Beat Generation

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/us/18leonard1.html

Check out the Sturm and Drang’s New Orleans special at Big Bridge.

This mid-issue feature was a long one in the making: a huge special with over 100 artists, poets, essayists, fiction writers, and others who helped to renew and rebuild the artistic integrity of New Orleans after Katrina.

I’m launching Moon Willow Press on January 1. The press is starting out as an editorial service, and publication of books (other than e-books) will begin in late 2010 or 2011. The first e-book is online. It’s not beat-related, but is a children’s book, to kick off the “$4.00 e-book” experimental avenue, which I hope to eventually work into a special, periodic incentive for people to buy cheap books of good read quality that will help to fund the press as well as support forest-friendly organizations.

Editing and proofreading: My rates are low compared to all other editorial services that I’ve researched, and because this is a start-up business, I have a few incentives for people to establish client relationships with me, including a free author review second pass and discounted services for anyone publishing at Moon Willow Press. See the site for more details, including my background and experience.

Paper publishing: Moon Willow will focus publications on non-fiction books related to climate change, sustainable living, ecosystem preservation, and other environmental issues. We will also publish about 20% fiction and poetry. MWP will print on-demand, use forest-friendly and FSC-certified paper only, and offer e-book alternatives when the author is agreeable.

A new Kerouac memoir by Helen Weaver is out. See this article for more info (I haven’t read it yet).

“I rejected (Kerouac) for the same reason America rejected him,” Weaver concludes on a bittersweet note. “He interfered with our sleep.”

Shot over 11 years by renowned fashion photographer Steven Sebring, Patti Smith: Dream of Life is an intimate portrait of the legendary rocker, poet and artist. Following Smith’s personal reflections over a decade, the film explores her many art forms and the friends and poets who inspired her — William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Robert Mapplethorpe and Michael Stipe. She emerges as a crucial, contemporary link between the Beats, punks and today’s music. Shot in lush, dark tones, featuring rare performance clips and narrated by the artist herself, Patti Smith: Dream of Life is an impressionistic journal of a multi-faceted artist that underscores her unique place in American culture.

You can view the trailer here: http://www.pbs.org/pov/pattismith/. (more…)

Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s Howl, starring James Franco, plays in San Francisco, California in late January as part of Sundance’s 2010 US select city competition. The film was slated as “risky” by some news agencies, since Franco is a star already. But I am happy to see him cast as Allen Ginsberg and think his performance will be great. (more…)

I enjoyed Big Sur, but not as much as Dharma Bums.

Big Sur was a look into the unraveling sorrow of Kerouac’s later prime years after the earlier escalated hope when he and Gary Snyder had climbed up the Matterhorn.

This new film travels back to the old Kerouacian haunts of NYC and SF as well as to Ferlinghetti’s cabin at Big Sur. If you’ve been up to that area of California, you might know its utter beauty, as I think Kerouac saw and was so drowned into.

See more about One Fast Move Or I’m Gone.

See a schedule for the showings here.

A journal of New Writing, Issue 15, is out.

Tom Hibbard has a political corner, in which one of my poems “Josephine” is published. This is an ecological poem, inspired by a documentary called “Waterlife” that I saw earlier this year, where a woman named Josephine Mandamin goes around thousands of miles to bless the Great Lakes, whose water quality has becoming terrible and deathly, not just to reptiles and fish, but to people.

This is a new green press initiative from Jack Magazine, offering editorial services and expanding into a small press. See the site: Moon Willow Press.

August 29
Shelldance Orchid Gardens, 2000 Highway 1, Pacifica, CA 94044
(650)355-4845
http://www.shelldance.com

Free & open to the public. 3 pm until 9 pm

Featuring ROCKPILE Pre-amble Pt. 2 with David Meltzer, Michael Rothenberg, Terri Carrion, and The Rabbles, Leah Lubin, Terry Adams, Natascha Bruckner, Camincha, Andrew Mayer, Nancy Cavers-Doughtery, Mark Eckert, Mary Hower, Jym Marks, Erica Goss, Jennifer Barone, Eileen Elliot, Toni Partington, David Madgalene & Judy Irwin

Music by Bassist Steve Shain
MC’s: David Madgalene and Christopher Luna
Visual art by Leah Lubin, Anna Teeples, and Uma Rani Iyliv

Complete schedule and bios (PDF)

Chris Hickey wrote to me saying, “I recently wrote and recorded a song, each day, for about three weeks. The result is “Razzmatazz” – 16 songs, just vocal & guitar, recorded in my bedroom on a hand-held voice recorder.” So I checked out one of the songs, “Kerouac” and like it quite a bit and want to help plug the album. You can download Kerouac for free or order the album with Paypal or a credit card.

Chris has three previous solo records, was a member of the bands “Uma” and “Show of Hands”, and has appeared on records by Joe Henry, Michael Penn, Indigo Girls, and more.

P.S. I ordered the album, and I absolutely love it.

My main reaction to Kerouac estate’s fake will is that I wonder what Johnny Depp looks like in Jack Kerouac’s raincoat, which Depp spent $50,000 on at one point. Here is a silly photoshop I did to amuse myself and sate my curiosity. I really don’t know if this is the same coat, but the original photo was of a young Jack Kerouac.

I wrote a review of this at Jack Magazine recently, and just learned that the film by Henry Ferrini is online now.

The old theme broke, which rarely happens, but did sometime in the last couple weeks, so I apologize for the lack of anything appearing on the front page. Hope we’re back now.

The new Big Bridge is finally out, and it looks fabulous. I could spend a year there, and still not read everything. I am actually working on the New Orleans special, which is way huger than Michael or I thought it would be. I will have it up by January and will also be helping with the next issue of Big Bridge, as well as Jack’s summer 10th-anniversary issue (which I’m now accepting submissions for).

Not much is new. It has been the summer of vacation, including a road trip and lots of wine, to the great vineyards of British Columbia’s interior as well as hiking in cougar lands and seeing some really neat old pictographs. Then we had a heat wave in Vancouver, so were spending a lot of time in the pool, to the point I think my hair resembles Peter Frampton’s, or maybe Cousin It’s. It has also been a summer of work, when not road-tripping around.

I have received, thanks to Jerry Aronson, The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg, which I will be watching soon. This reminds me also that I’m greatly looking forward to Howl. I love James Franco, have ever since Freaks ‘n Geeks.

This is not a new beat film, but its re-release is still for sale. From Jerry Aronson: It contains the original movie with a new ending now including Allen’s passing and 6+ hours of “Extras”. Directed by Jerry Aronson.  www.ginsbergmovie.com

This DVD was released in 2007 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of  “Howl”. New Yorker Films has gone out of business, and the last remaining copies of the DVD are for sale on Amazon.  Adrien Begrand over-viewed Life and Times as one of the best beat films ever.