Opening today, (opening reception 6-8), and running through January 6th, at the West Palm Beach Photographic Center – “Beatitude – The Beat Attitude“, a stunning exhibition of newly-discovered photos of Beat Generation figures (dating from the ‘Sixties and “Seventies) taken by photographer, poet and activist, Joey Tranchina
This collection, “of over 70 images and commanding enlargements includ(ing) iconic, culture-bending poets, activists, and artists of the Beat Generation”, was stored away for nearly 50 years before being discovered by his son in 2018, and later shared with critic and art historian Dr. Anthony Bannon and art consultant and producer Dolores Lusitana, (who will be giving a formal presentation discussing the work and the exhibit at the Palm Beach Central Library tomorrow).
Beatitude – The Beat Attitude, a book of Tranchina’s photographs, with an essay by Bannon and introduction by poet Ed Sanders, will be available soon from Steidl Verlag.
“Tranchina’s work must be the most extensive pictorial assembly of Beat related artists and thinkers depicted by a single photographer” Bannon declares.
Among the figures depicted – Kenneth Rexroth, Bob Kaufman, Diane di Prima, Michael McClure…
“These were the international thought leaders,” adds Lusitana, “Joey Tranchina cast a wide net in his own appreciation and participation in the global change of culture”.
We led off last week with an early taster and notes on The Lion For Real-Reborn (the Shimmy-Disc reissue of Allen’s classic 1989 LP “The Lion For Real“), focusing particularly on “The End”. (It was also the official release-date of The Fall of America tribute – Volume 2 – quite the Ginsberg vinyl bonanza!)
Dave Cantrell‘s remarks in Stereo Embers magazine (specifically relating to “The End” but that could also be applied to just about any of Allen’s poem) bear repeating (it was a wonderful and generous and perspicacious review):
“While “The End” is not a Kaddish per se, it could persuasively be argued that everything toward which Ginsberg spoke reached for and most often touched that level of magnification, a glance at least (and most often a look more akin to piercing) toward the great manifestations of spiritual mystery. It’s that that makes his work not just timeless but deathless, and why we celebrate the perpetuation via media spoken, written, or visual of Mr. Ginsberg’s immutable spirit”.’
Courtesy the Howl Arts!/Howl Archive, (the presenting space), here’s video of the launch of The Fall of America – Volume II, from last Friday:
The Beats In/And Italy – a wonderful pioneering experiment in digital humanities from Stefano Morello & Cristina Iuli and their students – 174 pages – all manner of interactivity and fancy animation. For a PDF export of the project – see here
For those of you in Brooklyn (next Thursday, October 26th, at 4pm, at Unnameable Books, 615 Vanderbilt Avenue), Artery Editions will be launching Pente, A Book of Woe by John Wieners (a second edition, a revised understanding of his classic Ace of Pentacles). Michael Seth Stewart, Robert Dewhurst, Raymond Foye, and the publisher Patricia Hope Scanlan will be present, reading in celebration.
Variety announces a new Jack Kerouac documentary in the works – Ebs Burnough‘s The Beat of A Nation – Kerouac’s Road
“The documentary will use never-before-seen personal archives to tell Kerouac’s story in his own voice, enriched by interviews with the myriad of talent influenced by him and stories from today’s “on-the-roaders” consciously choosing a different way of life, just as he did over 70 years ago”
And a few miscellany:
Joy Landzendorfer on Lenore Kandel in The New Yorker
David S Wills on Gallery 6 in Beatdom
Tyhe Cooper on Anne Waldman‘s Bard Kinetic and New Weathers in the October Brooklyn Rail
David Daniel on Kerouac’s Satori in Paris
Jon Kalish on Harry Smith‘s legendary “Rabbi Basement Tapes”
Today marks the birthday of Arthur Rimbaud (and of Michael McClure!)
& tomorrow (Saturday, the 21st) marks the anniversary of the death of Jack Kerouac