"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 .

Upcoming Film on Kerouac's Big Sur

Big Sur (1962) is one of Jack Kerouac's most heartbreaking novels. Almost a cry for help from the author, the book chronicles Kerouac's literary alter ego Jack Duluoz & his attempt to recover from a nervous breakdown by retreating to the popular California mountain area. It's also the topic of a forthcoming documentary taken from a line in chapter three of the novel.

One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur is the title & this blog heard about the directly from the producers, www.kerouacfilms.com . Below is a description of the film from their site:

He was called the vibrant new voice of his generation -- the avatar of the Beat movement. In 1957, on the heels of the triumphant debut of his groundbreaking novel, On The Road, Jack Kerouac was a literary rock star, lionized by his fans and devotees. But along with sudden fame and media hype came his unraveling, and, by 1960, Kerouac was a jaded cynic, disaffected from the Beat culture he helped create and tortured by self-doubt, addiction and depression.

Desperate for spiritual salvation and solitude, as well as a place to dry out, he secretly retreats to Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s rustic cabin in the Big Sur woods. But his plan is foiled by his own inner demons, and what ensues that summer becomes the basis for Kerouac’s gritty, yet lyrically told, semi-autobiographical novel, Big Sur.


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.



I'll see about getting more info on the film (release dates, etc.) and update this post shortly. -Ed