Release-date today of the Shimmy Disc reissue of Die on Me by Gregory Corso (with Marianne Faithfull, Allen Ginsberg and Hal Willner
The remarkable Gregory Corso
Beat Poetry and Fakery – We ran a post on an alleged Jack Kerouac manuscript a few weeks back. Following it up this week with notes on another dubious item, purported to be a long-lost collaboration between film-maker, multi-media artist, Bruce Connor and Allen – “Sutra”, a previous “long-lost poem” (but quite obviously an AI mish-mash, alongside some crudely doctored imagery). David Wills here brings his forensic skills to the not-difficult task of debunking it (and, more important, voicing our considerable concern about the increasing prevalence of such fakes:
“We live in an era of deception and many the values of the 20th century seem to be fading away. We don’t need more of this sort of thing. We need more originality and less of whatever this is.”
More David Wills and Beatdom (this time real authentic material) – Stewart Meyer’s “The Bunker Diaries (mentioned here last week). Oliver Harris, doyen of the Burroughs scholars, reviews the book for Rock and the Beat Generation (with an informed and jaundiced eye)
From Harris’ review:
“During a difficult evening with Ginsberg – often a tetchy character here, the butt of Burroughs’ humour (‘Bill’s putting me on. He’s been doing that for my entire adult life’) – Meyer reminds himself of his purpose in life: ‘I was there because I needed to watch William’s material go from his head to the page and from draft to draft. Everything else was just a distraction.’
He then follows it up – “For me, one of the disappointments of The Bunker Diaries, is that it’s the distractions which dominate.”
Notes from the auction houses – Neal Cassady– Carolyn Cassady fans might be interested in this (and related ephemera) – (from yesterday’s PBA auction)
The Cassady scrawl. More news next week
Interesting awesome great read thank you god bless.