Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 386

October 5, 2018Simon Pettet

The annual Jack Kerouac festival in Lowell, his home town (Lowell Celebrates Kerouac) began yesterday and continues through Monday.  This year, LCK is observing the thirtieth anniversary of the dedication of the Jack Kerouac Commemorative and the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of The Dharma Bums. Among the highlights, David Amram (of course!) playing, jamming, improvising, tonight and Sunday, Ann Charters (tomorrow afternoon, giving the Parker Lecture), Brian Hassett and John Cassady (tomorrow night) presenting  Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, and much much more. The full schedule can be seen – here

Don’t Hide The Madness, the … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 311

April 14, 2017Simon Pettet

[Hal Chase, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, Morningside Heights, next to Columbia College, New York City, Winter 1944-45. photo c. Allen Ginsberg Estate]

The Best Minds of My Generation – A Literary History of the Beats – Bill Morgan’s masterly collection of Allen’s teaching wisdom   (from Naropa and Brooklyn College) appears today (official publication-day) from Grove Press (Grove Atlantic).

Here’s a few lines from Anne Waldman‘s lucid introduction:

“Allen Ginsberg devotedly, and with a loving perseverance, incubated these lectures on his primary literary Beat colleagues during his first teaching job at … Read More