2:18 pm - narration by William Burroughs |
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Saturday, October 1st, 2011 |
5:49 pm |
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Friday, July 30th, 2010 |
3:28 pm - Jonny |
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Monday, August 3rd, 2009 |
8:24 pm - An Author Without Borders |
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Monday, March 16th, 2009 |
6:30 pm - The Beats: A Graphic History |
crookedfingers "In "The Beats: A Graphic History", those who were mad to live have come back to life through artwork as vibrant as the Beat movement itself. Told by the comic legend Harvey Pekar, his frequent artistic collaborator Ed Piskor, and a range of artists and writers, including the feminist comic creator Trina Robbins and the Mad magazine artist Peter Kuper, The Beats takes us on a wild tour of a generation that, in the face of mainstream American conformity and conservatism, became known for its determined uprootedness, aggressive addictions, and startling creativity and experimentation. What began among a small circle of friends in New York and San Francisco during the late 1940s and early 1950s laid the groundwork for a literary explosion, and this striking anthology captures the storied era in all its incarnations—from the Benzedrine-fueled antics of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs to the painting sessions of Jay DeFeo’s disheveled studio, from the jazz hipsters to the beatnik chicks, from Chicago’s College of Complexes to San Francisco’s famed City Lights bookstore. Snapshots of lesser-known poets and writers sit alongside frank and compelling looks at the Beats’ most recognizable faces. What emerges is a brilliant collage of—and tribute to—a generation, in a form and style that is as original as its subject." (comment on this) |
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 |
9:37 pm - from a letter written by Allen Ginsberg |
crookedfingers So (experiments) are many modern canvasses as you know. The sketch is a fine "Form."]W.C. Williams has been observing speech rhythms for years trying to find a regular "measure"-he's mistaken I think.There is no measure which will make one speech the exact length of another, one line the exact length of another.He has therefore seized on the phrase "relative measure" in his old age.He is right but has not realized the implications of this in the long line.Since each wave of speech-thought needs to be measured (we speak and perhaps think in waves)-or what I speak and think I have at any rate in Howl reduced to waves of relatively equally heavy weight-and set next to one another they are in a balance O.K.The tenchnique of writing both prose and poetry, the technical problem of the present day, is the problem of transcription of the natural flow of the mind, the transcription of the melody of actual thought or speech.I have learned more toward capturing the inside-mind-thought rather than the verbalized speech. This distinction I make because most poets see the problem via Worthsworth as getting nearer to actual speech, verbal speech.I have noticed that the unspoken visual-verbal flow inside the mind has great rhythm and have approached the problem of strophe, line and stanza and measure by listening and transcribing (to a great extent) the coherent mental flow. Taking that for the model for form as Cezanne took Nature.This is not surrealism-they made up an artificial literary imitation.I transcribe from my ordinay thoughts-waiting for extra exciting or mystical moments or near mystical moments to transcribe.This brings up problems of image, and transcription of mental flow gives helpful knowledge because we think in sort of surrealist (juxtaposed images) or haiku-like form. (comment on this) |
9:31 pm - from a letter written by Ginsberg to his father describes Kerouac prose style |
crookedfingers ". . .Entry: Re Jack's prose, well I like it of course, my reason being that it has the same syntactical structure of fast excited spoken talking-this is an interesting event in prose development, and it's no less communicative to me than heard speech, mine, yours, his,-when you speak you also talk a little like that, especially when you're moved, excited, angry, or dizzy with happiness etc. etc.-heightened speech in other words. Normal conversation does not necessarily follow formal syntax, nor need it as long as it's communicative. So written prose. Perhaps you find it uncommunicated or uncommunicating because you expect to see a different written order of syntax. But it actually gets across very well, what he's describing, faithful to his own way of talk. It's obvious from On Road or Town & City that he can write normal prose, simple & straightforward. So if he writes experimentally one has to give credit for it being you know at least sincere & even intelligent, an approach, a try-most people don't even try-and it isn't as if he hasn't personally sacrificed a lot to pursue his sense of craft-that book was written long ag without a hope of publication-as On the Road was written 8 years ago. I do find it interesting though-I know the girl he writes about-who took off her clothes & flipped-I heard her story about it-that was the way she spoke, the syntax even, her style of speaking-a very common style-he's caught her very well-and if you add his interpolations & private thoughts which he records semi-simultaneously with her monologues, & their conversation-you have a very complicated but very real structure of events to try and get down on paper. Hemingway tried simplification & reduction (and was attacked for being too inhumanly stripped down)-Jack trying (as Proust & Celine) to include all the little private thoughts you normally wouldn't mention-so he arrives at a complicated sentence structure. It's not trying to be English sentence structure. It's trying to be American actual speech-and thought-reproduction. So it shouldn't be judged by standards of a high school or college grammar course. It's not meant to be grammatical that way, it's meant to be right another way. Nor can one say that standard English syntax is the fixed and only standard way of transcribing human thought-all languages have different syntax structures-the Latin ones are one group-the German type inflected is another-and many primitive cultures have approaches to syntax that are almost almost incomprehensible to us (but make sense to them-no verbs for instance in some languages, no adjectives in others). And there is Chinese syntax which I'm told is of a totally different order from ours. Sytnax is only a tool to speak with, there are many syntaxes, & many variations possible to our tongue, common in use even, in talk-English grammar is only the formal way tied to fixed habits of feeling & communication-Jack, broken free of these fixed habits of thought, has to think & write his own way, find a mode. Look at the sentence I just wrote-it's crazy, but it followed the spontaneous convolutions of my thought very flexibly-would I change my thought to fit the sentence structure better, or alter my thought & pare it down neat & leave out the hesitations, changes, and halts, interruptions, to make it fit a school copybook? I'd wind up writing gibberish if I tried to halt in midstream & box it up neat to fit some imaginary standard. The ideal is for me a sensitive prose or poetry syntax or metric that is practical & follows the changes actually going on in the process of thinking or writing-where a normal metric or syntax works, fine-but where it doesn't apply, why? I no longer worry about that so much-just go my way-that's all any man can do-live-and do what he thinks practical. And real. See now that that last bit, and real, added on to the sentence. I thought it up next and added it-you can follow my actual process of composition-what I mean is there directly no less and no more-I just thought to say, and real, and added it in, just like that. What freedom-and why not? Language is to use not dicate our thoughts. But so much of our lives & feelings are tied down to the limitations of what we're taught-this is the importance of striking out into variation & experiment-this is not nihilism but courage-not really that-Joy! Well I'll end on elevated note. Love to everyone-wrote Gene tonight-will try Warsaw yet see under skirt of iron curtain perhaps. There is no Beat Generation, it's all a journalist hex. Love Allen." pp. 185-187 from "The Letters of Allen Ginsberg"current mood: contemplative (comment on this) |
Sunday, August 31st, 2008 |
7:01 pm - Beat Poet |
crookedfingers It is 6:13 PM I have been searching through my JS blog for a list of books I have in my Allen Ginsberg collection. To my amazement I have not updated that list since January 2005! I have to go down in the basement soon and dig out all the new Ginsberg books I bought over the last three years. I was sure I had a blog entry with recent Ginsberg books. Strange.January 7, 2005Allen Ginsberg Collection 1. "Howl And Other Poems" Introduction by William Carlos Williams 2. "Empty Mirror" Early Poems 3. "Reality Sandwiches Poems 1953-60" 4. "Kaddish And Other Poems 1958-1960" 5. "Planet News Poems 1961-1967" 6. "Allen Ginsberg Journals Mid-Fifties 1954-1958" Edited by Gordon Ball 7. "Allen Ginsberg Journals Early Fifties Early Sixties" 8. "Allen Ginsberg Spontaneous Mind: Selected Interviews 1958-1996" Edited by David Carter 9. "Allen Ginsberg Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1952-1995" 10. "Family Business: Selected Letters between a father and a son Allen and Louis Ginsberg" 11. "Snapshot Poetics" photos by Allen Ginsberg [A Photographic Memior of the Beat era] 12. Allen Ginsberg-Holy Soul Jelly Roll-Poems and Songs 1949-1993 [ Four CD set box set]13. "Ginsberg: A Biography" by Barry Miles 14. "Dharma Lion: A Biography of Allen Ginsberg" by Michael Schumacher 15. "Allen Ginsberg in America" by Jane Kramer 16. "The Visionary Poetics of Allen Ginsberg" by Paul Portuges 17. "America Scream: Allen Ginsberg's Howl And The Making Of The Beat Generation" by Jonah Raskin August 30, 2008. 18. "Howl: 50th Anniversary Edition" by Allen Ginsberg19. Howl on trial: The Battle for Free Expression" Edited by Bill Morgan & Nancy J. Peters20. "I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life Of Allen Ginsberg" by Bill Morgan21. "The Book Of Martyrdom And Artifice" [First Journals And Poems 1937-1952] by Allen Ginsberg edited by Juanita Lieberman-Plimpton & Bill Morgan22. "Letters of Allen Ginsberg" edited by Bill Morgan23. "The Visions of the Great Rememberer"24. "Collected Poems 1947-1997" by Allen Ginsberg25. "An Elegy For Allen Ginsberg 1926-1997: No More To Say & Nothing To Weep For" DVDmusic: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club "Howl"current mood: contemplative (1 comment | comment on this) |
Thursday, February 28th, 2008 |
12:04 pm - Kerouac film |
crookedfingers This just popped up on the radar: a new Kerouac documentary produced by Jim Sampas et al. One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur takes the viewer back to Ferlinghetti’s cabin and to the Beat haunts of San Francisco and New York City for an unflinching, cinematic look at the compelling events the book is based on. The story unfolds in several synchronous ways: through the narrative arc of Kerouac’s prose, told in voice-over by actor and Kerouac interpreter, John Ventimiglia (of HBO’s The Sopranos); through first-hand accounts and recollections of Kerouac’s contemporaries, whom many of the characters in the book are based on such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Carolyn Cassady, Joyce Johnson and Michael McClure; by the interpretations and reflections of writers, poets, actors and musicians who have been deeply influenced by Kerouac’s unique gifts like Tom Waits, Sam Shepard, Robert Hunter, Patti Smith, Aram Saroyan, Donal Logue and S.E. Hinton; and by stunning, High Definition visual imagery set to original music composed and performed by recording artist, Jay Farrar of Son Volt, with additional performance by Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie. current mood: exhausted (comment on this) |
Sunday, December 2nd, 2007 |
3:52 pm - short-song |
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Friday, April 6th, 2007 |
12:21 am - Quantum Consciousness and the Fifth Dimension |
indiriverflow Quantum Consciousness and the Fifth Dimension_By Indi Riverflow__“Where ya comin’ from?”_Our worldview is largely a function of our location. The range of what we can experience and imagine is bounded by the culture that spawned us, and the place that we hold within it. Transcending locality is key to comprehending quantum consciousness.( Read On!Collapse ) current mood: contemplative (comment on this) |
Friday, January 26th, 2007 |
7:11 am - Blues4Kali- A Cult Classic for the End Times |
indiriverflow What will Winter Solstice bring in 2012?...an instant of Karma? ...an ethereal spiral dance of the collective soul? ... cosmic judgment leveled against civilization's expanse? ...destruction of the world as we know it? ...a chance for a new start? ...the rise and the revenge of the Goddess? or simply another day in the life of paranoia?These are the false prophesies that your pastor warned you about!Reality Exchange Program "Makes DMT seem like a whip-it."Crazy Bear said there'd be days like this. As usual, no one believed him. Now, all I want to know is: where IS that lifeboat, and how DO I ditch this ship of fools, without any of these bliss ninnies noticing that I'm already gone?Captain, my ass. We are equal in this sea of madness.That iceberg is looking awfully big.Amana Mission is on a quest to save the world, and the only problem is, she can't remember why she got involved with such an obvious scam in the first place. Jesus saves. Christ. What a loser.Kali kills first, and recycles later.Hitchhikers, load up for a ride to the Other Side. You may wish you had gone Greyhound.**"What the...?"*A cranky band of prankster peace warriors who absolutely cannot resist messing with each other's minds, no matter the cost.*Cocky alchemy-dabbling quantum surfers, navigating the Ethersphere with hand-held computers, switching timelines to find a better party vibe and swap tips about the best temporary toilets for use as interdimensional portals.*A burnt-out visionary hippie millionaire on a mission from Gaia to build a better "communitopia" by underwriting a convoy carrying telepathic priestesses.*A wheelchair-bound mindpilot propelling a crystal-powered Seed Bank toward the post-Apocalyptic Garden, with psychic precision...and a predilection for high-velocity extreme driving.*Hermaphrodite time-jumper fleeing a fate worse than death.*Anarchist ghettoes where anything goes-except escape.*Ancient Principals vying like sweatsoaked carpetbaggers for our loyalty as the Final Vote is tallied.*Long-haired security patrols collecting a cannabis tribute tax from all pilgrims to the Valley of Fun.*And an underground meat mafia bringing a black magic revival to a bloodless dreamworld gone bland.All brought together by a secret psychedelic superdrug that tunes users in to reality through the eyes of another archetypal avatar inhabiting a different state of space and time. Mahayana made easy. Budding Buddha natures are running amuck on a virtual superhighway where all roads lead to the Bo tree and singularity.Twenty-first century Tantra is about more than sex, drugs, and rock and roll.Confronting the Karma of every wasted breath is only the first step.Welcome to the End Times. Kali awaits. She already knows who you are.Do you?The 21st century counterculture is even weirder than it appears on the surface. This is not your mommy’s MTV Road Rules.Ride along on this mesmerizing, metaphor-packed bus trip toward ecstasy and enlightenment, as three real-time guides-Amana, Sissy, and Deva, let you in on what they learned when they asked what It was really all about, after all.Become** them for a multilevel metafictional tour of infinity and awaken yourself to the miracle-a-minute magic of mighty Mother Kali!Online New Age BooksRead Online Novel Blues 4 Kali at www.blues4kali.comProphecy 2012 current mood: indescribable (1 comment | comment on this) |
Saturday, August 26th, 2006 |
11:23 pm - mist |
icekween01 I dreamed you existed but I also dreamed my teeth were falling out, then there was the black camaro chasing me through the mall then always the big fall into the endless puddle over the endless cliff into the endless hole in the street that jerks you awake and you say whew, it was just a dream, you being more like a nightmare in your perfectness which is the why, where, what, who, how of what I know....imagining the ideal of it all with no reality for footing, no grip on the truth, it's too slippery, it stretches and hides from me and I look and look for it but the only thing I can see is the mist silk curtain in front of my eyes blurring the facts.... (1 comment | comment on this) |
Thursday, August 17th, 2006 |
11:33 pm |
trigger_of_rock the popes cat did a holy pouncecrazy little pogothinking flesh-machine punt the stupid bastard eastnow he rocks a frantic limpbabbling, limping fucking cat still peed on the couchgot to take the seat round, dodging the killing mast, to have it cleanedbut the smell kitten and his crisscross crusifix thoughtsbutterflies it's pushy self, "modest adoration,"over evolving fishpeople speciesabove lava, pebble, silt, worm, orchard, juice, baby breath, love, social heck(and again)(and again)tuna boggle over tails. (comment on this) |
Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 |
12:41 am |
trigger_of_rock greywho soft criespretty, but sad swallow eyes:sleepy brain, id egovocal moss, primary chin, superball pussy, grace knuckle, scientific eyelidincredible tantrum, skip from the pierall north falling, south jumpingobsession over now imperfection(rash-bump-itch gravy)going, maybeinto wash of cool you: pickle(casual yawn hunting watermellon) she: amazed(what stands trippy, poppy, triangle spotty)fold(war romantic)swish(trash beautiful)float(torrid pollywog in feces-home-toilet night)on what stands(busted rusty kettle- incredible)sigh-sort rub, light blowrepeat eh?crazy apple baby, grey...no. (comment on this) |
Monday, August 7th, 2006 |
10:01 pm |
wastelandpress DON’T GIVE A FUCK To the blood you wear so well. It’s the uncomforting images of shrewd brutality that spoil our gala festivities! This simply bleak meek weak generation of germs on the landscape. Look away! Sedated to all sensations these petrified voices real as fear, quietly burning – Safely we sleep soft skinned and young, as the sycamores surrender to their summer and the cheery trees grow through our bedposts – where the dead march on, chanting through paper megaphones. There are also plenty of silly distractions. Disposed to distress – lose the pain, write a cover story for you conscious dig up the sweet bones buried below and fall back into icy pool of sleep. Look on! Don’t look away Don’t look anywhere for answers Look away! These last of days. Something jostles in the darkness of night in the blackest realm of this human condition. (7 comments | comment on this) |
Sunday, July 23rd, 2006 |
7:05 pm - teenage pregnancy |
trigger_of_rock Iwild playdoughcute cinnamon puppypedophile kneecapsmossy leaf hands caresselectric grabover(think follow crazy brain gut)easy(breakfast jubilee romantisized)immediate enjoy express stuff-come omletteIIvomit backflipnurseround babynever holds magazines, only pamperslove frolic beat that sleepround babycrayon mongerwild playdoughIIIold similaritiesdreamrathermusterdarn different turn (comment on this) |
Tuesday, June 27th, 2006 |
4:00 pm |
beatsoul a slow deconstructionrandom falloutthe lacuna puzzlepieces lostthe memory hostno longer servesfirst things first-file not found-do I raze the foundation?wipe the slatefor new beginningsmaking now : thenI think-a proper undoing-requires itnot merely born againbut needing a new namei am not who I wasmake a palindrome of mefor viewingboth sides now (comment on this) |
Tuesday, April 25th, 2006 |
3:51 pm - Contest to Rid Writer's Block! |
chidder I've announced a small contest, designed to help overcome writer's block, over at my blog Mere Words. You're all invited to participate.current mood: productive (comment on this) |
Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 |
3:58 pm - Mascara Falls |
chidder You might find my review of Heather Eatman's fine 1995 album Mascara Falls interesting. I posted it earlier today at my blog Mere Words. Enjoy. (comment on this) |
Wednesday, April 5th, 2006 |
9:14 pm - Leonard Cohen's The Future |
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Saturday, January 28th, 2006 |
9:08 pm |
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Wednesday, January 11th, 2006 |
5:09 pm - Ego Stroking the Shortcut to Nirvana |
beatsoul Early last year, while sitting in a dim lit theater waiting to see a film on the Kumbh Mela ritual - a friend asked if I was still “battling my demons”.As this was someone I’m extremely enamored and inspired by – I gave the glibresponse “Hell, I’ve just accepted their presence and welcomed them in”.A truth in itself – but an easier lie than the greater truth of fear and disillusion.As words can cast fate – it seems I initiated an open-door policy for dark shadows.It’s been a year of hauntings, this past.But lately – things seem to be culminating towards that zero point.A reckoning is at hand.Partly drug-induced – and part hereditary schizoid parable-unfold – it seems the communion has commenced.Light flashes glimpsed through peripheries.Shadows dash in fast passing.Busy meddling mind parasites.They whistle while they work . . . (demonsong or symptomatic tinnitus?)I’m alert to their presence.I know what draws them out.I know what riles them up.They are not me – but of me – and that skewed dharma-self.Banishment is in order. Their effective usefulness worn.All the while . . .the prosperity of careerthe commitment to academiaare conspiring to evolve.Sabbatical. The deconstructionist holiday.I, the ringleader.No three-ring circus for trinity seekers.My ring concentric – infinite.cut-up version available at _lj_is_a_virus_ (comment on this) |
Tuesday, September 27th, 2005 |
10:50 pm |
dw_photoprojekt I'll never forget it- in downtown Long Beach I saw a poetry reading of Allen Ginsberg. He read his poetry, joked with the audience and yelled like a madman. It was an amazing performance and I remember it like yesterday. I believe it was 1995. Anyways, 2 years later he died. (comment on this) |
Tuesday, July 26th, 2005 |
1:31 am - 18 Hour FLAMING LIPS Radio Marathon THIS Thursday, 7/28/05, featuring Wayne Coyne...Listen to WIN!! |
nacho220 UPDATED INFORMATION AS OF JULY 26th, 200518 hours of the Flaming Lips music, listen locally in Cleveland, Ohio at 88.3FM, or listen LIVE from anywhere in the world at the website http://www.wbwc.comFinally...The Flaming Lips are having a marathon! Thursday, July 28th, WBWC's 2005 Summer Marathon Series continues celebrating 18 hours of The Flaming Lips.Starting at 7am your host Allen Thompson plays the studio tracks, b-sides and rarities until 1am. With an illustrious career spanning nearly 25 years, continuing strong into 2006, hear their brand new track Mr. Ambulance Driver from their forthcoming album...it can also be found on the Wedding Crashers movie soundtrack.Wayne Coyne takes time out of his busy schedule to talk with WBWC about the upcoming new album, the long delayed Christmas On Mars movie, and much more...Turn it on Thursday July 28th for 18 hours of the Flaming Lips, part of the 2005 Summer Marathon series only on Cleveland's Modern Rock Alternative, 88.3FM The Sting LISTEN TO WIN a copy of the Wedding Crashers Soundtrack featuring the brand new Flaming Lips song 'Mr. Ambulance Driver,' courtesy of New Line Records. ALSO win a copy of the brand new DVD, Flaming Lips-Fearless Freaks! Courtesy of Sony BMG Music ...and the big one is..ENTER TO WIN A CABIN FOR TWO aboard Xingolati - Groove Cruise of the Pacific October 14th - 17th, 2005! Featuring a live performance from the Flaming Lips...Listen ALL DAY this Thursday as we feature our FLAMING LIPS marathon!! More information about the cruise can be found at www.xingolati.com and www.wbwc.comENTER TO WIN at www.wbwc.comwww.wbwc.com/images/flpromo.jpg more information on our Marathon series can be found at http://www.wbwc.com/summermarathon/-Allen ThompsonWBWC Program Director...host of The Flaming Lips Marathon 2005Thursday, July 28th, 7am-1amhttp://www.wbwc.com440-826-STING (7846)request@wbwc.com (2 comments | comment on this) |