Louis-Ferdinand Céline scholar and aficianado, Jean van der Stegen recently created the above short-video, “The American Connection” featuring Beats (Allen, Gregory Corso, William Burroughs, alongside Jack Kerouac), plus Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski..)
It makes use of the recorded conversation we’ve featured in transcript – here and here
and also makes use of this classic 1959 footage
For Ginsberg on Céline see here and also here
Simon Warner’s Rock and The Beat Generation continues to deliver the goods. This week in celebration of the James Baldwin Centennial,Warner examines the Baldwin-Beat connection via an interview with leading Baldwin scholar, Douglas Field – see here
and don’t miss (we did!) last week’s illuminating article by Jonah Raskin on City Lights – a book (by John Bugg) and a movie (by Starr Sutherland) on that venerable institution (hopefully) on the way
Speaking of missed notifications, the latest of Clemson University’s extraordinary Beat Studies series appeared earlier this year (and they’ll be another one later this year, (Chad Weidner’s Greening Bohemia)
The latest title, edited by Mary Pannicia (Carden) and Jane Falk, Poet In Place and Time, is a collection of critical essays on Joanne Kyger
A brief reminder of the five previous titles – The Beats And The Academy – A Renegotiation, Harold Norse – Poet Maverick, Gay Laureate, The Beats, Black Mountain and New Modes in American Poetry, The Beats – A Teaching Companion and In The Rebel Cafe – Interviews with Ed Sanders
Ed, incidentally, has, a next-month-release for this, intriguing (4-set) CD
Beat teaching, Beat Studies – Andy Fogle‘s essay in the current Teachers and Writers magazine is well worth a read – “Always becoming – a kick in the ass, a pat on the back, and a path into poetry” – Fogle recalls his early enthusiasms – “I write rambling, energetic poems, often with a point or feeling I want to convey, but digressive, chatty, full of jazzy tangents, what a later teacher Eric Pankey will call “fast on the curves,” entirely enamored with the Beats’ apparent (sic) dismissal of control..”
Beat history – here’s an odd, but oddly informative, musical digest of Allen’s extraordinary achievements as a beacon of free expression:
Carolyn Cassady, Neal’s long-suffering wife, died on this day. See video footage of her on the occasion of the Carolyn Cassady Centennial – here
and news, sad news, just reaches us of the death (in a road accident) of the poet Michael Brownstein. We’ll have more on Michael on The Allen Ginsberg Project in the coming days.