There was no computer involved.
One can only imagine.
Tormented pieces of paper piled on top of each other.
A 'ode' to his fellow visionaries.
A vision of the future.
Allen Ginsberg giggles.
Satisfied.
HOWL is complete.
More than ten years later Bob Dylan releases 'The Times They Are a-Changing' by now Howl was old news but still resonated as a catalyst for the social changes the world was seeing.
It was artworks like these that invigorated me to smoke joints out of the window in my parents house looking up at the crescent moon and to dream of new ever-changing worlds and doodle insane pictures with perpetuating layers like 2D onions. And then to actually go, go wandering wondering in this world that proved itself to be real even after LSD lead me to question if it was or not.
Lets just say many of the things I have seen may not have been so visible had it not been for Ginsberg and his cohorts.
Somewhere along the line I recorded a shoddy MIX of 'Salt n Pepa' mashed up with a recording of an Allen Ginsberg reciting of Howl (which if you haven't heard can be found at ubu.com)
We jump thorough space and time to 2011: The release of HOWL the movie; part courtroom drama, part 'beat fantasia' and part glamorized historical document. The courtroom part is centered around the obscenity trial that presumed to ban the publication of the poem, luckily in this instance Don Draper otherwise known as Jon Hamm is the lawyer defending Ginsbergs masterpiece.
James Franco of recent 'Milk' fame plays Ginsberg, not the first time Allen has been depicted in an on screen adaption of beat literature (see David Cronenbergs Naked Lunch) but certainly Franco appears to be a worthy advocate for the infamous bespectacled protector of all things unhindered.
Lets hope that this release allows some of the inherent wisdom drawn from the creation of Howl to be known to some of the best minds of this new generation, because as ever the times they are a-changing.
http://www.sodapictures.com/howl/
UK release date 25 February 2011
