Buddhism and the Beats – “El Budisme “beat” y el “American Way of Life” – Flor Braier for Crónica Global
Read/hear Allen (from 1993) examine that very topic – here and here
More Nanao Centennial – on Felipe Melhado’s exemplary Nanao Global site – Nanao Sakakai and Gary Snyder – here
We featured Randy Roark‘s class notes on Gary on his birthday and Randy’s invaluable Poets Apprentice – here. Two more volumes have appeared since our January 2022 posting – Poetic Apprentice Book Two – At The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics – March-December 1980, and Poetic Apprentice Book Three – At The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. A fourth (from which the Snyder quote was preemptively taken) will be out soon.
Randy has been recently offering teasers of Volume Four on his Facebook page – Ginsberg, Burroughs, John Clellon Holmes and Ted Berrigan at the 1982 Jack Kerouac Conference, Diane di Prima workshops, his “favorite Gregory Corso lecture” (from 1981), (and an excoriating (and all-too-accurate) account of the impossible Gregory (from 1985))
– All treasures.
Stevan M Weine’s Best Minds reviewed in Beatdom – see here
Allen Ginsberg as photographer – don’t miss Document Journal‘s Spring/Summer portfolio – “Uncovering the Photographic Archive of Allen Ginsberg”
From Megan Hullander’s text:
“Ginsberg is firmly etched into history as a saint himself: for his artful vulgarity and political prowess and spiritual sensibilities and undying agitational comportment, each the product of an all-consuming obsession with understanding. The curiosity that drove Ginsberg to picture-taking also rendered an intimacy with his subjects, his fascination with them observably genuine; “He mentioned that he liked ‘The Undefeated,’” musician Iggy Pop remembers. “No one ever noticed that one, but he did.” Ginsberg’s presence behind the camera is visible in the demeanor of his subjects – absolved of insecurity and the guises it breeds.”
Want a spend a night in Jack Kerouac’s home (in St Petersburg)? – A $250 donation and $100 cleaning fee gets you a night’s stay – see here
A belated addenda/errata – an item here appeared briefly last week on the Friday Round-Up on much-missed provocateur Abbie Hoffman. It erroneously noted the anniversary of his passing as May 12 (it is, of course, April 12) and was thus summarily taken down