Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 758

Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan. We noted back in December, author Ron Rosenbaum‘s somewhat intemperate and misguided remarks in his recent biography, Things Have Changed, (and indeed in follow-up conversation and correspondence with Simon Warner  in Rock and The Beat Generation).  Steven Taylor, Allen’s long-time musical accompanist, this past week came firmly and convincingly to Allen’s defense in a “must-read” piece (Rock and The Beat Generation is itself a “must-read”).

Taylor quotes Rosenbaum from his follow-up letter – ‘Hope I didn’t offend with my strong opinions, just something irritating about Ginsberg, too ostentatiously holy to me.’  Taylor generously remarks, “Fair enough. “Something irritating”. But Rosenbaum’s comments on Ginsberg are too easy, too flip, for an otherwise closely argued and important book.”

“Allen didn’t tour and network relentlessly for the adulation of fans and proximity to rock stars; he needed to earn a living. When we fail to look at the economics of a situation, we miss at least half of the picture.
For an author of critical non-fiction on cultural matters, such an oversight can be perilous.
It can lead to a kind of facile, closed loop of cliché, where thoughtful consideration of an artist’s life and work is replaced by the cheap one-liner and the put down.”

Taylor, at the end of his carefully-argued piece rightly concludes:

” Allen Ginsberg was not simply an ‘overrated’ poet who wrote ‘one good poem’; he was a cultural force for half a century. Dylan knew it, and benefitted from it. This is why he befriended Allen and encouraged him in his musical efforts.”

Taylor writes with authority and knowledge, examining, in depth, “Ginsberg and Dylan’s three-decade friendship”.  The full essay can – and should – be read in its entirety – here

Ginsberg Centennial this year, which means a year of anniversaries.
KNSS, Wichita’s local radio station, reminds us that this past weekend was the 60th anniversary of Ginsberg coming to Wichita, Kansas, that “vortex spot”, deep in the heart of America:

“In February of 1966, Ginsberg arrived in Wichita, some local authorities were worried about possible obscenities. (He) was a big celebrity, and people crowded into his readings at venues, including the the Magic Theater/Vortex Art Gallery located next to the Eaton Hotel downtown at Douglas & St. Francis.
On tour, Ginsberg (had) made stops at KU and the University of Nebraska before coming back to Wichita –  he was struck by the calm of the Great Plains in contrast to the horrors he’d heard about in Vietnam. As a result, he wrote a poem called the “Wichita Vortex Sutra”.”

“The first full reading of that poem took place on February 21, 1966, in the ballroom of the Student Union at Wichita State University. Some faculty-members refused to meet with (him) and the university did not officially sponsor his reading. However, a student effort led by Philosophy graduate student Roger Irwin made the event possible. The potential obscenities feared by some city officials (of course) never happened.”

Several openings of note in New York next week – starting this Tuesday (March 3rd) with the annual Tibet House Benefit  (a joint production by Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson)
(For a brief preview notice – see here)

That very same night Ed Sanders and Steven Taylor will be concluding what has been an extraordinarily successful series of readings (this will be the concluding series), organized by Bob Rosenthal and Ed Friedman of “New York Poets” at The Bowery Poets Club

and on Thursday at The Grolier Club – the opening of an important Jack Kerouac show – “Running Through Heaven – Visions of Jack Kerouac. More on that anon

 

oh, and there’s a showing tonight (7 pm)  at Burroughs’ Bunker (222 Bowery) of  Nova’ 78
– a screening and conversation between filmmaker Aaron Brookner and author Brad Gooch
Check out Simon Warner‘s commentary on the piece – here

Busy New York!

Kenneth Koch (we celebrated his Centennial last year). If you missed them then, catch our posts here – and here, here and here

oh, and a little addenda – that Ginsberg-Hunter Thompson audiotape that we posted notice of last week. We’d erroneously dated it as April 1965, clearly erroneous since Allen was in Prague then, soon to be famously crowned “Kral Majales” (King of May).  David S Wills, our resident Hunter Thompson expert, with the back-up of contemporary correspondence of Hunter, corrects us and dates it from August (most likely the weekend of August 7 and 8).