Allen GinsbergMe asleep, snapped by Peter Orlovsky in our little whitewash-walled room Tangier 1961
Allen GinsbergMe asleep, snapped by Peter Orlovsky in our little whitewash-walled room Tangier 1961
Mark RothkoUntitled
Allen GinsbergGary Snyder, his small house-garden on Nishinomiya-cho, Kita-ku section near Dai-tokuji temple, in monk’s travelling outfit, wearing Unsui’s indigo-dyed cotton training robe (koromo), square handsewn Rakusu cloth hung round his neck, thick belt to guard zazen sitting posture & belly warmth, and dark-browned Ajirokasa basket-hat stained with juice of green persimmons. Kyoto, Japan July 1963.
Allen GinsbergMichael Portman, ill-starred English aristocrat, then staying next door room to William Burroughs at Villa Muniria studying Alpha rhythms, stroboscope “Dream-Machine” illusions and letters with Burroughs and Brion Gysin. Dorian Gray youth, he died in mid-age, alcohol and other dissipations, Tangier 1961.
Allen GinsbergMock machete battle with state agricultural advisor, American girl passing through watching, elder Antonio the family retainer & nephew, Finca Tacalapan de San Leandro a day’s travel by river & horseback from Salto de Agua Railroad stops into edge of Petén Rainforest to old family land of Karena Shields (first Jane in 30s Tarzan movies) who hosted me February thru May, we’d met at Palenque old Mayan ruins nearby, & lived in open thatchroof shelter, slept in Mosquito-netted hammocks, I wrote “Siesta in Xbalba”, Chiapas Mexico 1954.
Allen Ginsberg“Peter lying dressed up in pants on mattress picking his red moustache, with long hollywood Christlike hair & Christ’s small beard stubble — ” (_Indian Journals_, p. 132) Orlovsky & I spent half year in this room overlooking Dasasumedh Ghat’s bathers pilgrims & beggars a few steps from the Ganges, french window slats overlooking food market one side, pilgrim alley the other. We cooked on small gas camper stove, kept records, wrote letters, visited temples, burning ghats, read Ramayana, mixed with poets
& sanskrit Achkans in small restaurant chai houses, visited shenai master Bichmulla Khan, Peter took singing lessons from one Rabmdranath Pal, & we sought out swamis & holy men to talk with. Benares, December 19, 1962.
Allen GinsbergHerbert E. Huncke, author _The Evening Sun Turned Crimson_, who introduced "hip" vocabulary & attitudes to writers later labeled "Beat", his room Hotel Elite, N.E. corner 8th Avenue and 51'st street diagonally opposite Madison Square Garden. Rare glimpse of Huncke, then hustling bread on Times Square, strung-out - he fixed at the sink. Saw him infrequently that season, though we'd known each other well since 1945, found his room to say good bye, leaving New York to hitch south, Mexico and Bay area, here just before Christmas, Manhattan 1953.
Allen GinsbergLucien Carr, his apartment above Sheridan Square, working then for U.P.I.
Allen GinsbergWe went uptown to look at Mayan Codices at Museum of Natural History & Metropolitan Museum of Art to view Carlo Crivelli’s green-hued Christ-face with crown of thorns stuck symmetric in his skull — here Egyptian wing William Burroughs with a brother Sphinx, Fall 1953 Manhattan.
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Allen GinsbergMyself seen by William Burroughs, Kodak Retina new-bought 2’d hand from Bowery hock-shop, our apartment roof Lower East Side between Avenues B & C, Tompkins Park trees under new antennae. Alan Ansen, Gregory Corso & Jack Kerouac visited, Jack’s _The Subterraneans_ records much of the scene, Burroughs & I edited letter-manuscripts he’d sent from Mexico & South America, Alene Lee (“Mardou Fox” of _The Subterraneans_) typed final drafts. Neighborhood was heavily Polish & Ukranian, some artists, junkies, medical students, cheap restaurants like “Leshkos” corner 7th & A, rent was only ¼ of my monthly $120 wage as newspaper copyboy. Time of “The Green Automobile” poem to Cassady, Fall 1953.
Allen GinsbergCharles Olson 1963 Vancouver. Warren Tallman's house. Bobbie. Robert Creeley Working Proof.
Allen GinsbergShambhu Bharti Baba, traditionally naked Naga Sadhu in sandy basement porch-shelter under Pilgrims' Guest-house above ancient Manikarnika Ghat burning-grounds at Ganges waterside in Benares, oldest cintinuously inhabited city on Earth. During six-months stay a few alleys down-river, I visited occasionally to smoke chilams, clay pipes as at edge of fire-pit, packed with ganja-tobacco mix & share Baba's silence vow along with small circle of his friends, devotees, local schoolteachers & clerks. One morning I brought camera, he invited me to take pictures rising to disrobe loin-cloth & G-string, stood nude beside Naga spear, brass waterpot & Shiva Trident. See _Indian Journals_, 1970, p.130. December 18, 1962, 10:30 AM.
Allen GinsbergGregory Corso looking out his attic-room skylight 9 Rue Git-le-Coeur half block from Seine off Place St. Michel. He had finished first City Lights Gasoline, completed Marriage & Bomb, begun Power Poem, & was "eliminating" Death & Clown motifs (i.e. Probing Concepts), see Happy Birthday of Death volume 1960. Peter O & I lived downstairs 3rd floor, Paris 1957.
Allen GinsbergWilliam S. Burroughs sitting up in back bedroom waiting for my company...
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Mark RothkoTotemic Sign / Totem Sign
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Mark RothkoAquatic Drama
Mark RothkoThe Source
Allen GinsbergA friend's house in M'raksh! Paul Bowles rear, Arab fellow and host who shared rent with Paul. 1961
Allen GinsbergAllen Ginsberg & Jack Kerouac practicing Mystical Alchemy in preparation for "New Vision" Consciousness alterations in Literature & American Heart Land, camera in W.S. Burroughs' hands, Lower East Side New York, Fall 1953.
Allen GinsbergNeal Cassady driving his oldsmobile down Bayshore Highway, San Francisco to Los Gatos, circa 1954, I sat in the backseat, the car rocked with Rhythm & Blues Radio.; Self-Portrait in Darkroom of Associated Press Office, Rockefeller Center Manhattan, I was a copyboy on the night shift, 1948. A.G.; Street cornerman’s tintype, Alameda Park, Mexico City: Jack Kerouac, myself in sombrero, Peter Orlovsky coat over shoulder, Gregory Corso kneeling with Lafcadio Orlovsky age 16, A.D. 1956. See Kerouac’s _Desolation Angels_ for account of this trip.
Allen GinsbergPhilip Whalen visiting Lloyd Reynolds, his house Reed College- Lloyd had taught Snyder Welch & Whalen their Italic Calligraphy & Challenged McCarthyism & brought W.C. Williams to read, early 1950's. Here late July 1963, Portland Oregon.
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Allen GinsbergFrom roof of Brahmin's house wherein we'd rented Third floor room six months December to May 1963, could see past temple mandir tops across Ganges river to other shore. Our balconies hung over vegetable-meat market one side, other side overlooked sacred street down to Dasasumedh [or Dasaswamedh?] Ghat bathing steps peopled by Pilgrims beggars & cows; monkeys visited and snatched our bananas, Peter Orlovsky held my Retina, Benares India Spring 1963.
Allen GinsbergW.S. Burroughs in his room Villa Mouneria Tangier
Allen GinsbergDead creature, Xauen, Morocco 1957.
Mark RothkoNo. 17
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Allen GinsbergJack Kerouac at Staten Island Ferry Wharf, we used to wander docksides under Manhattan’s bridges & thru truck parking lots along East River singing rawbone Blues, Leadbelly’s “Black Girl” or “Eli Eli,” chanting Poe’s “Annabelle Lee” & shouting Hart Crane’s “O Harp & Altar of the Fury fused!” or “Atlantis” to Brooklyn Bridge’s traffic spanned above. Time of his _Doctor Sax_ & _The Subterraneans_, Burroughs was in town, up from Mexico, New York, Fall 1953.
Allen GinsbergLafcadio & Peter Orlovsky their apartment in San Francisco Potrero Hill 5 Turner Terrace — Peter had brought his younger brother to stay with us and go to High School a year earlier, Kerouac wrote about these “Darlovsky Brothers” in _Desolation Angels_ —we took off later for Mexico with Gregory Corso to visit Kerouac same year 1956.
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Allen GinsbergStrong Gregory Corso Tangier 1961, The loner.
Allen GinsbergG. Corso & P. Orlovsky hanging around Bill Burroughs' room Tangier 1961
Allen GinsbergJack Kerouac the last time he visited my apartment 704 East 5th Street, Lower East Side. Gregory Corso was with him, he looked just like his late Father (described in _The Town and the City_ his first novel) - corpulent red faced W. C. Fields shuddering with mortal horror, grimacing on D.M.T. psychedelic I'd brought back from Timothy Leary's Millbrook Commune, Fall 1964.
Allen GinsbergTangier 1961 Lance Hendrickson showed up, a beautiful strange face
Allen GinsbergEugene Brooks at Seder Table, Patterson, New Jersey E. 34th St. our house
Allen GinsbergWilliam S. Burroughs, time of intense cut-up prose experiments and suspicions of all "apparent sensory phenomena." Tangier 1961.
Mark RothkoUntitled (Brown and gray)
Mark RothkoUntitled