Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 372

June 29, 2018Simon Pettet

 

“In a climate of fear and hysteria..” – It’s always revealing and instructive to “get to see the files”. We featured a lengthy post on Allen’s FBI files some years back (courtesy the pioneering work of Shawn Musgrave and Muck Rock). Another tenacious investigator. S.P. Sullivan is to be commended for just recently uncovering William Carlos Williams’ files – “He was one of Jersey’s most famous poets. The FBI worried he was a Communist”.  Sullivan’s full report (just published, by Inside Jersey magazine, and on-line at NJ.Com) may be accessed  – here

[Allen Ginsberg in Uncle Sam … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 225

July 3, 2015admin

 

Sometime since we noted great Ginsberg parodies – Remember Yelp? and Tweet? – even “Peter LaBarbera” (!) – Filip Noterdaeme has taken it one stage further, not just revisiting ‘Howl” (the opening poem) but that entire book! – Growl and Other Poems will be published by Lit Fest Press in the Spring of 2016. Meanwhile, here’s the opening salvo – “Growl” (and Noterdaeme on the thinking behind it) Gary Snyder in the current Newsweek Robert Frank in this weekend’s The New York Times Jonah Raskin‘s curt and-to-the-point interview with Lawrence Ferlinghetti published  … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 191

October 3, 2014admin

Photo by Richard Friedman

[David Meltzer – Photograph by Richard Friedman]

“Poet, musician, critic, novelist, editor, bookseller and educator” – Garrett Caples, in a recent City Lights post, accurately nails it – David Meltzer is “nothing less than a national treasure”. But at 77, following recent surgery (succesful, it would seem) for the removal of a recently-discovered cancerous tumor on his liver, (and, “as a disabled senior citizen with numerous health issues, surviving on social security with no pension..”), things right now are pretty tough. We’re spreading the word about on-going efforts to raise money for him. An on-line fund-raising project has been initiated … Read More

Good Morning, Mr Orwell

January 1, 2014admin

Thirty years ago today (January 1, 1984 – sic), video-pioneer Nam June Paik conceived of  and presented “Good Morning Mr Orwell”, a unique and unprecedented  international live satellite hook-up, linking up the studios of WNET, New York with the Pompidou Center in Paris (as well as hooking up with broadcasters in Germany and in his own home country, South Korea). Allen and Peter Orlovsky (along with Steven Taylor and  Arthur Russell) were an integral part of the program, which also featured contributions from John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Joseph Beuys, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson… Read More

Spontaneous Poetics – 108 (Blues – 3 – Allen Ginsberg)

July 24, 2013Simon Pettet

Student: Are all those (records you played) available on Harry Smith’s anthology?

AG: No – The “James Alley Blues” is, Richard “Rabbit” Brown singing.  The “C.C.Rider” and “Jelly Bean Blues“, both by Ma Rainey, are on a collection of Ma Rainey that may be (on) Columbia (Records), but they’re available (there are about four or five albums of Ma Rainey now re-issued [1976] and they’re available). The “Jacksonville Blues“, I don’t know where that’s from. A friend of mine was looking through this book (The Blues Line) and had a cassette, … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 108

January 11, 2013admin

Next Wednesday, January 16 in New York – Join Allen Ginsberg’s friends, collaborators, relatives and co-conspirators – Lou Reed, Steven Taylor, Anne Waldman, Ambrose Bye, CA Conrad, Andy Clausen, David Amram, the Arthur Russell tribute band, Arthur’s Landing, & others for “a night of poetry and song” in one of the quintessential downtown New York Spaces, the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, to breathe new life into “First Blues”, Ginsberg Recordings new special edition/limited vinyl reissue.

A tad overly tongue-in-cheek, but ultimately “won over” – (“sharp insight and analysis of one … Read More

New Year 2013

January 1, 2013admin

 

[Allen Ginsberg & Neal Cassady, in front Charles Plymell’s 1403 Gough Street Apartment,  leaning on Neal’s Plymouth, San Francisco, Summer 1963.  photo c. Allen Ginsberg Estate]

HAPPY NEW YEAR  (2013) GREETINGS  from The Allen Ginsberg Project

Almost 30 years ago today (well, 29, might as well be exact!), Allen saw the New Year in with Nam June Paik – the fabled 1984 – “Good Morning, Mr Orwell” – Allen and Peter and Steven Taylor and Arthur Russell.. and a whole bunch more – propagandizing meditation! –  Here‘s a link to the whole ground-breaking show. Here’s … Read More

Two Videos – Beat Hotel and Good Morning Mr Orwell

August 3, 2009admin

For quite some time we thought photographer Harold Chapman had vanished without a trace. All we had was his amazing book of photos from the Beat Hotel in the late ’50s and early ’60s. His shots of Peter and Allen, Ian Sommerville, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Gregory Corso, are among the most iconic ever shot of these people, and his chronicling of the characters and scene at the hotel on 9 rue Git-le-Coeur, is pretty much the only visual documentation there is of that crucial era. So, anyway, he resurfaced some 5 years ago with a few photo-exhibitions … Read More

Wild Combination – A Portrait of Arthur Russell

February 12, 2009admin

Arthur Russell (1951-1992)

Matt Wolf’s intimate documentary on Arthur Russell premiered last spring and is now available on dvd as well as through iTunes. Though I was well aware of the recordings they’d done together, I hadn’t realized quite how frequently his and Allen’s lives intersected beyond that.

Visit the Wild Combination site for details.

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Tim Lawrence’s Arthur Russell biography Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-92 is due in stores, Fall 2009.

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2012 update – see more on Arthur Russell, including the Wild Combination trailer here … Read More