SECTION FIVE

sm

COLUMN THIRTY-FOUR, JUNE 1, 1998
(Copyright © 1998 Al Aronowitz)

CENTRAL PARK!

From: Karmacoupe
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 08:35:38 EDT
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Subject: Your Web Site!!!

Hey Al !!!

Your web site is fantastic! I think this event you've gotten started is going to be mammoth, monumental, one of the largest Beat gatherings ever staged --way to freakin' go man!

I talked to David Amram yesterday (4/7) and gave him an update on your progress and he said he was going to call you. I'll be seeing him in a few hours at the Figaro event today (4/8). If I don't see you, I'll email you a report later.

The openness of Central Park perfectly compliments the openness of Allen Ginsberg.

In fact, Al, I'm a bit of a scholar of Central Park and know every leaf of grass, at least in the lower 400 acres.

Perhaps I'll write a little something up for our cyber friends - directions how to most easily find the Bandshell from the west, east and south, and then perhaps something on the history and importance of it. I'm at the bandshell every week, and in fact live exactly on its latitude, 10 minutes away. I remember at the Allen thing at Frisbee Hill in May, all these people were wandering around lost and couldn't find it. People don't know Central Park very well and I know it like the back of my typing fingers so I'll paint a little printable picture for you to post for the pilgrims.

Post Script:

I noticed from your list of performer's letters that people are going to be coming in from Europe and so on.

Al, may I humbly suggest to your excellent web page designer that we have a separate place to click that says "Central Park - Directions and Info" and I'll email you detailed, colorful, Beat-centric directions; Plus Background on the Bandshell area itself so people understand the historic importance of this spot and that in fact Olmstead and Vaux designed this to be THE meeting place 140 years ago; Plus a section on safety, both from muggers and from the cops.

Central Park has a really bad reputation unjustly. What is a problem now is the undercover and bike police. I will alleviate the fears of crime, and warn our friendly beatnik brothers about the pitfalls of brownbagging and bomber blowing during the era of Giuliani.

I've spent hundreds of days in Central Park every year for the last 10, so I've seen it change in many different ways, and am constantly monitoring it.

I can answer any question---in fact we should put my email address at the bottom of the Central Park section so anyone with any question at all about the Park can write me. The Central Park Temp! Unstumpable!

Peace n Trees, Brian Hassett ##

* * *

ME & MY MONKEY

Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 23:40:08 -0400 (EDT)
From: me and my monkey
To: Al Aronowitz
Subject: Re: ALLEN GINSBERG TRIBUTE JUNE 12-13

well, i just got your bit about the tribute to ginsberg...it sounds wonderful, so you can certainly count me in as an attendee, if you need to be counting those sorts of things...i also thought i'd let you know that i have designed the web-page for college poetry (which i took your advice for and dubbed "me&my monkey") and would be capable of actually putting it out for the world's consumption if i actually had some poetry to put up...well, aside from mine and a hand-full of some other of skidmore college's "budding poets"...i'm looking into posting calls for poems on some various poetry-related pages and i've started to advertise around campus and am having some friends at other colleges put up flyers and such...i was wondering if maybe you could put a little blurb on the blacklisted journalist homepage, something along the lines of a call for submissions (with a highly unlikely chance of rejection, at least for now...though i don't see myself censoring anyone anytime too soon...) with my email address (dmanches@skidmore.edu) thrown in there...or yours and you could forward things to me, whatever's easier...i guess the former sounds a whole lot easier...thanks again for, well, getting me going on this, i think it has started something for me...and i just thought i'd tell you that it was definitely rather strange and rather enjoyable to see i was getting the same email as country joe macdonald...just a thought...have a good one and thanks again...dan manchester

Dan Manchester
Skidmore College
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
<518>581-6917
dmanches@skidmore.edu

* * *

FROM ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA

Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 15:42:50 -0600
From: Beth Ellen Edwards
Organization: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Subject: Jerry Wexler

Dear Blacklisted Journalist,

I stumbled on to your page while searching for information about Jerry Wexler. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the information I was looking for in your Column Nine, nor have I been able to find it anywhere, for that matter; so, I thought I'd write on the off-chance that you might know how long Jerry Wexler was a partner in Atlantic Records. I hate to inconvenience you for this, but it seemed from your column that you might know this information off the top of your head, so to speak.

On a more personal note, I'd like to say how incredible your Web site is. I've poked around a bit and plan to poke around a bit more when I have the time. Your columns are probably the best-written pieces I've ever seen on the Internet and are surely better written than anything I've read (on paper, I mean) in a long time. Thank you for sharing them.

Warmest regards,

Beth Ellen Edwards
copy editor, Encyclopaedia Britannica
bedwards@eb.com

* * *

QUESTIONS FROM CHILE

Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 12:25:52 -0400
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
From: k
Subject: From South America about Ginsberg

Hello Al

I have just read two of your Internet pieces on Ginsberg and Kerouac, and I want to say that I enjoyed them immensely. After wading through so much well-meaning but puerile nonsense on the Net, it was such a pleasure to stumble onto your stuff.

I find myself down in Chile, working informally with some students and Beat aficionados for whom I'm helping to interpret Howl and Kaddish in the Chilean variety of Spanish--often very different from the usual Spain or Mexico versions. Among other things, I'm trying to provide info for the many references to places and people that occur in the two poems and which locals here have no knowledge of. I've managed to track down most of what we need, but a few details remain obscure, and I wondered whether you might be able to fill me in. Here's what I'm looking for:

1. In the 14th paragraph of HOWL, Ginsberg mentions "Fugazzi's". I believe this is a cafe in either New York or San Francisco. Do you know which?

2. In KADDISH, Ginsberg's mother says at one point, "You should have seen me in Woodbine." I believe Woodbine is a town in southern New Jersey. Did it have any particular significance in her life?

3. On the last page of KADDISH, after mentioning his grandmother Rebecca, Ginsberg refers to someone named David. Do you know who he is or was?

Thanks in advance for any light you can throw on any of these questions.

Ken

[According to Eugene Brooks, Allen Ginsberg's brother, Fugazzi's was a Sixth Avenue bar in New York's Greenwich Village that was much quieter than the San Remo; Woodbine is the site of a grammar school where, in the 1930s, his mother, Naomi Ginsberg, taught handicapped children early in her career (the grammar school might have been part of an institution for handicapped children which was located in Woodbine); David was either a very handsome neighbor who grew up to be a noted architect or another friend who became an attorney.]

* * *

REMEMBER WHEN...

From: mamamarv@cybercomm.net (Marvin Cohan)
To: blackj@mail.bigmagic.com
Subject: Ain't it the truth
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 18:27:26 GMT

Hi Al,

Here is one, with "author unknown" you might use.

REMEMBER WHEN...

A computer was something on TV
From a science fiction show
A window was something you hated to clean
And RAM was the cousin of a goat...

Meg was the name of my girlfriend
And GIG was your middle finger upright
Now they all mean different things
And that really Mega-Bytes

An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A cursor used profanity
A keyboard was a piano

Memory was something that you lost with age
A CD was a bank account
And if you had a 3 1/2" floppy
You hoped that nobody found out

Compress was something you did to the garbage
Not something you did to a file
And if you unzipped anything in public
You'd be in jail for awhile

Log on was adding wood to the fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a backup happened to your commode

Cut you did with a pocket-knife
Paste you did with glue
A web was a spider's home
And a virus was the flu

I guess I'll stick to my pen and paper
And the memory in my head
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash
But when it happens they wish they were dead

Marvin

* * *

HE'S NOT A SHE

Sender: SfD@blackbox.at
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 10:28:20 +0200
Subject: Re: ALLEN GINSBERG TRIBUTE JUNE12-13

dear al
your newsletters are repeating a mistake: ide hintze is not a woman. what a strange idea! allen's friendship with ide started in 1980. they spent quite a lot of time together. they did readings and interviews together, in europe and in the u.s. their friendship led into the founding of europe's one and only poetry school. allen appreciated ide's work as a writer, sound- and performance-poet as well as his ambition to create a revolutionary international poets' network. ide did reading- and contact-tours across europe, vietnam, cuba, south-america and the u.s. allen helped ide with the founding of the viennese poetry school. he promoted that project right from the start in 1992 and taught there in 1993. honoring ide's international reputation allen invited him to teach a class on "sound and performance poetry" at the kerouac school in 1995. until his very last days allen helped ide to defend the viennese poetry school against fascists and dumb politicians...

one could consider ide as allen's biggest long-time european friend and partner. i think you should take that in account when you are inviting ide hintze to take part in the memorial.

good luck and keep on spinning the wheel!

brigitte
personal assistant to ide hintze at the schule fr dichtung, vienna

*****************Black*Box Online Community***************** * palazzo - die virtuelle Bastelwelt | http://www.blackbox.at/palazzo/ *
************************************************************ Black*Box FirstClass BBS: +43-1-4073132 (Modem) | http://www.blackbox.at

* * *

YOU WANT PROOF?

Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 08:46:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Bové
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Subject: website

4/10/98
Al--
The site looks good (& so does my letter!). To get the accent acute on the "e" in my name in html type thusly: Bové it makes a big difference in pronunciation.

As I mentioned, I'm the editor of Brooklyn Review, Brooklyn College's literary journal. Can you send me your mailing address? It comes out next month and looks to be a good one.

Here's a recent Allen poem of mine:

YOU WANT PROOF

(for Joan & Lou)

Hello, hello, woolly dawn
going on a year
since you been gone

Crows chase a kestrel
down the horizon
out of eyeshot

Turtles park in mud
below idling goldfish--
all remains describable

Such smiles--you should see
the smiles that form
when your name comes up

& eyes--the eyes
that clearly say Allen
just ahead of voice

Lost thoughts
ripple
on goldfish pond

Uncanny, for a moment
on a bench for two,
such light, this light

Robert Bové
Brooklyn--3/2/98

Keep a good thought,
Robert Bové

CLICK HERE TO GET TO INDEX OF COLUMN THIRTY-FOUR

CLICK HERE TO GET TO INDEX OF COLUMNS

The Blacklisted Journalist can be contacted at P.O.Box 964, Elizabeth, NJ 07208-0964
The Blacklisted Journalist's E-Mail Address:
info@blacklistedjournalist.com
  

THE BLACKLISTED JOURNALIST IS A SERVICE MARK OF AL ARONOWITZ