Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 317

May 26, 2017Simon Pettet

[Funeral for Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, May 26. 1997, Karme Choling, Tail of the Tiger Buddhist Meditation Center, Barnet, Vermont. Photo: Ray Ellis]

Today is the anniversary of Trungpa’s Rinpoche’s Buddhist cremation ceremony. Thirty years ago today, ‘”more than two thousand students and friends” gathered, “in a meadow ringed with pine and maple trees”, near Barnet, Vermont. (Karme Choling, Tail of the Tiger). Allen’s evocative and richly-detailed poem, (“I noticed the grass, I noticed the hills, I noticed the highways, I noticed the dirt road…”) ,”On Cremation of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Vidyadhara”, written shortly … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 290

October 21, 2016admin

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s birthday today – from Richard Holmes’ definitive biography: ” (William) Wordsworth called him “the most wonderful man” he had ever known; but many subsequent biographers have been skeptical. It would seem possible to write an entire book on Coleridge’s opium addiction, his plagiarisms, his fecklessness in marriage, his political “apostasy”, his sexual fantasies, or his radiations of mystic humbug.

And indeed, all these books have been written. But no biographer…has tried to examine his entire life in a broad and sympathetic manner, and to ask the one vital question; what … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 196

November 7, 2014admin
[Allen Ginsberg with (portrait of) Walt Whitman – Photograph by Misao Mizuno]

Mash-Ups – As we noted in an earlier post, “The ubiquitous Tom Waits-Allen Ginsberg mash-up, “Closing Time”/“America” has got to be one of the most-accessed Allen Ginsberg items on the web” (plenty of listeners still thinking, erroneously, that they must’ve recorded together – they didn’t) – We were pleased to receive originator, Ralph Beard’s wry comment (printed then – and now re-printed here), since it puts the piece in its (intriguing, allbeit antediluvian) context:

“Every now and then I do a search on this thing just … Read More

What Keeps Mankind Alive?

April 27, 2014admin

What Keeps Mankind Alive? The text – Ralph Manheim and John Willett‘s translation, from Bertolt Brecht‘s original German, of the second finale of Brecht-Weill’s classic “Threepenny Opera” (Die Dreigroschenoper) (1928):

A rare photograph of Brecht and Weill together

[Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) & Kurt Weill (1900-1950)]

“You gentlemen who think you have a mission/To purge us of the seven deadly sins/Should first sort out the basic food position/Then start your preaching, that’s where it begins/ You lot, who preach restraint and watch your waist as well/Should learn, for once, the way the world is run/However much you twist, or whatever lies that you tell/Food is the first … Read More

“Aint No Sin To Take Off Your Skin…” (from The Black Rider)

April 12, 2014admin

[Robert Wilson, Tom Waits & William Burroughs – co-creators of The Black Rider]

“When you hear sweet syncopation and the music softly moans/‘t ain’t no sin to take off your skin and dance around in your bones/When it gets too hot for comfort, and you can’t get an ice-cream cone/t’ain’t no sin to take off your skin and dance around in your bones/Just like those bamboo babies, down in the South Sea tropic zone/ t’aint no sin to take off your skin and dance around in your bones.” William Burroughs, Robert Wilson and Tom Waits‘ … Read More

Arabic America

July 25, 2013Simon Pettet

We featured this past July 4, Allen’s still-surprisingly-relevant 1956 poem, “America”. Here’s Moroccan poet & scholar, El Habib Louai‘s, Arabic translation. He is currently working to translate Allen’s complete collected poems into Arabic.

America

أمــــــــــــــــــريـــــــــكـــــــــــــا

. أمريكا لقد منحتك كل شيء وها أنا الآن لا شيء

أمريكا، دولارين وسبعة وعشرين سنتيمات،

سبعة عشر ينايرألف وتسع مائة وست وخمسين

. أنا لا أستطيع أن أحافظ على رأيي الخاص

أمريكا متى سننهي الحرب على الإنسانية؟

انكحي نفسك بقنبلتك الذرية!

أنا لا أشعر أنني بحالة جيدة

. لا تزعجني

. لن أكتب قصيدتي حتى يستقيم رأي

أمريكا متى ستصبحين بريئة؟

متى ستخلعين … Read More

A Mix Tape/Allen Ginsberg Dancing

April 6, 2013admin

[“Allen Ginsberg Dancing” via Contemporary Poetry blog]

A “mix tape“?  A little weekend-indulgence.

– Since we’re wondering if all these items were caught the first time they were posted, we’re running them (well, alerting you to them) again.  

how about..

America/Closing Time – Allen Ginsberg/Tom WaitsSpell/Footnote to Howl – Patti SmithHadda Be Playing On The Jukebox -Rage Against The MachineWhen The Light Appears Boy – Allen Ginsberg/CornershopAirplane Blues – Paul RelfGospel Noble Truths – Anne Waldman & Steven Taylor

Ghetto Defendant – Allen Ginsberg/The ClashBirdbrain – Allen Ginsberg/ The GluonsHits … Read More