Early Ginsberg – 3 – Two Sonnets
March 7, 2018
AG: Then I tried some combination… then Shakespeare , then I tried a Shakespeare sonnet (again, the same year (1948). The occasion was  reading the entire manuscript of Kerouac’s The Town and The City, and because it was so monumental and poderoso,  […]
Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 337
October 13, 2017
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[…]
Herbert Huncke
August 8, 2017
From Ann Douglas’ recent New York Times review of  The Best Minds of My Generation “Ginsberg also makes room for Herbert Huncke, whom he calls the “originator” of Beatness. An addict, gay hustler and petty thief, seeking, in his words, the freedom “to become more obscure,” Huncke introduced Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs[…]
Huncke, Holmes & Burroughs at Naropa, 1982
July 8, 2017
The legendary 1982 Jack Kerouac Conference at Naropa (then Institute, now University). We’ve featured a number of postings consisting of transcription from events at that one-of-a-kind stellar gathering (on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Kerouac’s On The Road),  but not, for some reason, this one – Herbert Huncke, John Clellon Holmes and William[…]
Herbert Huncke’s Birthday
January 9, 2017
Celebrating Herbert Huncke‘s birthday today. “Godfather of the Beats”, he would have been one-hundred-and-two! – See here for our posting on the occasion of his Centennial. Today, courtesy of our friend Laki Vazakas , footage of the great story-teller, raconteur, recorded in New York, at the Chelsea Hotel,  February 7, 1994. Evoking[…]
Friday’s Weekly Round-Up 222
June 12, 2015
The Academy of American Poets, on the occasion of his 89th birthday, gave Allen a tribute (the key component of which is this wonderful video of him and Steven Taylor on the rooftop of his East 12th Street, East Village apartment, in his final year, 1997, performing “A Western Ballad” (“the first song[…]
Allen Ginsberg’s “Beat” Correspondence with Paul Bertram
May 13, 2015
Readers+Writers Journal, this week, announced the discovery (in a trove of newly-found letters and postcards from Allen to his life-long friend, Rutgers professor and Shakespearean scholar, Paul Bertram), of, arguably, the first known reference in the writings of the[…]
(Tuesday April 7) Billie Holiday Centennial
April 7, 2015
                                Today, April 7, 2015 is the Billie Holiday Centennial Billie Holiday was born, Eleanora Fagan, in Philadelphia exactly one hundred years ago today. Allen Ginsberg,[…]
Sunday April 5 – Allen Ginsberg Parinirvana
April 5, 2015
It’s Allen Ginsberg’s parinirvana today, the (eighteenth) anniversary of his passing. Here’s Herbert Huncke, “godfather of  The Beats”, on “the invisible body” – on witnessing funerals (“I’m inclined to think it was Hindu, but I’m not sure”) – burning ghats, Indian ritual (Huncke footage, courtesy documentarian, […]
Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 208
February 13, 2015
  Notice (last week) of the passing  of London’s ubiquitous counter-cultural hero, John “Hoppy” Hopkins brings us to this little snippet of footage (from the BBC’s current affairs program, Panorama) – footage[…]