“Theatrics” During the Vietnam War

August 2, 2018Simon Pettet

Allen Ginsberg on William Blake continues

AG: “That the Poetic Genius is the true Man. and that the body or outward form of Man is dervied from the Poetic Genius” (William Blake) –  “…it’s just a very simple point that he’s saying, (which) is that anything, any life lived, is lived according to the interpretation of the guy who’s living.  In that sense, “Poetic Genius”.  In that sense, poetic.  Poesis is making.  Actually “poet” means “maker”, interestingly enough. The root, etymologically, of “poetry” is “making”.  So, it’s like the universe is what we make up.  So … Read More

Allen Ginsberg in Austin – Interview – 1978

March 18, 2017Simon Pettet

Interviewer: So we want to figure out what’s best, you know, what will be most comfortable for you. What I want to do is an oral history of the ‘Sixties and Austin’s an interesting area because there’s a major university with a lot of anti-war… There was a segregtion case, a very famous law case here in 1959. There’s been an awful lot of work with the valley farm workers and Chicanos, plus we”ve got the Rothschilds here [sic], we’ve got all of LBJ‘s legacy. Basically, Austin’s sort of conservative but with the university and the State Capitol here, … Read More

Poems from Tea at The Kalapa Court

November 1, 2015admin

Randy Roark‘s been posting some pretty interesting Ginsberg miscellanea over on Our Allen.  This is one of the most interesting. – “Poems from Tea at the Kalapa Court“. 

As Randy, in a note about it, explains: “On July 26, 1982, Chogyam Trungpa, the founder of Naropa Institute and Vajracarya (Buddhist priest), invited the artists who were present for the On the Road Jack Kerouac festival—hosted by Naropa Institute—to tea at the Drawing Room at his Kalapa Court house in Boulder, for a spontaneous poetry party. (I’m not certain they knew this before they arrived.) Later the poems … Read More

Expansive Poetics – 118 (Do It – Jeff Nightbyrd & Abbie Hoffman & Florence Becker Lennnon)

September 30, 2014admin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jeff Nightbyrd,”Underground Press” maven]

AG: [to Jeff Nightbyrd] – What are you..  you’re in town for an underground media convention? Jeff Nightbyrd: We’re going to have an alternative tv network in America. AG: Uh-hmm Jeff Nightbyrd:  (The) FCC has licensed low-power tv stations – KBDI and Video West and Public Interest Video in Washington put together a conference of leading experimental video people (who) came… AG: Here in town (Boulder) or in Denver? Jeff Nightbyrd: Here. Well, in Boulder and at KBDI. We get… probably some … Read More

Expansive Poetics – 84 – Out-take – Nixon’s Paranoia

July 15, 2014admin

[Richard M Nixon (1913-1994)]

So, a quick  “outtake” today, or “digression” (from our recent transcription (from 1981) of Allen, speaking  of the bureaucratic complicity and the institutionalized paranoia of the (Stalinist) Russian police state – “No hope Communism, No hope Capitalism” – He couldn’t help but point out its the American equivalent (America in the ‘Sixties – CREEP (the Committee for the Re-Election of the President), Nixon and Watergate) 

AG: (It’s) just like trying to investigate the CIA now, or the FBI..I mean, you can’t send people to jail! – I mean, they might have killed people, they

… Read More

Investigative Poetics – 2 (Ed Sanders – 2)

October 17, 2013admin

AG: There was a break-in into (Ed Sanders‘) house, where he kept all his stuff, and all his magazines and files and mimeograph stuff . Some of it was stolen. A lot of it was thrown around on the floor. And, at first, we thought, “well, maybe it was some meth-heads that resented him, or maybe it was local narcs, or.. who was it? – (Well), it turns out, years later, this year [1977] I went to Washington to visit a lawyer friend, Ira Lowe (who was the lawyer for a lot of the peace demonstrators in 1967, … Read More

Abbie Hoffman

November 30, 2011admin

[Abbie Hoffman, Mobilization for Justice & Peace in Central America & Southern Africa, March and Rally, Saturday, April 25, 1987, Washington, D.C. photo. c. Allen Ginsberg Estate]

[Abbie Hoffman and son, America, Boulder Colorado June 1986. Photo: Allen Ginsberg copyright Estate of Allen Ginsberg]

[“Abbie Hoffman Makes Gefilte Fish” (in the Chelsea Hotel) – video by Laura Kroneberg Cavestani & Frank Cavestani, 1973]

Abbie Hoffman would have been 75 today [November 30 2011]

His appearance, in 1980, on Coca Crystal’s cable tv show can be seen here, here and here.

His interview with Barbara Walters (“mainstream media”), on … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 46

October 21, 2011Simon Pettet

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[Handbill hand-written by Ed Sanders on the occasion of October 21 1967 Pentagon Exorcism]
 
Today, as the estimable Dangerous Minds have pointed out, is the 44th anniversary of the attempted exorcism and levitation of the Pentagon. Here’s Edward Folger’s “impressionistic immersion” (in that day), “Washington 10/21/67”. Devin Faraci, over on Badass Digest, inducts one of the key participants Abbie Hoffman into the “Badass Hall of Fame”. Hoffman’s spirit, all be it twenty-two years on from his physical demise, continues to hover. Certainly it’ll be hovering over the proceedings in New York on Sunday. Poets for Renewable Energy
… Read More

Morley Markson’s Growing Up In America

October 15, 2011admin

We’ve sung the praises of the Internet Archive before – and we’ll do it again this weekend, as we spotlight Morley Markson’s 1986 documentary, “Growing Up In America” (or, to give it its full title, “Growing Up In America: Breathing Together, Revolution of the Electric Family”), a ’60’s profile, featuring interviews with Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, John Sinclair, Fred Hampton, Deborah Johnson, (Akua Njeri), Don Cox, William Kunstler, Timothy Leary – and Allen!
The film begins with him reading from the “Moloch” section of “Howl”, but then turns first to Jerry Rubin.… Read More

Allen’s Revolutionary Musings

October 11, 2011admin

[photo of Dylan Spoelstra at Occupy Wall Street protest by Lawrence Schwartzwald]

Following the on-going Occupy Wall Street movement, (a national movement now, it’s not just going to dissipate,”conveniently go away”), we thought it timely to post something we’ve been meaning to post for several weeks now, but hadn’t quite gotten around to – another fugitive Ginsberg interview (this one, courtesy of “Phil Blank”) – Allen on “Anarchism and Revolution”, circa 1994, from issue number one of Drunken Boat (note the Rimbaudian echo), an over-sized anarchist journal, edited by Max Blechman (City Lights published in 1999, Revolutionary Romanticism: A Drunken … Read More