The "selfie" (word of the moment), the ubiquitous "selfie" - As Paul Gallagher noted recently, on one of our all-time favorite blogs, Dangerous Minds - "Along with being a poet, Beat writer, radical, teacher, diarist, singer, musician, photographer and Buddhist, Allen Ginsberg was also the pioneer of the selfie. Long before everyone was posting their self-portraits on social media, Ginsberg was out there taking snaps of himself in front of every hotel mirror. He snapped himself cross-legged, naked, half-dressed, fully-dressed, vulnerable, confident, unwashed, washed, smiling, squinting, happy-face, ugly-face, old-man-tired-and-going-to-bed face - the Ginsberg selfie captured it all".Here's a few more Ginsberg "selfies" -
And a show-down this week onInstagram- James Franco (who played Allen, of course, in 2010's Howl movie) and Allen - "Who Did It Better?" - Word-on-the-street says Allen. What do you think?
And what's this? who's this? why, it's American photographic pioneer Robert Cornelius and a daguerrotype taken in 1839 - according to Wikipedia, "the first known selfie"!
Here's James Franco again. Okay, enough of this - moving along...
Here's James Franco reading his poetry (courtesy another of our favorite blogs, Open Culture) - James Franco Reads Six Short Poems From His New Collection
Here's James Franco reading Allen