Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 535

Allen Ginsberg – drawing by Robert Lavigne (detail from Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky Portrait, 1979,  from The Beat Goes On exhibition, opening next month at the John Natsoulas Center For The Arts, Davis California)

More big news on the Kerouac front – the Jack Kerouac podcast gets ever-closer to completion. It now has a title, “Kerouac and Me”, and a host, Michael Imperioli (of Sopranos fame):

“Kerouac and Me, which is based on the writings of the beat icon, will see stars of music, film, television, literature, politics, sports and business share in-depth stories of how the writer inspired their work. It will also feature newly unearthed, never-before-heard audio recordings of Kerouac at the height of his creative powers.”
“Jack Kerouac changed my life,” said Imperioli, who will lead interviews and tell his own stories of how the novelist helped him”

and there’s more –  they’re also at work on “a three-season, ten-episode podcast based on Kerouac’s Belief and Technique of Modern Prose...developing episodes with a wide variety of A-list musicians, writers, actors and others who have been influenced by Kerouac’s writings.”

We can’t wait.

We missed it –  earlier this month – Peter Coyotes 80th birthday celebration at the John Natsoulas Center For The Arts, in Davis, California, where he read and signed books.
The book in question – Tongue of A Crow” (from Four Way Books) – “Forty-nine poems ..scribbled down over five decades, then hid away a desk drawer…Five years ago, Coyote started shaping, sharpening and condensing these poems with the help of poet Patrick Donnelly and now, in 2021, their publication! – “It’s pretty exciting to hold 50 years of work in my hand,” Coyote observes. “This is an entire lifetime…in this very thin book.”

Read more on Coyote and a fascinating interview with him here
and here‘s another recent interview/conversation

and more from California – next Wednesday, please note, from City Lights, this Diane di Prima Memorial event. One year on from her passing. Garrett Caples, Cedar Sigo, Hanif Abdurraqib, Sunnylyn Thibodeaux, Wendy Trevino, and more, celebrate and remember this much-missed, remarkable poet.

and another Di Prima event the following Saturday

See also Paul Wilner in the San Francisco Examiner here

Gelek Rimpoche’ would’ve celebrated his 82nd birthday next week. The exhibition at Tibet House – “Transforming Minds Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche And Friends” is still up, remaining up until December 12). We strongly advise, if its at all possible, if you’re in the New York area, to get to it. Meanwhile on Tuesday, 7pm (EST), film-maker Nikki Appino will be hosting a “Zoom Watch Party” for her film “The American Rimpoche – A Tibetan Lama in the 21st Century“. More about that -see here

Gelek Rimpoche (with Allen Ginsberg’s reflection), New York City, January 20 1991 –  photo by Allen Ginsberg (c) Estate of Allen Ginsberg

Interesting piece by Jack Miller – “Remembering Allen Ginsberg” (particularly the first time, visiting New Orleans in 1971)

Allen Ginsberg on Royal Street, New Orleans, 1971 – photo (c) Jack Miller

“Buddha, Dionysus, political activist? Ginsberg was a bad ass poet who could chant and enchant. He sang to kids in the ghetto. He read to the enlightened and the not so. His anger was that of a trickster; his verse went right to the heart and shook it with hard-boiled reality…” –  Read more of Miller’s recollections – here 

Simon Warner‘s latest episode of “Beat Soundtrack” on his Rock and The Beat Generation Substack features an extended interview with our friend, poet David Cope

Timothy Leary was born on this day.     Paul Cezanne died on this day.

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