The Fall of America – II – the multi-voiced tribute album we first told you about earlier this summer, approaches its release-date, October 6. We’ve featured Ai Weiwei and Seb Taylor, select cuts, on this forum. We’re happy to present a third, C.J.Mirra and Kai Campos’ “Bixby Canyon”
See here the accompanying video,”Bixby Canyon vs Bodega Beach”, by Antonio Pagano
“Path crowded with thistle fern blue daisy,/glassy grass, pale morninglory/
Poem written, June 16, 1968 (on grass, Allen points out)
CJ Mirra and Kai Campos note: “Bixby Canyon was already our first choice but then we got sent the recording of Allen Ginsberg reciting the poem outside with the sound of the wind and the sea and it brought it to life. That became the thread to write the music around – following the flow of his words which paint these amazing images.
There’s already a lot of musicality to the performance in the recording and we just tried to write in conversation with the rhythm and play-fullness of the language and imagery; the repeating elements and evolving textures in the keyboards are trying to fill out the world that the poem creates.”
We’ll be releasing more tracks as we close in on that October date. Next track, next Friday.
Last Saturday was the official launch of the VERSEverse‘s groundbeaking experiment/collaboration). Allen Ginsberg welcome to the block chain.
Lee Evans at xtz news has a full and illustrated report.
This past week, the Burroughs Festival in Paris, CUTUPS@2023, (concluding today).
On Wednesday, Elisa Sabbadin spoke of the influence of “cut-ups” on Allen, specifically, in “Wichita Vortex Sutra”.
This past week also, Gregory Corso celebrations in Rome (and in Woodstock – we mentioned this last week). Highlights include “Your Niente!”, a Gregory photo show (lovingly curated by Michele Corleone and Dario Bellini), and on Thursday, “Come un fiume che non ha paura di diventare mare” (Like a river unafraid of becoming the sea), a presentation at the Nuovo Cinema Aquila featured Bellini, Corleone, Emanuele Bevilacqua, Alessandra Vanzi, Fabio Meloni, and Bobby Yarra.
On Saturday at the cinema, there will be a reading of Gregory’s poetry by the poets Gino Scartaghiande, Davide Cortese and Antonio Veneziani, and a concert/presentation by Gregory’s friend, Francis Kuipers, alongside readings by Alessandra Vanzi from “The Golden Dot”
Auction-house news. Sotheby’s are still trying to sell their somewhat over-priced copy of an early original Howl manuscript – $375,000 – hmmm, well good luck! – Isn’t that the same manuscript that Type Punch Matrix was trying to sell back in 2021 at the gargantuan price of $425,000?
Jonah Raskin on “Turn Left”, Starr Sutherland‘s upcoming City Lights documentary – see here
Speaking of City Lights, Raymond Foye and John Szwed‘s riveting conversation about Harry Smith, on the occasion of the publication of Szwed’s Cosmic Scholar is now up
– see here
Vincent Tinguely in-depth piece on Patti Smith on the EBSN site – here is also very much worth your consideration
as is this essay by Stevan M Weine on Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan