BEAT NEWS

Last amended - January 31, 2012

Onetime Black Mountain poet Theodore Enslin has died. Here is a link to a feature on him in the UK daily newspaper The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/30/theodore-enslin

A link to news of a new film in the making, based around the David Kammerer murder in the 1940s that involved Lucien Carr and Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg amongst others. Kill Your Darlings starts filming in March. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16652271

You won't be especially surprised to hear that the Walter Salles film adaptation of Jack Kerouac's ON THE ROAD has hit the buffers, at least temporarily. Is there a curse on this film? The project would seem to have run into some legal quicksand. One of the people who were actually with Kerouac and Cassady on their road trips, Al Hinkle, has been reported as saying, “There’s some kind of legal problem – one of Jack’s relatives is challenging Coppola’s rights to the book. I haven’t heard of any set dates for the movie premiere.” Al Hinkle has been posting on Facebook - he added  “Just to let you all know: I don’t really have any information on when OTR will be coming out, or where it will be released. I hear the same things everyone else does; whether that is really going on or not, I don’t know for sure. But the minute I get any solid information, I will share it with you all.” One of the film producers, a Charles Gillibert, has been vocal on Twitter. He has reportedly said - “sorry everything is frozen." Since then he has further stated that “....we are closing discussions with the future best partners to defend ON THE ROAD and they have to be involved in decisions with market..”  Since the legal and final ruling in recent times (about 6 months ago) that the will which allowed the Sampas family control of Jack Kerouac's estate was found to be forged, this posed the question - who was the legal owner of the estate? That appeared to be Paul Blake Jr, the son of Jack's sister Nin. Putting two and two together it might appear that this could be the stumbling block. But that is guesswork. Of course, we want to see the Kerouac estate controlled by the rightful people and in a caring and responsible way. So this may be what is happening. Let us hope it can be overcome and us fans, the ones who really count as avid readers of Kerouac, can get to see what surely will be a decent adaptation of Kerouac's book. Don't get the popcorn just yet.

Thanks to film director and friend of Beat Scene, Nic Saunders for sending in this link to possibilities surrounding the film KILL YOUR DARLINGS - a movie in the works about the Beat era in the 1940s in NY. http://broadwayworld.com/article/Daniel-Radcliffe-Eyes-Role-as-Allen-Ginsberg-in-Kill-Your-Darlings-Movie-20111129#

A link here to a pretty damning look at Jack Kerouac's THE SEA IS MY BROTHER. Recently published in entirety for the first time. Normally The Guardian is sympathetic to Kerouac's work. Not this time. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/25/kerouacs-lost-debut-novel-published

Five Leaves Press have recently reissued three London bohemian type books, originally issued in the early 1960s. These books, published under the sub title 'Beats, Bums and Bohemians,' might be of great interest to you Beat Generation fans. Laura Del-Rivo's novel, The Furnished Room is set in the underground world of early 1960s London. Terry Taylor's Baron's Court All Change is of a similar vintage, a rites of passage novel. A cult classic. Colin Wilson's Adrift in Soho is the third novel here. Widely considered to be a true and rare English Beat novel, it was issued in the early 1960s. A film based on the novel is due for release before very long. For more information on Five Leaves Press, go to www.fiveleaves.co.uk

Henry Denander’s Kamini Press has recently published
The Measure of Small Gratitudes by Ann Menebroker

All 125 books signed by the poet.
Thirteen new poems. Mini-chapbook format in wraps.  Ann, who lives in Sacramento, California, has published over twenty collections of poetry during a writing career spanning fifty years. More info about this and other Kamini Press titles on the website www.kaminipress.com.
Kamini Press, Ringvägen 8, 4th floor, SE-117 26  Stockholm, Sweden
editor@kaminipress.com

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If you are interested in either Herbert Huncke or Gregory Corso, or both, then here's a chance to see a thirty minute documentary film about them. Click on this link to view it. Thanks to Eddie Woods for telling me about it. http://blog.sensitiveskinmagazine.com/what-not/video/original-beats-gregory-corso-and-herbert-huncke/

GARY SNYDER - GEIST DER BERGE, a translation of Snyder's poem The Mountain Spirit - taken from Mountains and Rivers Without End + an essay from In Back of the Fire is a new publication from Alta Quito. Just 270 copies of this hand sewn limited edition. Contact Alta Quito Publikationen, Ulrideshuser Str 1, 37077 Gottingen, Germany -Tel 0551-205074. Email harbaum@gmx.de

News of an adaptation of the William Burroughs work QUEER being put into production. Click here to find out who's involved. http://www.nme.com/filmandtv/news/steve-buscemi-to-direct-burroughs-adaptation-queer/251650

KEEP THIS QUIET: A MEMOIR - MY RELATIONSHIP WITH HUNTER S. THOMPSON, MILTON KLONSKY and JAN MENSAERT by Margaret A. Harrell is out now. For more information go to http://hunterthompsonnewbook.com/

A link here to Iain Sinclair's talk given in Charles Olson's Gloucester in Massachusetts on October 15. This is a four part film of approximately one hour. http://www.iainsinclair.org.uk/2011/10/15/talk-on-charles-olson-oct-15/

Thanks to Beat Scene subscriber Carole who sent me information about a new play based on Allen Ginsberg's long poem KADDISH. The play had a brief run in New York recently. Go here for more information about it. http://www.adaptationsproject.org/Home/Works.html

Carole also informed me about THE POETRY DEAL: A FILM WITH DIANE DI PRIMA. A very recent project, you can find more at www.DianediPrimaDocumentary.com

Remembering Joy Walsh (1935-2011)

The following article appeared in a Buffalo newspaper recently, it documents the life of Joy Walsh who ran the magazine MOODY STREET IRREGULARS: A JACK KEROUAC NEWSLETTER for fourteen years. Many of you will be familiar with her. I’ve left the article as it was.

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Joy Walsh, the Clarence Center-based poet who gained international recognition as the editor and publisher of a journal dedicated to the history and the cultural influence of Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation of writers, died on October 9th following a brief illness.  She was 76.  Throughout the 1970's and 1980's, Walsh was a key contributor to the Buffalo area literary scene as a poet, editor, literary scholar and performer. She was an active member of the Niagara-Erie Writers, and taught a writing workshop at Attica Correctional Facility co-sponsored by N.E.W. in the mid-1980’s. She joined the Earth’s Daughters Collective in the late 1970’s and became one of the co-editors of Earth's Daughters magazine—now the longest continuously published feminist literary magazine in North America—through the early 1990’s.  Walsh also worked for The Humanist magazine during the time it was based in Amherst, New York.                     She was best-known, however, for founding, editing, and publishing “Moody Street Irregulars” (subtitled “A Jack Kerouac Newsletter”), a journal dedicated to a wide range of writing about or inspired by the Beat Generation of writers in general, and Jack Kerouac’s work in particular.                     

From 1978 to 1992, she published 28 issues of the journal, which quickly won an international reputation and readership for its essays, commentaries, interviews and original poetry featuring such Beat Generation luminaries as William S. Burroughs and Carolyn Cassady (wife of Neal  Cassady, the real-life model for “Dean Moriarty” in Kerouac’s “On the Road”), as well as important scholarly contributions from poet Tom Clark, who went on to publish a biography of Kerouac in 1995.                                                    

Michael Basinski, now Curator of The Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo, met Walsh in Professor Marcus Klein’s 20th Century American Literature course in his first semester of graduate school at UB. “She talked to me about an idea she had for a [Jack] Kerouac magazine and was I interested, and did I wish to work on it with her,” he recalls, “I said yes.”                                                                                                                

Basinski went on to co-edit the first few issues of Moody Street Irregulars with Walsh, who was also assisted by Ana Pine on several subsequent issues. What he remembers most about working with Walsh was her enormous enthusiasm for Kerouac and the project: “All along over the magazine's long life it was Joy Walsh endlessly committed to Kerouac—I think the great spirit of his writing—committed to his energy (less interested in criticism, or so to speak, 'figuring it out') more interested in the raw passion and energy that Kerouac could and would and still does generate.  I left after a few issues but it was always all Joy—all energy for Jack Kerouac—a commitment, a melding in the energy that was [Kerouac’s] writing.”                                              

Walsh’s Textile Bridge Press also published books by several prominent Western New York based writers and poets including Manny Fried, Marion Perry, Boria Sax and Ryki Zuckerman.                                                         

Walsh was born Joy Ann Staley in East Liverpool, Ohio on May 3, 1935.  Her family moved to Buffalo, where she was raised in the Langfield projects during the World War Two era and afterwards.  She married businessman Thomas J. Walsh—the owner of Bison Truck Parts on Walden Avenue in Buffalo—in the 1960’s and moved to Clarence Center, where the couple raised two sons.                                                                                                 

Walsh attended SUNY-Fredonia—at first as a music major—before becoming enthralled with literature in general and The Beats in particular. She completed her B.A. in English and earned her Master of Arts degree in the Humanities at UB, writing her master’s thesis on critic and literary theorist Kenneth Burke.                                                                                                      

She was the author four collections of her own Beat-influenced poetry, “Locating Positions” (Backstreet Press, 1983), “Hymn to Prometheus Transistor” (Atticus Press, 1984), “The Absent are Always in the Wrong" (Water Row Press, 1985), and “Mary Magdalen Sings the Mass in Ordinary Time" (Alpha Beat Press, 1989).  She was also the author of a critical study “Jack Kerouac: Statement in Brown" (Esprit critique series, Textile Bridge Press, 1984.)                                                                                                

In 1983, Walsh was awarded a writer-in-residence grant from Just Buffalo Literary Center.  Owing in part to her connection to the Beats, and to the post-Beat writing that she championed, her poems, essays, and reviews were published in magazines and journals throughout the United States, Canada, England, Europe, Australia, and Japan.                                              

She is survived by her husband, sons Thomas and Christopher and their families, including eight grandchildren.                                                       

Former colleague Basinski remembers her as “full of wild crazy energy always,” while Ryki Zuckerman, a friend and one of her co-editors at Earth’s Daughters magazine, recalls that in her younger days, Walsh would arrive at her own poetry readings and writing workshops on the back of a motorcycle.                                                                                                            

She was quite an exceptional woman, for her own or any time. The 40th anniversary issue of Earth’s Daughters magazine (Earth’s Daughters #80) will be dedicated to her.

--R.D. Pohl

In England Colin Wilson's 1961 novel ADRIFT IN SOHO is a favourite work of many. It encapsulates many a dreamer's ideas of just hitch hiking anywhere, but in your own country. Hitting the road from the provinces to 'the smoke.' Of course London. In a way it is a rare English 'Beat' novel. Duffle coats instead of leather jackets. There is a film adaptation of this book in progress and it is hoped the finished work will be out to to coincide with a new edition of the book. Go to this site to read more.  http://www.adriftinsoho.com/

He was airbrushed out of the recent film about Howl and is in danger of being forgotten. Shig Murao was an integral part of City Lights bookstore for many years. He was co-owner and the guy who was prosecuted with Lawrence Ferlinghetti over Howl. A site has been set up for him. Thanks to Jay Jones for telling me about it. See it at http://shigmurao.org/Shig_Project/Home_Page.html

Jack Foley has written this recent article on the new film by English filmmaker Nic Saunders.

NIC SAUNDERS’ AT APOLLINAIRE’S GRAVE (2011)

Et ma vie pour tes yeux lentement s’empoisonne
And for your eyes my life takes poison slowly.
                —Guillaume Apollinaire, “Les colchiques” (“The Saffrons”)

Who weeps for the angels…or notices when they turn aside to stiffen their upper lips?

—Elizabeth Smart, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

There’s a story about the great French poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918). It’s said that on the day he died he heard voices outside his hospital window crying, “Guillaume est mort” (“William is dead”). The voices were referring to Kaiser Wilhelm II, who had not died but abdicated. Weak and delirious, Apollinaire—whose birth name was Wilhelm—thought the voices referred to him.

He needn’t have worried. Nic Saunders’ gorgeous new film, At Apollinaire’s Grave, shows him alive and well in Paris—and offering help to fledgling poets.                                                                                                       The Paris of the film is of course real—far realer than it is in Woody Allen’s latest. Saunders went to some trouble to be historically accurate. We see the exterior of the actual “Beat Hotel,” 9 Rue Gît-le-Coeur (Here Lies The Heart Street), where Allen Ginsberg lived when he composed the poems used in the film; as Philip Bulcock (The Poet) walks down Rue Beautreillis, we can make out the balcony of the apartment block where Jim Morrison died (buried, like Apollinaire, in the great cemetery, Père Lachaise); and as Bulcock walks along the Seine, we see the famous Parisian booksellers.                                                                                                                  

Yet the film is far from being a documentary of the real; it is rather a documentary of the spirit, of the process by which one achieves poethood—and so it is full of fantasy: visual distortions, enormously effective (and affective) music by Andy Dragazis, stunning juxtapositions, symbols. Death is everywhere, but, as Whitman said, death is different from what anyone thought, and luckier. Bulcock plunges himself into the world of death—the largest cemetery in Paris—but finally discovers there the energy of life. In an evocation of the period of the actual Beat Hotel—a seedy monolith of the fifties and early sixties, home to Corso (who named it), Ginsberg, Gysin, Burroughs, others—the film is shot in glorious black and white, except for one sequence which is shot in delicious, rich color. Summoned by a split-off version of himself, The Poet finds himself an honored guest at a banquet presided over by Apollinaire himself (who has been watching him throughout the film). Other attendees—as simultaneously dead and alive as Apollinaire—include Picasso, Gide, Cendrars, Tzara, etc. The Poet is simultaneously Allen Ginsberg and not Allen Ginsberg (he is wearing Ginsberg’s glasses but he has a published copy of “Howl” among his books). And he is making contact not with the Beats but with their progenitors, the group of “immortals” (the word is taken literally in this film) he wishes to join. These entirely male copains (no Gertrude Stein) offer him bread and wine, which he takes to make his “communion” complete. Yet there is also the visionary presence of a woman (Kasia Halpin) whose photograph we’ve seen earlier in his hotel room—a lover, a muse figure—and she is smiling. If the figures at the banquet—particularly Apollinaire—are his “fathers,” then she is very likely his “mother,” so that in a certain sense his advent as a poet involves a balancing of male and female energies—perhaps a final settling of accounts with his parents. At the climax of the ritual—and, in a way, the entire film is a ritual—he is handed a box containing his own living, beating heart. And the sound of the heartbeat (all puns intended) stays with us, transforming and replacing the earlier insistent sound of the typewriter. If Ginsberg’s poetry is deeply Jewish (Kaddish is the volume from which the poems quoted in this film are taken), Saunders’ film seems equally deeply Roman Catholic. After all, he is dealing with the French—with the country of the “Sacred Heart.”

Back in black and white, The Poet awakens and stares into a mirror; he makes the “Bogie” gesture from Breathless—and smiles. Bulcock has become not only The Poet but The Filmmaker! It’s as if Saunders is saying, “Hah! At last I have become Jean-Luc Goddard!” (Though I remember Belmondo making the gesture with his right hand: Bulcock makes it with his left.)

It’s a wonderful moment, but At Apollinaire’s Grave is full of wonderful moments. The central perception The Poet comes to is Ginsberg’s profound formula, “Mind is Shapely. Art is Shapely”—though he arrives at it in a sequence in which, amazingly, mind seems utterly chaotic. The formula is both Ginsberg’s and Saunders’ (and Kerouac’s) credo—an all-encompassing trust of imaginative experience no matter where it may lead. (“Don’t hide the madness.”) Ginsberg himself wrote of Kaddish, “In the midst of the broken consciousness of mid twentieth century suffering anguish of separation from my own body and its natural infinity of feeling its own self one with all self, I instinctively [sought] to reconstitute that blissful union which I experienced so rarely.”

In a final visit (it is, very symbolically, day 33), The Poet places a piece on paper on Apollinaire’s grave. The words are in French (so Apollinaire can read them more easily!) and, for us, in English: Joie toujours a suivi après la Douleur—je ne suis plus seul (Joy has always followed after Pain—I am no longer alone). And at the very conclusion of the film, Saunders gives us two quotations—words which echo one another and intertwine:

                                      Each ray of moonlight’s

a ray of honey

 *

Follow your inner moonlight

         Don’t hide the madness

The first quotation is by Guillaume Apollinaire (“G.A.”); the second is by Allen Ginsberg (“A.G.”).

At Apollinaire’s Grave is full of imagination and life. Philip Bulcock is wonderful throughout and his recitations of Ginsberg’s lines are beautiful. (Bulcock, who was born in Manchester, looks American—like Tom Sawyer!) And Aden Cardy-Brown is a wonderful presence as Apollinaire. Poetry may inspire films in various ways. Nic Saunders has found has found a way to weave poetry, for the most part an auditory art, into the very fabric of his film, for the most part a visual art. It is a beautiful and highly ritualistic combination. Art may be, as Apollinaire’s line perhaps suggests, a slow poison, but it is a poison that engages us, as this film clearly does, more fully in life. Nic Saunders’ films weep for the angels—but they also, as Elizabeth Smart goes on to say, teach them how to rumba. Je connais tout, fors que moi-même, wrote François Villon,

I know everything except for myself. At Apollinaire’s Grave is an opening into that deep mystery.

At Apollinaire’s Grave is the second of four projected films dealing with Beat experience. The first was Curses and Sermons (2009), with poetry by Michael McClure. The third, completed but not yet released, will deal with William Burroughs.

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Bukowski: the Bus Tour

Los Angelenos! Esotouric and City Lights Present: "Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's Los Angeles."

On November 12th, noon - 4pm, join Esotouric for "Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's Los Angeles," a four-hour bus tour presented in association with City Lights Books, in celebration of their latest Bukowski publication "More Notes of a Dirty Old Man."  Come visit the canonical locations of his life and myth, from Skid Row to the Post Office itself, the recently landmarked "Bukowski Court" to his favorite liquor store, Pink Elephant. Along the way, you’ll explore the people and ideas that made up the warp and weft of Buk’s rich inner life. Five lucky passengers will win a free copy of the book on tour day!

www.citylights.com

  If the world uncovered by the likes of Paul Bowles, Brion Gysin and the Tangier angled writing of William Burroughs ticks a few boxes for you, then TO MARRAKECH BY AEROPLANE, written by Stephen Davis may be just what you are looking for. Soaked in a terrain populated by Jajouka musicians and the lazy ambience of a few weeks basking in the Moroccan heat, listening to the winds and the cats, kif everpresent and enjoying the numerous cafes and restaurants offering local cusine, the journal like book is a throwback as Davis recalls the sometimes 'catty and provocative' Bowles, the outrageously hedonistic and ill fated Rolling Stone Brian Jones. Davis revels in the otherworldy pace of life in the old quarters as they coexist alongside the new world being built in the new millenium. The old ways cling on and Davis gives thanks for that. It is a window into a way of life that may be evaporating - overtaken by the rush of frenzied technological progress. Fittingly published by a press that seems preoccupied with Brion Gysin, they recently issued his LIVING WITH ISLAM. Aftermath Books, 42 Forest Street, Providence, Rhode Island 02906, USA. www.aftermathbooks.com

As the countdown to the release of the Walter Salles film adaptation of Jack Kerouac's ON THE ROAD novel gets ever closer, here is a link to one of a few sites that has been building the anticipation. Looking at these, often fan driven, sites, it seems that many are put up by really young people, this is good to see. Kerouac Lives! http://ontheroadmoviefans.blogspot.com/

Not sure how far along the project to get a brand new collection of Gregory Corso interviews published has got. It looks like a worthwhile book and one that should be encouraged. Check out the site at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1860098210/the-whole-shot-collected-interviews-with-gregory-c

  Beat Scene magazine has some very talented subscribers in the ranks. Now and then they remind me of this fact with the books, films, art that they produce. Henry Denander is a native of Sweden and runs the delightful Kamini Press. Pocket sized hand produced chapbooks, usually poetry and often illustrated with his own unique watercolours. The very latest breaks that mould a little. Guy R. Beining's Out of the Woods Into the Sun is a chapbook (always 4" x 6" inches) of his acrylic paintings. Henry Denander is a fan of Beining's poetry and this is the first in the Kamini Press Art Series. It is a lovely series. Other poets of late have included John Bennett and Tom Kryss. See www.kaminipress.com

I've had the pleasure of meeting artist Peter Tingey a few times through Beat Generation interests and have seen just a little of his work. Based in south London he has designed book covers, album covers and worked in various mediums. Inspired by his local surroundings as well as his globetrotting he always surprises yet has a particular style.  A visit to his site at www.tingey.info Well worth your time.

There is a new documentary film about Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters - MAGIC TRIP. Here is some of the promo on the film.

"Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood’s MAGIC TRIP is a freewheeling portrait of Ken Kesey and the Merry Prankster’s fabled road trip across America in the legendary Magic Bus. In 1964, Ken Kesey, the famed author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” set off on a legendary, LSD-fuelled cross-country road trip to the New York World’s Fair. He was joined by “The Merry Band of Pranksters,” a renegade group of counterculture truth-seekers, including Neal Cassady, the American icon immortalized in Kerouac’s “On the Road,” and the driver and painter of the psychedelic Magic Bus. Kesey and the Pranksters intended to make a documentary about their trip, shooting footage on 16MM, but the film was never finished and the footage has remained virtually unseen. With MAGIC TRIP, Gibney and Ellwood were given unprecedented access to this raw footage by the Kesey family. They worked with the Film Foundation, HISTORY and the UCLA Film Archives to restore over 100 hours of film and audiotape, and have shaped an invaluable document of this extraordinary piece of American history."

Click link below to go to the film site.

http://www.magictripmovie.com/#

Two outstanding volumes have recently been published by Jack Foley. Having met Jack I know what a dynamo he is and how dedicated he is in whatever he does. VISIONS AND AFFILIATIONS: A CALIFORNIA LITERARY TIMELINE - POETS & POETRY 1940-1980 is the first collection. See illustration above. At close to 600 pages and with dimensions of 11" x 8" these are substantial volumes. What Jack Foley does is trace the literary history of California (in particular San Francisco) between those dates. So you'll see Patchen, Jeffers, Rexroth, Everson and others crop up early on. Of course merely listing things wouldn't be enough, allied to that are Foleys introductions of their work, his own takes, all cross referencing and highly informed. Naturally the names change with the times as poets migrate to California, the books, events, artists, films, publishers, poets all intersect. Snyder, Whalen, Kerouac, McClure, Whalen, Lamantia, Bukowski, Brautigan, Duncan, Welch, Kyger, di Prima and so many others. These are literary history books, an alternative California history if you like. Foley delves beneath the surface and reveals little known but crucial history about the writers we all know and love. His resourcefulness is admirable. The second volume covers 1980 to 2005 and is equally comprehensive. Tracing the arc of writers and their lives in the highly fertile literary atmosphere of the Bay Area is a joy with Foley, he brings things into context and you can detect the interconnectedness of it all. He says of the publications, "The fabric of time is the centre of the book..." He should get a medal for going beyond the call of duty. Here is a link to Jack Foley talking about his two books on the legendary KPFA radio....http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/71165

ISBN 978-1-61364-067-8                                                                               

Contact -- Pantograph Press, 2569 Maxwell Avenue, Oakland, California 94601-5521, USA www.jack-adellefoley.com

You may know the work of San Francisco Film maker Lawrence Jordan, a contemporary of the late Bruce Conner - he is showing 7 short films at  Quercus Gallery in Oakland, California this Saturday, June 11th - 8 pm  (doors open at 7) --- John Davis and Lawrence will perform a 20 minute live film and music collaboration -- located at 385 - 26th Street in Oakland - phone 510-452-4670 -- tickets $10
CHECK OUT www.lawrencecjordan.com                       
 

LAST MAN STANDING - AL HINKLE an interview by Stephen D. Edington will be the new Beat Scene Press chapbook, number 31 in the series. Al Hinkle, as you will recall, was with Kerouac and Cassady (and Luanne) as they criss-crossed America. Dummy cover above. It will be £6.95 - if you would like to pre-order a copy click the button below.

Iain Sinclair's monumental new book GHOST MILK: CALLING TIME ON THE GRAND PROJECT is published by Hamish Hamilton. Sinclair is one of the best writers of our times. He is wonderfully articulate and weaves true life stories from his vast memory banks with his connections to today. He presents the country, but especially those areas of London he knows like the back of his hand, in a blaring light. He is a banned writer exposing the ravages of old London in the pursuit of the dollar as the Olympic scam bulldozes everything in the way. His twists and turns take him from Edgar Alan Poe to the Dave Clark Five, Beijing to the Hebrides. Just wonderful. Follow his trail.  www.hamishhamilton.co.uk

RADICALS, BEATS & BEBOPPERS is a big new book of essays from Jim Burns. The Beat Scene assistant editor collects together his many essays from over the years in this handsome edition. Naturally there are articles on Burroughs, Kerouac, alongside others on John Clellon Holmes, Carl Solomon, Jack Micheline, Charlie Parker and others. Burns is a keen observer of the American scene over the decades and he doesn't always choose the easy, well known figures but opts sometimes for those on the outer limits of the literary and jazz  landscapes, old and newer. Maxwell Bodenheim, Anatole Broyard, William Herrick, Jack Conroy, Buddy Wise. His range and knowledge is vast in jazz, in American books, left wing and Socialist politics, banned actors, film makers, Jim Burns will have an insight on them. This book definitely gets my seal of approval.  Published by The Penniless Press (ISBN 978-1-4476-3072-2) www.pennilesspress.co.uk

  Those fine chaps James Birmingham (an esteemed writer for Beat Scene) and Kyle Schlesinger have come up with a fourth issue of their lovely MIMEO MIMEO literary magazine. The latest progression stylistically is that they've given this one a spine, what do they call it in the trade, 'Perfect Bound.' It looks great. Included in this issue are Asa Benveniste, Tom Raworth, an interview with David Meltzer, letters between Eric Mottram and Jeff Nuttall, a Trevor Winkfield interview, Ken Edwards on UK small press publishing since 1960, Alan Halsey and more. A whopping 90 pages of thorough research, interviews and stuff. An innovative magazine. Contact them at jbirmingham@hotmail.com or kyleschlesinger@gmail.com & they also have a blog at http://mimeomimeo.blogspot.com/

BENEATH THE UNDERGROUND; JAZZ AND POETRY FESTIVAL will be on at the Hen & Chicks pub in Flannel Street in Abergavenny on Saturday June 11 between 2-6 pm. Featuring Chris Torrance and many others.

Gary Snyder, Michael McClure and others celebrating Snyder's first book Riprap. The event was 2009, runs for over an hour and is nice quality and you can find it at - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zoMNpmkWjo

Peter Conner's book WHITE HAND SOCIETY (City Lights Press) see this fascinating interview  http://blogs.plos.org/blog/2011/04/21/the-plot-to-turn-on-the-world-the-learyginsberg-acid-conspiracy/

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For years Ray's Jazz Shop in the Covent Garden area of London used to stock my Beat Scene magazine. It did ok there. The store was owned by longtime owner Ray Smith. I hardly ever spoke to Ray, more often to the very pleasant Glyn Callingham and Mike and Ski downstairs in the basement. Ray sold his business to Foyles and they subsequently sold the store and relocated Ray's Jazz Shop to the top floor of their bookshop in Charing Cross Road. I've just read that Ray Smith has died. What a shame. his jazz store was a bastion of something good in a sea of dross. See here a link to The Guardian's obit. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/apr/19/ray-smith-obituary

For recent news on the Walter Salles film adaptation of Jack Kerouac's ON THE ROAD go to http://video.citytv.com/video/detail/621789589001.000000/on-the-road-with-jose-rivera/

Interesting insight into how the Beats, and in particular Jack Kerouac, are taught in American universities can be seen in this 24 minute film. Go to http://academicearth.org/lectures/jack-kerouac-on-the-road-1

Big Scream 49 is a lovely paperback American poetry magazine edited by David Cope. It might be of particular interest to Beat aficianados because Diane di Prima has no less than eight poems in the current issue. Andy Clausen (partner of the late Janine Pommy Vega) is also present, alongside Richard Modiano, Eliot Katz and others. In these days of arts cutbacks and little magazines going 'virtual' because they can't afford the print costs of a paper issue, Big Scream is a shining light in the darkness. Contact them at 2782 Dixie Avenue. S.W. Grandville, MI 49418, USA or email David Cope at dcope@yahoo.com

   RUTH WEISS MEETS HER PROMETHEUS, a film by Frederick Baker, is a twenty minute documentary relating Ruth Weiss going home to Vienna to where she lived as a child. Her family had to escape the German invasion in the 1930s. Ruth has been part of the California poetry scene since the 1950s but went home to the building in Vienna she knew as home. A giant sized figure of Prometheus stood in the lobby of what was once a hotel and a frightened Weiss remembered him as a child, he was still there when she returned. A quirky but fascinating tale, where Ruth recites poetry and has a dialogue with Prometheus. Contact Ruth Weiss at Box 535, Albion, California 95410, USA. She doesn't do email.

www.litquake.org is the site for the San Francisco Poetry Festival. A nice photo here of Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Steve Earle and Lenny Kaye at last years festival honouring Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

LOVE ALWAYS, CAROLYN is a new 70 minute documentary film about Carolyn Cassady. For info go to http://www.wgfilm.com/english/productions/productions/LoveAlwaysCarolyn/production_details/

BIG JOY a film about San Francisco poet and film maker James Broughton is in progress. Broughton was there with Rexroth and Robert Duncan before the Beats got there. To see a trailer for it go to http://bigjoy.org/

Jack Kerouac Slept Here - a film by Mark Reese - is a new movie being premiered at the Sarasota Film Festival early in April. A documentary it relates the life of Jack Kerouac in Florida and centres on one of the houses he had there. Go to http://diamondsalongthehighway.com/

And here is another link to stuff about JACK KEROUAC SLEPT HERE - the film. http://filmguide.sarasotafilmfestival.com/tixSYS/2011/xslguide/eventnote.php?EventNumber=1033

You Beat Scene subscribers are a talented bunch. Here is a link to Aussie David Pepperell reading some poems about Stan Getz, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. See what you think. Nice one David. http://www.extempore.com.au/?page_id=2396&utm_source=extempore+Update&utm_campaign=aa09705d1d-ext_12_7_2010&utm_medium=email

He has a big new collection out - OF INDIGO & SAFFRON, and Michael McClure has been reading around America in support of his new book. A link here to him reading way back. http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/michael_mcclure_poetry_peyote/
 

  Just in is a big new collection from Michael McClure. OF INDIGO AND SAFFRON: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS. Published by The University of California Press. http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520262874

Beat Scene friend Mark has a lovely looking site - MONKEY - on the net, now and then he gives space to 'Beat type' things in amongst the music. Have a look. http://monkey-picks.blogspot.com/

Sad news that Janine Pommy Vega died on December 23. Janine had not been in good health for some years, but did her best to carry on what she always did. She was 68. Above you'll see Janine with from left, Andy Clausen, Charles Plymell and Ray Bremser in 1998. Janine was a good friend of Beat Scenes, a warm correspondent. She visited England in recent years, the Lake District and other places. More news when I have it.

    The photographs of Allen Ginsberg will be on display at The National Theatre in London early in 2011. Go to this link for more information. http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/63150/exhibitions/angelheaded-hipsters.html

For a decent write up on Peter Orlovsky, go to - some unseen photos also. http://www.shambhalasun.com/sunspace/?p=16901

Thanks to Beat Scene friend Dan who sent in this link from his local paper about the HOWL movie starring James Franko (and not Shig) http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10330/1105930-120.stm

Thanks Beat Scene subscriber Paul for passing on this link to the goings on surrounding the filming of ON THE ROAD. The possibility of the film ultimately being black and white is an interesting thought. There is nothing yet to suggest that the film will rise above the usual Hollywood teen gloss thing. We'll see.  http://www.collider.com/2010/11/18/on-the-road-movie-images-set-photos-garrett-hedlund/

American poet John Bennett has a new chapbook published in Swedish, ROK OCH SPEGLAR. Contact editor Magnus Grehn at mgrehn@hotmail.com for more details

Straying off the Beat writer path proves very difficult for me. You know Beat Scene is utterly concentrated on Beat writers and those others often associated with them. This doesn't leave much time for reading much else. Going crazy recently and diving straight into a book called FLASH by Jim Miller, sent by AK Distribution and publishers in Edinburgh, Scotland, proved to be an astute move. It was one of those books read in one sitting, too gripping to put down. Set in San Diego in modern times, the book operates on a few levels, there are different things going on. Miller's main character, big assumption that this book is semi autobiographical, is a journalist who seems to work at newspapers that are just about to shut down. But he seems to specialise in investigative journalism, think a down on his luck Ed Sanders maybe. Or even Albert Halper who Jim Burns investigated in Beat Scene 36 way back. So sharp business practices by some shady businesses are looked at, sweat shops etc. A parallel story is the search for an old IWW or Wobbly figure from the early part of the last century, 'Bobby Flash.' Who may or may not be a relative of the journalist. Miller recalls Burroughs, Kerouac, Bukowski a few times and his close knowledge of the streets and routes around California and across the border into Mexico bring to mind Kerouac's deep road knowledge. Alongside this are family issues, music in the car whilst on these trips around the USA, fathers and sons, the exploitation of poor labour in the USA and the idea, floated by the 'Wobblies' that working doesn't have to be exploitative. Of course that notion doesn't go down well with the US capitalists. What's new? A very readable story, a history book, a personal history. This is a very impressive little novel with a socialist heart. It has plenty going for it and provoked me into finding out more about Jim Miller. He has other works. See www.akuk.com they are based in Edinburgh at PO Box 12766, Edinburgh, Scotland EH8 9YE. They also have an address in Oakland, California and you can find them at www.akpress.org.

Running til next mid February is an exhibition at the Huntington Library in California of materials relating to Charles Bukowski. The photo here is part of the exhibition. I'm reliably informed that the library is just a few minutes away from the Santa Anita Racetrack, a place that was a favourite haunt of Bukowski's. See link below. http://www.huntington.org/huntingtonlibrary_02.aspx?id=8020

Jack Kerouac, 'Gone in October.'

The European Beat Studies Network has recently been set up by William Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris and by Polina Mackay. The aim is to foster greater awareness and understanding of the Beat Generation. It seems a very laudable venture to me. To find out more go to http://ebsn.eu/

Iain Sinclair has a new collection of poems POSTCARDS FROM THE 7th FLOOR. Published as a handsome paperback by Pighog Press, the book is a collaboration with artist Oona Grimes. www.pighog.co.uk or email info@pighog.co.uk

JACK HIRSCHMAN sees the publication of Wer Tragt Sorge (Who Cares) in a handsome German paperback issued by Edition Baes. The book is in both German and English. See www.edition-baes.at for further information

Horst Spandler's exhibition of one hundred different editions of Jack Kerouac's ON THE ROAD is running until December 31 at the Beat Museum in San Francisco. They are at 540 Broadway, San Francisco. www.kerouac.com

Go ahead French publisher 13E Note Editions have a wealth of new books coming up. They had DAN FANTE and BARRY GIFFORD over for the FESTIVAL AMERICA in Vincennes very recently.
Barry Gifford promoted SAD STORIES FROM THE DEATH OF KINGS - UNE EDUCATION AMERICAINE and Dan was promoting  A V8 GIN PISSING RAW..../ DE L' ALCOOL DUR ET DU GENIE ..his first poetry book. Both Gifford and Fante did radio and tv  interviews.
The press will publish Dan Fante's Don Giovanni and there is a forthcoming Barry Gifford book of selected poetry.
For 2011 there are new titles by NELSON ALGREN, TIM OBRIEN, MARK SAFRANKO, JR HELTON, JESSE SUBLETT, BARRY GRAHAM, JERRY STAHL, TONY O'NEILL, M.O EVERETT the dude from EELS the band. The press have taken big strides to publish modern American writers in France in the last couple of years. It reminds me very much of the efforts made by Carl Weissner to promote Charles Bukowski in times gone. www.13enote.com

   Chris Render, who was a stalwart at the much missed Compendium Bookstore in London's Camden Town, has died aged 61. Chris was a key part of a team who made this bookstore a vital place from the mid 1960s, he was in his early 20s then and devoted the next thirty years to the bookshop. Compendium played host to many of the Beats until it closed in 2000. It was a truly radical bookstore and could be said to have greatly fostered and encouraged interest in modern American writers throughout its existence. Indeed they were often the only place you might find that elusive Beat book. Not only that but Chris was, to me, a terrific organiser, the stock room in the basement was a model of efficiency. I thought him a little gruff when I first met him in 1972, but soon discovered behind that businesslike exterior he was a really decent bloke. Over the years it was a pleasure to chat with him downstairs. He showed an interest in what I did, and, I suspect, he was the same with everyone else. Compendium were big sellers of Beat Scene and Chris always made sure I was paid on time, he knew how a small operation needed this. But more importantly he helped make Compendium a mecca for non mainstream book lovers, left field publications, graphic novels, music, women's writing, alternative philosophy, arts, poetry and for me, of course, American writing and poetry. He made it far more than a mere bookstore. I got the distinct feeling that without Chris Render Compendium may have struggled. After they sadly closed their doors he moved to the Glastonbury area and was involved in the Labyrinth bookstore there, I visited a few times. Last time, a while ago,  we spoke he said he was beginning work on an essay about Compendium for publication in Beat Scene. Very sad to hear this news. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/14/chris-render-obituary

A thoughtful article on the Howl movie and James Franco in the Allen Ginsberg role - http://www.slate.com/id/2268627/

A thoughtful review of Bill Morgan's new book The Typewriter is Holy: The Complete Uncensored History of the Beat Generation http://www.jewishjournal.com/twelvetwelve/item/the_typewriter_is_holy_39100529/

An update on the Kerouac film in progress. http://www.newsinfilm.com/2010/08/21/jose-rivera-on-the-road-script-review/

If you are in Sweden, or speak the language, you might be interested to hear that US poet John Bennett has had poems published in a new collection  from the press of Magnus Grehn. See www.magnusgrehnforlag.se/

This coming December Charles Olson, who died in 1970, would have been one hundred years old. There are any number of things happening that will mark this date, see this site for news. http://olson100.blogspot.com/

It started out very nicely. Me and M.Ring set off for the Beat Hotel photo exhibition in London's King's Road early in the day. Saturday morning, last day of July. A freshening morning rain shower on the way to the station. Marylebone is such a lovely little station to arrive at. A lot of old character. A quick & expensive taxi ride to the Proud Gallery at 161 King's Road to see Harold Chapman's photos of Ginsberg, Corso, Orlovsky, Norse, Somerville and others who lived in this old and tatty hotel in the Latin Quarter of Paris. A small gallery, no air conditioning in the growing humidity but wonderful to see these pictures at this size and close up. There wasn't a soul in the gallery, it had opened on July 29 and it runs til the end of August. It surprised me that nobody else was in to see it. Are we all so indifferent and unmoved these days? Had hoped to pick up a catalogue but there wasn't one, all done 'virtually' these days. So there will be no tangible record that this exhibit ever happened in years to come. A shame for Harold Chapman. It is a lovely modest little gallery in a very central location. The £400 + VAT prices for prints were out of my league I'm afraid. A few inexpensive postcard versions might have helped for us riffraff. Guess those with deeper pockets might go for one of these limited signed prints. There were brilliant photos downstairs of legendary 1960s musicians like Hendrix, Clapton, The Stones, Dylan. Taken by various photographers. All going for a lot of money. But terrific images. They don't make musicians like these anymore. The humidity in the gallery got the better of us and we had to move out & along the road to the John Sandos bookshop further along. We walked past later in the day and the gallery was still empty. How sad is that? The Beat Hotel exhibit is well worth your time. Just go on a cooler day. see www.proud.co.uk

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Since his reading of “For the Death of 100 Whales” at the 6 Gallery reading in 1955, McClure has maintained a committed stance toward this threefold world. “My poetry is to make myself conscious,” he has stated, but this doesn’t mean he views his art as a purely expressionistic act. He continues rehearsing Shelley’s dictum that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of their times” and so has aligned himself “with a movement or a thread or a stream or a surge of individuals who are interested in liberation of the body, in the liberation of the imagination and the liberation of consciousness” (McClure 6-7). The above imagery of ACTION is not incidental. McClure’s recovery of embodiment, of linking mind-bodyconsciousness— MEAT—conjoins poetry and biology:

“It’s moving in the direction of recovering the biological self” (10).

Harold Norse’s 1984 Amsterdam reading Harold Norse Of Course
is finally available on both CD and double vinyl LP.
The CD version is in a handsomely designed and very lightweight ‘digipak.’
The LP has some three dozen photos of Harold at various stages in his long (just under 93 years) life on the inside sleeves.
Previously available on audio cassette, this new release is a joint venture of Unrequited Records (San Francisco) and Ins & Outs Press (Amsterdam). And is being mainly sold and distributed by Unrequited. (Amsterdam residents can buy from Eddie Woods at  metal.dragon@hetnet.nl  - All others, in the EU and elsewhere, should go to the website and order there at
Unrequited Records http://www.unrequitedrecords.com/
And on the Unrequited site, also click Listen to hear four of the 20 tracks. Or click straightaway on http://www.unrequitedrecords.com/Listen.html
 

  West Coast poet Neeli Cherkovski is featured in this journal, (see link below) an article where he reflects on being both a biographer, Bukowski, Ferlinghetti and a poet. His latest work, From the Canyon Outward (www.rlcrow.com) is featured in Beat Scene 62. http://ww.examiner.com/x-4545-SF-Poetry-Examiner~y2010m7d6-Nexus-poet-Neeli-Cherkovski-walks-the-past-into-the-future

German publisher AltaQuito has just released two books of big Beat Generation interest. Michael McClure RAFFELS WOLKE and Philip Lamantia's GEOMETRISCHE HALLUZINATIONEN. They are beautifully published in editions of just 270 numbered copies. Contact the publishers at Ulrideshuser Str.1, 37077 Gottingen, Germany. Telephone 0551-205074 or email harbaum@gmx.de

A Jack Micheline recording on cassette, remember them, is still available from American writer in Amsterdam, Eddie Woods. metal.dragon@hetnet.nl Or write to Eddie Woods, P.O. Box 3759, 1001 AN Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
it going for about 10 euros + postage. (£10 including post to UK)

David Meltzer's collection will be the 60th in that iconic City Lights Pocket Poets series, the little black and white paperbacks. Probably published late 2010 or early 2011, according to a reliable source.

   Peter Orlovsky died May 30 at approximately 11.30 a.m. I understand he died in a hospice from lung cancer and complications stemming from that. Peter was born in 1933 and was 76. For years he was the companion of Allen Ginsberg. More when I have it. Below is a link to an obituary written for the English daily newspaper The Independent  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/peter-orlovsky-beat-poet-and-life-partner-of-allen-ginsberg-1990004.html

Plus, here is a link to the USA's New York Times obituary. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/arts/03orlovsky.html?ref=obituaries

    Allen Ginsberg has a photographic exhibition at the Smithsonian...see here for a review..

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Allen-Ginsbergs-Beat-Family-Album.html

Gary Snyder and novelist Jim Harrison got together for a long hike and you can see them in this trailer for the documentary film Practice of the Wild. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=333498817232

  For news on yet another proposed filming of Jack Kerouac's On The Road go to this site for the lowdown on who is playing who. I'll believe it when I see it. I'm indebted to Beat Scene subscriber Paul Dean for drawing this to my attention. http://www.indiemoviesonline.com/news/sam-garrett-and-kristen-to-hit-the-road-jack-070510

Beat Scene deputy editor Jim Burns has a new poetry collection just out. Streetsinger is published by Shoestring Press. His poems draw on a lifetime's experience of living in the north, the war, jazz, art, socialist politics and history and much more. There is a sharp realism about everything he writes.  www.shoestringpress.co.uk

Lost Steps is a fascinating radio show centred around, I think, London and the diverse history and goings on of the place. Produced in conjunction with Resonance radio, they did an interview with Miles in March, focusing on his new book London Calling. In this near thirty minute interview there is recollection of Ginsberg, Corso and Ferlinghetti in London in the mid 1960s and much talk of the 'counter culture.' As always Miles is an engaging talker. Find it at http://www.loststeps.org.uk/Miles.php

He vehemently states he is not one of the Beat Generation, he simply published them, yet Lawrence Ferlinghetti is as Beat as they come. He was 91 years old this week. See this silent b/w film footage of him outside his City Lights bookstore in North Beach, San Francisco in, I believe, the late 1950s. Mr Ferlinghetti I salute you. http://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/188468

  HAN SHAN, CHAN BUDDHISM AND GARY SNYDER'S ECOPOETIC WAY by Joan Qionglin Tan is recently published by Sussex Academic Press in a big format paperback running to 300 pages. Available in the UK from Gazelle Book Services www.gazellebookservices.co.uk

  There is a short recent interview with Gary Snyder at  http://www.milforddailynews.com/entertainment/books/x1669539622/Pulitzer-Prize-winning-poet-Gary-Snyder-comes-to-Acton

13E Note Editions -A French publishing house run by Eric Vieljeux, has a string of novels published. Two recent titles are Barry Gifford's American Falls and Speed by the late William Burroughs Jr. Dan Fante has three titles, Regime Sec (Short Dog), Bons Baisers De La Grosse Barmaid (a collection of poems) and scheduled soon is Fante's Limousines Blanches Et Blondes Platine.  There is also La Derniere Balade De Billy from Burroughs Jr. These are just some of the titles in an impressive lineup from a press that has barely been running a year. Beautifully presented. See www.13enote.com

Now and then I put down the Beat Generation books and look at something completely different. Jack O'Connell is a reader of Beat Scene but in his spare time he is an American writer with a string of imaginative novels to his name. The Resurrectionist is a recent example. Published by Algonquin Books, the novel is not quite what it appears. Weird and wonderful. Recommended. 

  Roy Kotynek and John Cohassey have a fascinating book which takes in the Beats as well as much more  - see http://americanavantgarde.com/

     ABSENCE OF THE HERO is a new collection of essays from Charles Bukowski. Published by City Lights. Go to www.citylights.com for more

  There is a brand new book about Seymour Krim edited by Mark Cohen. Find out about it at this link here http://www.syracuseuniversitypress.syr.edu/spring-2010/missing-a-beat.html

 English journalist Stephen Maughan has an article about the latest developments in the Kerouac Estate wrangle in Fine Books magazine. Photo of Kerouac's nephew Paul Blake and his daughter Jan. http://www.finebooksmagazine.com/issue/201001/kerouac-1.phtml

In an age where used bookstores are fast becoming a distant memory, remember the simple pleasure of just browsing through piles of old books, never knowing what surprises might be at the bottom of that box? Well, for a few years now, an ex longtime senior partner at the sadly missed Compendium Bookshop in London's Camden Town has been operating Labyrinth Bookshop in Glastonbury High Street with his partner. I've visited this used bookstore a few times and Glastonbury, for those that have never been, has a charm all of its own.  Nice place. A used bookstore that is fighting the corporate march. See http://www.labyrinthbooks.co.uk/ 

Poet and musician Jim Carroll has died. Go here for the New York Times obituary http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/books/14carroll.html?_r=1

And in England the daily newspaper, The Guardian, has a thoughtful obituary on him - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/sep/22/jim-carroll-obituary

Photographer, film maker and friend to Beat Scene magazine, Chris Felver has a new film out soon. Titled simply Ferlinghetti the movie documentary is 82 minutes in duration and you can find more details on it and other good Felver stuff (including the above film) at http://www.chrisfelver.com/

Fascinating material on Bukowski, featuring Neeli Cherkovski and Jack Hirschman. Go to the City Lights bookstore site and enjoy it. http://www.citylightspodcast.com/

    ABSTRACT ALCHEMIST OF FLESH is a newly issued documentary about the life and work of Michael McClure. Filmed by Londoner Colin Still, the documentary includes rarely seen footage of McClure through the years and some previously unpublished photos. There is scarce film footage of Allen Ginsberg and others. Michael McClure is interviewed and reads from many of his books. His musical collaborator Ray Manzarek is also interviewed and the duo are filmed in rehearsal and performance. Others featured include Peter Coyote, McClure's first wife Joanna, musician Terry Riley, poet Joanne Kyger, Amy Evans McClure, (Michael's wife), Dennis Hopper and others. Beautifully filmed. For more go to www.opticnerve.co.uk

   There will be a new book of Elise Cowen poems out soon. The book will be bilingual (English/German). Most of the poems are published for the first time. It is about 220 pages

Click here for photos and reports on the fairly recent Naked Lunch at 50 events in Paris. http://brianjonesjoujoukafestival.blogspot.com/2009/07/naked-lunch-50th-anniversary-and.html

   Writer Barry Gifford needs no introduction from me. His connection with the Beat Generation is largely based around the biography of Jack Kerouac he did with Lawrence Lee way back and a little book KEROUAC'S TOWN that was published by Creative arts a long time ago. In an extensive interview with Noel King he talks about writing a screenplay for Francis Ford Coppola's proposed movie of Kerouac's ON THE ROAD and much more besides. He is one hell of a writer and seems to operate in a world where days last for weeks. http://jacketmagazine.com/36/iv-gifford-ivb-king.shtml

Anne Waldman sees her FIRST BABY POEMS, originally issued in 1982, republished in a lovely way by BlazeVox Books. With beautiful illustrations by George Schneeman. Contact www.blazevox.org &  editor@blazevox.org for more information. Or write to BlazeVox Books, 14 Tremaine Avenue, Kenmore, New York 14217, USA

New William Burroughs film coming in August I understand. http://www.williamsburroughsthemovie.com/

  One for all the Charles Bukowski readers out there.click on the link and enjoy the read. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19870210/PEOPLE/812229998

Just like the buses, nothing for a long time and then three at once. If they do finally track their way through the long and winding road that is film production. ON THE ROAD, HOWL and Lucien Carr will all be on our cinema screens next year. It says here. Of course Lucien Carr featured in the low key film BEAT with Keifer Sutherland and Courtney Love a year or two back. Not a lot of people seem to know that. Almost a straight to DVD type film. Click below for news.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/beat-writers-to-get-the-hollywood-treatment-1704821.html

  Tom Clark has a presence on the internet at http://www.tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/

For a review of the new Burroughs, Kerouac book AND THE HIPPOS WERE BOILED IN THEIR TANKS - go to the English daily newspaper The Independent at http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-young-generation-burroughs-and-kerouac--an-unpublished-collaboration-986188.html

BURROUGHS LIVE at The Royal Academy of Art 16 December 2008 - 19 January 2009
Burroughs Live is curated by Jose Ferez. By means of video footage, some shown here for the first time, film and artistic collaborations this exhibition aims to establish the presence of Burroughs the man and the influence that Burroughs the artist had and continues to have on several generations of artists. This exhibition will feature films such as Thanksgiving Prayer and Towers Open Fires, collaborations with artists George Condo and Keith Haring and portraits by Robert Mapplethorpe and David Hockney.

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/gsk-contemporary-season/exhibitions/collision-course/burroughs-live

If one exhibit about William Burroughs wasn't enough, why not get along to the William Burroughs exhibition 'LIFE-FILE' opening at The Riflemaker Gallery at 79 Beak Street, London W1F 9SU Tel o207-439-0000 www.riflemaker.org. The exhibit starts on Monday 15 December. Opening times are Mon-Fri 10-6pm. Saturday 12-6pm.

A new exhibition about Brion Gysin is on at the October Gallery in London beginning on December 11 and running through to February 7 - see http://www.briongysin.com/BG/Calligraffiti_of_Fire.html 

October Gallery's exhibition complements the December Burroughs Live at the Royal Academy of Arts (GSK Contemporary), and Life File, Burroughs' illustrated private files, at Riflemaker. In the '60's, Gysin created the ‘Dreamachine’, which he described as "the only work of art designed to be seen with closed eyes", and a "drugless psychedelic experience". The Dreamachine rotates, and, through a flicker effect, evokes brainwaves which can produce spontaneous waking dreams. Gysin said "...it gives an extended vision of one's own interior capacities, which could also be overwhelming." It was Gysin's point of view that those "interior capacities" are the next art form, superseding painting.
October Gallery was the first in the UK to show Gysin's work with a solo exhibition in 1981, and the first to show Burroughs' works of art in 1988, 1990 and 1992.
Gysin had a lifelong fascination with the juncture of word and image, and Calligraffiti of Fire (1985) is a culmination of a long series of his works inspired by hieroglyphics and calligraphy. He studied Japanese and Arabic calligraphy, and evolved his own style of word/image glyphs, supple as flames or tendrils of smoke. Calligraffiti of Fire was inspired by a makimono, a Japanese scroll, of fire in bamboo that, as a young man, he had seen at the Boston Museum of Fine Art.
The New Museum in New York is currently planning a Gysin retrospective. Gysin's works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Boston Fine Arts Gallery, Massachusetts USA; Centre Georges Pompidou, Fonds National d'Art Contemporaine, Musé´e d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; and numerous private collections. Thames and Hudson produced Brion Gysin: Tuning into the Multimedia Age, edited by José Férez Kuri.
‘Brion Gysin: Calligraffiti of Fire’ is curated by Kathelin Gray, and produced in collaboration with The Academy of Everything is Possible.

  Beat Scene recently covered Deborah Baker's totally absorbing A BLUE HAND: THE BEATS IN INDIA - check here for more on that book http://www.deborahbaker.net/

For the lowdown on a new USA film that features the art of Wallace Berman and the Ferus Gallery - go to http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/coolschool/

If, like me, you have long given up hope of ON THE ROAD being filmed, you might want to read a recent article in the English daily newspaper THE INDEPENDENT - http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/features/the-long-and-grinding-story-of-on-the-road-926664.html

Ahead of a sizeable article about the Ted Berrigan interview with Jack Kerouac for The Paris Review in 1968, which will feature in the number 20 issue of Transit Magazine -  I'd like to point you in the direction of an interview with Aram Saroyan on KCRW radio dating from 1994. In this thirty minute interview Saroyan talks about his friend Berrigan and in particular the then new COLLECTED POEMS OF TED BERRIGAN (Penguin). A fascinating interview and a real pleasure to listen to.. http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/bw940815aram_saroyan

See this extended article on Philip Whalen at an interesting NYC literary site http://www.tribes.org/web/2008/08/06/philip-whalen-the-buddhist-charles-olson-by-tom-savage/

A new film by Nic Saunders, CURSES AND SERMONS, based on a poem by Michael McClure, will soon be upon us. Go to www.14167films.com

Donald Miller has a thoughtful Beat Generation hued site at http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller11.html

A pretty new site centring around Hunter S. Thompson is to be found at  - take a look http://hstbooks.wordpress.com/   - Hunter fan Martin Flynn has an enthusiastic and attractive site, which incorporates many other Beat associated writers. There is a link here, also, to some words he has to say about The Beat Scene Press Pocket Book series. http://hstbooks.wordpress.com/books/

See the English newspaper THE GUARDIAN for this article on Gary Snyder

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/05/voice_of_the_wild.html

Have a look at this article from the New York Times of the past week. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/books/review/Donadio-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

In the past couple of months David Meltzer suffered a serious fall and was in hospital. I hear he is recovering. Knowledgeable observers of the beat scene will know David's work through the years. We wish David well and a speedy recovery. Go to http://www.meltzerville.com/ to find out more about him.

Major new Kerouac exhibit on until March at the New York Public Library - see http://www.nypl.org/news/kerouac.cfm

An article by Walter Salles, who, it is reported, is working on a film adaptation of ON THE ROAD.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/magazine/11roadtrip-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

For news on a very new film NEAL CASSADY, directed by Noah Buschel, go to http://www.woodstockfilmfestival.com/festival2005/details.php?id=17904  

  Have a read here and see a thoughtful review in the English daily newspaper THE GUARDIAN by AM. Homes of the new UK paperback edition of Jack Kerouac's recently published play BEAT GENERATION. I'm relieved Homes hasn't fallen for the myth of the 'lost play.' The reality is Jack Kerouac dearly wanted the play to be produced and also published. Nobody was interested and he put it away, deflated by the rejection. The play was never lost. See  http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2103960,00.html

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Click on the link below to download a 30-min programme celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of Kerouac's "On the Road."  With Carolyn Cassady, Al Hinkle, Joyce Johnson, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gore Vidal, Michael McClure, and others:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/f41nbe

We carried news of the Michael McClure play THE BEARD www.thebeardplay.com - in 2006 and director Nic Saunders has kindly allowed us to show some photos from the run in July/August of 2006. That's Nic just below with Michael.

Photos above right, director Nic Saunders with playwright Michael McClure outside the Old Red Lion Theatre in London. Bottom left...THE BEARD, a scene being filmed by Colin Still. Right, Billy The Kid (Christopher Daley) and Jean Harlow (Victoria Yeates) in a scene from the play. All photos copyright Nic Saunders.

above, Michael McClure at a book signing in London during his visit to London in July 2006. Photo by Nic Saunders, director of Michael's play THE BEARD. photo copyright Nic Saunders

Above a photo of Gary Snyder and Anne Waldman that Anne sent in recently. It was taken at Naropa in Colorado at the school that Anne co-founded with Allen Ginsberg in the 1970s. The photo was taken in 1994.

BEAT SCENE subscriber Giuseppe Moretti has sent in this photograph of Gary Snyder in Italy in September 2005. He was there for readings in Rome and Florence. The photo is taken up in the Dolomites.

If anyone is interested there is an interview with yours truly at www.dogmatika.com where I talk about Beat Scene magazine. Throughout the interview there are many informative links to the people mentioned. An excellent site regardless of my inclusion. 

Check out Dan Fante's own site www.danfante.net the Beat Scene Press in collaboration with Sean Lynch's Ten Point Press, has published Dan Fante's SUPERMARKET in a limited edition of just 100 numbered and signed copies.

Have a look at a fairly new internet site run by the Cassady family, all about Neal Cassady at www.nealcassadyestate.com lots of really personal entries.

There is a wonderful article/interview with photographer Gordon Ball on John Tranter's excellent Jacket site. Photos of Huncke, Ginsberg, Corso and others. Go to www.jacketmagazine.com/33/index.shtml

Thank you David Knowles for reminding me to include this link to the Naropa Archives of Beat Recordings at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Colorado. They are in the never ending process of transferring the cassette tapes onto discs to better preserve them. People like Gregory Corso, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Ken Kesey and many others. You might know about this already, but just in case – some interesting audio here: http://www.archive.org/details/naropa

Check out The Jack and Stella Kerouac Center For American Studies in Lowell at http://www.uml.edu/college/arts_sciences/kerouac_center/default.html the center is at 61 Wilder Street, Lowell, Massachusetts 01854, USA. Tel 978-934-4195

POLIS IS THIS: CHARLES OLSON AND THE PERSISTENCE OF PLACE is a new film by Henry Ferrini. You might recall that wonderful film he made about Jack Kerouac? See information about this new film regarding Charles Olson at http://www.polisisthis.com/Polis/Home.html

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