Steve Finbow is interviewed about his latest Ginsberg biography, and his time spent (this should be linked with Bob Rosenthal’s published memoirs), in the early ’80’s, as secretarial assistant, working for Allen, up close, getting to know the real Allen. The Awl has his recollections here. There’s also (in case you missed it) Dolly Delightly’s five-star review of the book (“Resolutely straight-shooting”) here.
and it’s Ginsberg Recordings night tonight at the Rubin Museum – celebration of the complete release of Holy Soul Jelly Roll (volumes 1 and 2, following the recently-released 3 and 4). On hand to celebrate (as we mentioned last week), Anne Waldman, Steven Taylor, Eileen Myles, Sharon Mesmer and Alex Dimitrov – and two additional names, friends of Allen, added to the roster Eliot Katz and Bob Rosenthal. Come on down and check it out if you’re in New York.
More on Holy Soul Jelly Roll tomorrow.
and more on Kerouac (Allen, as perceived by Kerouac) – “Tom Sturridge‘s Carlo Marx (Allen Ginsberg) is earnest, frank, soulful and filled with longing” (says Jordan Hoffman, reviewing the Toronto Film Festival showing of “On The Road”) –
(“Carlo Marx (Tom Sturridge) is full of pretentious poet-speak, but that’s how it’s supposed to be…” declares another reviewer).
We’ll be featuring more “On The Road” reviews in the coming days.
It (the film) opens in Australia next Thursday (September 27) – in the UK, 12th of October, (and) in the US, December 21st.
Joanne Kyger’s Harriet (Poetry Foundation) posts continue. Here‘s her on “The Community of The Curriculum of the Soul” (and here‘s her, just a few days later, on the wonderful (CUNY) “Lost and Found” Project).
Rosemary Machetta has some photos from the River City Reunion – that legendary gathering in Lawrence, Kansas in 1987. You can find more about that here.
Godfrey Reggio’s 1983 film Koyaanisqatsi (the title is a Hopi word that means “life out of balance”) is being re-released as part of a 3-volume boxed-set and will include an “early forty-minute demo version of (the film) with a scratch soundtrack by Allen Ginsberg” (to be issued in December, as part of the prestigious Criterion Collection).
Sad to have to report the passing of Louis Simpson, (only recently noted/seen on these pages in his Stony Brook days). Joseph Hutchinson (“Perpetual Bird”) tells a sweet story about Allen “outing” Simpson (not sexually, but poetically) – “the poet of suburbia, flushed from hiding”! – a contemporary of Allen’s at Columbia, he was 89.