This is a fine interview with Allen Ginsberg taken from the BBC series Face to Face, in which Ginsberg opens up about his family, loves, identity, drugs and even sings.
The series, Face to Face originally started in 1959, and was hosted by John Freeman, whose skill and forthright questioning cut through the usual mindless chatter of such interview shows. Freeman, a former editor of the New Statesman was often considered brusque and rude, but his style of questioning fitted the form of the program, which was more akin to an interview between psychiatrist and patient. The original series included, now legendary, interviews with Martin Luther King, Tony Hancock, Professor Carl Jung, Evelyn Waugh and Gilbert Harding.
In 1989, the BBC revived the series, this time with the excellent Jeremy Isaacs as questioner, who interviewed Allen Ginsberg for this program, first broadcast on 9th January 1995.
Watching this now, makes me wonder what has happened to poetry? Where are our revolutionary poets? Where are our poets who speak out, demonstrate, make the front page, and tell it like it is? And why are our bookstores cluttered with the greeting card verse of 100 Great Love Poems, 101 Even Greater Love Poems, and Honest to God, These Are the Greatest Fucking Love Poems, You’ll Ever Fucking Read. O, for a Ginsebrg now.
Siouxsie segment from BBC documentary on the ‘Queens Of British Pop’. Odd to see Ms. Sioux being described as ‘pop’. Whatever the case, it’s a tasty bit of video and Siouxsie looks absolutely lovely. My heroine.
Siouxsie on Ulster TV sometime in the late 70’s.
In the annals of punk history, this has got to be one of the strangest events recorded on video. The term ‘what the fuck’ was invented for moments like this. The kids in the foreground seem utterly disinterested in the weirdness unfolding before them.
You gotta love David Thomas for doing something so absolutely freaky. Alfred Jarry would appreciate this.
Harry Potter seems particularly bewildered.
David Thomas grew up in Cleveland Heights Ohio. On November 24, 2006 which was BLACK FRIDAY (one of the year’s busiest shopping days), the Border’s bookstore at Severence Mall in Cleveland Heights Ohio allowed Pere Ubu to play an in-store 5 song set. The “quiet” version of Ubu chased folks out of the store…it was great. Here they close the show with SONIC REDUCER.
The Ramones rehearsing in the loft of their artistic director Arturo Vega in 1975. Vega created The Ramones’ logo, one of the most enduring images in rock and roll history.
Man, this is thrilling!
Here’s a really detailed custom paper mache piñata of a flying monkey inspired by the Wizard of Oz. The piñata was created by Pulp Parlour and retails for around $1,250.00. This flying monkey is so amazing and pricey, that I couldn’t possibly imagine breaking it open for candy.
View more extravagant piñatas over at Pulp Parlour.
(via BB Submitterator)
The print above is part of a limited edition of 100 and is screen printed with four colors. It will be available for purchase after the weekend of the festival (November 1st).
‘Moog’ art print by DKNG Studios for the upcoming show SYNTH at Moogfest 2010.
(via Coudal Partners)
James Graham Ballard was born today in 1930.
In a career that spanned 6 decades, the Visionary of Shepperton wrote some of the best and most important speculative fiction of the past century, from The Drought, The Drowned World through Crash, The Atrocity Exhibition, High Rise, and The Unlimited Dream Company to Empire of he Sun, Super Cannes and Kingdom Come.
His death last year robbed the literary world of one of its most thoughtful and original thinkers.
This in-depth interview with Ballard was filmed in 2006, as part of Melvyn Bragg’s The South Bank Show and covered the writers background, influences and unique, dystopian vision:
Ranging from his earliest experiences living in China as a child and subsequent imprisonment by the invading Japanese army, through his early and wholly abortive career in medicine - though he says that that experience was totally beneficial to his writing career and that everyone should spend at least some time studing anatomy. Then on through his long career as a full time writer. Starting in 1962 when he gave up his then job as an assistant editor right up to the present day.
Subjects covered are the influence of Surrealist painting in the imagery of his work. How the sudden death of his wife affected his life, work and family. And the impact of his most controversial novel, Crash, which inspired one publisher’s reader to write “This author is beyond psychiatric help. Do not publish” - which Ballard took as a huge compliment.
Other contributions in the show come from the likes of Will Self, Iain Sinclair and Martin Amis, all of whom are confirmed Ballard fans.
The full interview with J. G. Ballard after the jump…
Photo of Quentin Crisp by Martin Fishman
Wise. witty and wonderful, England’s “stately homo,” Quentin Crisp was a familiar—and always delightful—figure seen frequently around New York’s East Village during the latter part of the author’s life (1981-1999). Crisp famously made sure his phone number was listed and would accept nearly every dinner invitation that came his way, with the understanding that the tab would be picked up and Mr. Crisp would basically do an up-close version of his famous one-man show. On two occasions I dined with Mr. Crisp at the Odessa Diner on Avenue A and these are memories that I will always treasure.
For the majority of his life, Crisp lived in two small apartments. One, a bedsit in London where he lived for 41 years and steadfastly refused to clean, and one on Third St. in Manhattan that I doubt was ever cleaned, either. (In his autobiography, The Naked Civil Servant, Crisp quipped. “After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.” He says the line about 2 minutes in).
The London apartment can be seen in the above clip from Denis Mitchell’s fascinating 1970 Granada TV documentary, and visitors to the MIX Festival in NYC this past weekend could see a recreation of Crisp’s small New York flat, lovingly recreated by Philip Ward, curator of The Quentin Crisp Archives. More photos at Butt Magazine’s website.
Via World of Wonder
