Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 152

November 15, 2013admin

Jean Jacques Lebel’s Beat exhibit (extended in Metz) now comes to Budapest, Hungary, to the Ludwig Contemporary Art Museum (it opened just last week, and will run there until January 12). Here‘s a variety of Hungarian artists, in individual videos, extolling the Beat ethos (it’s all in Hungarian, but for those of you who speak Hungarian…) – musician and tv personality, Varga Livius, poet-rapper, Peter Zavada, poets Tibor Babiczky and Karafiath Orsolya, and DJ Erelyi “Superman” Zsolt  (Lebel’s own introduction to his “jungle”, as he calls it (see above), a helpful survey of the show, (advance

… Read More

István Eörsi (1931-2005)

October 13, 2011admin

[István Eörsi, Kiev Restaurant, NYC August, 1984. photo c. Allen Ginsberg Estate]

Today marks the anniversary, six years on, of the death of István Eörsi, Allen’s friend, Hungarian translator, documentarian (1997’s “A Poet on The Lower East Side”), and, considerable presence in his own terms – poet, playwright and political activist (Eörsi, a student (and life-long disciple) of the philosopher Georg Lukács, was imprisoned in 1956, following his activities as part of the Hungarian uprising, and spent three-and-a-half years in jail).

A “clowning stoic” as his friend George Konrad once described him, Eörsi remained true, uncorrupted, deeply committed, … Read More

My Conscience Says Tell The Truth in Finland

June 29, 2011admin

Footage has just emerged of Allen in Finland in 1983 (and of Burroughs too, for that matter) – both snatches of interview(s) and brief glimpses of readings. The footage is from Finnish YLE tv. Allen is seen reading, spiritedly, from “America”- a line at a time, followed by Finnish translation (Burroughs is glimpsed reading sections from A Place of Dead Roads – “and swear to me that you will never wear a policeman’s badge”). The video accompanies an article on the Beats in Finland in that nation’s newspaper and can be accessed here.
AG: My conscience says “tell the … Read More