Our good friend David S Wills reminded us that last Saturday, February 14, was the anniversary of what continues to be the earliest-known recording of Allen Ginsberg reading from “Howl” (his reading to a small audience at Reed College in Oregon, February 14, 1956). The reading was recorded but the recording was lost until 2008, when an enterprising researcher, John Suiter astonishingly re-discovered it in an archival box in the basement of Reed’s Hauser Library.
This legendary performance was finally released to the public by Omnivore Recordings in 2021
AH!MERICA – This week saw the publication of a new little Ginsberg book. The latest addition to isolarri‘s unique subscription-based trove. Digest and transcript of Allen’s Naropa William Blake lectures (continuing on this forum), masterly edited into
“a guide for not losing your mind, or attention, in contemporary America.”
What could be more valuable?
A rare audio tape (from 1965) recently surfaced. Allen and Hunter S Thompson (tho’ mostly Hunter – but a little Allen) It can be found here.
“From Hunter Thompson’s personal recordings: Hunter and Allen Ginsberg get pulled over by the police for a broken taillight on the way to Ken Kesey‘s La Honda, California, home to attend the Merry Prankster/Hells Angels party on April 7, 1965…”
Emergency Horse‘s resurrection of John Feins‘ 1991 Allen Ginsberg interview was noted here and here. They have resurrected and republished another exemplary interview, this time Arthur Cantrill’s 1974 interview with polymath Harry Smith – see here
(This interview, along with others, is also included in the recently published The Occult Harry Smith – see here)
The aforementioned David S Wills in his must-read Beatdom Substack reviews two books. One is Oliver Harris’ Roosevelt After Inauguration Redux (which we featured earlier this month). The other is an impressive catalog/collection – Running Through Heaven – Visions of Jack Kerouac – Selections From The Jacob Loewentheil Collection, a book to be released in conjunction with an upcoming exhibition next month at the Grolier Club. “It includes”, Wills informs us, “a number of essays as well as photos, scans, and descriptions of some of the items from Loewentheil’s “exhibition of Kerouaciana” (to borrow a phrase from Ann Charters’ foreword).”
This exhibit, the On The Road auction, Jack Kerouac’s birthday (March 12), March is lining up to be quite the Kerouac month!
Beatdom, incidentally, will be releasing a special new issue, Beatdom #26, (an Allen Ginsberg issue) on June 6 (the date of Allen’s Centennial anniversary). They are open to submissions through to the end of March. Details here.
Remembering James Grauerholz. Close friends gathered, fittingly at the Burroughs’ Bunker a week or so back, for a memorial and Sukhavati ceremony. Anne Waldman read, Patti Smith sung – farewell to a “complicated, difficult, beautiful man”
