Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 366

May 18, 2018Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg in Benares, India, 1963]

Allen Ginsberg in Asia – another early taste of David S Wills’  World Citizen – Allen Ginsberg as Traveller, (due out later this year – his fourth book, and another must-read from Beatdom‘s spirited editor).

Also from Beatdom this year (we mentioned these titles last week), The Buddhist Beat Poetics of Diane di Prima and Lenore Kandel  by Max Orsini, and, Straight Around Allen – On The Business of Being Allen Ginsberg by Bob Rosenthal.

Must-read, certainly, would also be Sudarsan Raghavan‘s piece (first appearing in The Washington Post… Read More

Friday December 30 – Patti Smith’s 70th birthday

December 30, 2016Simon Pettet

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[Patti Smith – Gloria (Live SNL 1976)]

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Patti Smith turns 70 today. She’ll be performing tonight, in Chicago, at the Riviera Theatre, with her band, part of an on-going tour celebrating the release of her groundbreaking 1975 debut album, Horses

What a year it’s been for Patti! (always quite a year for Patti! – poet as rock-star, poet as performer, poet as activist)

Poet as upholder of lineage and tradition – So, most recently, the extraordnary rendition of Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” at the Nobel Prize ceremonies, honoring Nobel laureate, Bob Dylan

She writes … Read More

Allen to Peter, 1961 (on Dissolution of Ego)

November 18, 2015admin

 [Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky – Photograph by Robert Frank]

The Ginsberg-Orlovsky correspondence. Mindful that yesterday we provided you only with selected snippets. Here’s one uninterrupted letter from that voluminous correspondence (only a small segment of which was made available in Straight Hearts’ Delight – and only the Orlovsky side in Peter Orlovsky – A Life In Words.)   Here’s Allen writing from  ℅  U.S. Consul, Tangiers, Morocco, August 3rd, 1961, (to Peter in Athens) Dear Peter, Strange day yesterday, woke up depressed, thinking I am a poet, & all along had been your lover – I am … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 193

October 17, 2014admin

 

[Allen Ginsberg – Photograph by Marc Geller]

 A wonderful Ginsberg issue (for all of you who read Portuguese – and even those of you don’t, (including several pictures of Allen that we’d, frankly, never seen before) -Claudio Willer Cesar Kiraly, Evaldo Gondim, among others. For more (including an on-line viewing of the journal), see here

Images Indelible-Allen-Ginsberg-Jack-Kerouac-Allen-Ginsberg-2

 

of Allen Ginsberg (1953-1996), Allen’s photography show, continues at the University of Toronto Art Center – Here‘s Associate Editor of Canadian Art, David Balzer with a video review of the
… Read More

EBSN Conference 2014

July 31, 2014admin

November is,  admittedly, some ways away, but no harm in announcing the European Beat Studies Network‘s Third Annual Conference ( this year to be held in Tangier, Morocco, November 17 to 19, at the Hotel Chellah).  “The well-established Beat-Tangier connection makes it a natural home”, the organizers write, “for a EBSN conference – above all, (fittingly) in 2014, the centennial of William Burroughs..”  “Geographically and historically, (it) is an East-West crossroads”, and the conference.. (intends to explore).”cultural hybridity and conflict”, “both before and since the Beat 1950’s and (19)60’s”.  “The psychogeography of (Burroughs’)  “Interzone”.. is “uncannily … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 130

June 14, 2013Simon Pettet

[Simon Vinkenoog (1928-2009)]
Allen Ginsberg, goaded on at the beginning there by a typically giddy Simon Vinkenoog, reads “Mafkees” (a.k.a. “Birdbrain“) (from a reading in 1983, from Allen’s European tour, recorded that year in Amsterdam) – (for earlier (alternative) versions of this “Ginsberg minor classic”, see our previous postings – here and here) .

This recording includes, also, a brief segment from a Dutch interview – wherein Allen, bemused and non-plussed, sweetly chastises the hapless interviewer

[2014 update – the video of this interview is, unfortunately no longer available but we have maintained the transcript]

… Read More

Happy 100th Birthday, Paul Bowles

December 30, 2010admin

bowles-making-tea

[Paul Bowles preparing mint tea on arrival at acquaintance Christopher Wanklyn’s souk household in the medina, I took train from Tangier and stayed with them a week, Marrakesh, Maroc, July 20, 1961. (Allen Ginsberg caption) c. Allen Ginsberg Estate]

Paul Bowles Centennial Today – December 30 2010 – Paul Bowles (1910-1999)

For a decent breakdown on how his life intersected with Allen’s or how he gets incorrectly heaped in with the “Beats,” click on over to the official Paul Bowles site.… Read More