Everything is the same, the fog says ‘We are fog and we fly by dissolving like ephemera,’ and the leaves say ‘We are leaves and we jiggle in the wind, that’s all, we come and go, grow and fall’ — Even the paper bags in my garbage pit say ‘We are mantransformed paper bags made out of wood pulp, we are kinda proud of being paper bags as long as that will be possible, but we’ll be mush again with our sisters the leaves come rainy season’ — The tree stumps say ‘We are tree stumps torn out of the ground by men, sometimes by the wind, we have big tendrils full of earth that drink out of the earth’ — Men say ‘We are men, we pull out tree stumps, we make paper bags, we think wise thoughts, we make lunch, we look around, we make a great effort to realise everything is the same.’

-Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

1. Buy at Moon Willow Press
Price: $4.00 USD or CND
MWP method of distribution: E-mail after Paypal is recieved

The e-book will be sent to buyer within 24 hours of payment, when ordered via MWP. Please be sure to enter your e-mail address when ordering, and then make sure that you check your spam folder if you do not receive an e-mail.

PRAGUE JAMES JOYCE SYMPOSIUM, 2010

On behalf of the International James Joyce Foundation, we invite you to the XXII International James Joyce Symposium in the “Golden City” of Prague, 13-18 June 2010.

Prague is at the centre of Europe as Joyce is at the centre of the tradition of European modernism, and it is fitting that the major European author of the twentieth century be honoured in the city that is the very heart of modern Europe.

In lieu of a theme, we propose that a meeting of minds such as this one should be a type of feast, a “symposium,” as Plato has it-a “drinking together.” 2010 marks the first time the International Joyce Symposium has travelled to the heart of Europe. We are reminded, as the Symposium’s odyssey continues into its XXII edition, of the need to reconsider of the universality of Joyce and the European idea upon which his work was founded, and the post-European world in which it continues to be received. A feast of nations, of cultures, of languages and literary traditions. As political and economic union brings more and more people together, nevertheless the Europe of Joyce faces the ongoing threat of resurgent nationalisms. The modernity of Europe and of the European culture Joyce assisted in imagining is one that requires an ongoing, creative intellectual vigilance. Revisionism threatens to rob Joyce’s European heritage of its universal aspirations and reinstate a type of academic provincialism. This applies equally to the ongoing project of literary modernity for which Joyce remains a contemporary interlocutor.

Proposals for individual papers of 20 minutes duration are welcome on any aspect of Joyce studies, especially those that focus on the relationship of Joyce to Prague and the heritage of Central European modernism in the arts, philosophy and theory-particularly the legacies of structuralism and the Prague linguistic circle.

All paper proposals must be submitted individually, by completing the required fields in the symposium Registration form (https://secure.cbttravel.cz/jamesjoyce10/registration-online.php).

Extended deadline for submission of proposals: 15 April 2010

Programme specials include welcoming reception at the Karolinum Ceremonial Hall, Charles University, several book launches and an exhibition opening, the Bloomsday symposium banquet (at the Pilsen Restaurant, Municipal House, Prague), and the closing Vltava River boat cruise.

Plenaries include Prof. Daniel Ferrer, Prof. David Hayman, and Prof. Marjorie Perloff, representing the academic side of the reception of Joyce´s work, and Karen MacCormack, Steve McCaffery, and Tom McCarthy, who will speak as contemporary writers about Joyce´s legacy and influence on experimental literature.

A volume of Symposium proceedings will be published by Litteraria Pragensia, before the end of 2011.

Contact: jamesjoyce2010@gmail.com
Website: http://www.jamesjoyce.cz

At a Sundance press conference, Hamm and Franco likened that long-ago obscenity trial and fight for Ginsberg’s Beat Generation poem “Howl” to be published to today’s ongoing struggle for equality and the passage of Proposition 8, banning the right of homosexuals to marry in the state of California.

Seymour Krim.

b. May 11, 1922, New York

d. Aug. 30, 1989, New York

You thought you heard of them all. But Seymour Krim is the Missing Beat.

Oh, he was a Beat, alright. He lived in Greenwich Village, wrote for the Village Voice, had no dough, no wife, no regular work, drank at the White Horse Tavern and proclaimed his debt to Jack Kerouac’s On The Road for the green light that signaled not WALK but TALK — and he did.

Krim let loose with a barrage of words that his work as a literary critic had no use for. And like a Hollywood movie hero discovered that what the world really loved was his wretched poor self and not that respectable front he wore for disguise.

At least, at first.

His Beat-inspired, proto-New Journalism essays began appearing in the Voice in 1957 and in 1960 he edited The Beats. That same year his terrific essay about the end of Bohemian values, “Making It!” appeared in The Beat Scene. Then in 1961 a collection of Krim’s articles, Views of a Nearsighted Cannoneer, was published with a foreword by Norman Mailer who wrote that ”in the work of Seymour Krim lives one of the truest beats of how horrible, how jarring, how livid and how exciting was this city.” James Baldwin called the collection an “extraordinary volume” in his review for the Voice and Saul Bellow published the lead article from it, “What’s This Cat’s Story?” in his own journal, The Noble Savage.

Krim kept writing and published two more collections — Shake It For the World, Smartass (1970) and You & Me (1974) — taught writing at Columbia University and at Iowa, won a Guggenheim and a Fulbright and managed to piss-off both Mailer and Jimmy Breslin and alienate so many in New York’s literary and publishing worlds that when he died in 1989 at age 67 he was already largely forgotten.

What’s This Cat’s Story? the best of Seymour Krim was published in 1991 and included a foreword by James Wolcott.

Since then he has been left out of every Beat anthology you can name, but his defenders keep his name before the public. In 1994, Krim’s “For My Brothers and Sisters in the Failure Business” was published in The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present, edited by Phillip Lopate. Wolcott’s Vanity Fair column mentions Krim often. Literary critic Vivian Gornick called Krim “the Jewish Joan Didion” in her book, The Situation and the Story, and Gornick included “Failure Business” on her list of The Ten Greatest Essays. Krim’s What’s This Cat’s Story? is his intellectual autobiography, and in 2001 it was republished in Editors: The Best of Five Decades, edited by Saul Bellow and Keith Botsford.

A new, 2010 collection of Krim’s work, Missing a Beat: The Rants and Regrets of Seymour Krim, investigates the Jewish subject in his essays.

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.

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.

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

You can view the trailer here: http://www.pbs.org/pov/pattismith/.

Press Release from PBS

Patti and her bicycle. Meatpacking District, New York, NY. 1999. Credit: Steven Sebring

“Patti Smith: Dream of Life” Presents Evocative Portrait of the Legendary Rocker and Artist, Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009, at 9 p.m. in Special Presentation on PBS’ POV

Smith was both participant and witness to a seminal scene in American culture; film portrays her friendships and work with Robert Mapplethorpe, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Sam Shepard and Bob Dylan “Created over a heroic 11 years … a lovely … first feature. … Mr. Sebring creates a structure for the film in which past and present seem to flow effortlessly and ceaselessly into each other.”
— Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Shot over 11 years by acclaimed fashion photographer Steven Sebring, “Patti Smith: Dream of Life” is a remarkable plunge into the life, art, memories and philosophical reflections of the legendary rocker, poet and artist. Sometimes dubbed the “godmother of punk” — a designation justified by clips of her early rage-fueled performances — Smith was much more than that when she broke through with her 1975 debut album, Horses. A poet and visual artist as well as a rocker, she befriended and collaborated with some of the brightest lights of the American counterculture, an often testosterone-driven scene to which she brought a swagger and fierceness all her own.

In “Patti Smith: Dream of Life,” the artist’s memories of these times, and of a period of domestic happiness and the tragedies that brought her back to the stage, attain an intense,  hypnotic lyricism, much like that of her own songs. The two-hour film has its American broadcast premiere in a POV (Point of View) special presentation on Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009, at 9 p.m. on PBS, concluding POV’s 22nd season. (Check local listings.) American television’s longest-running independent documentary series, POV is the recipient of a Special News and Documentary Emmy for Excellence in Television Documentary Filmmaking.

“Patti Smith: Dream of Life,” winner of a 2008 Sundance Film Festival Award for Excellence in Cinematography, is a riveting, intimate telling of Smith’s long, strange trip. She may not be the only middle-class Jersey girl to have made the leap to New York City in pursuit of artistic dreams, but she may be the only one to have emerged — and survived — as a multifaceted poet, artist and rock star.

Through performance footage, interviews, poems, paintings, photographs and Smith’s voice-over reminiscences, “Dream of Life” reveals a complicated, charismatic personality wrestling with the paradoxes of being an artist in America and of being a woman in a male-dominated music scene.

Smith also wrestles with the tragedies — the deaths of her husband and brother — that brought her back to New York and to performing. Layering Smith’s words over innovative camera techniques, the film explores how one woman discovered herself through music, how she survived tragedy, how she raised two children and how she endeavors in a quest for peace, for herself and for the world.

In telling Smith’s story, Sebring plumbs the history of several important cultural movements. Smith’s collaborations and close friendships with poets William Burroughs, Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and musicians Bob Dylan and Michael Stipe reveal the links that make her a bridge between the Beats, the punk movement and musicians of today.

The colorful moments in “Dream of Life” are plenty: Smith as an angelic street urchin, reciting “A Prayer for New York” in footage from 1975; a jam session with her 1970s collaborator, playwright Sam Shepard; Smith reading an Allen Ginsberg poem at Ginsberg’s funeral; and Smith hanging out on the beach with Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Shot in lush, textured 16mm film, “Dream of Life” is a vibrant chronicle of rock history and the story of a bold woman who would not be denied on stage or off. It is also the story of a survivor whose creative intelligence thrives more than 30 years after the world first became aware of her.

“A few weeks after I met Patti in 1995, she invited me to see her perform at Irving Plaza in New York City,” says Sebring. “I was completely blown away; she wasn’t the person I had met at her home in Detroit. She had been this really sweet, almost innocent woman. And then at Irving Plaza, she was raging, spitting music and spewing poetry. It was fantastic. After the show, I asked her, ‘Has anybody ever filmed you?’ I didn’t know at the time that there was so little documentation of her aside from concert footage.

“I kept shooting as Patti’s life kept changing; over the years, we’ve become like brother and sister,” Sebring says. “They call her the punk poet prophet. Well, I’m one of her soldiers, or one of her messengers. I want to turn people on to Patti Smith.”

“Patti Smith: Dream of Life” is a production of Clean Socks and THIRTEEN

Credits

Director: Steven Sebring; Co-producers: Steven Sebring, Margaret Smilow, Scott Vogel; Cinematographers: Phillip Hunt, Steven Sebring; Editors: Angelo Corrao, Lin Polito; Executive Producers: Steven Sebring, Margaret Smilow; Sound Design: Margaret Crimmins, Greg Smith, Dog Bark Sound.

Running Time: 116:46

Awards and Festivals: 2008: Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival – Excellence in Cinematography Award; Full Frame Documentary Film Festival; Philadelphia Film Festival; Seattle Film Festival; Washington, D.C. Film Festival; Provincetown Film Festival; Milan International Film Festival; Berlin International Film Festival; Jerusalem Film Festival. (For a complete list, visit www.dreamoflifethemovie.com.)

New York public media company WNET.ORG is a pioneering provider of television and web content. The parent of THIRTEEN, WLIW21 and Creative News Group, WNET.ORG brings such acclaimed broadcast series and websites as Worldfocus, Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, Charlie Rose, Wide Angle, Secrets of the Dead, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, Visions, Consuelo Mack WealthTrack, Wild Chronicles, Miffy and Friends and Cyberchase to national and international audiences. Through its wide range of channels and platforms, WNET.ORG serves the entire New York City metro area with unique local productions, broadcasts and innovative educational and cultural projects. In all that it does, WNET.ORG pursues a single, overarching goal — to create media experiences of lasting significance for New York, America and the world. For more information, visit www.wnet.org.

Produced by American Documentary, Inc., and now in its 22nd season on PBS, the award-winning POV series is the longest-running showcase on American television to feature the work of today’s best independent documentary filmmakers. Airing June through September, with primetime specials during the year, POV has brought more than 275 acclaimed documentaries to millions nationwide and has a Webby Award-winning online series, POV’s Borders.Since 1988, POV has pioneered the art of presentation and outreach using independent nonfiction media to build new communities in conversation about today’s most pressing social issues. More information is available at www.pbs.org/pov.

POV Interactive (www.pbs.org/pov)

POV’s award-winning Web department produces special features for every POV presentation, extending the life of our films through filmmaker interviews, story updates, podcasts, streaming video and community-based and educational content that involves viewers in activities and feedback. POV Interactive also produces our Web-only showcase for interactive storytelling, POV’s Borders. In addition, the POV Blog is a gathering place for documentary fans and filmmakers to discuss and debate their favorite films, get the latest news and link to further resources. The POV website, blog and film archives form a unique and extensive online resource for documentary storytelling.

POV Community Engagement and Education POV works with local PBS stations, educators and community organizations to present free screenings and discussion events to inspire and engage communities in vital conversations about our world. As a leading provider of quality nonfiction programming for use in public life, POV offers an extensive menu of resources, including free discussion guides and curriculum-based lesson plans. In addition, POV’s Youth Views works with youth organizers and students to provide them with resources and  training so they may use independent documentaries as a catalyst for social change.

Major funding for POV is provided by PBS, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, The Educational Foundation of America, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The September 11th Fund and public  television viewers. Funding for POV’s Diverse Voices Project is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Special support provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. POV is presented by a consortium of public television stations, including KCET Los Angeles, WGBH Boston and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG.

DVD REQUESTS: Please note that a broadcast version of this film is available upon request, as the film may be edited to comply with new FCC regulations.