November 1994

Cassidy’s Tale

Music,

Tributes

Ken Schumacher received this from Barlow after posting a request for reminiscinces from people who'd known Neal Cassady. Thanks to Ken for sending this to me, and to John Perry Barlow for giving me permission to include it in Literary Kicks. It is a very beautiful piece of writing, and it also answers a question that had been bugging me for years: why did he spell Neal's name wrong in the title of the song? Turns out there's a simple answer. -- Levi Asher

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Junky

Beat Generation,

Fiction,

Transgressive

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Philip Lamantia

Beat Generation,

Poetry

Philip Lamantia was born on October 23, 1927 in San Francisco, where as a teenager he discovered Surrealism and began to write poetry. Soon after he travelled to New York to meet Andre Breton, who immediately recognized the young man's talent and began publishing his poems. Lamantia's work appeared in Breton's VVV, as well as Charles Henri Ford's View and other experimental journals.

Lucien Carr

Beat Generation

Beat News: November 14 2004

Beat Generation,

Economics,

Music,

News,

Poetry

Ginsberg's in the news a lot lately. His new CD boxed-set 'Holy Soul Jelly Roll' was released, and it's an excellent package. It includes a historic 'Howl' recorded in Berkeley in 1956, a full 'Kaddish,' and many other great poems.

This article is part of the Beat News series. The next post in the series is Beat News: December 1 1994. The previous post in the series is Beat News: October 20 1994.

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Beat Etymology: Lost, Beat and Hip

Beat Generation,

Language

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Naked Lunch

Beat Generation,

Fiction,

Postmodernism,

Transgressive

This is the definitive Burroughs book. It slips and slides and glides through alleyways and canals of madness, degradation and perversion, ending up nowhere. It's sick and very, very clever.

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The Great Lost Rock Memoir: The Autobiography by Chuck Berry

by Levi Asher Sunday, March 17, 2013 06:42 pm

It's fitting that the guy who singlehandedly invented rock and roll when he recorded a song called "Mabellene" at Chess studios in Chicago on May 21, 1955 would later become an early innovator in the rock memoir field.