Today is the anniversary of Trungpa’s Rinpoche’s Buddhist cremation ceremony. Thirty years ago today, ‘”more than two thousand students and friends” gathered, “in a meadow ringed with pine and maple trees”, near Barnet, Vermont. (Karme Choling, Tail of the Tiger). Allen’s evocative and richly-detailed poem, (“I noticed the grass, I noticed the hills, I noticed the highways, I noticed the dirt road…”) ,”On Cremation of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Vidyadhara”, written shortly afterwards, marks the occasion, We’ve featured it before but we’re also featuring again, Patti Smith’s sensitive rendition of the poem.
Allen’s lectures at Naropa Institute/Naropa University – (we’ve drawn – and continue to draw – extensively from them here – and are happy to report selected lectures form the primary materials for the recently-published “Best Minds of My Generation – A Literary History of the Beats”). Episode twelve of the BBC’s The Invisible College spotlights a little (representative) audio from one of them – Ginsberg-on-Kerouac – (from the 1982 Kerouac Conference) – see here
And here’s some more Ginsberg audio (this time from French radio) – Allen Ginsberg en francais
More we’ve-been-here-before-but-no-harm revisiting – Tom Waits and William Burroughs
And that “Closing Time/America” mix continues to seem just perfect – see here