Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 345

December 8, 2017Simon Pettet

[ Allen Ginsberg East Side High Paterson Yearbook Photo c.1940]

Matthew Powers loving memories of Allen were first published in 2002 in the premier issue of Heeb and were recently made available – here.

[Matthew Powers and Allen Ginsberg]

Powers, a gifted and extraordinary journalist, who died in Uganda in 2014, at the way-too-young age of only 39, is a figure who shouldn’t, and will not, be forgotten.

Another perceptive report on Allen in old age (in his latter years),  August Kleinzahler‘s “Lunching With Ginsberg” (from his book, Sallies, Romps, Portraits, and Send-Offs – Selected Prose 2000-2015), … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 344

December 1, 2017Simon Pettet

We promised we’d have word for you, and now it’s finally out! A definitive Chinese edition of the Collected Poems 1947-1997, from Chinese publishing house Shanghai 99  has just hit stores in China – a stunning three-volume set, with translations by Hui Ming.   More details on the publisher’s Chinese language web-site- here.  (and more details from us in the weeks ahead)

More news (Beat Generation news) :

[Two (undated) images by Jack Kerouac – “Untitled” and “Raven” – from the upcoming MA*GA Museum, “Beat Painting” show – courtesy ANSA]

Jack Kerouac’s Beat Painting show opens on Sunday at The … Read More

Jack Kerouac to Allen Ginsberg November 1957

November 30, 2017Simon Pettet

[Jack Kerouac reading at The Village Vanguard, December 1957. Photo via Dave Moore on Paul Maher Jr’s  Jack Kerouac-Writer ]

Another Ginsberg letter today – this one to Allen (dated November 30, 1957 – sixty years ago today) from Jack Kerouac in Orlando, Florida to Allen in Paris.  Jack confesses he’s drunk, and broke, but writing up a storm (writing Dharma Bums) and looking toward the future.

Dear Allen.  Your poem [“Kaddish’] very beautiful, especially “eyes of Ma Rainey dying in an ambulance” (why don’t you spell it “aumbulance” which would mean aum-vehicle…)…well, and Greg’s [Gregory Corso’s]  “sweetly in … Read More

Philomene Long’s The Beats – An Exisitential Comedy

November 18, 2017Simon Pettet

We continue our spotlighting of video now available via the digitalization of Allen’s Stanford University archives.

Today – Philomene Long & (Jay D Kugelman)’s LA-based documentary from 1980,  The Beats: An Existential Comedy

The video is available – here

[Stuart Z Perkoff appearing on Groucho Marx’s tv show, You Bet Your Life – from The Beats – An Existential Comedy]

Initially conceived as a tribute to the poet Stuart Z Perkoff (1930-1974), it developed into, significantly, more – much more.

As one reviewer had it, “The film is not so much a historical documentary of the period as a recreation … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 342

November 17, 2017Simon Pettet

[Paul Blackburn and company, from the Paul Blackburn papers, Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California, San Diego]

More big news, archival news, the Paul Blackburn audio collection, long in the safe-keeping of the Archive for New Poetry at the University of California, San Diego, the great trove of New York City poetry recordings (“the most comprehensive oral history of the New York poetry scene between the late 1950s and 1970.”, in the words of Blackburn editor and scholar Edith Jarolim), has finally been digitalized and is now available on line.

The first release of this collection includes … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 341

November 10, 2017Simon Pettet

Several more images from the upcoming show of Jack Kerouac’s art at the Maga Museum in Gallarante, Italy, have been made available – here – on the Ansa web-site.

Jack Kerouac. Beat Painting’,  curated by Sandrina Bandera, Alessandro Castiglioni and Emma Zanella, is set to open December 3rd, and also includes photographs by Robert Frank and Ettore Sottsass, a project by Peter Greenaway and the video of the classic 1966 tv interview with translator Fernanda Pivano.

Did we mention? (yes, we did, it was his birthday yesterday) a new book, a biography, on the legendary Robert Frank… Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 339

October 27, 2017Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg, photographed by  Kiyohide Hori]

Never did get around to mentioning Kiyohide Hori’s photo-show of Allen and of the Howl manuscript that took place (sadly now it’s down) in Japan this past summer

More Japanese news… “the Allen Ginsberg-inspired capsule”? – Some fervid debate in the “Comments” section here – “This is everything Allen Ginsberg stood against. These guys obviously know nothing about Allen Ginsberg or what he was all about. The poor guy must be turning in his grave” – (which elicits the response: “Please enlighten us. He was against materialism, which could be related … Read More

Michael McClure – Interview continued

October 22, 2017Simon Pettet

[Michael McClure photographed by Allen Ginsberg,  Hartford Street Zen Center, San Francisco, 1991 – Photo (c). Allen Ginsberg Estate]

Michael McClure. Continuing the transcription from yesterday

Interviewer: Can you talk a little about “Meat Science” ?

MM  No, that’s so long ago, David.  No. Do you mean the book of essays?

Interviewer: No, I mean the theory, the idea.

MM: Oh, I don’t know if there was a theory. “Meat Science” is a name that I gave to a book of essays, and it’s a.. it’s the way I’ll appreciate something – I’ll say something is an act of … Read More

Michael McClure – The Beard and Beast Language

October 21, 2017Simon Pettet

[Michael McClure at the Kiev Restaurant, New York City. Photograph by Allen Ginsberg (c) The Estate of Allen Ginsberg]  

Michael McClure celebrated his 85th birthday yesterday. In his honor, here follows another transcript from the extraordinary series of readings/discussions that took place in Novato California, in the mid 70’s (see here , here,  here and here)  –  [We apologize to Michael for the typo] – The interviewer is David Rollison

Interviewer: A whole number of you went to see The Beard. How many of you did get to see it?….just to get a sense of… [tape cuts off  … Read More

Allen Ginsberg 1974 San Francisco tv Interview – “I Believe” – part 2

October 8, 2017Simon Pettet

continuing from yesterday – (transcript of Allen Ginsberg and Father Mike S Riley’s 1974 conversation picks up approximately sixteen-and-a-half minutes in)

MR: What’s a nice Jewish boy like you doing with all of the Christian metaphors and analogies?. It’s just “Christ,” “Jesus, “”the Church”, “Crucifixtion”…

AG: Well, what I’ve been talking (except to the reference to St John of the Cross) has mostly been formal Buddhist dharma, which is a perception of the Universe as transient, in the sense of..    The basic.. first basic thing is – all the constituents of being are transitory. So that’s why I’ve … Read More