Tag Archives: writers

Notes: Ken Babbs’ “Cronies” book + chapbook & Doug Peacock

Ken Babbs’ chapbook “We Were Arrested” a preview of “Cronies”

Here’s a hilarious fresh, sharp interview with Merry Prankster/Marine vet/farmer/writer and *the* Intrepid Traveler Ken Babbs talking about his new book “Cronies, a Burlesque” with basketballer/Deadhead Bill Walton (dialed up to 11 as usual) on a Powell’s (Portland) Book Store show with a cute young host holding on for the ride.

{Sorta continuation from my “hero dossier / meet the beats” video a while back with namechecks & stories with Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Grateful Dead, Merry Pranksters on Furthur bus, Acid Tests etc et al & more#plug #notaplug.}

Note: I bought from Tsunami Books/Press in the “super early support pre-release” to score a signed copy… but the shipping to Japan is rather expensive, so I get stuff sent to a friend in Olympia who is/was planning to visit – I’ve sent so many books to him (I did a lot of support of the Beat Museum and Ken Sanders Rare Books during the pandemic that I’ve amassed a small medium-sized library at his house – so eventually will ask him (and another friend in Pacifica, CA) to send out via M-bag if the borders remain closed for another year or so. This is just a long way of saying “no I haven’t actually read the book but eventually I will“.

Aside: I’m just finishing up a literary critical biography of Hunter Thompson (David S Wills’ “High White Notes”), and a series called “Letters of Note“ which is compiled by Shaun Usher (beautifully in a hardback book) interesting correspondence from throughout history. [more: books recently] and its companion “Lists of Note”.

Update: Tuns out, I have *sort of* read (some of) it as, whilst going through my bookshelf to freshen up the bedside stock, I found an advance copy chapbook called “We Were Arrested” with one of the chapters, printed on hemp paper(!) and signed to me from Mr. Babbs himself along with a doodle of his face.

For Dave {insert face sketch} Ken Babbs – thanks past-Dave for ordering this

Was made by Tsunami Books/Press to generate interest/attention for the now finished book. It’s about Babbs (Intrepid Traveler), Kesey, Cassady, George Walker and others starting the Acid Tests, formation of the Warlocks>Grateful Dead and (obviously) getting arrested. It was really nice little artifact and journey that led me to finding it.

Continue reading Notes: Ken Babbs’ “Cronies” book + chapbook & Doug Peacock

Support: The Beat Museum

+ Beat Support +

Many of you likely noticed the campaign to help the venerable San Francisco institution City Lights bookstore “keep the lights on” and hooray, they rocketed past the $300,000 goal thanks to many small donations from around the world. Now, there’s a few other neighbours in the North Beach area to shine a light on, specifically “the Beat Museum” – an eclectic grassroots archive of artifacts from Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and well… dozens of other luminaries who have influenced counter-culture, literature and music.

THE NORTH BEACH OF THE BEAT GENERATION IS IN GRAVE DANGER

To pitch in, you can buy a membership – especially handy if you live in the San Francisco area as it offers unlimited admission – those of us *anywhere else* can dig discounts on purchases (including mail order), exclusive content/interviews/events, and a membership card – I’m a sucker for membership cards!

Did you see a big North Beach neighbourhood round-up diary post I shared recently? Included a photo essay of many items on display including Allen Ginsberg’s typewriter (along with many other typewriters), Jack Kerouac’s jacket, Gary Snyder’s bits and pieces from Japan and so much more.

+ Their bookstore has a variety of rare additions, one-offs, special treats (I picked up a first edition of Allen Ginsberg’s Indian Journal on my visit).

So to recap, do one or several of the following:

* Go check out their website to see their mission and the big hearted folks running the show

* Purchase a membership (various levels/prices)

* Maybe buy yourself a little something nice, or a gift for someone else

* Kick them down some extra cash

* Sign up for their newsletter for campaigns & updates

* Spread the word to keep the goodness rolling

You got any questions or thoughts? Let me know.

And of course if you’re seeking unique Beat literature related content, I have dozens of podcasts, various essays, scrapbooks, maps, and so on for you to peruse.

Fondly, dave

PS shared respectfully knowing lots of folks are in tough financial situations and there’s lots of requests rolling around for various dire situations – in spirit of solidarity, safety, and abundance.

Exhibit: Beat Museum & environs / SF, 2018 / feat. Allen’s Organ, Jack’s Jacket, Gary’s Japa-cap and Beat Typewriters

Along a ramble…

Along the wanders, I found myself in San Francisco, really mostly in Pacifica, one of my favourite hideaways and just south of the city… but anyway, ventured into SF proper to (finally) get some time at the Beat Museum and wow, what a great job these folks are doing. As such, a few notes and artifacts from the museum and history dripping neighbourhood for your amusement and my memory.

Inadequate backgrounder…

Now I could go on and on about the importance of *the Beats* connecting literary traditions, sparking countercultures leading to the revolutionary “pranksters“ to the *hippies* (for lack of a better term), punks (no I’m not talking mohawks here), indie-making artists of all medium, everything… while also looking back to Whitman, cummings (sic), WCW, Wolfe, Twain, Thoreau, Dostoevsky… you get the general gist.  Or what I’m trying to see is wide-thinking, free-roaming, do it yourself souls sharing empathy for others, breaking conventions to find out who you really are and then manifesting the distilled results t into one’s own life which infuses your own soul, then effectuates inspiration in others – also (critically) this ain’t always pretty, rarely is. That’s not the point.

Work in progress…

Anyhow, the Beat Museum was (maybe is) undergoing some construction as the building needs an earthquake-resistant upgrade, – I’ve shared some various fundraising campaigns and podcast riffs about their history over the years in this archive maybe you’ve come across and supported their noble efforts… but anyway, the building was surrounded by scaffolding in a bit of commotion and for a guy like me has easily sensory overload it, it could easily be intense but I stepped in and disappeared for an afternoon amongst the curated exhibits.

This is not some fancy-pants museum, this is a grassroots effort with everything done by intention and in an attentive spirit. I took some crappy snapshots along the way just to remember for my own memory as i wander far and wide and sometimes the twist and turns get a little too quick for me to process real time in my noggin.

Artifacts and abstractions…

note: There is a little mini-theatre room looping a film (was it “Pull My Daisy? It’s all a bit hazy now a few countries later), which pleased me for the visual abstraction of Beat life as well as regrouping in a small / dark / cozy room.

Notable artifacts include:

“referee shirt” Neal Cassady famously wore while driving Furthur, the Merry Prankster bus

a plaid wool jacket Kerouac wore (I’ve had one just like it)

Continue reading Exhibit: Beat Museum & environs / SF, 2018 / feat. Allen’s Organ, Jack’s Jacket, Gary’s Japa-cap and Beat Typewriters

Jack Kerouac Spoken Word, 4 LP + book collection

I worked at a bicycle shop outside of Vancouver in 1990 and I lived in my VW bus out back of the store some of the time so didn’t have a record player.
 
 
Saved my Canadian dollars and bought this four disc Jack Kerouac set – which includes a thick and beautifully designed booklet – at A&B sound on Seymour Street.
 
 
Was stashed away with the rest of the stuff in 1990 and never has never had a needle drop on it yet.
 
This will change very soon when I spend a bottle of wine with dear ole Jack and other pals.
 
 
He’s a true revolutionary, much more than in the stereotypes,…
 
 
And like many, was a critical erstwhile mentor for a young, mostly Canadian, train rolling, world-travelling writer.
 
 
I have a quite lovely collection of his works and artifacts and very happy to have this in my hands. I need it, truthfully.
 
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For the record, in Sept 2016, picked up a couple of crates of vinyl which I left in a friends dad’s basement in Salt Lake City when I left Grateful Dead tour in 1991 and ended up in Europe, Japan, Micronesia, Cascadia and many departures between. Collecting them now, feels like 20-year-old self wrote a letter for me to receive just when I needed it most. #MusicHeals

Are Writers Born or Made? Jack Kerouac on the Crucial Difference Between Talent and Genius – Brain Pickings

“Genius gives birth, talent delKerouac begins with bombast:

Writers are made, for anybody who isn’t illiterate can write; but geniuses of the writing art like Melville, Whitman or Thoreau are born.

He turns to the word “genius” itself — the history of which has a played a powerful role in shaping creative culture — and examines its meaning:

[Genius] doesn’t mean screwiness or eccentricity or excessive “talent.” It is derived from the Latin word gignere (to beget) and a genius is simply a person who originates something never known before. Nobody but Melville could have written Moby-Dick, not even Whitman or Shakespeare. Nobody but Whitman could have written Leaves of Grass; Whitman was born to write Leaves of Grass and Melville was born to write Moby-Dick.

Kerouac takes particular issue with the conflation of “talent” and “genius”:

Some perfect virtuoso who can interpret Brahms on the violin is called a “genius,” but the genius, the originating force, really belongs to Brahms; the violin virtuoso is simply a talented interpreter — in other words, a “Talent.” Or you’ll hear people say that so-and-so is a “major writer” because of his “talent.” There can be no major writers without original genius. Artists of genius, like Jackson Pollock, have painted things that have never been seen before… Take the case of James Joyce: people say he “wasted” his “talent” on the stream-of-consciousness style, when in fact he was simply born to originate it.

In a sentiment that Joni Mitchell would later come to echo in asserting that “an artist needs a certain amount of turmoil and confusion,” Kerouac adds:

Some geniuses come with heavy feet and march solemnly forward… Geniuses can be scintillating and geniuses can be somber, but it’s that unescapable sorrowful depth that shines through — originality.

But because originality, by definition, requires breaking out of the common canon, “geniuses” — as Kierkegaard so eloquently lamented — are often subjected to ridicule and rejection before they come to be revered. Kerouac returns to Joyce, who endured his share of derogatory attacks:

Joyce was insulted all his life by practically all of Ireland and the world for being a genius. Some Celtic Twilight idiots even conceded he had some talent. What else were they going to say, since they were all going to start imitating him? But five thousand university-trained writers could put their hand to a day in June in Dublin in 1904, or one night’s dreams, and never do with it what Joyce did with it: he was simply born to do it.

[…]

When the question is therefore asked, “Are writers born or made?” one should first ask, “Do you mean writers of talent or writers of originality?” Because everybody can write but not everybody invents new forms of writing. Gertrude Stein invented new forms of writing and her imitators are just “talents.”

Half a century later, in our age of bringing “genius” to the psychology lab and quantifying the cultivation of talent, Kerouac’s concluding words ring with double poignancy:

The criterion for judging talent or genius is ephemeral, speaking rationally in this world of graphs, but one gets the feeling definitely when a writer of genius amazes him by strokes of force never seen before and yet hauntingly familiar…

The main thing to remember is that talent imitates genius, because there’s nothing else to imitate. Since talent can’t originate, it has to imitate, or interpret…

Genius gives birth, talent delivers. What Rembrandt or Van Gogh saw in the night sky can never be seen again… Born writers of the future are amazed already at what they’re seeing now, what we’ll all see in time for the first time, and see many times imitated by made writers.

Speaking to the jealousy behind all mockery, Kerouac signs off with a remark particularly prescient in our age of quick, loud, widely trumpeted judgments, riffing Sy Oliver and James Young’s 1950s performance of the jazz tune “Tain’t What You Do (It’s The Way That Cha Do It)”:

Oftentimes the originator of new language forms is called “pretentious” by jealous talents. But it ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.

ivers.”

Source: Are Writers Born or Made? Jack Kerouac on the Crucial Difference Between Talent and Genius – Brain Pickings

Mementos: Authour Nick Bantock (of Griffin & Sabine etc fame)

Not too many mixed0media masters creating ephemera-laden epistolary literature weaving intriguingly mysterious relationships, international time shifting, plus pop-up books, tarot cards, and postcards. As such, meeting the master of of all of the above, as well as a well-trained fine artist (who also happens to be exceptionally prolific) was a thrill for me. Say hello to the affable Brit, now Columbian, Mr. Nick Bantock.

Mixed Media Artist + Author Nick Bantock (of Griffin and Sabine etc fame) and Dave (me)

I “introduced myself” via a letter to a reading he was giving which i was unable to attend (illness) but we started a correspondence – i mail him dossiers of stationery, stamps and whatnot from around world and he sends me the most remarkable postcards and books.

Inside the envelope (as I recall) was a letter and a few excerpts from “letters from Russia” project

Our stories again intersected when I was on my way to the post office in India when I got the news that my mom passed. Later, from her home in Logan Utah, I mailed him the package, and when I met him in Victoria, he kindly inscribed my Mom’s copy of “Griffin and Sabine” providing a most wonderful signature with stamps of various kinds.

Later I participated in his workshops (about writing 100 words *exactly* long story). While I was certainly *not at my best* after recovering from another long ramble, certainly enjoyed his company and tutelage very much in his now-closed studio space, appropriately dubbed “the forgetting room”.

In this charming studio space (in a restored loft in Victoria, BC’s Chinatown), was the “illustration that started at all” in the Griffin and Sabine series, framed and propped up against the wall next to yes, the toilet.

Such respect. More to share about postal encounters with this gent.

Discovery: The letter Jack Kerouac described as ‘The greatest piece of writing I ever saw’

Discovery: The letter Jack Kerouac described as ‘The greatest piece of writing I ever saw’

Considered ‘lost’ for 66 years, Neal Cassady’s visionary ‘Joan Anderson letter’ is a foundational document of the Beat era and the inspiration for Kerouac’s literary revolutions, beginning withOn the Road

Neal Cassady’s long-lost letter to Jack Kerouac, dated 17 December 1950, has permeated virtually every conversation about the Beat era. Referenced not only by Kerouac but by Allen Ginsberg, Laurence Ferlinghetti, Herbert Hunke, and a host of their contemporaries, Cassady’s fluid, incantatory, and deeply revealing prose influenced the entire generation of Beat writers.

The letter was written on a three-day Benzedrine high, Cassady later confessed. It contained, by Kerouac’s first calculation, at least 13,000 words and ran to 40 pages, offering a compelling, unaffected and discursive account of Cassady’s frenetic love life in 1946, particularly with Joan Anderson (whom he visited in a hospital after a failed suicide), and ‘Cherry Mary’, recounting an acrobatic escape through a bathroom window when they were surprised by Mary’s aunt. The uninhibited, non-literary narrative pointed the way to the free, truthful style to which Kerouac aspired.

Overwhelmed by what he read, Kerouac wrote ecstatically to Cassady on 27 December: ‘I thought it ranked among the best things ever written in America… it was almost as good as the unbelievably good ‘Notes from the Underground’ of Dostoevsky… You gather together all the best styles… of Joyce, Céline, Dosy… and utilize them in the muscular rush of your own narrative style & excitement. I say truly, no Dreiser, no Wolfe has come close to it; Melville was never truer.’

Cassady, Neal (1926-1968). Typed letter completed in autograph and with autograph additions, corrections, and deletions in pencil and pen, to Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), Denver, 17 December 1950. 18 pages, comprising nearly 16,000 words, some pale browning and minor marginal chipping. Estimate $400,000-600,000. This lot is offered in the Books & Manuscripts sale on 16 June at Christie’s

Cassady, Neal (1926-1968). Typed letter completed in autograph and with autograph additions, corrections, and deletions in pencil and pen, to Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), Denver, 17 December 1950. 18 pages, comprising nearly 16,000 words, some pale browning and minor marginal chipping. Estimate: $400,000-600,000. This lot is offered in the Books & Manuscripts sale on 16 June at Christie’s New York. © Cathy Sylvia Cassady, Jami Cassady and John Cassady

© Cathy Sylvia Cassady, Jami Cassady and John Cassady
© Cathy Sylvia Cassady, Jami Cassady and John Cassady

In an interview published in the Summer 1968 issue of The Paris Review, Kerouac famously hailed the letter’s impact: ‘I got the idea for the spontaneous style of On the Road from seeing how good old Neal Cassady wrote his letters to me, all first person, fast, mad, confessional, completely serious, all detailed, with real names in his case, however (being letters).’

Nearly everyone who knew Cassady was struck by his natural verbal virtuosity as a monologist. Kerouac’s first wife, Joan Haverty Kerouac, recounted his tales of ‘cares and escapades, jail memories and women and nights and blues’, though she was certain that no writing ‘could… capture the vitality and intensity of the voice I now heard, describing everything in such a way that lived it just by listening.’

Never read, or merely neglected, the letter remained untended until its discovery in 2012

As with many documents of the era, the ‘Joan Anderson’ letter travelled a complex path through many hands, and for the majority of the last 66 years was considered lost. After being entranced by it and responding, Kerouac gave the letter to Allen Ginsberg to read and offer to publishers.

Ginsberg then took the letter to his friend Gerd Stern, who was living in Sausalito in California on a houseboat and working as a West Coast rep for Ace Books. Within the tight Beat nexus, Ginsberg and Stern formed a bond after meeting at the mental facility where they were both introduced to (Howl-dedicatee) Carl Solomon. Solomon’s uncle owned Ace Books, and it was Ace that had published William S. Burroughs’ Junkie in 1953.

Despite their enthusiasm, Ace rejected publication of Cassady’s typescript and it was returned by Stern to Ginsberg. The letter then went missing and the story was born — perpetuated most emphatically by Kerouac — that it had been lost over the side of Stern’s boat.

In fact, Cassady’s letter had been preserved in the files of the Golden Goose Press. Owned by Ginsberg and Stern’s friend R.W. ‘Dick’ Emerson, the Golden Goose Press was known for publishing some of the finest poets of the period, and for making audio recordings of their readings. Emerson placed the envelope containing the letter on his ‘to read’ pile. Never read, or merely neglected, it remained untended until its discovery in 2012 by Jean Spinosa.

No records of any sales are recorded in the online databases for any Cassady material, let alone for material of this literary consequence

Ginsberg later had no memory of giving the Joan Anderson Letter to Stern, and when Emerson closed the Golden Goose Press the letter was packed further into obscurity. It may have been lost for ever had not John ‘Jack’ Spinosa, Emerson’s officemate at 40 Gold Street in San Francisco, insisted on preserving the press’s archives when they were forced to vacate their rental space.

Spinosa recognized that literary history was preserved in those files, and saved them from being thrown away as Emerson cleared the office. The boxes remained with Spinosa and his wife Kathleen Cohan until after his death on 29 November 2011. On the following 15 May, Jack’s daughter Jean discovered this long-lost treasure of post-war American literature, buried among the files of the Golden Goose Press.

Only a fragment of the letter has ever been published — 14 years after it was written, and after the great works it influenced had come out. A portion of the letter, apparently copied by Kerouac before he passed it on to Ginsberg, was published in 1964 by John Bryan in his Notes from Underground #1, where it was called ‘The First Third’. Bryan claimed that Cassady himself came to help print it, while the title suggests that Cassady was by this time considering it as the first portion of his ongoing autobiography.

The same extract was published by City Lights in 1971 as an addendum to Cassady’s book The First Third, and later formed the basis of the 1997 film The Last Time I Committed Suicide, directed by Stephen T. Kay, and starring Thomas Jane and Keanu Reeves.

It is an understatement to remark that Neal Cassady material is scarce at auction: it is unprecedented. No records of any sales are recorded in the online databases for any Cassady material, let alone for material of this literary significance. The circumstances of its preservation and appearance at auction constitute a unique opportunity to acquire a foundational post-war literary manuscript that transcends its humble origins as a ‘letter’.

The complete extant archive of the Golden Goose Press, in which was discovered Neal Cassady’s groundbreaking ‘Joan Anderson Letter.’ Sausalito, California, 1950s-60s. Together nearly 200 pamphlets, letters, pieces of ephemera, and related material. A complete list is available on request. Estimate $10,000-15,000. This lot is offered in the Books & Manuscripts sale on 16 June

Update about Notorious NYC bar Chumley’s from pal Ephriam

I am fascinated with this mysterious bar formerly frequented by poets, writers, bootleggers and miscreants – plus served as s top of sorts on the underground railroad (not sure how this shakes down but…) and a speakeasy during prohibition.

Had hoped to visit with my pal Ephriam in NYC in around 2006 but the building next it (owned by renowned photographer Annie Lebowitz apparently no less) had fallen in on the structure during remodelling/renovations construction. By the time the damage was repaired, the area had become rather “gentrified” with whiny neighbours complaining about potential noise. Eph-man keeps an eye on the story for me and it seems it is now re-opened (as of Dec 30th 2017). Trip ahoy!

See the “Consider Perusing” section for previous articles about this humble and noble location.

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Today’s Facebook moment is dedicated to my friend Dave Olson. Almost 10 years ago we were on our way to Chumley’s only to find that it fell apart. Hopefully this pic will put a smile on Dave’s face. Glad to hear that it will reopen and not be 86’d forever.

Legendary Chumleys' in NYC

Source: Ephraim Diament – Today’s Facebook moment is dedicated to my…

Jack Kerouac Writer in Residence Program of Orlando

Jack Kerouac Writer in Residence Program of Orlando

Map of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road

Map of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road