tells in a recent (October 2011) issue of the New Yorker. “Allen Ginsberg had taken a carton of his collection Planet News and autographed every copy “To Herbert from Allen with love”. He then gave them to Huncke to sell..” Now read on..
Oh, and did we mention Huncke’s spoken word CD, From Dream to Dream (1994), including the classic story, “The Evening Sun Turned Crimson”? – Yes, we do believe we did.