Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 347

January 5, 2018Simon Pettet

Looking forward and looking back, with the year’s first “Weekly Round-Up”, starting off with Allen Ginsberg – Fotografìa y Poetica Beat at the Photology Gallery in Garzon, Uruguay –  the first ever showing of Allen’s photographs in South America!  (this show is coming to a close, closing-date is next Tuesday, January 9).

And more photo news – Opening January 29, and up through 27 April, at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto – ‘Fleeting Moments, Floating Worlds, and the Beat Generation – The Photography of Allen Ginsberg” 

“This exhibition”, the Library states, in its preliminary … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 336

October 6, 2017Simon Pettet

[The Boott Mills seen from Centralville  /  Lowell, Massachusetts, 1989 -Photograph  © John Suiter – see “Kerouac’s Lowell – A Life On The Concord and Merrimack Rivers“]

Just a reminder that it’s Kerouac celebrations in his home-town of Lowell this weekend. Festivities have already begun, but plenty’s still happening –  you can see the full-schedule (all the events taking place over this weekend, and into next week) – here.

[Jack Kerouac]

And also from last week’s Round-Up – (following on, and as part of, the “Big Beat Night“) – the Lawrence Ferlinghetti exhibit in Brescia… Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 333

September 15, 2017Simon Pettet

Next week in Paris (September 20-22) sees the sixth Annual Conference of the European Beat Studies Network –  “The Transcultural Beat Generation”  is this year’s focus “(Collaboration. Publication, Translation)”.  The three days are broken down as follows: Wednesday, the 20th – “French Edition(s) and Beat Intellectual Life in Paris” – Thursday, the 21st – “Beat Translation and Collaboration” – Friday the 22nd – “Marginalized Beat Artists”.

Of the specifically Ginsbergian – Thursday-evening (6-7.30) has been given over to a panel on Allen, chaired by Anna Aublet) – (rather unfortunately, it clashes with a panel on William Burroughs (chaired by … Read More

Guillaume Apollinaire – (Ombre)

August 26, 2017Simon Pettet

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)

A guest-posting today from our friend (and erstwhile long-time upstairs-neighbor of Allen’s in New York) poet, John Godfrey.

Today, August 26th, is the great Guillaume Apollinaire‘s birthday

“In 1965, the U.S. troop level in Vietnam exceeded 500,000. Allen Ginsberg became perhaps the most flamboyant of many literary opponents to the war. Bearded, beat and outspokenly homosexual, his appeal was great to the young and already converted. (Pull out your old copy of Planet News (City Lights, 1968) which contains “Wichita Vortex Sutra“). Allen’s attack was on the conscience of the government and the capitalist … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 317

May 26, 2017Simon Pettet

[Funeral for Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, May 26. 1997, Karme Choling, Tail of the Tiger Buddhist Meditation Center, Barnet, Vermont. Photo: Ray Ellis]

Today is the anniversary of Trungpa’s Rinpoche’s Buddhist cremation ceremony. Thirty years ago today, ‘”more than two thousand students and friends” gathered, “in a meadow ringed with pine and maple trees”, near Barnet, Vermont. (Karme Choling, Tail of the Tiger). Allen’s evocative and richly-detailed poem, (“I noticed the grass, I noticed the hills, I noticed the highways, I noticed the dirt road…”) ,”On Cremation of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Vidyadhara”, written shortly … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 302

February 10, 2017Simon Pettet

jack-kerouac-e-neal-cassady

[Neal Cassady and Jack  Kerouac]

[Neal Cassady to Jack Kerouac – The Joan Anderson Letter via Heritage Auctions]

The legendary Joan Anderson letter is back in the news again. “The seminal piece of literature of the Beat Generation”, Neal Cassady’s epic letter to Jack Kerouac, which, for almost sixty years, was thought missing and then was miraculously rediscovered and put up for auction (only to, surprisingly, fail to reach its asking price) is up for auction again.

The auction date is March 8. Bidding begins approximately February 17th (next week). Full details may be found at Heritage … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 295

December 9, 2016Simon Pettet

howl-and-kaddish

screenshot-2016-12-06-15-37-05

[Two early French editions from 10/18, Editions Christian Bourgois]

 

The European Beat Studies Network’s 2017 Annual Conference, the sixth, (this past year (2016), it was held in Manchester, England), will have a decidedly Francophile bent this coming year – “Paris Interzone – The Transcultural Beat Generation (Collaboration, Edition, Translation)”.

From the announcement by the conference organizers:

“This year’s conference will honor and address the key role that the French capital and Francophone cultures have played in the transculturalism of the Beats, by welcoming submissions in both French and English and holding a plenary session on language barriers and … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 289

October 14, 2016admin
bob-dylan-net-worth

Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg, San Francisco, 1965, photo c. Larry Keenan

Yesterday’s announcement of Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize still has us reeling. Better late than never,  Allen’s letter to the Nobel Committee, from November 20, 1996 (sic):

“Dear Members of the Swedish Academy,  For the Nobel Prize in Literature I propose Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan is a American Bard & minstrel of XX Century, whose words have influenced many generations throughout the world. He deserves a Nobel Prize in recognition of his mighty & universal poetic powers”

Sincerely, Allen Ginsberg, Poet, Member of American Academy of Arts … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 282

August 26, 2016admin
[Allen Ginsberg working late]

                                           [Allen Ginsberg’s Desk – Drawing by Allen Ginsberg]

The second-part of an in-depth interview with Michael Horowitz, Timothy Leary’s longtime archivist, recently appeared. The first (posted back in November 2015) can be seen here.  The second, brings Allen in to the picture (Lisa Rein, the Archives digital librarian, is the interviewer):

LR: What was the dynamic between Ginsberg and Leary? MH: The synergy between them was powerful. There’s a … Read More

William Blake’s First Exhibition Recreated at the Tate Britain

May 20, 2009admin

[William Blake, Jacob’s Ladder 1799-1806. Pen and grey ink and watercolour on paper © The Trustees of the British Museum]

200 years ago, at age fifty-two, William Blake had his first exhibition at a tiny gallery in London’s Soho district. Not a single work sold, and worse, the only review has been called one of the harshest in history of British art. Tate Britain have managed to locate ten of the sixteen original works, the tenth just recently added having been deemed sturdy enough for travel to their gallery. The exhibition opened April 20 and will remain through October 4.… Read More