Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 510

Allen Ginsberg at KK’s Polish restaurant, New York City, 1995 – photo by Tom Peters (with color correction by Steve Silberman – courtesy  Our Allen

Memories of Allen – John Drew provides a lively account of meetings with Allen in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, and vintage days in Liverpool, England – here

& our friend, Marc Olmsted discusses the subject of Buddhism and the legacy of Allen Ginsberg – here

Don’t forget the Omnivore recording of “Howl” (have you picked up your copy yet?) – Jason Victor Serinus reviews it for the Bay Area Reporter – “It’s an experience like no other, from an awakened genius who has embraced the full wonder of his supposed “sins””

See also Will Pinfold’s review (in Spectrum Culture)  – here 

Michael McClure‘s new book, Mule Kick Blues and Last Poems  (skillfully edited, and with an introduction, by Garrett Caples) finally appears (we’ve been waiting eagerly), out from City Lights, the middle of next week – “A powerful collection of new work written during the last years of McClure’s life, Mule Kick Blues was readied for publication before the poet’s death in May 2020.”, the publishers note. “Its opening section gives us a rare view into his thoughts about his own mortality, particularly in the moving sequence “Death Poems.” – “TO GROW OLD IS A JOY PRECEDING THE BIG ONE/ Death is a dark chocolate cake,/ sweet, and filled with deep blue tortures…”
For a taste of that, and an insight into McClure’s genius – see here 

See Kevin Canfield’s review in the San Francisco Chroniclehere

Sasha Matson reviews Harry Smith and Dust-to-Digital’s collection of Harry Smith B Sides for Stereophile – see here   (for our earlier notes on the reception of this collection – see here)

Barney Rosset (alongside Lawrence Ferlinghetti), pioneers in the fight against literary censorship – Lanyll Stephens of the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation tells their story here

Harry Redl, author of the famous photo of Allen and “Moloch” (sic) (1956, Allen pointing to the location of the notorious Sir Francis Drake Hotel, in San Francisco) is the subject of an intriguing documentary  (made back in 1995) – see here   (thanks to Jerry Cimino of The Beat Museum for reminding us of this one)

 

&, April 16,  Charlie Chaplin, and the great genius of modern dance, Merce Cunningham were both born on this day.

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