Colin Still and Optic Nerve, his London-based video-production company, is a treasure.
We first wrote on Colin’s heroic and extraordinary achievement here
See his page of videos of Allen
but then work and documentation of Allen is only one part of the story
Recently-uploaded to his You Tube channel – some selections from his feature-length documentary (still seeking distribution) “I, The Poet Gary Snyder” – here, here, here, here and here,
and from another forthcoming feature documentary, ‘Sing! Fight! Sing! Fight! From LeRoi to Amiri’ (Amiri Baraka) – here and here
and you all know, of course, the remarkable No More To Say & Nothing To Weep For
Richard Avedon Centennial – The classic large-scale Avedon photo of the Ginsberg family
reappears this week in New York at the Gagosian Gallery – expertly hung (as New York Times reviewer Arthur Lubow points out):
“A wall-size mural of Allen Ginsberg with his conventional middle-class relatives faces off against one of Andy Warhol and habitués of the Factory — two luminaries of vanguard culture posing with very different families. Sometimes, only the informed will get the connection, as in juxtaposed portraits of the photographer Robert Frank and the artist June Leaf, who were husband and wife.”
City Lights editor, Bob Sharrard, (pictured here between Nancy Peters & Patti Fuji in the City Lights office, 1988) who passed away last month, a month shy of his 70th birthday, is remembered by the bookstore on their website this week.
He was hired on as a bookseller in 1977, and he stayed on for a 40-year career, ultimately becoming a Senior Editor and Rights Manager, retiring in 2017.
Teri Carrion, partner of the much-missed Michael Rothenberg (co-founders of the remarkable 100 Thousand Poets For Change initiative), writes that plans for a 2023 event for that organization have now been formalized – September 30 is the date for the next “Global Event Day”. Mark your calendars.
& Simon Warner on Pete Brown R.I.P. – rock and poetry – (& see also his New York Times obituary –here)
My heros!