Herbert Huncke Centennial

["Old-timer & survivor, Herbert E Huncke, Beat Literary Pioneer, early decades thief, who introduced Burroughs, Kerouac & me to floating population hustling & drug scene Times Square 1945. From '48 on, he penned remarkable musings, Collected as autobiographical vignettes, anecdotes & storyteller's tales in the classic The Evening Sun Turned Crimson (Cherry Valley, 1970) and later Guilty of Everything. Here age 78 in basement back-yard, his apartment East 7th Street, near Avenue D, New York, May 18, 1993" - (Photograph and Inscription by Allen Ginsberg)]  

January 9 1915, the birthday of Herbert Huncke, original Beat - yes, today marks the day, the official day of the Herbert Huncke Centennial. There'll be a film-showing, as we mentioned last week, of Laki Vazakas' extraordinary documentary, Huncke and Louis,  (in Lowell, not so far from his birthplace, in Greenfield, Mass), tonight, to mark the occasion, and, next week, a big gathering in San Francisco at the Beat Museum featuring Laki Vazakas, Hilary Holladay, Ben Schafer, Dennis McNally, Brenda Knight, Regina Marler and Tate Swindell 

Meantime, Huncke on the Allen Ginsberg Project -

There's some invaluable resources. Don't miss our four previous birthday postings
  - here, here, here and here 

His memorable 1982 workshop at the Jack Kerouac Conference at Naropa is available (with transcription)  here

Our note on Hilary Holladay's 2013 biography, American Hipster - here

A shout-out to the sadly out-of-print Herbert Huncke Reader here



here's a selection of Laki Vazakas videos  (including, first off, this - a Q & A from a 1995 visit to the University of Connecticut and Ann Charters)



and this (1994, in New York  at Cafe Nico) 




Here's, From Dream to Dream,  Huncke recorded in 1994 in Brugge, Belgium

Here's another (this time Amsterdam) recording

Alongside the essential Huncke and Louis footage, there's also James Rasin's The Burning Ghat (1990) (Huncke (and Louis Cartwright's) only non-documentary acting roles)

and take a look at this - pages from (and notes on) Huncke's legendary journals

Huncke Tea Company, the official web-site of the Herbert Huncke Estate, is now an on-going essential resource. See here for (amongst other things) Allen's December 5 1965 letter to Herbert, dutifully transcribed by his literary executor and Huncke-0-phile, Jerome Poynton  (there's still a few places in deciphering where perhaps you can help)

More Herbert Huncke tomorrow

Gregory Corso Reads The Bill of Rights

Gregory Corso reads the Bill of Rights? - That's right. Footage here from Jerry Poynton and James Rasin of Gregory, in April of 1992, atop a New York City rooftop (Roger & Irvyne Richards' old building, and Gregory's old hang-out, on Horatio Street, over in the West Village). Gregory is filmed reading from/commenting on/annotating - in his own inimitable style (sic!) - several choice selections from the (US) Constitution and the Bill of Rights - the Amendments!  - "the Amendments, they're the big ball-game". 
(Thomas) Jefferson? - "If he'd been in England at that time, he would have been a poet...but because he was in America, he was a politician - they didn't have any poets then - but they had goody-gumdrops, like Tom Paine, Sam Adams, (Alexander) Hamilton - good people" -  
Gregory's conclusion? - "It ain't bad, America, but, still, there's something wr0ng". 
Planes fly by and distract him - twice! - "It's the fuckin' police!" - "The skies are filled wih seagulls and air-planes". 
The footage was edited by Francois Bernardi, whose Corso and Huncke footage (including subsequently-released out-takes) is available for your perusal here.

Herbert Huncke's Birthday

[Herbert Huncke reading at Cafe Nico, New York, March 12, 1994 - video by Laki Vazakas] 

Herbert Huncke - "American hipster" - hustler and saint, poet and story-teller, central source for the Beats, "the man who turned on William Burroughs" -  Today would have been (he made it to his 81st) Huncke's 98th birthday.

Our 2011 post with comprehensive Huncke links is here.

We've featured it before but here again is a link to Francois Bernardi's film, Original Beats, from 1996 (featuring footage of two quintessential Beat scallywags - Herbert Huncke and Gregory Corso).

and here is something we've never featured - 3o minutes of extras, out-takes from Bernardi's film



One final piece of rare Huncke-ana (Huncke-ana?) - The Burning Ghat - filmed on location in Huncke's then-apartment on Henry Street in Brooklyn in 1990 (written and directed by James Rasin and Jerome Poynton, edited by Bernardi (shot by Michael Slovis) and featuring Huncke's long-time companion, Louis Cartwright)
"Although conceived and scripted as a dramatic short, the film incorporates documentary elements reflecting the real-life relationship between Huncke and Louis".
"O Rare Herbert Huncke live on film! The Burning Ghat features late-in-lifetime old partners Huncke & Louis playing characters beyond themselves with restrained solid self-awareness, their brief masquerade of soul climaxing in an inspired moment's paradox bittersweet as an O.Henry tale's last twist", wrote Allen, reviewing the footage. Yes, that is a surprise ending.

          

Oh - and why oh why is this wonderful book  (edited by our good friend Ben Schafer) currently out-of-print?

Fridays Weekly Round-Up 22

[Patrick Fischler - the next Irwin Garden/Allen Ginsberg?]

Those Beat movies just keep on coming. Last week, we mentioned the film adaptation of The Beat Hotel. This week the hot news is that Kerouac’s Big Sur is being adapted as a movie. Not that it hasn’t already been. Curt Worden’s 2008 documentary, One Fast Move or I’m Gone covers pretty much the same territory. Joseph Jon Lanthier’s review of that movie, for Slant magazine, can be found here.

But this is adaptation, not documentation, so we’re talking On The Road 2 here! Jean-Marc Barr has been cast as Kerouac (Jack Duluoz); Josh Lucas, Cody Pomeray/Neil Cassady - the obvious question, who’s gonna play Irwin Garden (a.k.a. Allen)? Right now, the actor Anthony Edwards (who’s certainly in the cast) is whispered to be taking that part - but, no, he'll be playing Lorenzo Monsanto (Lawrence Ferlinghetti), it turns out - and Balthazar Getty plays Michael McClure. Actor, Patrick Fischler is the latest to now be rumored to have the part (but) no confirmation at the time of writing,

Allen encounters? We’ll continue to be featuring them. This one by Sam Hamod, a lively account for Contemporary World Poetry, of an Iowa pig roast (yes, you heard that right!) makes for occasionally excruciating reading. As does, in a different way, Ed Ward’s account of William Burroughs Jr (specifically about him and only tangentially about Allen, but well-written, and worthy, we think, to be included here).

Two other interesting (well-researched) accounts of so-called "marginal Beat figures" - Al Filreis in the new Jacket2 writes about Elise Cowan - and Keith Seward tracks down/uncoversthe curious story of Jacques Stern (Stewart Mayer's memoir, in the same forum, is also well worth consulting, alongside poems by Stern, an introduction by William Burroughs and thecomplete text of Stern's novel, The Fluke).

Over at David S Wills' Beatdom two old friends, Dmitri Mugianis, and James Rasin (who's just- recently-completed Candy Darling doc is beginning to get wider circulation) remember Gregory Corso.

More Kerouac news - Jack Kerouac and Lowell. We remember, several years back, the fight that several local residents had in convincing the city fathers to honor its native son. That was then, this is now. Lowell Celebrates Kerouac!, the 24th (sic!) annual Kerouac Festival is scheduled for October 2011. Meantime, there's this, the "Kerouac audio project":"The idea is to use Kerouac - and his worldwide fame - as an entry point into the cultural and social history of Lowell at mid-century. The voices in the interviews (in this broad proposed oral history) will tell the stories, making concrete abstract topics like class, labor, race, gender, sexuality, immigration, cultural hybridity, and "the American dream". The Kerouac audio project is part of a larger plan to further develop Lowell's creative economy, in part around Kerouac. We want to continue to develop the city's rich Kerouac materials and connections, using Jack as a portal into all sorts of other parts of the twentieth-century history of Lowell - one of the most interesting cities in all the United States of America".

Last week, we asked what you might be up to for June 3rd, (Allen's 85th birthday); well, plenty of New Yorkers know exactly what they'll be up to. The East Village's annual Howl! Festival is scheduled to coincide this year with that date. Preparations are already being made. Poet,C.A.Conrad, has launched a special Allen Ginsberg edition of his video-blog, Jupiter 88 - "Poets are invited to share the importance of Ginsberg's poetics and activism that continues to CHANGE THE WORLD!'. Many more voices to come, but, first up, Maryland-based poet, and director of the Rose O'Neill Literary House, Mark Novak : "..Allen really taught me that poetry is a great device for political protest..and I think in this age and this era of what we see happening in Wisconsin, what we see happening to working people in Ohio, with labor educators in Michigan, and public sector workers all around the country, that the message of Ginsberg and the message of poets to be political and speak out, is probably more important than ever".