Yesterday, posted on You Tube was remarkable footage (by Jonas Mekas) of Allen, Amiri Baraka (then LeRoi Jones) Ray Bremser, Frank O’Hara, famously reading together, in 1959, in New York City, at the Living Theatre, at a benefit for Yugen magazine (you’re perhaps familiar with Fred McDarrah’s iconic photo taken on that same occasion (see below)
The footage is silent, but Jonas added a soundtrack, a recording he made of Allen the following year, 1960, reading from his classic “Sunflower Sutra” – “..my sunflower, O my soul, I loved you then!..”
Frank O’Hara reading at The Living Theater at a benefit for Yugen magazine, November 2, 1959 – Photograph by Fred W McDarrah c. The Estate of Fred W. McDarrah