Kirby Olson has been compiling a “crowd-sourced on-line biography” of Gregory Corso since 2010. He sees John Aubrey’s classic, Brief Lives, as a model, and envisions a multi-faceted, impressionistic, “pointillistic biography”, (“leaving it”, as he declares,” to some later person to connect all the dots”). Here’s Anne Waldman’s exemplary start-up contribution:
Anne Waldman: “Gregory Corso invaded my shower one day in the little Townhouse apartment I return to in dreams as “Remember Some Apartments”. It was named “Emerson Apartments”. Ralph Waldo Emerson had always been an inspiration for my memory of this place although he would not have appreciated the commune spirit. Gregory was always barging in, rooting around looking for valium or anything palliative and high-making, gesticulating , checking out my books – did I have any art books? – and would I ever be as good as Jane Austen? So there was that, the sense of invasion. I was soaping my hair with lavender shampoo. We decided we would probably never sleep together. That was a good idea because he was so complicated to think about sleeping with. I mean, it wasn’t even an issue or much of a discussion. I was not going to get my transmissions from Beat poets, I proclaimed, by sleeping with them! I said would you be my pal? And will you behave? He hugged me as we were water rats together in the shower (This was 1975, Boulder, Colorado during a summer session of The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University)
Here’s Andy Clausen:
Here’s Bobby Yarra telling Gregory stories.
Here, once again, the gathering Ed Sanders accrued for his Woodstock Journal
Here’s Michalis Limnios‘ gathering for Blues and Greece
So whatever happened to The Whole Shot, that book of Gregory’s interviews that that guy was supposedly doing? (update: Rick Schober’s edition of The Whole Shot – Collected Interviews with Gregory Corso, was published and appeared under the Tough Poets Press imprint in May of 2015)
Even more monumental, whatever happened to The Last Beat?
and how come there’s no PennSound page?
Multiple postings on the Allen Ginsberg Project (Gregory is, typically, all over this blog) Why don’t you all just start – here
We’ve had Allen-playing-himself-playing-a-character – acting – here’s Gregory doing the same thing
Here‘s from another film work-in-progress Canadian, (Italian-Canadian) Nick Mancuso plays Gregory in Bomb! Burning Fantasy
We love this (rare) footage of Gregory on Italian tv, of Gregory and Fabrizio de Andre (note – Gregory appears approximately seven-and-three-quarter minutes in)
Had he stayed alive (ha!) Gregory would have been eighty-four years old this fine Spring morning, birthday morning
Birthday Greetings, Gregory!