THE BEAT SCENE: PHOTOS BY BURT GLINN + FERLINGHETTI TRAVEL JOURNALS + NAKED LUNCH RESTORED + THE BEAT MUSEUM

Published by Reel Art Press

This is the real deal - a cache of unknown pictures by Burt Glinn [1925-2008], a top Magnum photographer which had remained untouched for 50 years - of the Beat scene on the East and West coast of  America in the period 1957-1960.

More than half the negatives are in colour  - the first ever colour photos of The Beats of Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg and his lover Peter Orlowsky.

Jack paddles around making faces, wearing a beret and a long raincoat, Allen and Peter sit on a bench in Washington Square with their publisher Barney Rossett of Grove Press, Corso poses on window ledges and, in one dramatic set of b&ws in a club, he is being restrained from getting into a fight. Ferlinghetti stares straight into the lens, can of beer in his hand, framed by the bookshelves of City Lights with Shig, the shop manager

But there is much more than the poets themselves. The first set entitled 'upper and lower bohemians 1957' shows an upscale party with the ub's chatting and surrounded by modern art followed by portraits of artists in their studio, ub's at exhibition galleries and great pictures of Merce Cunningham and his top dancer Anita Huffington. The stunner for me is de Kooning 's studio with Larry Rivers. Brilliant. Cut to a jazz club where ub's and lb's crossover.

Gregory Corso [detail]

'east coast beats 1959' is a wonderful selection of shots, beginnig with the entrance stairway to the Seven Arts Coffee Gallery which hosts night-reading poets from 2am every Friday.  We see Ted Joans reading at the Bizarre coffee shop in Greenwich Village, Leroi Jones with his baby, and other photogenic beats posing against the evening sky on New York balconies. Cut to a "Rent A Beatnik" party where the young, stoned and beautiful drink, and a jazz club called the Half Note followed by a show at the March Gallery and hipsters hanging out at the Cock-n-Bull.         

west coast beats 1960 follows similar tracks, mixing b&w and colour, travelling across the city from location to location, wild parties in lofts, cellars and clubs. Two jazzmen play chess against a startling yellow and orange curtain. Dancers get into the groove at the Fox and Hound, We see artist's apartments and studios, musicians jamming in a studio with an eccentric collection of instruments. Buddhist Alan Watts laughs in front of a giant amplifying horn.

Three essays open the book, beginning with 'burt glinn 1959'  by Sarah Stacke, a photojournalist who was enlisted by Glinn to help digitise his huge photo collection. She writes:

'Eudora Welty said that photographers  must "be sensitive to the speed not simply of the camera's shutter, but of the moment in time."  The social movements as well as the gestures and peculiarities of individuals to which  Burt paid attention, speak to this quality. Burt's images of the Beats, almost always made at night, arrange arms in motion, burning cigarettes, berets. typed pages and earnest conversations inside the frame. The compositions render the culture of the nonconformity and spontaneous expressionism embraced by the Beats.' 

Jack Kerouac and Barbara Ferrera [detail]

Next comes 'burt and the beats' by Michael Shulman who was working with Tony Nourmand, the publisher of this book, on a Glinn retrospective when they discovered this cache of colour shots.

Glinn by Shulmnan's account and others was an incredibly accomplished photographer who covered a wide range of reportage from Hollywood celebrities to Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution. Shulman says that Glinn's core talent was 'his unerring way of getting inside the emotional truth of the situation'  You can see a lovely selection of Glinn's work on his own website: www.burtglinn.com

Also included is an essay by Jack Kerouac originally written for Holiday magazine entitled 'and this is the beat nightlife of new york' - his own guide to the beat underworld of the time.


This excellent book, well-designed with nice-smelling paper, is a really valuable addition to The Generalist's Beat library and comes highly recommended. It's a window into an undocumented world. You can almost smell the atmosphere, hear the jazz and the bongoes. We're digging these Beats man!

The publishers Reel Art Press [RAP] are new to me. They're producing tasty and sylish visual treats so check them out here: www.reelartpress.com

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FERLINGHETTI TRAVEL JOURNALS

Published by W.W. Norton. 2015

This marvelous volume I found in Bow Windows bookshop in Lewes, my go-to-place for random discoveries.

'Writing Across The Landscape' is composed of extracts from Ferlinghetti's travel journals, 'the fruits of over five decades of travel.' from 1960-2010. What a remarkable man he is [See: 'Ferlinghetti Speaks Out at 99. His voice as vital as ever' (San Francisco Chronicle/ 21 March 2018)]

A very few extracts have been previously published but most were typed up from the handwritten journals Mr F had given to the Bancroft Library at the University of California and had never looked at them since. He collaborated with the editors on both selection and editing. The book includes many of his drawings.

The Editors Giada Diano and Matthew Gleeson write: 'Together, these records of observations and experiences show that the poet's journeys around the world form one of the most crucial and rich sources of creative inspiration.'  

Interestingly, they claim 'though he is often identified with the writers of the Beat generation because he published them through City Lights, Lawrence has never considered himself a Beat. These notebooks testify to his connections to a wide international field of avant-garde literary ferment and poetry of dissent.'




It begins with the Normandy Invasion [he also saw Nagasaki in August 1945 after the bomb). In the 60s alone he went to Latin America, Cuba, France, North Africa, La Paz, Russia, Rome and numerous other destinations. He was in Paris in the summer of '68,

The book is a masterclas of both poetry and prose, imagination and observation, to be dipped into time and again. The book is fêted

on the back with heartfelt puffs from, amongst others, Francis Ford Coppola and Patti Smith, who has this to say.

"Courageously beautiful, High spirited and sensual, Ferlinghetti's private jounal reads like an open letter to the reader. One can hear his distinctive voice. Our American poet and wanderer. As beloved as the land itself."

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NAKED LUNCH RESTORED

This new restored text is considered closest to Burroughs' original wishes. The edition also contains many appendices regarding the birth of the project and various alternative texts. This edition is the Grove Press paperback first published in 2001. The Editor's Notes begin:

'Naked Lunch evolved slowly and unpredictably over nine tumultuous years in the life of its author, William Seward Burroughs. The novel was not created according to a predetermined outline or plan, but accumulated through a decade of travel and turmoil on four continents and continually edited and reedited not only by its author but also by his close friends Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. It went through innumerable partial and "final" drafts, mostly in Tangier, Morocco, and took its final shape only when Maurice Girodias told Burroughs in June 1959 that he needed a finished text within two weeks, for publication by his English-language Olympia Press in Paris. Thus, by its very nature, Naked Lunch resists the idea of a fixed text, and our re-creation of the history of its composition and editing has required a careful review of many disparate typescripts in various archival collections, as well as the two first editions in 1959 (Olypia Press) and 1962 (Grove Press) - the texts of which are quite different.'

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THE BEAT MUSEUM

Check out the latest Beat News here

'The Beat Museum was founded by Jerry and Estelle Cimino in 2003, in Monterey, California. After meeting John Allen Cassady (son of Neal and Carolyn Cassady), John and Jerry developed a two-man show and took it on the road in an Airstream RV they dubbed the Beat Museum on Wheels (or the Beatmobile for short), sharing the story of the Beat Generation with young people from coast to coast. They arrived in North Beach in 2006, and a temporary Beat Museum opened in the Live Worms gallery on Grant Avenue. Following a brief move to The Cannery at Fisherman’s Wharf, we moved into our permanent home at 540 Broadway, across the street from City Lights Books.'

See: 'At Shrine to Beats, Squares Are Welcome, Too' [New York Times/2012]

SEE PREVIOUS POSTS ON THE BEATS HERE: hqinfo.blogspot.com/2011/11/history-of-beats.html

THE HISTORY OF THE BEATS

I have Neil to thank for, out of the blue, arriving at my house and giving me this book. As regular readers will know, I have a deep-seated love for the writers and poets of the Beat Generation, forged in my teen years. I was privileged to meet and interview Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs and to engineer (with my son Al) a live internet link-up with Lawrence Ferlinghetti from San Francisco to the Komedia club in Brighton. The many and varied beat posts on this blog are summarised below. I have a big library of beat literature and have read extensively and religiously much beat and beat-inspired texts, biographies and historical accounts. So…
For my money, this is the single best history of the Beat Generation that I have ever read and I will explain why. The story of the Beats – both the main characters and an extremely large supporting cast – is complex. They were, apart from everything else, almost constantly on the move. They were restless souls and tormented ones – constantly falling in and out of relationships. Many of them were bisexual and slept with each other in between or at the same time as maintaining relationships with women.
Out of this emotional maelstrom, out of their wanderings, missions and adventures not only on the highways of America but also in the jungles of Mexico, the medinas of Morocco,  the Beat Hotel in Paris, the Buddhist monasteries of Japan and the streets of Varanasi, allied with their almost constant experimentation with drugs of varying descriptions and illegality, flowed a body of work that continues to inflame minds and spirits and has great relevance in our own times.

 

Treasures from the Beat Library of The Generalist Archive: ‘Beatitude Anthology’ [City Lights. 1960]; first issue of the ‘City Lights Journal’ [City Lights.1963]; First edition UK paperback of ‘The Subterraneans’ by Jack Kerouac [Panther. 1982]; First edition of' ‘The Last Words of Dutch Shultz’ by William Burroughs. [Cape Goliard Press. 1970]

This book will rearrange your understanding not only of the Beat movement but also of the times and politics they moved through. One book, Big Sky Mind, argues that the Beats were the transmission apparatus for introducing Buddhism and eastern thinking into America. The beats in their own time were vilified by the mainstream media, arrested and imprisoned, often deported.

Bill Morgan has done a really wonderful job of integrating all this ferment  into a seamless readable narrative, formidably well-informed and beautifully written. He brings out the humanity of these characters as they battled with their demons and is, by and large, non-judgmental. He has given shape and context to the Beat Generation story and communicates it in a way that makes sense to succeeding generations. These were the pioneers of a revolution in poetics, politics, social mores, activism, communal living, backpacking, altered states of consciousness. Their collective work is like a deep well of inspiration that has great resonance in these troubled times.
Bill Morgan is the American author and editor of more than a dozen books about the Beat writers and has worked as an editor and archival consultant for nearly every member of the Beat Generation.
His UK equivalent is Barry Miles, who was close with both Burroughs and Ginsberg and has written biographies of both them and Kerouac. He has also acted as an archivist  and in 2003, co-edited the revised text edition of Naked Lunch. His latest book ‘In The Seventies’ (following on from his excellent ‘In The Sixties’ a period during which he was close with Paul McCartney, ran the Indica Bookshop and was one of the founders of International Times) adds more to his Beat reminiscences.
Particularly good are his accounts of Ginsberg’s upstate New York commune and adventures on the West Coast plus Burroughs’ early ‘70s sojourn in London (seriously weird). Miles was sound-editing Ginsberg’s tape archive in the Chelsea Hotel and there’s an interesting chapter on another of the Hotel’s residents, the strange and wonderful genius Harry Smith. Also learnt a lot from the chapter on Wilhelm Reich, inventor of the orgone box.
The Typewriter Is Holy by Ted Morgan [Free Press 2010]
In The Seventies by Barry Miles [Serpent’s Tail 2011]
SEE ALSO:
The Sea Is My Brother: The Lost Novel by Jack Kerouac
See IMDB details of the cast and production credits for the ‘On The Road’ movie, directed by Walter Sallis, due for release 2012.
PREVIOUS POSTS
2011

• BEATNIK NEWS: ON THE ROAD MOVIE

2008

• NAKED LUNCH@50

2007

• JACK MICHELINE: BEAT WRITER
• BEAT BOOKS 2
• ON THE ROAD' IS 50: The Scroll
• ON THE ROAD IS 50: Critics, Movie, Lost Play, Esta...
• 'ON THE ROAD' IS 50: A Digital Moment

2006 

The Beat Library [New additions]

2005

ARCHIVE: MEETING ALLEN GINSBERG

ARCHIVE: MEETING WITH BURROUGHS AT THE CHELSEA

W illiam Burroughs & T.S. Eliot Fighting in the Ca...

REVOLUTIONARY THINKING and PROTEST MOVEMENTS / BEAT AND COUNTER CULTURE MEMOIRS

THE GENERALIST has found over the years that books arrive in clusters, either by chance or by following a chain of connections. These titles all seem important in their own way, mirroring the zeitgeist of our times.

Micah White's 'the end of protest' is about new beginnings. MW was the co-creator of the #occupy meme. Hatched in Canada in the offices of 'Adbusters' magazine, the idea spread to 100 countries.

His book is partly a thought-provoking history of protest and revolutions examining their philosophies and forms of action and partly a set of new ideas on how we should run such matters in future. He looks back on Occupy Wall Street as a "constructive failure", something to learn from. He urges us not to use tactics that have already been discredited - like mass marches.  

Published in 2016, he might need to reassess this view in the light of Extinction Rebellion, whose carefully staged theatrical protests in London successfully catapulted concern about climate change into the mainstream media and conventional politics.

On May 1st, the UK became the first country to officially approve a motion to declare an environment and climate emergency. The BBC reported:

 'This proposal, demonstrates the will of the Commons on the issue but does not legally compel the government to act, [It] was approved without a vote....Dozens of towns and cities across the UK have already declared "a climate emergency".There is no single definition of what that means but many local areas say they want to be carbon-neutral by 2030.'

Mica White was one of the speakers at an OECD conference in Paris this June which was also attended by another speaker Alev Scott who wrote a diary piece for the Financial Times. The theme of the conference was Emotion which, Scott writes, 'is fuelling global politics now more than ever.' 

He discussed with others  'the long-term strategy of the Extinction Rebellion organisers, whose slogan “respectful disruption” signals their ambition not to overstretch the patience of the public.

'Do they represent a new era of canny protesters? Are they leading the way not just for protest movements but for future political parties with their stated agenda of “breaking down hierarchies of power”? The conversation felt immediate and far-fetched all at once.'

You can find out a helluva lot more about Mica White on his website

Extinction Rebellion was established in the United Kingdom in May 2018 with about one hundred academics signing a call to action in support in October 2018 and launched at the end of October by Roger Hallam, Gail Bradbrook, Simon Bramwell, and other activists from the campaign group Rising Up!  See the main website here: https://rebellion.earth/

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Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals is a 1971 book by community activist and writer Saul D. Alinsky about how to successfully run a movement for change. It was the last book that Alinsky wrote and was published shortly before his death in 1972. His goal for the Rules for Radicals was to create a guide for future community organizers, to use in uniting low-income communities, or "Have-Nots", in order for them to gain social, political, legal, and economic power.Within it, Alinsky compiled the lessons he had learned throughout his experiences of community organizing from 1939–1971 and targeted these lessons at the current, new generation of radicals. [Source: Wikipedia]

Published in 2018, 'Resist' is a punchy primer for would-be-activists. Its author Michael Segalov claims that we're living in an Age of Defiance, a time when taking action has never felt so necessary. It's about turning your ideas into actions - targeting those in power, getting press and social media attention, understanding your legal rights. There's also many activist stories to inspire.

What makes the book zing is the red and black graphic design by Oliver Stafford, the Art Director at Huck magazine

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Two absolute gems for anyone interested in Beat Culture. The great poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of the City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, has written a remarkable autobiography at the age of 100. Its a triumph. The first part is the detailed story of his extraordinary real life childhood. He then swings into a huge poetic river of consciousness that roams and rambles and inspires, as if he was channeling Kerouac's monstrous feat of typing 'On The Road, on one log scroll of paper, while sitting in the john on benzedrine. The sweep and majesty of his mind will set your brain whirling. This is seriously deep food for thought and elightenment.

This relatively rare book, originally published in 1959 by Julius Messner in New York and republished by Martino Publishing in 2009, The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton is a remarkable portrait of the beat scene in Venice Los Angeles in the 1950s. In the preface he writes: 'In the case of the holy barbarians it is not an enemy invasion threatening the gate, it is "a change felt in the rhythm of events". Lipton and the writer Kenneth Rexroth met in Chicago in the late 1920s and they, he says, 'were as beat as any of today's generation...We have had to wait for the world to catch up with us, to reach a turn, a crisis. What that crisis is and why the present generatioin is reacting to it the way it does is the theme of this book.'

'Newer than the North Beach, San Francisco scene or the Greenwich Village scene, Venice has afforded me an opportunity to watch the formation of a community of dissaffilliates from its inception.... It is a deep-going change, a revolution under the ribs.'

This is an intimate picture of a lost world, cool as shit daddyo, stuffed with poets, artists, jazz musicians and pot. Here's a little sniff of the book's general vibe. Lipton brings it to life brilliantly.

The Joint is Jumpin' 
'By the time Chuck Bennison arrived, red-eyed after an all night session at bassist Phil Trattman's pad exploring "other realities" with the help of pot and jazz rhythms, a poetry reading was under way. Angel Dan Davies was holding forth with his latest jazz-inspired "open line," free form pieces, Nettie was in the kitchen again preparing a buffet supper, and the chairs, divans, floor — every square inch of sitting, lounging, squatting and sprawling space in the house — were full up. Beer cans, lemonade glasses, wine glasses, ash trays, sketch pads and notebooks made for precarious footing. The doorbell kept sounding every few minutes as the party got really swinging, for it had gotten around that Les Morgan, the popular Negro trumpet man, might fall in sometime during the evening and maybe bring along a couple of men from his quintet for a jam session of poetry and jazz. I had talked to Lester early in the week and he had eyes to make the scene, but you never could tell about Les and his boys; they didn't know quite what to make of this poetry and jazz thing and besides, they might get hung up at somebody's pad and not show up till around midnight, if at all.' 

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 I was tipped off to the Lipton book by this other gem 'Dancin' In The Streets', [Charles H. Kerr. 2005] a fantastic history of two mimeographed magazines of the 1960s - The Rebel Worker' edited by Franklin Rosemont in Chicago and 'Heatwave' edited by Charles Radcliffe in the UK. These guys were far left and far out, as interested in comics as they were anarchism. They absorbed surrealism, followed the activities of he Situationists and the Provos and played a big role in revitalising the International Workers of the World (IWW) known affectionately as the Wobblies. Here are two extracts from Rosemont's brilliantly detailed account:

[Generalist Archive]

'It was the Beats, however, who gave us—my high-school friends and me—our first glimmer of poetry as a living, breathing, here-and-now activity. Serious students of the work of Kerouac and his comrades—Gregory Corso, Bob Kaufman, Diane di Prima, Gary Snyder and others—we went on to read the work of authors they admired: Rimbaud, for example, and Baudelaire, and D. T. Suzuki's writings on Zen. Such reading was actively discouraged by our so-called teachers, but we couldn't have cared less. How excited I was when Okakura Kakuzo's Book of Tea (cited in The Dharma Bums) arrived in the mail! For months afterward several of us would get together at odd moments and sit around a circle in the full-lotus position in our own version of the tea ceremony. The spirit of the thing was surely closer to the Marx Brothers than to Buddhism, but that didn't bother us. Breaking out of the repressive machinery of suburbia wasn't easy, and we tried to make use of anything that came our way.

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'On the first of these adventures, I lived for several weeks in San Francisco's North Beach. Those who had arrived there a year or two earlier assured me that the "scene" in 1960 was in an advanced state of disintegration. For me, however, and for others my age who had made their way there from points all over the map, North Beach was so much livelier than anything we had known before that we found it hard to imagine how it could have been better. 

The neighborhood was hit hard by the massive publicity the Beat Generation was receiving—almost all of it hostile, some apoplectically so, like Alfred Zugsmith's ugly movie, The Beat Generation, which fostered the ludicrous misapprehension that the Beats were dangerous criminals. Ironically, this disinformation campaign brought square tourists by the thousands, especially on weekends, as well as "hippies," a term then used by Beats to designate the uncreative camp-followers who parasitically attached themselves to the Beat scene. 

Even worse, anti-Beat propaganda gave the police a pretext to escalate their war on all nonconformists. Police persecution, much of it aimed at interracial couples or groups, was an everyday fact of life in North Beach. I spent a large part of every day at two of the main Beat hangouts of those days: the Co-Existence Bagel Shop, a bar/deli at the corner of Grant Avenue and Green Street, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights Bookstore a few blocks away, where I was able to relax in an armchair and read hundreds of poems as well as every book they had on surrealism and Zen. 

My San Francisco sojourn retains a special luster in my memory as one of those rare experiences that are truly worthy of one's child-hood dreams. My first sight of the Giant Redwoods, a couple of days climbing in the Sierras, hearing Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane live for the first time: How can one measure the impact of such priv-ileged moments? Intersecting with all the rest was a strong ancestral dimension, for my father's family were San Francisco pioneers...,  

It was a season of lucky breaks; small incidents had a way of adding up to something grand. With two friends—bass-player John R. White and a black street-philosopher from New York, known only as Ike—I went to Monterrey for the Jazz Festival. By mid-afternoon half the population of North Beach was there. John, Ike and I took seats before the tickets went on sale, so we enjoyed the whole program for free. (None of us had the price of admission in any case.) The music that night had all the magic of dreams; I hear its golden echoes to this day. It was there that I first heard Ornette Coleman live. After listening to his rip-roaring oracular sounds we wandered off in the darkness dizzy with joy. 

Brightest of all in my memory of that period is the unparalleled experience of community it provided. Life in North Beach was the closest thing to marvelous anarchy it has ever been my pleasure to enjoy. Despite battles with landlords, harassment by tourists, and mounting police terror, the Beats and their allies—old-time hoboes, jazz musi-cians, oyster pirates, prostitutes, drug-addicts, winos, homosexuals, bums and other outcasts—maintained a vital community based on mutual aid, and in which being different was an asset rather than a liability.'

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Charlie Radcliffe produced his own mag Heatwave and wrote for the Rebel Worker. His own two-volume set of memoirs are epic in proportions, a masterpiece of memory, bringing much needed alternative views of the history of youth culture from the 50s onwards: the politics, the music, the drugs, the Peace Movement, the Situationists, LSD. The extraordinary amount of detail in these two volumes is awesome, informative and totally entertaining.

On his website, the works are trailered as follows:

Arguably one of the quintessential ‘60s figures Charles Radcliffe sat down with the anti-bomb Committee of 100, edited one of the most influential revolutionary magazines, Heatwave, joined and resigned from the Situationst International, was a hashish dealer, edited an underground magazine, Friends, became an international drug smuggler and served a long prison sentence. A lifelong enthusiasm for blues and friendships with Murray Bookchin, Chris Gray, Eric Clapton, Franklin and Penelope Rosemont are also dealt with in this stunning autobiography.

The book versions are currently out of print but are available in a Kindle edition here. Described on this site as follows:

In his seminal socio history of Punk, “England’s Dreaming”, Jon Savage makes the bald assertion that “Charles Radcliffe laid the foundation for the next twenty years of sub-cultural theory”, referring in particular to his 1966 piece “the Seeds of Social Destruction’ that appeared in the first of two issues of Radcliffe’s co authored, insurrectionary street-zine, ‘Heatwave’ 

Teddy Boys, Ton Up Kids, Mods and Rockers, Beats, Ban the Bombers,The Ravers ( jazz heads) : Radcliffe argued that the bank holiday bust ups, the demos, the riots, the sex drugs n rock n’ roll, these were all part of a “youth revolt… (that ) has left a permanent mark on this society, has challenged assumptions and status, and been prepared to vomit its’ disgust in the streets. The youth revolt has not always been comfortable, valid, to the point or helpful. It has however made its first stumbling political gestures with an immediacy that revolutionaries should not deny, but envy.”

Radcliffe joined the International Situationists within the year, alongside (English founder ) Chris Gray, but by the time 1968 had ended, and youthful revolt had fed into wide pockets of political turmoil globally, Radcliffe had started to drift towards other poles of late 60s’s counterculture. He ended the 60’s in long hair and loon pants, banged up in a Belgian prison on hash smuggling charges.

This epic ( 900 + pages) book follows Radcliffes’ trials and tribulations from public school beginnings, into the 60’s underground and the Mr Nice style large scale hash smuggling years (his friend, Howard Marks, pops up throughout) , on to prison, divorce, remarriage and beyond. It offers up important first hand perspectives on 60’s / 70’s counterculture, and an intimate portrait of a man who seemed to face the slings and arrows that fortune threw at him with a never ending supply of equanimity. And high grade hash.

BEAT NEWS

A long time coming, ‘On The Road’ the movie has flashed through the cinema screens and is due out on DVD at the end of this month. Caught one screening but as yet not able to study in detail. So first impressions: much better than I expected. I liked the main players –  Sam Riley as Sal Paradise (Kerouac) and Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady). They have style and guts and are the best portrayals of these two beat characters to date. In many ways the film is a companion piece to ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’, director Walter Salles’ previous film on Che Guevara. As in that film you have two main male characters off on the adventure of a lifetime. There’s lots of road travel and stunning landscapes. One character is quite bookish, the other is obsessed with girls (and guys). There’s loads of cafes, restaurants and bars shot lovingly in warm tones and the movie is full of great cars and period details. If I knew nothing about The Beats i don’t know how much I would grasp. Vigo Mortenson turns up as William Burroughs but who he you might wonder if you didn’t know. As you are probably aware, the version of On The Road that was first published was heavily censored. It is only in recent years that the full uncut scroll version of the book has been generally available. The film seems to stem from that as there is lots of sex and drugs in this. Its a long ride (perhaps overlong) with a lot to take in. The film is beautifully shot but perhaps it has too much of a rosy glow and not enough stark grittiness. Look forward to a second viewing. See more here on the film’s website.

There is a good Wikipedia entry on the long history of attempts to make this movie. I was unaware that Kerouac wrote a letter to Brando suggesting he play Dean Moriarty with Kerouac playing himself. Now that would have been a stunner. I knew Coppola had held the rights since 1979 but didn’t know he had Ethan Hawke and Brad Pitt initially lined up for it. Apparently, as preparation for the film, Salles made a documentary Searching for On the Road, in which he took the same road trip as the lead character in the novel and talked to Beat poets who knew Kerouac. That would be great to see. The movie got mixed reviews although most were unanimous in praising Hedlund’s full-on performance.

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As chance would have it, just received a rental of ‘Gang of Souls: A Generation of Beat Poets’, directed in 1989 by Maria Beatty. The whole film consists simply of interviews and readings by the following: William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso,  Allen Ginsberg, Diane Di Prima, Anne Waldman, John Giorno, Richard Hell, Marianne Faithfull,Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins and Jim Carroll

The filming is largely very unflattering to the individuals concerned. The lighting is harsh and many of the participants do not look at their best. The editing is very basic. But the film is still of real interest. Its rare to see Corso, Di Prima and Ed Sanders and Jim Carroll (of ‘The Basketball Diaries’ fame). Richard Hell looks and sounds great but Lydia Lunch, Anne Waldman and John Giorno just make me wince. Its stretching the term Beat Poets to include  Marianne Faithfull but what the hell.

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Left: Sketch for Presspop figurine, designed by Archer Prewitt, sculpted by Kei Hinotani.

A new biography of Allen Ginsberg by Steve Finbow has recently been published by Reaktion Books in their series ‘Critical Lives’. [see Previous Post review of Charles Bukowski bio in the same series]

Finbow, who is apparently an ‘Extraordinary Senior Lecturer’ at North-West University in South Africa, has fashioned a fast-paced highly condensed chronological narrative of Ginsberg’s Life and Works in some 200pp.

An achievement in itself given the vast ocean of material that Ginsberg himself produced – not only his poems but also his journals, correspondence, photos etc – documenting himself and his colleagues in intense detail. Add to that another oceanic outpouring of writings about GInsberg which includes several extensive biographies by Barry Miles, Michael Schumacher and Bill Morgan that Finbow fulsomely acknowledges.

Its an exhausting read. Ginsberg was a restless spirit, constantly working and travelling the globe, lecturing and weaving a vast network of contacts. Finbow does an efficient job of documentation with a list of referenced sources and an extensive bibliography and the book serves a useful role of providing a introductory overview of his extraordinary life. From the books intro:

‘Ed Sanders writes that it ‘might be interesting to do a Total Biography of Ginsberg….perhaps a day-to-day bio, maybe 25,000 pages long’….in the belief that sometimes ‘an eight-hundred-page biography is nothing more than dead conjecture’ [a quote from Don DeLillo], I offer you one a quarter of that size in the hope of re-animating, for a time, a complicated, passionate and ebullient life.’

The book is a useful complement to two others:

‘Screaming With Joy: The Life of Allen Ginsberg by Graham Caveney [Broadway Books/New York. 1999] provides a shorter skate through AG’s achievements and adventures accompanied by a wealth of great images.

‘The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg: A Narrative Poem’ by Edward Sanders [ The Overlook Press. Woodstock. 2000] is what it says – a remarkable book-length documentary poem. I love this book.

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Whilst researching the above, came across this copy of The ‘Naked Lens: An Illustrated History of Beat Cinema’ by Jack Sargeant [Creation Books. 1997] A revised edition (2009) is now available from Soft Skull Press. Its a true cult classic containing much undocumented material and original interviews.

The book was launched with a showcase of Beat movies, selected by Jack, as part of a brilliant Lewes Live Literature event ‘The Savage God’, organised by Mark Hewitt, which ran from June 26th to July 10th 1999. I was asked to give an introductory talk on Sunday July 4th appropriately. Jack was present and, as I recall, talked about each film before it was shown.

The programme which ran through afternoon and evening featured the Robert Frank film ‘Pull My Daisy’, a Ginsberg documentary, Peter Whitehead’s famous ‘Wholly Communion’ about the 1965 Albert Hall poetry event, two of the legendary short films of Anthony Balch featuring William Burroughs, and the cult movie ‘Chappaqua’ by Conrad Rooks which was fascinating.

*

STOP PRESS

News of what sounds like a really great documentary on Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Entitled Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder’, directed by Christopher Felver. Read article here and see trailer here. Thanks to BIGFUG for the tip-off.

A complete list of all Previous Posts on Beat Culture, including my original interviews with William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg can be found summarised here.

THE HISTORY OF THE BEATS

THE GENERALIST: NEWS DIGEST 1

This is a new feature aimed at keeping up with the sharp increase in information, stories and feedback coming into The Generalist's post box every month.

BIKE PALESTINE

A few months back, The Generalist published a report from the artist George Snow about his first visit to Palestine [See: OUR MAN IN RAMALLAH]. Now delighted to receive news that he has set up an exciting new venture called Bike Palestine which is running three 7-day cycle tours of the region, starting 25th April, 26th September and 23rd October. You can follow developments on his Bike Palestine blog. George is collaborating with the Siraj Centre in Bethlehem, Palestine Siraj aims to create links between the Palestinian people and people from around the globe through educational tourism, interfaith and ecumenical dialogue,  culture and youth exchange programmes. every month. George teaches 3D animation from his home in Cortona, Italy. His school's web site is www.3D3world.com

POLISH ROCK

Great as ever to hear from the journalist Chris Salewicz who has recently come back from Poland where he attended the launch of a new documentary 'Beats of Freedom' which he narrates, about the modern history of Polish rock and the part that it played in the transformation of the culture and the country from the 50s until the fall of communism. The film, which features great live concert footage, is directed by Leszek Gnoinski and Wojciech Slota.

According to the Krakow Post: 'The film features plenty of archival footage of some of the most iconic festivals and influential bands that worked to provide a voice for those without one under the communist regime, as well as present-day interviews with many of the musicians. Amongst the featured bands you'll find such names as Czesław Niemen, Maanam, Brygada Kryzys, Perfect, Republika, and Lady Pank.'

There are two great trailers on YouTube here and here.You can just about hear the interview with Chris on Polish TV (Chris's words are slightly obscured by the audio of the simultaneous translation). Like everything that Chris does, this looks to be a sterling and fascinating piece of work. Release details to follow.

[You can hear a great interview with Chris talking at length about his excellent biography of Joe Strummer on The Audio Generalist]

TV SMITH & THE ADVERTS:

Contacted by WDF Productions who are currently producing a feature length music documentary called "Sell Me Something Cheap", about the career of singer/songwriter TV Smith and The Adverts. TV Smith is still performing (solo) and details of his latest releases and gigs as well as his large back catalogue can be found on his website.

FORTEAN CONFERENCE

Have received news from The International Fortean Organisation (INFO) who are staging 'FORTFEST A-Wake!: A Tribute to John Michell & John Keel' on April 24th/25th at the Peabody Court Hotel in Baltimore, MD. Keynote speakers include Joselyn Goodwin, Doug Skinner, Stephen Braude, Daniel Pinchpeck, Gary Mangiacopra, Phyllis Benjamin and Orion Foxwood. Delighted to read that, on the Sunday, a coach will take you on a tour of 'Symbolist Washington (beyond Dan Brown)’. It says: 'Do ghost photography and EVP recordings on site. Bring water, a snack and infra-red film!

John Keel died on July 3, 2009 aged 79. He was a prominent American ufologist (an observer and chronicler of UFOs – unidentified flying objects) and the author of The Mothman Prophecies (1975), a book about paranormal phenomena which was made into a successful film starring Richard Gere. Read his Daily Telegraph obituary here.

See Previous Posts on John Michell: JOHN MICHELL: A TRIBUTE/JOHN MICHELL MEMORIAL/JOHN MICHELL: SACRED GEOMETRY]

  

SILKSCREEN POSTER ART

SPECIAL PRINT RELEASE
2010 JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE
FIREHOUSE GOLDENVOICE #94/#95 poster by CHRIS SHAW AND RON DONOVAN. There are several variants available for purchase from Hangar 18 - but hurry. Most have sold out.

Those who plan to attend this years Glastonbury Festival should look out for Ron Donovan and Chuck Sperry of the Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company in San Francisco who have been invited to join  Chris Hopewell and partners from Jacknife Posters in Bristol to produce fantastic silkscreen posters live. Anyone at all interested in this great artform, which is gaining ground in the UK, should check them out. [For more about Ron and Chuck see Previous Post: PHOTOGRAPHING POSTER ART ]

RETURN OF POLAROID

One of the new re-engineered instant film cameras made public in January this year at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). For more details see Polaroid

Some while back  The Generalist  posted a story about The Impossible Project, whose aim is to produce Polaroid film for millions of Polaroid owners around around the world who still have their cameras  - an estimated three million are in circulation - but cannot get the instant film cartridges since Polaroid bankrupt in 2008. The two initial releases of film - PX 100 and PX 600 Silver Shade - are now available for $21 a pack.

To buy film and find out more, check out the Impossible Project shop. Sale started March 25th. See news report: Former Polaroid employees bring instant film back to life by Tim Bradshaw [Financial Times]

For background see the main Impossible Project site and a great Wired  feature; 'The Impossible Project: Bringing back P:olaroid' by Mic Wright. [Nov 2009]

[See Previous Post: PHOTOGRAPHIC FUTURES 2]

LONDON CALLING

 Just received my copy of Barry Miles' excellent new book 'London Calling: A Countercultural History of London since 1945' [Atlantic Books], a more detailed review of which will appear in the near future.

BEAT CULTURE: BRION GYSIN

 

Regular readers of The Generalist will know that one of the consistent features of this blog over the last seven years has been Beat Culture. I was fortunate in the 1980s to interview both William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg but I was entranced by the Beats from my late teens onward and remain to this day a beat aficionado. 


So naturally I know about Brion Gysin or at least I thought I knew until, thanks to Matthew Levi Stevens, I was turned on to this remarkable 72-minute documentary by Nick Sheehan on Gysin's life and times entitled 'FLicKeR' on the UBUWEB site - a truly amazing repository of arcane/occult/cult material in which its easy to get lost for hours - be warned.

 Gysin's reputation has always been overshadowed by Burroughs all-pervasive presence and achievements yet it was he who invented the 'cut-up' technique that Burroughs made his own. 

Brion Gysin staring into the Dreammachine. Photo entitled 'Flicker' was taken by Ian Somerville in Olympia, Paris in 1962.

 He also invented the Dreammachine (with the help of Ian Somerville), the first work of art designed to be experienced with your eyes closed - a radical piece of art technology capable of giving you a drugless high by stimulating the brain's alpha waves. 

He also discovered the Master Musicians of Jojouka in Morocco, running a nightclub where they played regularly, and enabled Brian Jones to make a legendary recording of them. [I have a rare if slightly battered copy of the original 1971 vinyl release on Rolling Stones Records - now a collector's item. Just discovered it was rereleased in a deluxe package in 1995.

Trailer for a film enitled 'The Master Musicians of Joujouka Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival 2008', directed by Daragh McCarthy. Not clear wjhether it has been released yet.

What I didn't realise before was his accomplishments as an artist. At the of 17 he joined the Surrealists but his work, which was inclued in a major Surrealist show that also featured work by Picasso, was withdrawn at the last minute after Andre Breton expelled the young man from brotherhood. His in-depth study of Japanese calligraphy and Islamic art lie at the roots of his visual expression.


The film includes contribution from such luminaries as Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithful, Kenneth Anger, Genesis P. Orridge, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and John Giorno amongst numerous others, and contains remarkable archive footage. Its a stunning production but - be warned - this is not for the faint-hearted or for those prone to a reaction from flickering lights.


Extraordinary to discover that a) at one point Phillips the electronics company were interested in the Dream Machine and that b) W. Grey Walter, the cybernetics pioneer, was also interested in the 'flicker effect' and its stimulation of the brain waves.


As if this film was not enough to take on-board, Gysin's work is further illuminated by a wonderful website that provides a valuable showcase of his life and achievements: http://briongysin.com/


So I now understand Gysin in a larger way I think that we are only now beginning to really grasp what an important figure he was - or rather is  - because his work continues to have a huge influence.

Fire-damaged front cover of Gysin's Moroccan-based 
novel, a hardbacked 1st edition copy which I bought
in a Harrod's book sale in 1971. I strated re-reading
it this morning and its recpatured my imagination.

 Gysin remains an illusory figure with many identities and personnas who operated at the meeting point between science and art, the occult and the arcane, blending cultures, exploring other dimensions. In the same way that Marcel Duchamp influenced developments in modern art, Gysin's thoughts, artworks, projects and ideas permeate the networks of our electronic culture. He and Burroughs anticipated the Age of Control we live in and devised tools and methods to subvert it and gain true enlightenment.

 

The work of Matthew Levi Stevens and his partner Emma Doeve can be found at http://whollybooks.wordpress.com/ 

Stevens' booklet 'The Forgotten Agent & The Magical Universe of William S. Burroughs', describing his own experiences in the 'Chaos Magic' scene of the 1980s and his meetings with Burroughs and Gysin, is available for purchase from the site.




FOOTNOTE:


A major documentary on The Beat Hotel is due for release at the end of this year. More details on the Gysin site and here: http://www.thebeathotelmovie.com/

For the full list of Previous Posts on the Beats, see The History of The Beats. This post is also tagged under Beats.