Four photos of the controversial “anti-psychiatrist” R.D.Laing. The first, from a visit with him in London in 1985, the next three from a visit to Naropa (University) two years later. These last years, as Allen’s caption notes, were difficult and challenging years.
“Lies of Love” – their 1987 Naropa conversation can be listened to here and continuing here
Tom Shandel and Kirk Tougas‘ 1989 documentary, Did You Used To Be R.D.Laing?, made shortly after Laing’s death, is well worth viewing [2022 update, regrettably, this footage is no longer available]
More footage of Laing – R.D.Laing In The USA (1972) – and an interview with Mavis Nicholson, from 1977) here and here
Allen, of course, met him in his hey-day, back in the ‘Sixties, notably appearing with him in London in 1967, at the famous conference to “demystify human violence in all its forms, and the social systems from which it emanates, and to explore new forms of action” – the Dialectics of Liberation – (see filmmaker Peter Davis‘ account, “How I saved the life of Allen Ginsberg..Well Probably..Well Maybe” for a curious side-note on that)
Further essential viewing is the interview between Allen and Laing that took place at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (ICA) in 1980 ( as part of their “Writers In Conversation” talk series). That can be accessed (with a transcript) here
RDL: Well, it goes without saying, but I’ll say it, a great privilege as well as a great pleasure, to introduce Allen Ginsberg to you….My main reaction when I first glanced at this (Howl) was, a tremendous sense of consolation, and gratitude for that consolation….
AG: ..thank you… for tolerating such intimacy, because that’s the one element, I would say, that has been lacking in our community, or our society, some common-sense awareness of each others sacred intelligence, or some common-sense recognition or acknowledgment of the emotions of the sacred world that we inhabit together, and of the delicacy and the sensitivity that we all bear…”
Stuart Boyd pushed RD INTO THE STREET WHERE RD FELL ON HIS ASS. RD insulted Stuart’s wife on an after dinner walk in London, circa 1985.
Stuart, a tenured and honored faculty member of St John’s Collefe in Santa Fe New Mexico told me this story at my tenth college reunion in 1986. His credibility was unimpeachable. He asked me to keep it to myself which I did until now, almost 40 years later.
Dr. Boyd was a storied character who, in addition to having been a dissertation adviser in my father’s University of Denver PhD in the late 1950s, had struck a man in a bar in Santa Fe, a Texan, who insulted Stuart’s kilt with a sneered comment fabled to have gone “where i come from only women wear skirts”. Stuart had been a paratrooper in ww2 and perhaps earned a hair trigger. He was btw a kind and patient tutor to his students.
Why RD would have insulted another man’s wife to her face is troubling. Mrs. RD was present as well. RD was injured, to what extent I did not determine. Mr. Boyd was troubled by the incident, was not proud of his temper and clearly regretted the incident.
His credibility was unimpeachable. Both men have passed and the story is now out. It rather tarnished RD, for me. He asked me if I loved him or not, i told him once but I forgot, forgot how to love the writing of a man who would insult another’s soulmate to their face while strolling on an after dinner London evening. The play is the thing.
That is all.