Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 356

March 9, 2018Simon Pettet

Beyond Beat, the five-day Los Angeles Beat  convention continues. Among the highlights tonight, a group reading of “Howl” (also a performance of Gregory Corso’s “Bomb”, and a poetry reading by Neeli Cherkovski and Paul Vangelisti). Tomorrow (Saturday) will include a “Punk and Beat” panel  (with V. Vale, Jerry Casale, and S.A.Griffin), a panel on Bob Kaufman, and a showing of Billy Woodberry‘s documentary on Kaufman, And When I Die, I Won’t Stay Dead.  Sunday includes Steve Silberman (on the Legacy of “Howl”), a “Howl” panel (with Steve Silberman, Marc Olmsted, and … Read More

Neal Cassady’s Birthday

February 8, 2018Simon Pettet

[Neal Cassady (1926-1968)] – Photograph by Herb Greene via The Grateful Dead Archive Online]

Neal Cassady‘s birthday today, born February 8, 1926 in Salt Lake City.

In Denver tomorrow, the David Amram Quartet will headline the 9th Annual Neal Cassady Birthday Bash at the Mercury Cafe, featuring music, poetry and reminiscences celebrating the life and the legend of Neal Cassady,

The following day, February 10th, at the Alamo Drafthouse/Sloan’s Lake, there will be a special screening of the film Magic Trip  (2011) detailing Cassady and Ken Kesey’s 1964 adventures (Cassady driving the bus with the Merry … Read More

David Amram Remembers Jack Kerouac

November 12, 2017Simon Pettet

[David Amram and Allen Ginsberg with Jack Kerouac and Larry Rivers at a diner –  during the making of Pull My Daisy, 1959 – Photograph by John Cohen]

Continuing our celebration of his 87th birthday

David Amram Remembers Jack Kerouac

This initial piece was originally written in 1969 for Evergreen Review, and published early in 1970 at the request of publisher Barney Rosset as an obituary for Kerouac

I used  to see Jack often at the old Five Spot in the beginning of 1957, when I was working there. I knew he was a writer, and all musicians knew … Read More

David Amram’s Birthday

November 11, 2017Simon Pettet

[David Amram performing “Waltz After the Fall” via jackshalom]

David Amram celebrates his 87th birthday today

Recipient of the 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award from Kansas City’s Folk Alliance International.

Written and narrated by Scott Alarik, here‘s the video made specially for that occasion

and here‘s Nick Foster of Boulder, Colorado’s eTown interviewing David (from a couple of years back)

Here’s another interview  (from March of last year)

Here’s David from back in 2011, performing and talking about Kerouac

Offbeat -Collaborating With Kerouac, his memoir, was first published in 2002

His earlier memoir, Vibrations  The … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 337

October 13, 2017Simon Pettet

[Herbert Huncke and Louis Cartwright, at Indian restaurant banquet for Hanuman Press, November, 1989 Photograph by Allen Ginsberg, (c) The Estate of Allen Ginsberg]

This coming Wednesday, next Wednesday, October 18th, at The Beat Museum,  “Huncke and Louis” – A Film Screening with Laki Vazakas, a rare chance to see Vazakas’ tender and intimate documentary on the legendary Herbert Huncke  and his longtime friend and companion Louis Cartwright.  Tate Swindell will be on hand, joining Laki in a discussion of the film, after the event, and meditating on Huncke’s remarkable life and work.

Kerouac Celebrations last weekend in Lowell… Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 335

September 29, 2017Simon Pettet

William Blake and the Age of Aquarius, a stunning new show opened this past week at the Block Museum at Northwestern (Evanston, Illinois). Above is a reproduction of the catalog cover. The exhibition, curated by Northwestern University art professor, Stephen F Eisenman, is a breakthrough exhibit, exploring, for the first time,  “the impact of British visionary poet and artist William Blake on a broad range of American artists in the post-World War II period”  (notably, (but by no means confined to), Allen Ginsberg and fellow members of the Beat Generation – Allen as promoter and propagandist, conduit and curator, … Read More

Thursday November 24 – Thanksgiving

November 24, 2016admin

A Thanksgiving poem (from 1957) SONG OF THE FEAST   (for David Amram) What feast of thee, blue wild body! My relatives from the mire      wait outside thy plumage gate! The raging cock, release!              HAIL THANKSIVING! Here the fox-spoon, ye ol’ fudder bucket! An here the geese-bowl, ol’ gowdy! Yez, dare the shaker-pep an the shaker blee-ack, too! C’mon, bring o’er the radiator-soup! Now we is a eatin, now we is a eatin— Play the radio flea, ol’ fane Yez,now we is a eatin an a listening, eatin an a listening — Hey, blink, pass down the bread sink — Ah, … Read More

Rebels – A Journey Underground

June 20, 2013Simon Pettet

Our feature today – A New Kind of Bohemia, segment two in a a six-part series by Kevin Alexander, made in 1999 for Canadian television,  Rebels – A Journey Underground. (The other episodes, incidentally, are also well worth catching – see here) From the episode synopsis – “Following World War II, a new period of post-war social complexity overtook America. It was during this turbulent, often repressive Cold War time that Jack Kerouaccoined the phrase “beat” and gave birth to a new literary movement. This film follows the activities of this new breed of writer – Kerouac, (Neal) 

… Read More

Friday Weekly Round Up – 124

May 3, 2013admin

[Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky – “A.G & P.O. 5 Turner Terrace, Potrero Hill Housing Project, Peter’s kitchen, hot summer day 1956.” (Allen Ginsberg Caption) – Photograph c. Allen Ginsberg Estate]

Well, it’s a whole seven days later, but we couldn’t resist alerting you to the Doug Ireland skewered review of Steve Finbow’s bio (mostly for the clear, where-to-begin, response by Our Allen‘s Steve Silberman – thanks Steve, for setting the record straight! – or, rather, keeping the record queer!) – see also comments by Jim Cohn and others in the (in this case, essential) “Comments” section following Ireland’s, … 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