Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 353

February 16, 2018Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg in his kitchen, 1988 – Photograph by Brian Graham]

The Toronto photo show, “Fleeting Moments, Floating Worlds..,“ that we mentioned last week continues. What we omitted to mention was the accompanying catalog (printed and designed by the legendary Coach House Press). As curator, John Shoesmith writes in the forward – “The accompanying catalog attempts to further the story behind the Ginsberg photographs. It contains the voices of several key individuals who were crucial to the poet’s “second coming” as a photographer, beginning in the mid-1980s; from the person who planted the seed within Ginsberg to … Read More

Harry Smith

November 27, 2017Simon Pettet

[“Buddha’s Footprint” – Harry Smith’s logo for Allen Ginsberg]

Twenty-seven years since the passing of Harry Smith on this day, Monday the 27th, (Harry would, of course, have enjoyed the numerological alignment)

Harry has been profiled and featured often on The Allen Ginsberg Project. most recently and extensively – here (see that page for links to several of our other Harry Smith postings)

Next Friday (December 1st) at New York’s Howl Happening Gallery, Raymond Foye will host a celebration of Harry’s life and work – featuring the screening (a New York premier) of a 1984 film by Robert Frank… Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 342

November 17, 2017Simon Pettet

[Paul Blackburn and company, from the Paul Blackburn papers, Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California, San Diego]

More big news, archival news, the Paul Blackburn audio collection, long in the safe-keeping of the Archive for New Poetry at the University of California, San Diego, the great trove of New York City poetry recordings (“the most comprehensive oral history of the New York poetry scene between the late 1950s and 1970.”, in the words of Blackburn editor and scholar Edith Jarolim), has finally been digitalized and is now available on line.

The first release of this collection includes … Read More

David Amram Remembers Jack Kerouac

November 12, 2017Simon Pettet

[David Amram and Allen Ginsberg with Jack Kerouac and Larry Rivers at a diner –  during the making of Pull My Daisy, 1959 – Photograph by John Cohen]

Continuing our celebration of his 87th birthday

David Amram Remembers Jack Kerouac

This initial piece was originally written in 1969 for Evergreen Review, and published early in 1970 at the request of publisher Barney Rosset as an obituary for Kerouac

I used  to see Jack often at the old Five Spot in the beginning of 1957, when I was working there. I knew he was a writer, and all musicians knew … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 341

November 10, 2017Simon Pettet

Several more images from the upcoming show of Jack Kerouac’s art at the Maga Museum in Gallarante, Italy, have been made available – here – on the Ansa web-site.

Jack Kerouac. Beat Painting’,  curated by Sandrina Bandera, Alessandro Castiglioni and Emma Zanella, is set to open December 3rd, and also includes photographs by Robert Frank and Ettore Sottsass, a project by Peter Greenaway and the video of the classic 1966 tv interview with translator Fernanda Pivano.

Did we mention? (yes, we did, it was his birthday yesterday) a new book, a biography, on the legendary Robert Frank… Read More

Robert Frank’s Birthday

November 9, 2017Simon Pettet

[Robert Frank, photographed by Allen Ginsberg, Top: March 1984, bottom: November 1994, New York City]

Robert Frank is 93 today – celebrating the legendary photographer-filmmaker (and Allen’s longtime friend)

For previous Robert Frank postings on the Allen Ginsberg Project – see  here, here, here and here

American Witness – The Art and Life of Robert Frank, the first in-depth biography of the artist, by R.J.Smith, just appeared from Da Capo Press

and don’t miss out on Don’t Blink, Laura Israel‘s riveting documentary

… Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 327

August 4, 2017Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, and William S Burroughs, New York City 1953. (c)The Allen Ginsberg Estate]

Ann Douglas‘  rapturous New York Times review of The Best Minds of My Generation – “Professor Ginsberg’s Notes on the Beats”  leads off this Friday’s Round-Up  – “In a marvelous feat of editing and reorganization, Bill Morgan, Ginsberg’s longtime bibliographer, biographer and friend, has condensed the 100 or so lectures Ginsberg gave in the five courses he taught on the Beat Generation between 1977 and 1994, totaling almost 2,000 pages of transcripts, into a compact and often spellbinding text, preserving intact the … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 292

November 11, 2016Simon Pettet

screenshot-2016-11-11-08-30-06

It’s been a monumental week.   Here at the Ginsberg blog now on Ginsberg.org we’re transitioning (as you see) from our old site to our new presence (part of the spruce-up of the entire site). Some work remains, protecting and reconstituting our archives, (not to mention, other aspects of the site), meticulously going through old posts one-by-one, so bear with us.

Meanwhile, like the rest of the world, still reeling, Here’s the ACLU’s statement.

Not enough that a madman is handed keys to the world.   The death, yesterday, aged 82, of poet-troubadour legendary rock star, Leonard Cohen.  R.I.P.

Rolling … Read More

Robert Frank’s Birthday

November 9, 2016admin

November 9th 2016, Robert Frank‘s 92nd birthday. We celebrate the great photographer-film-makerHere‘s Nicholas Dawidoff’s profile from last year in the New York Times – The Man Who Saw America. And here’s Nicholas Davidoff’s recent review of  Robert Frank, the filmmaker in The New Yorker 

Laura Israel‘s unique ciné-portrait Don’t Blink Robert Frank opened earlier this year to almost-universally enthusiastic reviews. “Frank is delightful company, as emotionally transparent and offhandedly insightful in person, as he is in his art”, writes Elise Nakhnikian in Slant magazine. “Frank insists, “I’m not a verbal man. I have nothing … Read More

Robert Frank’s Birthday

November 9, 2013admin

[Robert Frank & Allen Ginsberg. 1989. – Photograph by Ai Weiwei –  Inkjet on Fantac Innova Ultra Smooth Gloss. Printed on 20 x 24-inch paper. Courtesy of Three Shadows Photography Art Centre and Chambers Fine Art]

It’s Robert Frank‘s birthday today. He’s 89 years old Previous Frank birthday celebrations on the Allen Ginsberg Project may be found here and here. Check out also here and here Gerald Fox‘s 2005 tv documentary, “Leaving Home Coming Home – A Portrait of Robert Frank” is rarely seen. As author and tv presenter, Melvyn Bragg, declares, in his introduction – … Read More