"We Are Continually Exposed To The Flashbulb of Death" - The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg 1953-1996 continues at the University of Toronto Art Center. Barbara Fischer, the director of the Center discusses the exhibition and the extraordinary trove of photos - here.
The William Blake Trust is trying to save William Blake's cottage and are launching, starting today, an on-line crowdfunding campaign. Read more about this very worthy cause here. and here. We have until Halloween (the 31st of October)
And more poets and fund-raising projects - Lawrence Ferlinghettiin San Francisco’s North Beach has been spearheading the planning for a North Beach “writer’s piazza” - which, despite initial doubts, might actually see fruition.
Naropa’s 40th anniversary celebrated in the local paper – The Boulder Daily Camera–
A couple of weeks ago, we featured respectful silent footage of Allen's "resting place"- the Gomel Chesed Cemetetry in Newark. Here's another "resting place" (sic) - Anne Waldman visits the memorial spot for the old "Dharma lion" at the Shambhala Mountain Center, near Red Feather Lakes, Colorado and sends us the following shot:
As ever, we cannot recommend too highly the extraordinary resources at PennSound. Here's a recent addition - from the WBFO radio program, "Stonewall Nation" (from 1978, courtesy the tape collection of Robert Creeley) - Allen talks about talking to his family about coming out - The whole program is instructional - (on being closeted, on desire and compassion, onthe (anti-gay, mercifully rejected) Briggs Initiative of '78, on the Beats and Nature, on Rocky Flats and plutonium - plus a rousing rendition of "Everybody Sing" - ("Everybody's just a little bit homosexual, whether they like it or not..") - It may be listened to, in its entirety, here. (Open Culture has a note on it here)
[George J Apostolos]
and - breaking news - a newly-discovered trove of Jack Kerouac letters (seventeen complete letters, two postcards and seven substantial fragments) written from New York City to his Lowell childhood friend George J Apostolosbetween 1940 and 1941 - see more about this here, here and here