The "New" Novel By Burroughs and Kerouac!

In August, 1944, Lucien Carr, a young Columbia University student, murdered David Kammerer, a older man who had been stalking him, due to circumstances still being debated. (Self-defense? Premeditated murder?) Somehow, as recounted here, Carr managed to involve both Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs in helping him try (unsuccessfully) to cover up the killing. (More details here .) (It should be noted that Carr was instrumental in introducing Kerouac, Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, the three principal figures of the "Beat Movement", to each other.)


(Burroughs and Kerouac.)

A year later, Burroughs & Kerouac, having (barely) escaped prison for their part in the killing, decided to collaborate on a mystery novel loosely based on the Carr-Kemmerer incident. For various reasons, the book was never published during the principals' lifetimes. Now however, as noted in this article, the novel, And The Hippos Were Broiled In Their Tanks will finally be published on November 1st. An excerpt of it can be read here . Should be interesting. -Ed

(And how did Burroughs & Kerouac come up with that bizarre title? Wikipedia explains all.)

"Ginsberg & Beat Fellows" & Gordon Ball

(Gordon Ball at the library's Meeting Room on Tuesday, October 7th.)

Beat historian, underground filmmaker and author Gordon Ball came to speak at the Greenwich Library on Tuesday night, October 7th, in the Meeting Room. Mr. Ball, who currently teaches English at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, read from his memoirs '66 Frames (1999), Dark Hill (2006) and Scenes From East Hill Farm: Seasons With Allen Ginsberg (2007), and showed a slide presentation of his program on the Beats, Ginsberg & Beat Fellows: Writings & Photographs by Gordon Ball , coincidentally the title of that night's program.

Mr. Ball read from his books about his first meeting with Ginsberg, how the poet talked him into overseeing his farm in upstate New York and how he met such Beat (and Beat-related figures) as Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Robert Creeley , Peter Oslosky and Anne Waldman . Ginsberg had hoped the farm he bought in 1968 would be a haven for his fellow artists to "cleanse" themselves (like Corso and Oslosky, who had major chemical dependence problems) and held out the ultimately futile dream that old friend Jack Kerouac (already a full-blown alcoholic by that time)would come by for that purpose. Needless to say, that never happened.


(Gordon Ball and friends at Ginsberg's East Hill Farm, appx. 1969.)

Below is a picture from Mr. Ball's Beat Fellows presentation: a picture he took of Ginsberg and fellow Beat (and all-around scary guy) Herbert Huncke :


More of Mr. Ball's pictures can be found on his web site here . If you click on a photo, you'll see both a larger image and a description of the picture and what led up to that particular moment. (Lots of good stuff!) This picture below taken by Mr. Ball is a favorite of mine:


Mr. Ball graciously gave us a copy of his '66 Frames memoir and expressed hope that a longer version of Scenes From East Hill Farm (which he's completed) will see the light of day soon. -Ed

See also: Bill Morgan's I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg (which can be found here and Mr. Morgan's collection, The Letters of Allen Ginsberg .

Allen Ginsberg in India

(Allen Ginsberg in the late 50's.)



There's a brand new book on the Beats -specifically Allen Ginsberg and his travels to India in the early 60s that I just heard about: A Blue Hand: The Beats in India by Deborah Baker. Here's a review.

-Ed

Update: Here's a review from the Associated Press on the book.

The Earliest Howl of Allen Ginsberg

In the "Arts Briefly" column in the New York Times Arts section (compiled by Peter Edidin)for Saturday February 16, 2008, this item came up:

The earliest known recording of Allen Ginsberg reading from his epic poem “Howl” has been found at Reed College in Portland, Ore., the British newspaper The Guardian reported. It had been thought that Ginsberg, right, first recorded the work in Berkeley, Calif., in March 1956. But according to The Oregonian, the recently discovered recording was made several weeks earlier. Ginsberg, having hitchhiked to Portland with his fellow Beat poet Gary Snyder in the winter of 1956, gave a reading at a student hostel, the Anna Mann Cottage, that was recorded on a reel-to-reel machine on Feb. 14. The tape was found by John Suiter, a biographer of Mr. Snyder, in a box in the college archives labeled “Snyder Ginsberg 1956.” It contained a 35-minute tape of Ginsberg reading the first section of “Howl” and other poems. The recordings can be heard at reed.edu.


Allen Ginsberg

That link to the Ginsberg recording can be found here. -Ed

Beats At Columbia University

Tomorrow (Friday, February 8), Columbia University will be holding a series of programs honoring it's "prodigal sons" (as their promotional copy says) Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Howl: A Celebration of Columbia 's Beats will run from 3:30 to 10:00 PM. Details & schedules can be accessed here , if anybody is interested. If I don't get lost on the subway (it's happened before), I'll be attending. (School of Visual Arts Professor Regina Weinreich, who spoke here last October on the work of William S. Burroughs, is one of the featured guests.) -Ed


(Left to right: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, circa 1945, at Columbia U.)

Related link: Literary Kicks.