Arthur Vincie (Chaotic Sequence), one of the cameramen on this shoot, recalls the event: “We shot on 5 cameras – 3 hi-8 and 2 SVHS – 2 in the balcony, 3 on the floor (this was when the Knitting Factory was on Leonard Street in Manhattan). Over five nights, 10 performances, Ginsberg went through selections from all his works in (chronological) order.”
Colin would subsequently return to the poem a couple of years later, in 1997 on the occasion of Allen’s passing with his hastily-completed but lovingly-completed full-length documentary, No More To Say & Nothing To Weep For
This is an excerpt from that film:
Robert Creeley: Oftentimes he’d come off stage and vomit with the stress. As I recall he’d often finish a performance taking his clothes off, not to flash or see if he had any takers but, seemingly, just to say, “there’s nothing here folks to be afraid of I mean all it is is a physical body, which we all variously have”.
“who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists” – (Allen’s voice is heard here) – “and screamed with joy”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti: “I was in the audience and when I went home that night I sent a telegram to Allen – “I greet you at the beginning of a great career. When do we get the manuscript?”
AG: Ferlinghetti urged me to print it and I said, “oh why.. why not?”, so I sent it to my family and they said “ok – why do you need all these dirty words? – but it’s a great poem”
Interviewer: Censorship has often been good for poetry. You yourself had the good fortune of having Howl banned by the US Customs in 1957. That created a lot of publicity and probably sold a lot of books.
AG: Oh yeah, I had to thank them completely for my fame, thank the police!”
Michael McClure: We were quickly identified by the media as a dangerous revolution
Ann Charters: The censorship trial against City Lights and Lawrence Ferlinghetti and his bookseller who was also arrested in the case, really centered on a couple of important issues, one was the very simple issue of whether or not one could use an obscene word, like “fuck” in a poem and have it..well, later on, read over the radio (which is still continuing). Others, of course, issues, was the fact that Ginsberg was of course talking openly about his homosexuality and his drug use,
Lawrence Ferlinghetti: The judge ruled that – quote – in a work of art, in order for a work of art to be judged obscene, it had to have no redeeming social significance
Ann Charters: And it was cleared.
Gary Snyder appears next, reading from the famous Moloch section – “What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? – Moloch”
Ann Charters: “Moloch! Solitide! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars!/Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping the parks”
Philip Glass: I asked him about some of these images. I said “Where did these images come from?” – oh, he was completely stoned
“Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch!” (Peter Orlovsky reads) – “Nightmare of Moloch/ Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!” (Anne Waldman reads) – “Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog!” (Peter Orlovsky reads) – “Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities! /Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!” (Allen reads)
Gary Snyder – “Moloch whose name is the Mind!”