Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 334

September 22, 2017Simon Pettet

[Patti Smith and Allen Ginsberg, c. 1977]

Patti Smith‘s new book Devotion has just come out (from Yale University Press) to mixed reviews. Here‘s Michael Lindgren’s review in The Washington Post .Here‘s Megan Volpert at Pop Matters. The book is an expanded version (though not so expanded) of her 2016 Winham-Campbell Lecture at Yale (for a section of that lecture – see here)

Grant Hart, drummer, vocalist and songwriter, who died a little over a week ago, on William Burroughs from an interview from back in 2000 for The Onion AV Club:

Interviewer:   … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 180

June 20, 2014admin

Embedded image permalink

Embedded image permalink

Embedded image permalink

[Bill Morgan, Joanne Kyger and Michael McClure at the San Francisco launch at City Lights Bookstore June 18 2014, for Peter Orlovsky – A Life In Words]

Wednesday-night saw the launch in San Francisco of Peter Orlovsky – A Life In Words – Intimate Chronicles of A Beat Writer.  Next stop, Boulder, Colorado.

 

Frank O’Hara, whose poems, Allen memorably wrote, “taught me to really see New York for the first time” (“like having Catullus change your view of the Forum in Rome” (!)) is currently being feted by City Lights, with a brand-new, expanded, … Read More

Kronos Quartet – Howl, USA

March 29, 2014admin

Kronos Quartet “Howl USA” [Kronos Quartet – Howl, USA (1996) Nonesuch Records – sleeve design Frank Olinsky]

The Kronos Quartet’s 1996 Nonesuch release “Howl, U.S.A.” (with its distinctive Robert Mapplethorpe cover) has been deemed “a real masterpiece in “modern” music” – “The rendering of (Allen Ginsberg’s) “Howl” is spectacular, but to have three other impressive pieces that tie-in thematically, while presenting varied musical approaches…” (The other three pieces are “Sing Sing” (a “setting” of the FBI’s J.Edgar Hoover – “We are as close to you as your telephone”! )),”Barstow” – Eight Hitchhikers Inscriptions” (a short selection from a longer … Read More