Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 517

Jack Kerouac – photo by Allen Ginsberg –  caption: “Heroic portrait of Jack Kerouac, R-R Brakeman’s rule-book in pocket, on fire-escape for a smoke – visiting W.S.Burroughs, working on Queer & Yage Letters mss. Corso visited often, Jack’d completed half-dozen books unpublished, On The Road thru Visions of Cody & Dr. Sax, early Blues & Buddhist notes, & begun adventures of the Subterraneans, here Lower East Side, 206 E.7th St,  probably September 1953 – courtesy the Estate of Allen Ginsberg

Following our news last week on the upcoming Kerouac biography, Brian Hassett interviews the biographer, Holly George-Warren

BH: Why the heck does the world need another Kerouac biography? What’s gonna be different about this one?
H G-W: I hope to find buried treasures during a very long, in-depth search in the archives that shed new light on Kerouac’s writing process and life and thought process. I’ll be looking at his life & work through a 21st century lens — and I’ll be bringing a fresh perspective to his oeuvre and the story of his life.
BH : What does an “estate-sanctioned” biography mean, exactly?
H G-W: The Kerouac estate and their literary agent reached out to me last fall after reading Janis. [Janis – Her Life And Music, her biography of singer Janis Joplin] They said they hoped I would apply the same research, storytelling and contemporary viewpoint to Jack that I brought to Janis. They offered me complete access to the estate-controlled archives, and permission to quote from any of the personal papers etc., but with no controls or editorial approvals over my manuscript. I got my literary agent involved and we have a contractual agreement to that effect.

For more of the interview – see here

 

Lawrence Ferlinghetti – photo: Christopher Felver

San Francisco’s Beat Museum is finally officially reopening next Friday (June 25th), (after an enforced Covid hiatus), with a brand new exhibit Lawrence Ferlinghetti At Home,  featuring all manner of Ferlinghetti memorabilia  – For more about that and the opening see here

 

Jeremy Guida in JStor Daily has two well-researched articles worth perusing this month – one on the San Francisco Be-In (see here for more on the Be-In) and one on New York’s legendary underground newspaper, the East Village Other

 

Allen Ginsberg and Marianne Faithfull in Boulder, Colorado – Photograph by Stephen Miles

Marianne Faithfull reading Wordsworth last week – Here she is again.  This time – “Surprised By Joy

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