Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 613

Carolyn Cassady (1923-2013), New York City, 1993 – photo: Allen Ginsberg, courtesy Stanford University Libraries / Allen Ginsberg Estate

Today marks the Carolyn Cassady Centennial

Previous postings on Carolyn Cassady on The Allen Ginsberg Project – see  here and here

 

See also Malin Korkeasalo and Maria Ramström’s 2011 documentary, Love Always, Carolyn here  (plus a little bonus footage from the movie – Carolyn singing!  – here)

 

More Carolyn Cassady footage here (footage from June 2013, filmed, shortly before her death, at her home in England):

and candid unfiltered footage –  Carl Stickley‘s “Half-famous – Performing in the Shadow of the Beat Generation”  (part of his submission for a MA Film dissertation at University of Essex):

This, from Richard Lerner and Lewis MacAdams‘ 1986 documentary “What Happened to Kerouac”?  (Carolyn’s interview took place in 1982 in Boulder at Naropa at the big (25th Anniversary of On The Road) Jack Kerouac Conference that year)

& here’s Brian Hassett video presentation (for the Carolyn Cassady Memorial in San Jose in 2014)

and in February of 2019  Carolyn is featured in Katie Nelson and Olivia Meikle’s Whats Her Name podcast 

Over on Simon Warner’s Substack (as always, a go-to spot) David Amram sings her praises

See also her son, John Allen writing to Simon (about partying with his mother!) – here
(& Carolyn and John Allen on Dutch tv in 1999)

Ecology – we focused last week on Earth Day (with the reminder that every day is Earth Day).  In that context, we should note that the new issue of Beatdom (Beatdom #23) goes on sale next month.  Jonas Faust writes on “Nature, the Self, and its Redemption in the Pastoral Poems of Allen Ginsberg”, Alexandre Ferrere presents “A Derridian Exploration into Allen Ginsberg’s Archive(s”),  Stevan Weine’s book is reviewed, Bill Morgan is interviewed. More details (full details) here.

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe – the number one banned book (for a second year running)

This week in the US (April 23-29) is designated National Library Week by the ALA (American Library Association) and, not surprisingly, some considerable attention has been given to issues of censorship.  According to their (ALA)’s recent report, attempts to ban books in the United States have exploded over the past two years.  2,571 titles, it was estimated, were targeted in 2022, (compared with 223 in 2020).

Separately, a new report from free speech organization PEN America further details this rise of censorship efforts across the United States, exploring how organized efforts or new legislation have contributed to book removals.

ALA presented in its report a list of the “Top 13 Most Challenged Books of 2022” – here

Lawrence Ferlinghetti in front of his “Banned Books” display at his City Lights Bookstore c.1958 – photo by Harry Redl

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