Last posting of 2013, we thought we’d list a few of our “greatest hits” from the past year – January – Nanao Sakaki and Allen Ginsberg singing “Birdbrain” in Osaka, Japan, February – William Burroughs’ 99th (next year will be Burroughs centennial), March – (speaking of nonagenarians) Ferlinghetti was 94, April – the Beats and the rock muse – “Text and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll, May – our Bob Dylan birthday posting, (this year – “The Night Bob Came Around” (and the night Harry Smith refused to see him!)), June – Marianne Faithfull and Gregory Corso, July – “Arabic America” (Allen’s famous poem in, symbolically, Arabic translation), August – the wit and wisdom of Herbert Huncke (from his 1982 workshop at the Jack Kerouac Conference at Naropa), Philip Lamantia, in September, Lou Reed in October (just a week before his death), Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett in November, the wild wonderful Peter Orlovsky in December..
And that, as our friend, Michael McClure says, (see our Michael McClure birthday posts here and here) is nothing, doesn’t give the half of it, is merely “scratching the Beat surface”.
Happy New Year!