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 – 371 (Gay Pride)

June 22, 2018Simon Pettet

[The original rainbow flag designed, in 1978, by Gilbert Baker]

Gay Pride in San Francisco and New York this weekend

 

Allen Ginsberg interviewed on Stonewall Nation, (WBFO-FM, SUNY, Buffalo), October 6, 1978, by Alex Van Oss and Al Hershberger (recording courtesy the incomparable PennSound)

AVO: You’ve been out as gay for so many years. Were you ever in the closet?

AG: I was, very much so, in Columbia, when I was going to school, at first, the first year. I was afraid somebody would find out, actually, and I never.. didn’t want to tip my mitt … Read More

Barry Farber – 7 (interview concludes)

April 23, 2018Simon Pettet

The Allen Ginsberg-Barry Farber radio transcription that we’ve been serializing continues and concludes today

BF: I want (you) to read from the Table of Contents, like the virtuous… AG: (It’s) [“Wales Visitation‘] a bit long, like eight minutes or so. Something.. And I had been used, generally, on television, to be told to please make it one minute – “Please make it two minutes” – (because they don’t realize the power of poetry, they think, you know, that everybody’s going to get bored!) So I’ll read it again and I’d like to dedicate the reading to the absent … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 362

April 20, 2018Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg, March 1964,  Protest at the Women’s House of Detention, New York City  – Photograph by Benedict J Fernandez]

4/20 Cannabis Culture. Time to revisit Allen’s extraordinarily clear-headed (sic) and prescient 1966 Atlantic Monthly essay, “The Great Marijuana Hoax – First Manifesto to End The Bringdown” .

And here’s some fun he had with his 1985 Naropa students – “Marijuana Makes…” – Marijuana makes.. what?

NORML, the pioneering organization, for a long time now, working to reform the marijuana laws can be accessed here 

[Allen Ginsberg and Barbara Rubin together at the Albert Monument, outside … Read More

Barry Farber Interview – 4

April 15, 2018Simon Pettet

[Barry Farber]

We continue with the transcription of Allen’s appearance on Barry Farber’s 1976 radio broadcast.

In this episode, a punk Jonathan Robbins appears to the consternation of Barry Farber, and Allen discusses, among other things, ecology (eco-consciousness) and the apparent difficulty (alleged impossibility) of translation. 

BF:  (The Beat Generation) ….was every feature-writer’s security blanket tranquillizer and pacifier. (I want to know, technically, how you attracted that much attention?)

AG:  I think, mainly, it was we said what we really thought, rather than what we were supposed to think or what we thought would be, you know, palatable for the … Read More

The Barry Farber Interview – 1

April 7, 2018Simon Pettet

 

[Allen Ginsberg, San Francisco, 1966. photo: Larry Keenan Jr. ]

Drawing this weekend from the remarkable Stanford archives. We begin with a tape from 1976, Allen and company in conversation with conservative talk-show host Barry Farber, a two-hour radio appearance (We’ll be featuring it in segments – In the first, today, the opening salvos, he has to defend himself against Farber’s avuncular but also barbed and somewhat patronizing knee-jerk anti-Communism)

BF: Broadcasters all like to do different things with Allen Ginsberg. I’m going to copy what Bill Buckley did with him one time on television I … Read More

Ginsberg in 1967 Rare Footage (Antonello Branca Footage)

March 17, 2018Simon Pettet

Recently up-loaded to You Tube by the Archivio Audiovisivo del Movimento Operaio e Democratico (AAMOD) in Rome, vintage footage of Allen by the legendary documentary filmmaker Antonello Branca (see his 1967 film featuring Allen, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and others, What’s Happening?, fearured in an earlier posting – here)

Today (time-stamped -out-takes from a longer reel), two pieces, beginning with a mantra (chant) om sri maitreya  (“anyone who knows it, chant”, proposes Allen) , followed by,  (at 01-48-18-00, approximately six-and-a-half minutes in), a spirited recitation of “Wales Visitation” – (“written first … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 351

February 2, 2018Simon Pettet

Next week, Neal Cassady‘s birthday.,   On Friday and Saturday, next week, they’ll be the big celebration in Denver (with special guests, Jami Cassady and David Amram – for more information on those celebrations – see here).

Monday,, it’s another Beat birthday – William Burroughs. There’s a celebration of that tonight – Three Rooms Press (publishers of the upcoming Don’t Hide The Madness – William S Burroughs In Conversation with Allen Ginsberg) present, at New York’s Cornelia Street Cafe (starting at 6 o’clock), a William Burroughs Birthday Tribute, featuring Anne Waldman, Steven Taylor, and … Read More

Allen Ginsberg in 1982 on The Vern and Evelyn Show

December 2, 2017Simon Pettet

The last of our spotlighted videos from the Stanford Allen Ginsberg Archives is a strange one – Allen on a cable tv improvised-comedy show –  Leon Varjian’s “The Vern & Evelyn Show”  (broadcast out of Madison, Wisconsin (WISC Cable 4) back in 1982).  Allen appears in three segments, in addition to a framing skit where he is jokingly misperceived (since he’s “world-famous”) as the author of the much-loved (and corny) baseball poem Casey at The Bat

The first segment (approximately three-and-a-quarter minutes in) is a spontaneous collaboration with Varjian, “Dueling Poets”,  (parodying “the Dueling Banjos scene” from the 1972 film … 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