Istvan Eorsi has already been profiled on The Allen Ginsberg Project - here. In 1995 he brought a Hungarian film crew (lead by director Gyula Gazdag) over to New York to film Allen in his downtown environment. "A Poet On The Lower East Side: A Docu-diary" was the result, "a free-wheeling cinéma vérité documentary", in the words of one reviewer. To continue (and providing for us a useful synopsis): "Beat poet, Allen Ginsberg, host(s) radical maverick Hungarian writer, poet and translator, Istvan Eorsi, on his one-week visit in May 1995 to the Lower East Side. The(se) soul-mates talk about various subjects, that range from Buddhism to the meaning of "first thought", ['first thought, best thought'], and stroll together around Allen's neighborhood, where they are followed by a camera crew, as they encounter Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky and Jonas Mekas, visit a Korean grocery, reminisce about a poets' hang-out coffee house long gone on MacDougal Street [the San Remo], visit several bookshops, St Mark's Church (Poetry Project), and chat with sincere protesting squatters about to be evicted in Alphabet City. There's also time for a visit to Ginsberg's hometown of Paterson, N(ew)J(ersey), a chance to hear Allen record "Howl" at the Looking Glass Studios, and hear (him) sing "Father Death Blues" in his humble old-fashioned kitchen [it’s the bedroom, actually]. If you've ever wanted to catch the legendary poet...in some spontaneous moments on camera, here's your chance in this heartwarming no-frills doc..”
Yes, "Father Death Blues", there's filmed recordings of it here and here, but this late version (against a backdrop of books, Tibetan statue and thangka painting - Allen in crisp white shirt, Allen at home) is surely one of the most beautiful.
[István Eörsi, Kiev Restaurant, NYC August, 1984. photo c. Allen Ginsberg Estate]
Today marks the anniversary, six years on, of the death of István Eörsi, Allen's friend, Hungarian translator, documentarian (1997's "A Poet on The Lower East Side"), and, considerable presence in his own terms - poet, playwright and political activist (Eörsi, a student (and life-long disciple) of the philosopher Georg Lukács, was imprisoned in 1956, following his activities as part of the Hungarian uprising, and spent three-and-a-half years in jail).
A "clowning stoic" as his friend George Konrad once described him, Eörsi remained true, uncorrupted, deeply committed, a gadfly for the truth, a significant intellectual and cultural figure for the next more-than-four decades.
In 1989, when Communism fell, he was one of the founding members of the Hungarian liberal party (SzDSz - Alliance of Free Democrats - true to his maverick status, he left the party in 2004). His last published article, as George Gomori notes, in a reasonably comprehensive obituary notice in London's Guardian, was, "characteristically (sic)", "a protest against the editor of a Hungarian television program, who (had) cut certain sentences out of an interview conducted with him a few days earlier". His death (from leukemia) was a tragedy. We remember him well and raise a glass of slivovitz to him (his favorite tipple!). He remains fondly recalled and sorely missed.
