Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 351

Next week, Neal Cassadys birthday.,   On Friday and Saturday, next week, they’ll be the big celebration in Denver (with special guests, Jami Cassady and David Amram – for more information on those celebrations – see here).

Monday,, it’s another Beat birthday – William Burroughs. There’s a celebration of that tonight – Three Rooms Press (publishers of the upcoming Don’t Hide The Madness – William S Burroughs In Conversation with Allen Ginsberg) present, at New York’s Cornelia Street Cafe (starting at 6 o’clock), a William Burroughs Birthday Tribute, featuring Anne Waldman, Steven Taylor, and Peter Hale (of the Allen Ginsberg Trust) – with additional appearances by Devin Brahja Waldman, Ambrose Bye, and poet Steve Dalachinsky. Happy 104 El Hombre Invisible!

Incidentally, check out – thisGraham St John‘s lengthy note on Burroughs’ and ayahuasca. (see The Yage Letters), Burroughs’ intriguing search in the early ‘fifties.

Howard Berelson, Robert A Rosenbloom. Eileen Von Hook, and Phillipa Scott, 2017 winners of the annual Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards will be reading their poems tomorrow, (Saturday), at the historic Hamilton Club building in Paterson, New Jersey. That reading starts at 1.p.m.

Book news – Hard To Be A Saint In The City – The Spiritual Vision of The Beats, a choice compendium of noticing and writings on spirituality by the Beats, edited and with an Introduction by Beat-aficiando and Thomas Merton-scholar, Robert Inchausti, is published this week as a paperback by Shambhala

For an excerpt from the book – see here

We’ll conclude this week with a little clip (a video by Lenore Herb) of Allen reading in Vancouver in 1985 – (from “Reading Bai Juyi”) – “..still, I praised the dharma from nation to nation, but my own practice has been seedy, even I dreamed how bad a student I am !…”  “Ignorant and contentious….”..noble ambition but that of a pathetic dreamer..”   – Ah, but wise in his humility!

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