Friday's Weekly Round-Up - 208

[Lawrence Ferlighetti Interviews Allen Ginsberg in London in 1965 - William Shakespeare listens in - Photograph by John "Hoppy" Hopkins]

Notice (last week) of the passing  of London's ubiquitous counter-cultural hero, John "Hoppy" Hopkins brings us to this little snippet of footage (from the BBC's current affairs program, Panorama) - footage of a "Legalize Pot" rally (including archival footage of Allen) in 1967, in London's Hyde Park.
Despite the pompous commentary…



Speaking of marijuana, here's Allen, in New York, on the picket line, pushing for legalization, two years before:  

[Allen Ginsberg - Photograph by Benedict J Fernandez]




Allen's drug views (see our April 2011 posting here) have been getting a little more circulation recently. (The Paris Review recently reproducing the original of his important follow-up remarks to his 1967 interview (regarding psychedelics)).
See here:

MAPS continues to do important work. See also Michael Pollan's piece - "The Trip Treatment" in the current(or at least, recent) New Yorker

Speaking of re-circulation, Ira Glass's highly popular US radio show, This American Life recycled the BBC's 2014 William Burroughs documentary, "Burroughs at 100", (ably and entertainingly) narrated by Iggy Pop. The show can be heard (uncensored) in its entirety here.

And speaking of drugs and of centennials, the recent Herbert Huncke Centennial event at San Francisco's Beat Museum can now be viewed (likewise in its entirety - a little over ninety-minutes running-time, complete with the Q & A - don't miss the extraordinary Laki Vazakas' footage, coming in at approximately fifty-minutes in - heck, don't miss any of it!) -  here

And Bob Dylan - another "must-read", (courtesy of the LA Times) -  the transcription of his MusiCares Person of the Year speech may be read here 

Amiri Baraka's SOS (noted here last week) was reviewed in the New York Times -  not once, but twice! - read Dwight Garner's review here and Claudia Rankine's review here
Paul Vangelisti's introduction to the book is available on-line here  

[Amiri Baraka (1934-2014)

[Bob Kaufman (1925-1986)]

Noted in passing, Eileen Kaufman, the devoted widow of the great Bob Kaufman. John Geluardi, family friend, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle - "Without Eileen Kaufman, there is no Bob Kaufman. It is most likely that he would not have been published and would have slipped into obscurity."  John Geluardi's touching memorial note (for the blog of the Beat Museum) - "Remembering Eileen Kaufman" may be accessed here 

[Allen Ginsberg, Harold Norse, Jack Hirschman, Michael McClure and Bob Kaufman, at the Cafe Trieste, North Beach, San Francisco, 1975 - Photograph by Diana Church]

Expansive Poetics - 115 (Punk versus Beat)

[Iggy Pop]

[AG (to two exceptionally amorous students): If you guys are going to make love in my class.. I just get distracted all the time - sitting there hugging and kissing and fucking all the time…(please, take it outside)..]

[continuing, from 1981 Naropa class]

Student: How about new wave (rock 'n roll music), do you think that could change the…

AG: I think it (already) has - new wave. I think new wave (punk) is a definite step forward. It makes, it.. Like (the) Beat thing made use of a lot of early elements, from (William Carlos) Williams and (Marsden) Hartley and (Walt) Whitman. The new wave and punk sensibility struck me as a major cultural trans-shifting, a rejection of the Beat sentimentality and heart and hyper-political anger and activism (the anger part). The rejection of the.. See, the new wave thing (which is interesting, between you and me, actually), the new wave thing put down the Beat thing, because it was too political, because it tried self-righteously to save the nation without first saving itself, without first examining its own clarities and conscience and aggression, without first resolving its own aggressive tendencies. The Beatniks went out to save the.. to lay a script on the nation. And the new wave people said.. or to me, that is.. - who was it? the guy that David Bowie worked with? the American?

Student (CC): Lou Reed?

AG: Yeah. Not (Lou) Reed, the other guy.

Student (Randy Roark); (Brian) Eno?

Peter Orlovsky: Izzy Pop?

AG: Iggy Pop

Peter Orlovsky: Iggy Pop

AG: I had a funny conversation with Iggy Pop just on this subject, and he said, "You guys are all over". No, "You guys blew the shot"

Student (CC):  Iggy Pop's just..

AG: Well, of course it's pride, but he doesn't have to be the greatest…

Student (CC): No..

AG: … or the rightest…

Student (CC): … but..

AG: …it's core sample opinion, which was probably a typical new wave opinion.

Student (CC): Well these roots go back to the Velvet Underground and…early rock 'n roll..


[The Velvet Underground]

AG: Yeah


[Elvis Presley]

Student (CC): Elvis (Presley) shaking his hips

AG: Well, his roots go back to Beatnik days, actually - Iggy Pop.  But anyway, growing up, he said, "You guys blew it". And he never said how, but I figured it was just basically that thing of overtly going out finger-pointing, he thought. I thought it was a bit harsh. I said, "Wait till you get yours", myself, I said, "Wait until you grow up and be famous - and really famous, and have to face getting to be forty (sic) and having to deal with the nation as dealing with the nation.    What were you saying?

Student: Well, I just (thought you were saying that he…)

AG: No, I was saying that (the) new wave was putting down the Beat imagery

Student: Right…. 

AG:  (And) for good reasons, I think. You know, why not?  You need another generation to invent its own, not just for sentimental reasons, but to correct the abuses of the old, or the impurities of the old

Student: But do you really think that new wave is really into the inner self?

AG:  Well…

Student: It seems more, to me, to be pretty much into the violence of the society, rather than an inner peace of the soul 

AG: It's pretty complicated. Both ways. For one thing, I don't think the Beat group was actually political, to begin with. (Jack) Kerouac, (William) Burroughs, myself, Peter (Orlovsky) and Gregory (Corso), although we were occasionally involved in "politics", if you heard Gregory's poem "Bomb" last night (sic), it wasn't political in any recognizeable form by the politicos of the 'Fifties or 'Sixties, because it was rising above the bomb to say that the only answer to the bomb was beauty - not anger, not fight, not fear - that you had to surpass the bomb in imagination in order to beat the bomb, if you're going to beat it at all and not even care whether you beat the bomb, if you're going to beat the bomb. You have to renounce trying to compete (with) the bomb, if you're going to compete with it. Just like you have to renounce enlightenment if you want to be enlightened, according to traditional theory


[ SDS Anti-War Protestors, 1967]


[Jerry Rubin in the HUAC Committee Room, October 1 1968]

The 'Sixties hippie wave was the one that introduced the political - the overt political, Marxist rationalistic content. We were reasonable politically but we were not rationalistic - introduced the Urizenic aspect of (an) aggressive attempt to restructure the world - good-hearted, but done in anger (the gestures made in anger created more anger, as Jerry Rubin found out with his slogan "Kill your parents" (which he didn't mean literally, he just meant kill the parents inside you. But he said it in such (an) un-upaya way, in a way that was so unskillful that it could be used and taken by Newsweek, Time, everything, to mean "Kill your parents", that this was a revolt, (that ) you were supposed to go out and (literally) kill your parents. Naturally, the whole middle-class objected - they didn't want to be killed! Anybody who was a parent objected - and very rightly! - That's no way to do a revolution. That's like going through the whole Russian Revolution shot again. 

Student: Yeah, that (wasn't smart)..




AG - or "Bring the war home" - waving a Viet Cong flag, and saying, "Bring the war home here" - that's not calculated to end the war! (this (was) at a time when most of the Americans really wanted to end the war - after 1968, fifty-two percent of the American people though the war had always been a mistake, according to the Gallup Poll). 

Student: Yeah, but…

AG: So what we needed was leadership.  Go on..

Student: "Bring the war home" also meant bring that level of pain and suffering…

AG: Right

Student: …to the mind, or the empathy,  of the people here.

AG: Yeah. It meant that, and it was understood as that, and so I would march behind that flag. Although, half the time that flag was carried by George Demerly [sic] in New York, who was an FBI agent who was just trying to outrage the public and make us look bad.. 

[Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately twenty-one-and-three-quarter minutes in and concluding at approximately twenty-nine-and-a-quarter minutes in] 

Friday's Weekly Round-Up - 171

[Iggy Pop and Johnny Depp - Photographs by Allen Ginsberg c. The Estate of Allen Ginsberg]

Iggy Pop interviews Johnny Depp in the current Interview magazine (Vanity Fair’s Julie Miller also picked up on this, on their blog, summarizing it, a little moralistically, with a shock-horror headline (more demonizing?) -  "Johnny Depp Entertained Allen Ginsberg's Shameless Flirtations During the Beat Poet's Final Years". "Shameless flirtation"?
 - Depp: "It was sweet. I just think he wanted affection on whatever level."

Iggy Pop: You mention Ginsberg flirting with you. He visited me once but he didn't flirt, so I'm kind of hurt. I think I was a little over-the-hill by that time. He just looked around my apartment and went, "How much did this cost?" [laughter]



Johnny Depp: I met him when we were doing this documentary called The United States of Poetry in 1995—I was reading some Kerouac for the movie. Afterward, I offered to give him a ride home. They'd sent a limousine—back in those days it was a stretch-limo—and Ginsberg got in and goes, "Wow, how much do you think this costs per hour?" [more laughter]

Iggy Pop: I think, later on, he was a little obsessed with that stuff. But I understand. Those guys were the quintessential starving artists.

Johnny Depp: Indeed. Being in his New York apartment felt like you'd walked into 1950. 



Iggy Pop: With the little Zen tchotchkes. 



Johnny Depp: And books everywhere. He was a relentless flirt. Every time I saw him, he'd want to hold hands. It was sweet. I think he just wanted affection, on whatever level.

The Allen Ginsberg Project posting on Iggy Pop can be read here
The Allen Ginsberg Project posting on Johnny Depp can be read here

Open Culture, always Beat-attentive, generously spotlighted this week Allen's 1980 Shakespeare class at Naropa.
For more of Allen-on-Shakespeare see here, here and here.



[Harry Smith - Photograph by Allen Ginsberg c. Estate of Allen Ginsberg]


On the occasion of the re-issue of a new, limited-edition vinyl release by Portland's Mississippi Records of Harry Smith's "Anthology of American Folk Music", Dave Miller at Oregon Public Radio interviews Eric Isaacson, the label's boss, and Rani Singh (head of the Harry Smith Archives).  

[Daniel Radcliffe]

From a French interview with Daniel Radcliffe (on playing Allen Ginsberg): 
"I discovered Allen Ginsberg at fourteen . That was the age when I read the first lines of his poem "Howl ". I read the rest of his work much later. I remember at the time I found it all very chaotic and dark. I also felt closer to Jack Kerouac . His work spoke to me more. ( J’ai découvert Allen Ginsberg à 14 ans. Cet à cet âge-là que j’ai lu les premières lignes de son poème "Howl". J’ai lu le reste de son œuvre beaucoup plus tard. Je me souviens qu’à l’époque j’avais trouvé tout cela fort chaotique et sombre. Je me sentais d’ailleurs plus proche de Jack Kerouac. Son œuvre me parlait davantage. - What have you discovered about him with this film? (Qu’avez-vous découvert de plus sur lui avec ce film ?) - I mostly understood what the real relationship was that he had with his mother ... but also with the rest of his family. Not forgetting his friends. In a certain sense, these human relationships have influenced his poetry. Once filming ended, yes, I can say that I became a big fan of Ginsberg's work. (J’ai surtout compris quelle était la véritable relation qu’il entretenait avec sa mère… mais aussi avec le reste de sa famille. Sans oublier ses amis. Dans un certain sens, ces rapports humains ont influencé sa poésie. Une fois le tournage terminé, oui, je peux dire que je suis devenu un grand fan de la littérature de Ginsberg.)

et aussi en francais - les Beats - (Le Magazine Litteraire) 

Some recent ( you may well have missed them) obituary notices - on Rene Ricard in The Daily Telegraph and  Robert LaVigne (this week) in the L.A.Times

[Rene Ricard (1946-2014)  - Photograph by Allen Ginsberg c.Estate of Allen Ginsberg]


[Robert LaVigne (1928-2014),  in 1965, San Francisco,in his studio - Photograph c. Larry Keenan]

Friday's Weekly Round Up - 165

[Allen Ginsberg, 1954 - oil on canvas - painting by Robert LaVigne]

Two weeks since the last round-up, so let's get right to it.


[Robert LaVigne - Photograph by Myles Aronowitz]

Robert Lavigne - The troubling case of Robert LaVigne and the allegedly stolen paintings.

Newspaper reports last year noted a court case involving LaVigne and his former assistant George Chebanyuk - ("Chebanyuk is alleged to have tried to sell off six works created by LaVigne, including a nude presumably depicting Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg"). 

A jury deliberated for four hours, on February 4, and returned a not-guilty verdict. 
A civil lawsuit remains outstanding (in May, Chebanyuk sued the Seattle Police Department for the return of the artwork). 

Over all this in-fighting and bickering sits the sad, dwindling, spectre of the artist (seminal artist of the Beat Generation), "in declining health".   

[sad update - we've just heard today (Friday February 21) of the death, yesterday in Seattle, following a stroke and brief hospitalization, of Robert LaVigne - he'd been, as we say, ailing for some time -  he was 85 - more news when we get it - he's, of course, very much in our thoughts]




Vintage Ginsberg audio - Ginsberg reads (Giuseppe) Ungaretti - Thanks to Guilherme Ziggy for putting up on Soundcloud Allen's July 1967 reading, at the Festival of The Two Worlds in Spoleto, from "Il Taccuino Del Vecchio" ( Ungaretti's "The Old Man's Notebook").
Plenty more Ginsberg on Soundcloud. See, for example here - and here - and, most interestingly and curiously, here.



More Burroughs materials.  (Burroughs, of course, is, likewise amply featured on Soundcloud).  We don't think we've mentioned the University of Delaware Library's show - "Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted - William S Burroughs at 100" on view until June 13. We did mention the Lawrence Art Museum's William S. Burroughs - Creative Observer (up for a week or so more, until March 2nd). Curator Yuri Zupancic can be seen speaking of that show, and of Burroughs' art work in general, here. 

Recommended reading - Chal Ravens' piece, "The Priest And The Wild Boys - William Burroughs As Musician", in The Quietus - on "the rise and fall of (his, Burroughs') musical legacy".
William, having been commissioned by the magazine Crawdaddy, on attending a Led Zepplin concert in 1975: "I declined ear-plugs. I am used to loud drum and horn music from Morocco, and it always has, if skillfully performed, an exhilarating and energizing effect on me".
(The rest of that piece (including Burroughs' interview with Led Zepplin's Jimmy Page) may be read here).

Iggy Pop "reflects on Burroughs' extraordinary life with close friends and artists who felt his influence", on BBC's Radio 4, here.

Here's Heathcote Williams' recollections, (looking back over almost five decades), of Burroughs in London.



Jaap Van Der Bent's judicious review of  Hilary Holladay's American Hipster (Herbert Huncke biography) on the European Beat Studies Network may be found here 

Check out also Estíbaliz Encarnación-Pinedo's review (both in English and Spanish) 0n Bob Kaufman

and Thomas Antonic's conversation with the extraordinary ruth weiss, on the same site, is also well worth perusing.

The European Beat Studies Network next conference will be in Tangier, Morocco in November (November 17-19). For more details on that - see here 




[Maggie Estep (1963-2014)]

New York East Village stories - Poet/performer Maggie Estep died last week - a little too soon, a little too suddenly. An alumnae of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at  Naropa (she memorably studied there in the mid 1980's, taking classes with, amongst others, Allen and Burroughs)

Here's a little memoir/note she wrote on Allen, on the occasion of  last year's Tompkins Square Park "Howl" Festival:
"His was an excellent spirit. He gave me very useful critiques when I was starting out, and I also had the honor of opening for him at NYU [New York University] not too long before he died. Best part of it was coming off the stage and Allen standing there beaming, then giving me a bear hug and saying, "That was magnificent". It meant the world to me - 
Also, one time, my kid brother Chris was visiting me at my hovel on East 5th Street in the mid 1990's. He casually asked me for Allen's street address and then said, "I'm going for a walk". Chris came back several hours later to report that he had randomly rung Allen Ginsberg's bell, said, "I just want to shake your hand" into the intercom, then was buzzed up. Allen showed him his library (really, his library) and made him some oatmeal".  

Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop, photographed here in his apartment at the Christodora on Avenue B, just down the street, in Allen's old neighborhood, New York's East Village, on April 14, 1990

There's a delightful documentary from around this time (made by Dutch film-maker, Blam Van Splunteren) - Iggy showing the film crew around, giving them a guided tour, around what was then a decidedly different neighborhood!



Iggy - perhaps this is the ultimate Iggy footage - Iggy and The Stooges in 1970 at the Cincinnati Pop Festival. Iggy's legendary crowd-surfing and peanut-butter smearing (!)

and, of course, the legendary bod!

Little Caesar - cover-shot (1978) by Gerard Malanga, on the cover of Dennis Cooper's pioneering LA literary magazine]

Gay Pop? -  Joe Ambrose in his 2007 biography, Gimme Danger, The Story of Iggy Pop, writes - "Many people who knew him or worked with him, based on what they saw, find his recent hetero assertions hard to swallow [sic]. One band member refers to downright peculiar backstage behaviour involving Pop and Allen Ginsberg [sic] after a show"

 - All this innuendo - Isn't the author being more than a little prissy here?

Candid and always articulate (even when wasted!) - Iggy interviews are an interesting sub-genre. We'll list a few of them here, starting with a frustrated Iggy in 1977 on Peter Gzowski's 90 Minutes Live (he was interviewed but he wasn't allowed to play), followed by the remarkable interview (broken tooth and all) in 1980, on Tomorrow, the Tom Snyder Show. Ten years later, here he is interviewed by Thierry Ardisson in a Parisian night-club. Here's an illuminating interview on French tv (from 1998) - here, here and here.

- and a close-up from Vox Pop

Chrome Dreams, in 2006,  put out a CD of "Classic Interviews" (among them, this one, this one, this one and this one)

Classic Iggy? - well, Allen always liked this one:

Here's Iggy in October 1977 performing live at the Manchester Apollo, eight years later

Here's Iggy performing in Paris, Olympia, 1991 (with his ass bare!) -  here, here and here.

Perhaps the most useful and informative survey (at least of the first part of his life) is this German tv documentary, Lust For Life 

 [2014 update - Hot damn! they've taken it down, but you can still get a taste of it here]

A lot has gone down since 1986 when that was made. Iggy's still with us real and raw, currently touring with a re-formed Stooges (see here), inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame a few years back, a curious phenomena, ubiquitous (is that the right word?), a (seemingly indestructible) "living legend". 

Legend? - that's something you can have fun with - and take to the bank!

We'll conclude with another image of Allen's: