Allen GinsbergPablo and Robert Frank visiting from Bronx State Hospital, my living room on East 12th Street, October 1984. Same noses.Allen GinsbergPablo and Robert Frank visiting from Bronx State Hospital, my living room on East 12th Street, October 1984. Same noses.
Allen GinsbergPoet John Giorno & Bill's secretary Jim Grauerholz aghast at William Burroughs' whip-fast flexible blackjack draw from the hip. Bowery muggers and street junkies try to steal his wallet, watch out! Age 71 Burroughs returned from Lawrence, Kansas to his old "Bunker" loft (formerly a gym locker-room) with _Place of Dead Roads_ mss. Scar on Giorno's belly (March 26, 1985) from cancer operation ten years earlier, he'd set up black cloth'd wall with stage-lights for his Buddhist rock & roll poetry rehearsals. A bunch of Queers me too.
Allen GinsbergWavy Gravy & his rubber nose, giant Seva Benefit organized by Ram Dass at Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Manhattan November 26, 1988, seven thousand souls attending, Wavy the M.C. for part of the evening, here in a side chapel south of the altar.
Allen GinsbergAncient Hemlock, oldest tree across new beaver pond, near our committee on Poetry Commune farm, Cherry Valley, N.Y., August 3, 1987. Upstate New York was covered with Hemlock forests in the time of James Fenimore Cooper -- cut down to supply charcoal for the big city.
Allen GinsbergPeter Orlovsky at James Joyce’s grave, Zurich Switzerland December 1980, we climbed up to the cemetery and found Joyce’s statue snow covered, brushed it off his head.
Allen GinsbergWilliam S. Burroughs 222 Bowery New York Spring 1985. Illustrating a Wild Boy's horns? Cat's ears?
Allen GinsbergDouble-mirrored bathroom wall, Mapleton Street house Boulder Colorado, self-portrait with R.F., Buddhist-studies major at Naropa Institute, Olympus XA steadied on towel-rack, August 1986.
Allen GinsbergWilliam S. Burroughs interviewed for _Heavy Petting_ film memoir of youthful erotic initiations, his secretary James Grauerholz leaning forward observing discussion of sex world 1930 – 40s, final movie version cut out Bill’s queer loves. Obie Benz’s Soho loft, New York, December 21, 1986.
Allen GinsbergHarry Smith (1923-1991), Anthropologist, entho-musicologist, bibliophile, innovative animator & film-maker, painter, designer, metaphysician & hermetic alchemist. Made over 1500 recordings for "restricted scientific use", 120 cuts commercially released. Mr. Smith's work collecting and preserving American oral song literature and artifacts was a primary source for post-mid-century folk music revival; Bob Dylan and others drew inspiration from his historic 3-box 6-record _Anthology of American Folk Music_ Collection made available 1952 on Folkways (FA 2951, 2&3) Records. First recordings of Charlie Parker, of the Fugs, of the Kiowa Peyote Ceremony (FE 4601, 1965 Folkways). Lived in poverty on New York's Bowery, awarded a Grammy 1991 for his "advancement of American Folk Music". Equally celebrated as avant-garde film-maker.
Allen GinsbergSelf Portrait in my bathroom mirror holding self portrait in Moscow hotel room mirror taken a couple years earlier. I was dressed up ready for a film interview in my bedroom (thru door behind my left shoulder. January 10, 1987. Who's in the background?
Allen GinsbergRD Laing, I visited with Poet Tom Pickard, camera in Tom’s hands, Laing’s residence in Hampstead, we were saying goodbye after a four hour talk & tour of house Dr. Laing was soon to depart, his marriage breaking up. London April 25, 1985
Allen GinsbergJimmy Osterberg, the musician Iggy Pop, in his new apartment Tompkins Square East-- Don Was, producing his recent album, had rushed me to run over to Pop's house in same neighborhood I lived & try taking photo for cover-- not used, but I liked this clean uplifted finger. Lower East Side Manhattan April 14, 1990.
Allen GinsbergWilliam S. Burroughs paused a moment before one of half-dozen raw plywood bigger-than-life silhouettes cut out for him to collage, paint, stamp, spraycan and/or shotgun, Prepared by then-assistant neighbor friend Steven Lowe whose house we visited, Lawrence, Kansas March 19, 1992.
Allen GinsbergCzeslaw Milosz waiting his turn to read poetry, Philadelphia, late March 1984 —
Allen GinsbergWilliam Burroughs' later phase as painter, "Shotgun art" a beginning work at his side, "The Bunker" his old loft on New York's Bowery, 1984. He'd recently moved to Lawerence, Kansas, was visiting New York.
Allen GinsbergTwo new wave youths met at Burroughs reading in Berkeley visited my N.Y. apartment January 11, 1985, I'd exchanged addresses with Blake, on left. His friend a Rimbaud reader holds Starkie biography of the original great punk poet I gave as present.
Allen GinsbergRay Bremser, Jazz-bar sound-poetry genius, syncopating wow-sound word- / walloper, original N.Y. late-1950's Coffeshop bard with Kerouac & LeRoi Jones, his long-ago jail songs were noted by Bob Dylan in _The Times They are a Changin'_; at kitchen table March 15, 1987, he stayed over to read Poetry and teach my "Literary History of Beat Generation" Class Brooklyn College, come down from A.A. halfway house in Utica N.Y., rare trip to the Apple for survivor w/ big fine beard.
Allen GinsbergFine-bearded Ilya Kutik & his wife, center, at home with his circle of friends, philologists, translators, poets & philosophy teachers, Moscow December 16, 1985. Dostoevsky-eyed youth in striped sweater had gone absent without leave for the evening from the Army to meet me and ask after Neal Cassady, Kerouac's hero _On the Road_.
Allen GinsbergMy aunt Clara Lehman talking in mirror of her room, Daughters of Israel old-age Home, she's 83, her 91 year old friend from down the hall visits, they gossip about television, my photo of Clara, her sister my aunt Honey & late uncle Abe sitting together a year earlier in Plexiglas frame by his elbow, photo of her daughters & grandchildren stuck on mirror, I visit her every couple of weeks in West Orange, New Jersey, this was January 26, 1987-- she's my father's younger sister. She'd retired to Miami, Florida, her second husband died, she had to come back to Jersey where most of the family lives.
Allen GinsbergFrancesco Clemente and Julius Orlovsky (Peter's brother) visiting East 6th Street Ramana Maharshi storefront ashram, Lower East Side New York Fall 1984. For Francesco from Allen Ginsberg
Allen GinsbergKitchen window later afternoon January 23, 1987, snow melted on the sill, I never met Bill Rizzo.
Allen GinsbergJeff B. Buhl, I met at Kerouac Conference Naropa, here in San Francisco March 1985. Rock & Roll Pact, lives in Berkeley.
Allen GinsbergMeat delivery, Bluefields Nicaragua, January 1986.
Allen GinsbergWatching out my kitchen table window for five years now, first leaves on ailanthus trees, rainy day strong wind—I’d snapped photos nearly every week watching the seasons change—here May 18, 1989 from East 12th Street, Lower East Side Manhattan.
Allen GinsbergJohn Murao in Shig's bedroom, Grant Street San Francisco Mid-March 1985
Allen GinsbergJohn Hammond ill December 4, 1986
Allen GinsbergBerenice Abbott May 14, 1985
Allen GinsbergLawrence Ferlinghetti taking morning expresso at Café Puccini a block or so up Columbus from his City Lights Books, March 16, 1985.
Allen GinsbergBob Dylan, Tompkins Square Park, ten minutes later we were chased out onto Avenue A by homeless men sleeping in the bandshell who threw bottles at us mistakenly thinking we were taking their pictures. May 21, 1990.
Allen GinsbergW.S. Burroughs leaving my photo show Holly Solomon Gallery 57th Street & 5th Avenue, New York January 1985.
Allen GinsbergPortrait of composer Steven Taylor and half myself & C—III Leica in skyscraper lobby mirror, 58th St. & 6th avenue after radio Broadcast, late night November 13, 1986.
Allen GinsbergRick McBride's glasses nose beard, Shig Murao & Jack Micheline, Trieste Cafe March 16, 1985, San Francisco, morning leisures.
Allen GinsbergRobert Creeley Maine Summer 1983 after Williams Congress Orono.
Allen GinsbergJulius Orlovsky in woods, hill behind Karme Chöling Meditation Center, St. Johnsbury, Vermont, September 3 Labor Day mushroom hunting, 1984.
Allen GinsbergAi Wei Wei sometime around Tompkins Square Riots, Police cars by the Park, Avenue A.
Allen GinsbergSelf-Portrait with R.D. Lang, living room of his house, Mapleton Street; ending several years' visiting faculty at Naropa Institute. We planned departure on lecture tour voyage. Boulder, Colorado. July 7, 1987
Allen GinsbergGeorge Condo in his studio townhouse East 64th Street, N.Y. January 15, 1993
Allen GinsbergOliver Ray, aspiring writer, adept at word processors, one time archivist in Francesco Clemente's Manhattan studio, recent Calvin Klein ad model, drove from N.Y. to Ann Arbor to attend Patti Smith & myself at Buddhist money benefit performance- limping from legs broken in fall off Mexican Ocean Cliffside one night months before. -- here in Shaman Drum store for Patti Smith's _Early Work_ book signing, February 17, 1995
Allen GinsbergWalking down Second Avenue in East 20's I stopped for a meal in Sushi bar, went to the tiny bathroom and saw myself several dozen times multiplied, Aetat 59. September 24, 1985.
Allen GinsbergDavid Greenberg, Phi Beta Kappa Rutgers U. '93, poet, art curator & essayist, guitar song composer Indie-Rock group "Pen Pal", co-editor Soft Skull press, Corso friend & scholar, fresh from 24th birthday head-shave. After graduation he lived six months in little guest-room open-doored behind him, worked odd jobs in Manhattan. March 13, 1995.
Allen GinsbergJack Micheline in front of Trieste Cafe March 16, 1985 San Francisco
Allen GinsbergWelsh Poet Dafydd Rowlands & myself above Laugharne Bay & Dylan Thomas' Boat-house, he'd driven us back from Aberystwyth Eisteddfod englynion competition where we'd met ex-Bardic Chair-holder former Dic Jones, thence we returned to Swansea Poetry Festival where I'd stayed six days, April 5, 1995.
Allen GinsbergMuseum of the Great Patriotic War, Minsk, Belarusia, Soviet Union, a visit by U.S. Literary delegation, planned sightseeing, our yuppie-Russian interpreter left, novelist Wm. Gass second from Right, the rest of our writers & delegates had wandered away down marble halls.
Allen GinsbergAnne Waldman orator poet co-director of Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Institute, Boulder Colorado, discussing a love affair over table at T'ai Chi teacher Jane Faigao's house, Robert Frank's _The Americans_ under her wrist, August 15, 1985.
Allen GinsbergHarry Smith, hermetic film-maker, philosopher, archivist, painter & bibliophile stayed in that little music room in my apartment for nine months recovering from a compression fracture of his right knee. He spent months tape-recording ambient sounds of the Lower East Side coming into my Manhattan windows from miles around.
Allen GinsbergHarry Smith returned to visit my house, his old room behind him, about a year after he’d migrated upstate to Cooperstown with two dozen boxes of his paintings, books and several hundred hours of tapes he’d made on my Sony Pro Walkman of the ambient sounds of lower Manhattan (climaxing July 4, 1985) – microphone wrapped in towel on windowsill sucking in dog barks & auto horns from the battery to lower East Side for months. Now it is August 30th, 1986.
Allen GinsbergElvin Jones, New Smyrna Beach, Florida, late May 1984, Robert Frank's Polaroid #195 camera he let me use. We were all teaching together at Atlantic Center for the Arts.
Allen GinsbergAfter Cooperstown, Harry Smith moved from friend to friend homeless in New York, finally to Franciscan Mission on Bowery, malnourished & weak. He stayed with me awhile, we took trip to visit Southern Folklore Society in Oxford, Mississippi with my 81 year old step mother Edith—we’d just settled in to our motel & Edith was calling home; Harry hoped for invitation to stay & work at Folklore Center & immediately recorded local Scottish bawdy songs. April 18, 1987.