Artist's Statement: I make collages of beachtrash and vintage magazines. It started during a peaceful moment at a trashy Spanish beach where I put, without thought, some pieces of plastic together. This co-incidental finding led to my project TrashWorks. I often combine the beachtrash with my other love: vintage magazines. The saltwashed colours of the beachtrash match with the … [Read more...]
The Invitation of the Mirror: Jonathan Lethem & Me, from the Margin to the Mainstream
Words and images by Jasun Horsley I recently had a podcast discussion with the author Jonathan Lethem. This connection has probably meant more to me than previous connections. For one thing, it’s been ongoing since the inception (very much was the inception) of Seen & Not Seen, and anyone who has read that work knows how important my connecting to Lethem has been to me … [Read more...]
Jack Kerouac’s “Strange Cemetery in Jamaica”
--- from a work-in-progress, I, Duluoz!: An Appreciation of Jack Kerouac If I had to pick my favorite poem of Jack Kerouacʼs, it would be “Strange Cemetery in Jamaica” published in Some of the Dharma (1997). Strangely, or even tragically, it was omitted from the Library of America volume of Kerouacʼs Collected Poems, as it signifies Kerouacʼs creative breakthrough of … [Read more...]
Dennis Hopper as Daniel Morgan in Mad Dog Morgan
The film Easy Rider (1969) made its director and star Dennis Hopper, and the film's producer and co-star Peter Fonda, counter-cultural icons of the late 1960s. The film's minuscule budget, roaring box office success, and critical acclaim paved the way for a movement within Hollywood that would change the direction of filmmaking for the next decade. Accordingly, Dennis Hopper … [Read more...]
Three poems by P R Kargaard
False Bay, San Juan Island In the autumn morning, the high thirds of the trees I know have vanished. Obscured by a sleepy fog. It is a way of being in pearl which seeps like a surface covering everything I know. I imagine that in the night I fly among these trees, leaping from top to top bearing the fog like a cape, laying it down behind me. In my dreams, … [Read more...]
Music Review – An Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer
There have been many great artistic couples down through the ages. Now a days there seems to be more celebrity couplings than any real co-joining of artistic talents. So when I first began to hear rumours writer Neil Gaiman and musician Amanda Palmer (also known as AFP) were romantically involved I was intrigued. It felt a little odd to be interested in the love life of two … [Read more...]
How to write an excellent book review query
So, your book is finished and you need to get the word out. You've found some book reviewers who you'd like to email. You're hoping they'll accept a copy of your book for possible review. But here's where it can get kind of tricky. Those reviewers are busy, and more likely to say "yes" if you approach them in the right way. Here's how to do that: 1. Start with the … [Read more...]
The Naked Beat
The Love Electric's new video was filmed in New York City, Lisbon, Berlin, and Woodstock. You can get "The Naked Beat" here. About A Love Electric The Love Electric is a band that does things differently. An art rock trio of three nationalities, A Love Electric, hailed as the tomorrow of creative rock by Mexico City's leading newspaper La Jornada, performs at some … [Read more...]
Post-Zen, a reflection for Reilly
When you were put away your car had a half a tank of gas. This surprised me, because I had only ever seen you put five dollars in at a time. While you drove I would watch the dial on the odometer slowly turn as we ate up every tenth of a mile. After you were put away we cried in a bar. Two boys approached us and asked us to play pool, and I said yes, but the game felt silly … [Read more...]
10 public speaking tips for writers
Writers often work in solitude. But when it's time to do a reading or a book signing, or to give a presentation or speech, you're no longer in your own environment, and the nerves can really kick in! Do you dread public speaking? Here's how to alleviate anxiety when you find yourself in the spotlight. 1. Don't depend upon electronic devices. Preparing your notes on a … [Read more...]
Photography: Verboten by Samy Sfoggia
The photographic series titled Verboten (“Prohibited”) is focused on characters that usually are called "outsiders". Verboten consists of staged photographs that are based on 1920s criminal mugshots. The images were captured with a film camera (a Zorki-C model) and digitalized by scanning the negatives. Each model was photographed only fivefold and in ambient light. Many art … [Read more...]
I Am San Francisco
I have witnessed the waterfront decay the ships disappear the piers given over to tourists and sunbathing sea lions Gone the Haight Theater in the old Haight Ashbury where as a kid I paid a dime to see two movies a serial and a newsreel Gone the old Embassy Theater on Market Street where they spun the Wheel of Fortune playing Ten-O-Win with a busty … [Read more...]
On Being Corso’s Lover
In the Cadillac of my imagination unraveling in Corso's kitchen we eat verses of Homer for lunch. He becomes my Odysseus. My fingers are burnt and veins tapped. Our highs grow weary as we strum down fateful guitars. Black curls on blond curls while I imagine Degas would paint us both ballerinas. His strong calves curl raw around my dirty sheets, as I mount his … [Read more...]
Insomniacs: Photography by Fabio Sassi
A Curious Stew
Silver Lake was a circus when I moved here in ‘92. By day it was old buildings with peeling paint set against lush hillsides with hidden graffitied cement stairways and morning glories everywhere. School kids walked to and from the middle school on one end and Marshall High tucked in off of Griffith Park Boulevard on the other. And every evening at dusk, like the flip of a … [Read more...]
Rik Lina Painting a Leporello
Watch Rik Lina paint a leporello (folding book) in this new video: Here's the result: … [Read more...]
Two poems by Benjamin Smith
Pink Shots. The needle drops, wails Gin and trombones While Erikson plays dice In the mirror and Lucy downs Pink shots of poetry. By 5am we are beasts, Animals on hands and Knees, lapping up red wine Puddles. Together, We flail in the riot like Ragdolls: right place, right time. Tuesdays – 8pm. Slippery John plays trombone In a broken down dive … [Read more...]
How to Identify a First Edition Book
This page has lots of information on it! Here are some quick links to the most important topics. General guidelines for identifying a first edition Identifying 1st editions from specific publishers Identifying book club editions On printings & impressions - and other questions Recommended books for collectors of first editions. How do you know if a book is a … [Read more...]
Charged Vision: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg
The photographs of Allen Ginsberg recently were on display at the Jewish Contemporary Museum in San Francisco. Walking through the museum is like going on a jaunt through Beat History. A spritely Jack Kerouac followed by the drunk. A youthful William Burroughs, and the junky with withered skin. Gregory Corso, Gary Snyder, Robert La Vigne, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and of course, … [Read more...]
John J. Dorfner on Jack Kerouac’s Induction into the Rocky Mount Hall of Fame
John J. Dorfner is the author of two books on Jack Kerouac, Kerouac: Visions of Lowell and Kerouac: Visions of Rocky Mount. In them, he delves into Kerouac's life in Lowell, Massachusetts, and in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Dorfner recently was responsible for getting Kerouac inducted into the Rocky Mount Hall of Fame. We did an interview via email. Here's how it … [Read more...]
Rob Wasserman, Michael McClure & Jay Lane – Music & Poetry – Sept. 12, 2013
Rob Wasserman • Michael McClure • Jay Lane New Music! Thursday, September 12th • 8:00 p.m. Sweetwater Music Hall 19 Corte Madera Ave., Mill Valley, CA 94941 Limited Seating • Box Office 415-388-1100 "Rob Wasserman was performing with Lou Reed — I was knocked out. Soon Rob and I were writing songs together, sometimes at Bob Weir'splace with Rob's … [Read more...]
Book Review – How Hip Was My Alley by Kenton Crowther
[Editor's note: 5/21/2014: How Hip Was My Alley has been re-titled Dad, the Times We Had: Baby Boomers in Paradise.] Kenton Crowther's previous volume, Alleycats and Beatsters, collected the author's writings built on the Beat Generation and the essence of "hip." This time out, he casts a wider net; How Hip Was My Alley gathers over three dozen pieces on a wide variety of … [Read more...]
Cry, Exploration, Ceremony
Oppositional postmodernist literature is associated with the Beat movement and came about after the terrible, unforeseen destruction of World War II. While the modernists were positive about the human spirit and mankind’s ability to progress to an ever better future, postmodernists posited that there is creative power in negativity and opposition as well as destructive … [Read more...]
The Jack Kerouac Upper Peninsula Diary by t. kilgore splake, reviewed
The Jack Kerouac Upper Peninsula Diary / t. kilgore splake / Angst Publications / PO Box 508, Calumet, MI 49913-0508 / 1998 The author provided Empty Mirror with a review copy. “Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream”- Jack Kerouac, Lonesome Traveler Ever heard of The Jack Kerouac Upper Peninsula Diary? We all dream of stuff like this. … [Read more...]
When there is nothing, there’s the cup of coffee
When there is nothing, there's the cup of coffee Early morning, i step out; in a heap, in the rubbish pile, my paintings. They look 'belonged'. Few more displaced to the storage-room. New companions for the dust, old tricycle; bicycle, cartons, gunny-bags, snake skins, live spiders; webs, wooden planks. They belonged too. The pain came in full two hours late. … [Read more...]
Book Review – Horse Latitudes by Chris Wilson
Horse Latitudes by Chris Wilson / Sorika / 978-0957557307 / 92 pages Horse Latitudes is a small gem of a book, bound in white covers illustrated with a painting. It is strikingly beautiful, with a very clean, minimalist design. But much of its author's life has been anything but clean and filled with beauty. Instead, most of the first four decades of Chris Wilson's … [Read more...]
Ginsberg’s Refrigerator
In Allen’s tenement flat at 170 East 2nd Street, even the refrigerator is an outlet of poetry. The picture in black and white shows a handle pointing north. On the off-white surface a picture of Edgar Allan Poe is glued on the left, one of Baudelaire, le maudit, hangs on the right. In the backroom a wolf types away poetry in shape of scars and bright stars. From … [Read more...]
2 Poems by Craig Kocij
Alaska Sun (for Timothy Treadwell & Amie Huguenard) Through thirteen seasons your trails ran down to coasts that fell to ocean hues of rain and dull precipitous sleet. To this airy solitude of glacial landscapes you travelled each year, observing each hazy summer’s fall the late salmon run; that frenzied, endless upstream rush – the frantic, ceaseless, slippery … [Read more...]
Gary A.’s Ten Favorite Books
1. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse 2. The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac 3. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway 4. Ask the Dust by John Fante 5. Sixty-Seven Poems For Downtrodden Saints by Jack Micheline 6. The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck 7. The Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac 8. White Trash by Jeff Foley 9. Cities of the Red Night by William S. … [Read more...]
Ginsberg at the Grey
How belly they aged, your friends, how hard the young years, every look, an eye for an eye, rapscallions when this country had corners rounded to secret, sweet places unfound by blab and tweet. In that famous photo, which stood over my desk so many years, I regard the defiant penis on Gregory and you, but here, in the Grey Gallery, I see I missed the smile hidden in the … [Read more...]
Book Review – Son of Kerouac, Woodstock and God: A Memoir by James Crockett
Son of Kerouac, Woodstock and God / James Crockett / 978-148125581 / 261 pages Empty Mirror received a review copy of this book. As a young man about to embark upon a summer-long hitchhiking trip through the western United States in the mid-1970s, James Crockett was given a second-hand copy of Jack Kerouac's autobiographical novel, On the Road - and later, Kerouac books … [Read more...]
In honor of ruth weiss on her 85th birthday
The following is from: “ruth weiss and the American Beat movement of the ‘50s and 60’s” by Horst Spandler, published in: ruth weiss, no dancing aloud – lautes tanzen nicht erlaubt. edition exil, Vienna, 2006. – also used as an introduction to ruth weiss’ book can’t stop the beat – THE LIFE AND WORDS OF A BEAT POET. Divine Arts, Studio City, 2011. ruth weiss’ and Kerouac’s … [Read more...]
Students: A Play by Peter Rose
The living room of a student house in London. Emma sits holding a mug of tea. Robbie stands looking out of the window holding a bottle of beer. She is twenty. He is sixty. ROBBIE:You think you know something about men? (Pause) Would you say you knew much about the opposite sex? EMMA:I think I do. ROBBIE:Well, you don’t. EMMA:I know one thing/ ROBBIE:No … [Read more...]
Ten Favorite Books List Contributed by Josechu C.
1. Artificial Paradises by Charles Baudelaire. In perfect style the author praises the marvelous effects that wine and hash have on him. 2. Stomping the Goyim by Michael Disend. How to be gay, jew and a dealer in the Lower East Side in the 60s. 3. Novel with Cocaine by Ageyev The addiction to sex an cocaine of a young Russian in St Petersburg before and during the … [Read more...]
Bruce Hodder’s Ten Favourite Books
1. In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan 2. Big Sur – Jack Kerouac 3. Desert Solitaire – Edward Abbey 4. Ulysses – James Joyce 5. The Narrow Road to the Deep North – Matsuo Basho 6. The Great Shark Hunt – Hunter S. Thompson 7. Pilgrims of the Wild – Grey Owl 8. Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir – Joyce Johnson 9. Dr. Sax – Jack Kerouac 10. A Modest … [Read more...]
splake’s Magic Box
splake fishing in america. Rockford: Presa Press, 2013 only in my dreams. Springfield: Gage, 2012. Beyond Campfire Ashes. Battle Creeek: Gage, 2012. Backwater Bard Loft Musings. Fort Wayne: The Moon, 2009. Le Metrop 2012. Ed Gray dir. (dvd). Poet Bryn Fortey said it best: “When splake sends, he really sends.” Once, both of us received woolly hats from the … [Read more...]
Mark A.’s Top Ten Books List
1. The Book Of JOB in the OT, La Bible de Jerusalem preferably There was once a man in the land of Uz & the final word was with Yahweh. 2. A Season in Hell by Arthur Rimbaud Emotion, Images, Hallucinations, a soul in torture on the spiritual path to.... 3. Tristessa by Jack KerouacNothing like junky romance in the fellaheen streets. 4. Junky by William S. … [Read more...]
Lost Archive
The Art of Don Clausen: May 1 – June 30 in Berkeley CA
Come enjoy these treasures from private collections: DON CLAUSEN'S seascapes of 1963 to abstracts of 2012, most never before shown publicly. Not all artwork shown is for sale. Yes, Clausen's still painting at the age of 82; still enjoying morning coffee with his Marine buddies. CLASSIC CLAUSEN & Contemporary ShawNshawN @ 4th Street Fine Art, 2000 4th Street, Berkeley, … [Read more...]
Jenny Lynn
Cold wind is building and ready. It is not understood the pent feelings that have suddenly surfaced after long and even further back and then along the slow moving world and probably before the long awaited return of a Gypsy night. She said her name was Jenny Lynn. WAIT. Let me think. It was in the south section grid just beyond the usual spot where did we usually wait … [Read more...]
