Friday's Weekly Round-Up - 273

                                         [Bernard Plossu - Mexique, Le Voyage méxicain, 1966 © Bernard Plossu]




Opening this week in Paris at the Centre Pompidou, another big Beat exposition (see our announcement back in April). This ambitious multi-media exhibition (up until October 3rd) comprises over six hundred different items - photographs, texts, documents, films, videos, paintings, drawings - and objects and devices for reproducing text, image and sound. A high point is, of course, the presentation of the famous "On The Road" scroll, the thirty-six meter- (one-hundred-and-eighteen foot-) long roll of teletype paper on which 
Kerouac typed up his fabled text. Another highlight, fitting for the Parisian location, is a focus on the so-called "Beat Hotel"  (one of its rooms is lovingly reconstructed, and a prominent feature is Harold Chapman's extraordinary set of photos from that period).

                                                          [The Jack Kerouac  "On The Road" scroll]

                                       [Allen Ginsberg at The Beat Hotel - Photograph by Harold Chapman]

The curators have orchestrated the exhibition around a geographical as well as historical framework, so the show traces Beat cultural manifestation not only in Paris - (and, obviously, San Francisco and New York, its spawning ground) - but also, significantly, (amongst other central locations), Mexico 

  
1953 finds William Burroughs writing to Allen (on the trail of ayahuasca) 
1959 (but written earlier) is the publication-date of Kerouac's seminal  Mexico City Blues 

               [Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Gregory Corso, Lafcadio Orlovsky, Mexico City, 1956]

Light is shone on several neglected areas of Beat culture, the specifically West Coast muse (artists like Wallace Berman, Jay Defeo and Bruce Conner), the African-American Beat... Here's Bob Thompson's "LeRoi Jones and his Family" (1964), just one of the six hundred items on display    

 [Bob Thompson - LeRoi Jones and his Family (1964) © The Estate of Bob Thompson]

Previews and reviews are beginning to come in - Here's several - First, en francais - "la retrospective vibrant" (Laetitia Cenac in Le Figaro), the AFP announcement, Tiphaine Dubled in ParisBogue   - & here, a review/preview in Spanish - and here (and here) a notice of the event in German

and don't miss the catalog, now available from the Pompidou Center - "Les nombreux documents reproduits (photos, manuscripts, pochettes de disques, dessins et peintures) témoignent de l'euphorie creative des membres du groupe, ainsi que de la pluridisciplinarité du mouvement (arts visuels, littérature, jazz, poésie sonore..)…Une dizaine d'entretiens inédits avec des protagonistes du mouvement, ainsi que des extraits de textes et poèmes (Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William Burroughs, notamment) viennent enrichir le catalogue" - (The numerus documents reproduced (photos, manuscripts, album covers, drawings and pantings) testify to the creative euphoria of the members of the group - thus (also to) the multi-disciplinary nature of the movement - (visual art, literature jazz, sound poetry). Ten previously unreleased interviews with the  movement's protagonists, as well as excerpts of texts and poems ( (by) Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William Burroughs, in particular) (also) enrich the catalog)."  

Meantime, simultaneously, also in Paris, at the Galerie Semiose (up until July 23), there's an exhibition of the art of William Burroughs. Here's two reviews/previews on that - here and here.
That one also has a collectable catalog, "Pleased to Meet You"- (see here)


[William S Burroughs & Brion Gysin at Joujouka, Morocco (1992) -William S Burroughs - ink and collage on board - 50.8 cm X 76.2cm]

Et aussi  Jack Kerouac - and one to look out for -  An intriguing notice appeared in Macleans (Canada) - The Secret Canadian Life of Jack Kerouac by Richard Stursberg, (regarding Kerouac's recently-published French writings) - see here

The European Beat Studies Network's annual conference starts up again on Monday (this year in Manchester, England - the two central themes this year - music and science). Among the specifically Ginsberg-centric papers - Rona Cran, "Simultaneous Data - Collage in Allen Ginsberg", Peggy Pacini, "Writing and Reading Kaddish - An Exploration of the Soundscape(s) of the Poem", and Franca Bellarsi - "Ginsberg's Poetry through the prism of Buddhist Theories of Mind". Ginsberg biographer Steve Finbow will be chairing these Ginsberg sessions.

For a full list of the schedule - see here

Allen Ginsberg and Indran Amirthanayagam] 

Cafe Dissensus, Issue 26 - "The Beat and the Hungry Generation - when losing becomes hip" - (a special issue on the Beats and the (Indian) Hungryalist movement, edited by Goirick Brahmachari & Anhimanyu Kumar) appeared on-line at the end of last week and there's plenty there worth looking into. Among the specifically Ginsberg-centric pieces: Spring and Oblivion" - ("Indran Amirthanayagam revisits Allen Ginsberg's Howl & Other Poems through his personal memory of the poet (who was close friends with his father), their interactions, the copy of the book gifted to his father by Allen and Ginsberg's readings that Indran attended."),  "Mind Breaths - Learning Buddhism from Allen Ginsberg"  ("Poet and Beat researcher, Marc Olmsted's essay investigates Ginsberg's source and commitment towards Tibetan Buddhism and how he balanced it with his political views/socialism"),  "The Ginsberg-Dylan Express - Tangled Up in Vomit and Blues  ("Brinda Bose looks at two decades of collaborations between Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg, through poetry, music and films"),  "Talking  Poetry - Ginsberg and the Hungryalists - Samir Roychoudhury - a retrospective"  ("Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury writes a first-hand account of her visit to the Roychoudhury residence in Kolkata, where she meets and converses with Samir Roychoudhury about Allen Ginsberg and the Hungryalist Movement")  
& Malay Roychoudhury is interviewed about Ginsberg and the Hungryalist Movement in a previously-published interview - here

As with the EBSN conference, tho' we cite the Ginsberg pieces, there's plenty more  - see Pamela Twining's  "The Women of the Beat Generation", for example - or Marc Goldin's "A Sojourn in Tangier"

And, still on Beat scholarship, Josef Rauvolf's recent presentation on Allen in Czechoslovakia (note - the presentation is in Czech) may now be found here 

Hilary Holladay interviews Todd Swindell re Harold Norse  in advance of the upcoming (July 6) Harold Norse Centennial

For more on Harold Norse - see here 

Patti Smith is interviewed for Vice this week - here 

Here's a recently-posted performance of Patti reading "Footnote to Howl" (on June 23, 2000 at the Mural Amphitheatre in Seattle, as part of the Experience Music Project concert series) - "Holy, holy, holy..".

For more renditions of that epic chant of passion - see here 

Cut-Ups 2 - Brion Gysin

[Brion Gysin with Dreamachine at Musée des Art Décoratifs, Paris, 1962  - Photograph by Harold Chapman - © Harold Chapman] 

Weekend of  The Cut-Ups - Two Brion Gysin movies on the Allen Ginsberg Project this weekend. The first, Nik Sheehan's 2008 Canadian documentary, FLicKeR, (a documentary examining and exploring Gysin's mind-expanding, trance-inducing invention, the dreamachine); the second, from ten years earlier, Joe Ambrose, Frank Rynne and Terry Wilson's record of the 1992 Gysin celebrations in Dublin, Ireland, Destroy All Rational Thought (the latter of particular interest, since it features one of the very last filmed interviews with William Burroughs, alongside previously-unseen vintage footage). 
As a bonus, here's more rare footage - Gysin at work
  

Peter Orlovsky Parinirvana

[Nude With Onions (Portrait of Peter Orlovsky) by Robert LaVigne (1954)]

Peter Orlovsky, Allen's long-time partner died on this day in 2010. He was 77 years old. First glimpsed by Allen in the portrait above by Robert LaVigne

Our previous Peter Orlovsky postings include here and here.

Here's a little photo portfolio. We fondly remember you, Peter




[ Peter Orlovsky and Allen Ginsberg in Lee Forrest's room, Hotel de Londres, Paris, December 1957 - Photograph by
 Harold Chapman]


[Peter Orlovsky, Allen Ginsberg, (and Michael McClure) - Photograph by Larry Keenan]

[Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky - Photograph by Cynthia Macadams]
`
[Allen Ginsberg & Peter Orlovsky in their NYC kitchen, snapped by a friend. April 1, 1987. c. Allen Ginsberg Estate] 



[Allen Ginsberg & Peter Orlovsky, Frankfurt airport, 1978. Photo: Herbert Rusche] 

Friday's Weekly Round-Up 77

[oragami Allen Ginsberg mural by the Oragami Meetup Group from last week's New York City Howl Festival - photo by Michael Natale]

Michalis Limnios at Blues & Gr(eece) has put-together a warm music-based Allen Ginsberg tribute. Interviews with Harvey Kubernik, Debra Devi, Steven Taylor, Francis Kuipers, Marc Olmsted, Jonah Raskin, Yannis Livadas, Elsa Dorfman and Harold Chapman (illustrated with photos by Elsa Dorfman and Harold Chapman - also included is Harvey Kubernik's extensive essay and CD liner-notes for the 2006 Water Records re-release of the 1966 recording of Kaddish). Look for it here.

(Marc Olmsted's memoirs, incidentally, continue to be serialized on Rusty Truck. This week -his contribution to Bill Morgan's 1986 "Best Minds - A Tribute to Allen Ginsberg").

Dangerous Minds (Best Minds are Dangerous Minds too!) just recently held its Allen Ginsberg caption contest. The results are in. To this iconic photo (of Allen with Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of The Clash), of 84 entries - "Count 'em boys, 112 lines and not a goddam one of them rhymes. Now that is punk rock!", was deemed, (by popular consent), to be the winner.

Here's another contest/promotion (June 15's the deadline), sponsored by Daniel Maurer and the local, East Village, bureau of the New York Times - "tour Allen's old digs with his longtime-assistant", Bob Rosenthal, "hear tales of Ginsberg in the very rooms where they happened". Bob's extraordinary - and essential - memories were recently serialized on that blog, and if you haven't read them yet, we urge you to do so - right now! - Bob "will share more during an intimate chat in the poet's old living room" in the coming days. ("Naturally, borscht will be served!").

F Simon Grant provides an interesting piece - "What A Fiction Writer Can Learn From Allen Ginsberg - "the main technique that has influenced me", he writes, "is the viscerally resonant parataxis" - and - "Essentially, imagery (in Ginsberg) is treated in two ways - as a function of either versimilitude or symbolism - as either a depiction of what may realistically happen in a given situation or how it reflects a character or abstract concept beyond the image itself".

Iain Sinclair's article on Gary Snyder in the current London Review of Books is informative and a great read (not to be missed!)

Patti Smith has a new album out.

Friday's Weekly Round-Up 68

[Allen Ginsberg Papers at Columbia - K.C.Mead - from her blog,"Howling - Allen Ginsberg & The Trickster in "Howl"]

"Should. Should. Should. Should. Should. You keep making this sound, "Should", I don't think anybody "should" do anything." - If you've not seen it, don't miss this account, Richard J McCarthy's account, of a 1969 encounter with Allen.

Zeitgeist, cultural zeitgeist - Last Sunday, tv-watching America hears Allen get a name-check via Ben Feldman, the latest cast member on the mega-hit tv-series Mad Men, playing the part of junior copywriter, Michael (sic) Ginsberg. (Jon Hamm (Jake Ehrlich, Allen's defense lawyer in the Howl movie) is Don Draper, his fictional boss).

Wasn't it just last year that we read this sentence (in the New York Times, of all places!): "Try to picture Allen Ginsberg having a chat with Don Draper, across the counter at the local coffee house, about the latest Lady Gaga video, and you'll realize how far we've come."

How about this (we kid you not!) genuine advertising copy - indeed, how far we've come!

Jake Marmer's piece in Tablet magazine on octogenarian "Beat poet", Herschel (Hersch) Silverman, is a gem and well worth reading - "Candystore emperor", as Allen described him, "dreaming of telling the Truth, but his Karma is selling jellybeans and being kind".

Another worthwhile read - Iain Sinclair's review of a new biography of another "fragile soul" who, during his lifetime, during his later years, drifted into Allen's satellite, the great English Surrealist, David Gascoyne.

Last night (jazz and) Beat poet ruth weiss returned to New Orleans and performed - first time in 61 years! - More on the sorely-neglected weiss (lower case, it's important!) here and here.

Nicole Henares reviews "The Language of Bebop.. in Allen's "Howl"".

Daniel Radcliffe in People magazine, the first official promo and on-set interview for Kill Your Darlings - People: "Are you a Ginsberg fan?" - Daniel: "The more I learned, the more I liked him. There's unbelievable sweetness and compassion between him and Burroughs and Kerouac. His work was like an explosion".

(David Krajicek writes about the Kammerer case (the basis of the plot of Kill Your Darlings) today in the New York Times)

Alan Govenar's Beat Hotel continues with an extended play at New York's Cinema Village - and, likewise, the exhibit of Harold Chapman photos at the OMC Gallery

&, we've mentioned before Pejk Malinovski "Passing Stranger" project, but just in case you missed it, here's word on it again.

Friday's Weekly Round-Up 67

Another Ginsberg "tat" (we know how you love these!) to lead off - a "strophe" (or part of a strophe) from "Howl" (did you know that "Howl" was originally called "Strophes"?) - "America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe".."I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his automobiles more so they're all different sexes".

& here's a tattoo from that poem - Ginsberg's "America".

Tom Sturridge, oh Tom Sturridge! We have to confess we were a little underwhelmed when they released the Tom-Sturridge-as-Allen On The Road poster. After all that Daniel Radcliffe hoo-hah - (but we're still, like you all, eagerly anticipating the upcoming release of the film, scheduled for release in France, May 23, almost certainly debuting at Cannes, a week or so earlier).

Allen's posthumous fame as a movie character! - who would have thunk? (well, who would have thunk so soon?)

"In. The streets look for Allen, Frank, or me. Allen/is a movie.." (Ted Berrigan, from his poem "Red Shift", composed circa 1976)

The Many Cinematic Faces of Allen Ginsberg - Emily Temple surveys the phenomena over on Flavorwire (unaccountably omitting consideration of the afore-mentioned Tom Sturridge) - "we're still pretty fascinated by any portrayal of Ginsberg on screen, however flawed it may be".

Not forgetting documentaries (most especially, not forgetting documentaries!)

The OMC Gallery for Contemporary Arts in Huntington Beach, California, is currently showing "The Beat Hotel and Other Images Made From The Future by Harold Chapman,

Selected Vintage and Period Photographs from 1947 to 2012". Most of these images are being presented for the first time in the United States. Meantime, on the East Coast (premiering today!), Alan Govenar's documentary, The Beat Hotel (featuring Harold as the focal point and Scottish artist, Elliot Rudie) opens - "British photographer Harold Chapman's iconic photos and Scottish artist Elliot Rudie's animated drawings capturing Ginsberg, Orlovsky, Corso, Burroughs, Gysin, (Ian) Sommerville and (Harold) Norse just as they were beginning to establish themselves on the international scene, bring The Beat Hotel to life on the screen. The memories of Chapman and Rudie interweave with the first-hand accounts of French artist Jean Jacques Lebel, British book dealer Cyclops Lester, and (the then) 95 year old George Whitman (patron of Shakespeare & Co. bookstore, who passed away earlier this year). Together with the insights of authors Barry Miles, Oliver Harris, Regina Weinrich, and Eddie Woods, among others, they evoke a time and place where Chapman, mentored by Cartier-Bresson, roamed around Paris photographing nuns, bums, and the idiosyncracies of street life (and) Corso took scissors to Marcel Duchamp's tie in a Dadaist statement, while Ginsberg kissed his knees..." A trailer for the film can be viewed here. Sandra Bertrand's preview/review in GALO magazine is available here.

Another trailer for a documentary - Melanie LaRosa's The Poetry Deal: A Film With Diane Di Prima has just been made available here.

- oh and Jack Kerouac's The Sea Is My Brother, which we wrote about some months back, is finally being published in America. You can read David Ulin's even-handed review (from the LA Times) here.

At Apollinaire's Grave

No, it's not James Franco and Aaron Tveit, it's not, clearly, Allen and Peter, it's Peter Bulcock as The Poet (taking Allen's place) and Aden Cardy-Brown as Guillaume Apollinaire (taking Peter's place) in this hommage to Harold Chapman's iconic photograph, "taken in the same place, on the same (Parisian) bench", last year, during a gap in the filming of Nic Saunders' upcoming short feature, At Apollinaire's Grave ("based on the poetry of Allen Ginsberg"). Saunders' 14167 Productions have already been responsible for an award-winning short, Curses and Sermons, based on a poem by fellow-Beat, Michael McClure. At Apollinaire's Grave continues the series. A trailer for the for McClure one is here, the Ginsberg one, here .

And here is the poster:

Friday's Weekly Round-Up 6

Here’s for the holiday season our now-regular miscellaneous Ginsberg round-up, the last round-up for 2010

More Arthur Russell/Allen Ginsberg

You all know Arthur Russell’s appearance playing cello on “Do The Meditation Rock” from Nam June Paik’s Good Morning Mr. Orwell (1984) but here the two are again, Allen intoning this time on Arthur’s “Soon To Be Innocent Fun”, featuring John Moran with Allen Ginsberg, from the 1993 Meet The Locusts, produced by Philip Glass. Vocals are by John Moran, Joyce Bowden and Allen Ginsberg. Arrangement is by John Moran. Allen’s recorded voice also featured as “a patriarchal commentator named Justinius” in “Mathew in the School of Life”, Moran’s 1995 “science fiction techno opera”.

Ezra Pound and Allen Ginsberg

We’ve been meaning to get to this. Rodger Kamentz’s powerful verse essay, “Allen Ginsberg Forgives Ezra Pound on Behalf of the Jews” appeared recently in the Jewish Daily Forward. A verse essay, Kamentz explains is “a form that allows the exploration of ideas and associations as well as the use of documentary material” .The stepping off point of the poem was a 1992 interview. Read more of Kamentz’s introduction and the “essay” here. Here’s some more on Ginsberg and Pound (a 1967 poem from Allen that he dedicates to Pound) from the Winter 2008 issue of Flash Point magazine, and a photo taken by Ettore Sottsass.

Howl DVD and Blueray

January 4 2011 is the date of the release of the DVD and the Blueray versions of Howl, the movie, not too long to go now. Oscilloscope have informed us that these new Howl releases will feature the following bonus materials:

“Commentary by James Franco and the Directors”; “Holy! Holy! Holy! Making of Howl”; “Original interviews with Allen Ginsberg's friends and collaborators”; “James Franco Reads "Howl”” – (An) “Audio Excerpt Performance: Ginsberg in 1995 at NYC's Knitting Factory” (with additional BD-only clips); (A) “Q&A Session with the Filmmakers, as moderated by John Cameron Mitchell “(BD-only)

Harold Chapman’s Photos

January 4 also marks the date of the Harold Chapman Paris and the Beat Hotel sale at Bonham’s in London. A collection of Chapman's prints titled "Peter Golding's Harold Chapman Archive" is going up for sale. See our recent note on his last show this past summer at London’s Proud Galleries. The Archive consists of 108 photographs, approximately half of which were reproduced in Chapman’s 1984 The Beat Hotel book (which featured introductory texts by William S Burroughs and Brion Gysin – see also Harold Chapman, Beats A Paris: Und Die Dichter Der Beat Generation 1957-1963). A selection of prints are up for viewing now, and the entire set be viewed upon request.

A recent BBC film report on Chapman’s work can be found here.

Dylan and Ginsberg

Sean Wilentz, whose book on Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan in America, is another book we’ve profiled, was recently interviewed in American Songwriter.com about the Dylan-Ginsberg link "The two of them had a profound impact on each other in terms of cultural imagery”, Wilentz declares, ”Dylan helped inspire some of his greater (sic) poems, including “Wichita Vortex Sutra.” Ginsberg helped legitimize Dylan’s lyric writing as serious poetry, and Dylan helped render Ginsberg into a kind of pop figure which he had not been before."

On The Road Film

We told you last month that we’d keep you posted about the filming of On The Road. You know the one where Tom Sturridge plays Carlo Marx/Allen Ginsberg? Well, shooting’s wrapped up, apparently. Here’s a photo-essay from our good friends in San Francisco at the Beat Museum. More to follow.

Harold Chapman: My Best Shot

Things seem to hit critical mass every now and again, and it's especially the case for Harold Chapman and his photo of Allen & Peter at St-Germain-des-Pres, Paris 1956. Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman recreated the shot in Howl film, out in September, and it's been used quite often in connection with the film. Chapman by coincidence has a show up this month at Chelsea Proud Gallery in London, mentioned on this blog a few weeks ago, and that's added to the photo's popularity. Now we get Chapman's take on the photo:

Summer Plans? Howabout Harold Chapman, Brion Gysin, Anne Waldman and Kyp Malone

*
Harold Chapman @ Proud Galleries, Chelsea, London July 29-August 29


[Ian Sommerville, Montparnasse, 1960. c.Harold Chapman]


[Peter Orlovsky & Allen Ginsberg, their room at 9 rue Git-le-Coeur, Paris December 1957. c. Harold Chapman]

Harold Chapman's got an exhibition opening next week, July 29, at London's Chelsea Proud Gallery , and it'll be up for the month of August. Chapman documented the Beat Hotel more thoroughly than anybody else, and tho he's had a few books in print, they're hard to find. Here's chance to get the full scope of his work. The Independent's Rob Sharp gives him and the show a decent plug delivering us some fantastic and useful background info and there's an additional side story by Sharp in today's Independent about his meeting Chapman for that story. Most recently he's in the Guardian talking about his 'best shot' of Allen & Peter.


Brion Gysin @ the New Museum


[Brion Gysin and the Dream Machine. Photo: c. Harold Chapman]

If you plan to be in NYC, don't miss the Brion Gysin exhibition at the New Museum that we mentioned here last week. With an entire floor of the museum devoted to this show, it's the most comprehensive show of his work to date. Interestingly enough the main image the New Museum is using for press is Harold Chapman's photo (above) of Gysin and his dream machine in Paris, for instance in the recent New York Times story. The show also gets decent coverage in NY Press, from Regina Weinreich in the Huffington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and great one in New York Magazine that does a nice tie in with the history of the Bunker.


DC "Howl" in the City July 23 & 24.


In conjunction with the the National Gallery's Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg show (open through Sept 14), Busboys and Poets have been staging a series of readings and events and this weekend is peaks with "Howl" in the City at the 5th & K Streets location of Busboys and Poets.

Anne Waldman is reading Howl backed up by a string quartet performing Lee Hyla's score composed for the Kronos quartet in the 90s. There are three shows, two on Friday night , and one on Saturday night, with Saturdays performance followed by a not-to-be missed free concert by TV on the Radio's Kyp Malone at 10pm. Check Washingtoncitypaper.com for a brief but fun interview with Kyp.

Another great quote from him on AG: "I saw Allen Ginsberg give a reading and perform some songs in April of 1994 at some lecture hall on the CMU campus in Pittsburgh. I was 21 and about to move to San Francisco. I was a little confused how this little old effeminate man managed to bring so many people together to hear him sing of sodomy and whatnot. I was fairly enamoured. In my memory it was also the same day that Kurt Cobain was announced dead by his own hand but I could be mixing things up, I was late blooming and much was happening. A couple of years back in the little town where my kid lives, on the Delaware, the two of us out for coffee and juice, we came across an anthology of American poetry from which she requested I read her something. I found Howl and started in almost immediately translating/editing for my 7-year-old audience, who somewhere along the line picked up on my hesitation and asked if i I was changing the words, which I embarrassedly admitted. She wouldn't have my clean version, told me I couldn't censor poetry. So I read. His life and his work are truly inspirational. I'm honored to have been asked to perform and hope to do his spirit justice." - Kyp Malone

Remembering Peter Orlovsky: Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman

Peter Orlovsky & Allen Ginsberg, Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, December 1957. Photo: c. Harold Chapman]

Remembering Peter Orlovsky

Posted on Advocate.com June 02, 2010

Directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman remember fondly their time spent with the late Peter Orlovsky while preparing to make Howl, their movie based on Allen Ginsberg's life, which opens in September.

By Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman

We first met Peter Orlovsky six summers ago, as we were embarking on our film based on the 1955 poem “Howl” by Peter's longtime partner, Allen Ginsberg. Peter was the first person we set out to meet as part of our research. He was then living a quiet retired life in a the woods of New England, lovingly cared for by friends arranged by Allen before his death in 1997. Continue >>

Some Recent You Tube Nuggets

For quite sometime we thought photographer Harold Chapman had vanished without a trace. All we had was his amazing book of photos from the Beat Hotel in the late 50s and early 60s. His shots of Peter and Allen, Ian Sommerville, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Gregory Corso, are among the most iconic ever shot of these people, but his chronicling of the characters and scene at the hotel on 9 rue Git-le-Coeur, is pretty much the only visual documentation there is of that era. At any rate, he resurfaced some 5 years ago with a few photo exhibitions here in the states via OMC Gallery in Huntington Beach, as well as in Britain, and now there's a short film in the works by filmmaker Alan Govenar telling his side of the story, that includes extensive interviews with him and Jean-Jaques Lebel. The trailer is now on You Tube. (this one doesn't fit right on the page for some reason. Sorry ya'll!)

LA Times ran a short mention over the weekend. They don't seem to be aware that a larger, expanded version of Chapman's Beat Hotel book is available, published by Kellner Verlag in Hamburg. We have copies available through the Ginsberg.org website. They're also available through the OMC Gallery in Huntington Beach.

Beat Hotel film website >>




Another recent You Tube gem is from Nam June Paik's PBS TV Special "Good Morning Mr Orwell" broadcast New Years Day, 1984. Here' Allen singing "Meditation Rock" with Arthur Russell, Steven Taylor and Peter Orlovksy.

First Look....

Sneak preveiws are starting to trickle in. First Look have posted a recreation of Harold Chapman's classic photo of Peter Orlovsky and Allen Ginsberg at Place St-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, December 1957, with Aaron Tviet as Peter and Jame Franco as Allen. Pretty convincing we think!


[photo: still from from "Howl" ]


[image: Peter Orlovsky & Allen Ginsberg, Place St-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, December 1957. c. Harold Chapman/OMC Gallery from Beats a Paris]


And Variety....