May Day (Kral Majales)

May 1, 2018Simon Pettet

May Day. May Day. Revolution in the air. We welcome today this guest posting from Czech Beat scholar and Allen’s good friend, Josef Rauvolf

The King of May Revisited

When, on May the first, 1965, a thirty-nine-year-old Allen Ginsberg drove through the streets of Prague, observing the atmosphere in the crowded streets and in the park, where later the celebration and elections would take place, he definitely had good reason to feel elated.  As the students’ candidate for Kral Majales, (King of May), he could, reasonably confidently, count on being elected.

Actually, he was already King of Prague.  In the … 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

May 1st – (May Day – Kral Majales)

May 1, 2015admin

Check out past May Day postings on the Allen Ginsberg Project – here, here and here even, (last year’s) here

A special May Day this year – (2015), it’s the 50th anniversary of  Allen’s fleeting elevation to  Kral Majales – King of May –   “And I am the King of May”

 

“And I am the King of May, which is the power of sexual youth,/and I am the King of May, which is industry in eloquence and action in amour,/and I am the King of May, which is long hair of Adam and the Beard of my own body/and … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 216

April 10, 2015admin

 

Hal Willner‘s 60th anniversary celebrations in L.A.  for “Howl” this past week turned out to be a grand success.  From Tim Grierson‘s account of the evening, for Rolling Stone: “Nearly 60 years after its first public reading in October 1955, a concert was held in downtown Los Angeles to honor “Howl”, Allen Ginsberg’s epic zeitgeist-chaneling poem that wrestled with sexuality, creativity, drugs, capitalism and the contradictory forces that were shaping mid-century America. Although not as consistently revelatory as the poem itself, “A Celebration of the 60th Anniversary of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”” could be as

… Read More

Kral Majales

April 30, 2010admin

majales

[Allen Ginsberg, crowned Kral Majales (King of May), Prague, 1965. Photographer unknown. c Allen Ginsberg LLC)]

Allen’s Czech translator, Josef Rauvolf, happened to locate this one for us. We’ve seen bits of footage from that day, but none with some of the actual sound as you get here. Allen comes on as May King at around 1:30. Keep in mind this is the first traditional May Day celebration – where students elect a May King (Kral Majales) to rule over a bacchanal each May day – that the Communists allowed since their takeover in 1945. The Communists had instead used … Read More

Allen Ginsberg – Prague’s King of May

February 4, 2010admin

[Allen Ginsberg, Crowned May King, Prague, Czechoslovakia, May 1965. Photographer unknown. c Allen Ginsberg LLC]

Allen’s Czech translator, Josef Rauvolf, happened to locate this one for us. We’ve seen bits of footage from that day, but none with some of the actual sound as you get here. Allen comes on as May King at around 1:30. Keep in mind this is the first traditional May Day celebration – where students elect a May King (Kral Majales) to rule over a bacchanal each May day – that the Communists allowed since their takeover in 1945. The Communists had instead used the … Read More