Alan was truly the sweetest Person I've ever met, for years he cared for his Mother and always spoke about her with such gentleness. If you ever saw him carrying a little string tied pastry box, it was usually a favorite pastry he was bringing home to her . One year in the early 80's, I was asked to accompany & sit with his Mother at a Reading of Howl at Columbia University. When Alan read some of the "juicier" lines, I discreetly side glanced, curious her reaction - assuming discomfort. I couldn't have been more inaccurate as there she sat, smiling and made little nods of approval. It was an small yet extraordinary moment, feeling this Mother's love for her son. Every winter I would run a Children's Event at a Buddhist Center in NYC and one year, invited Alan to come Read a Poem to entertain them. From that point on, for years he would call me in advance of the Event and offer to Read AND sing accompanied by his Concertina (usually Blake) - Alan said he called ahead in case I forgot and to make sure it got on his Schedule. "Haha Alan, forget, really!?" I can't think of any better example that demonstrates Alan's incredible sense of generosity and thoughtful nature. A Brilliant Heart and Mind. Ki Ki So SO!

I love Alan and his beatific brethren for their openess with human flaws, their sympathy for the searching mind heart, and finding the right thing to say.

I was there that night with Ginsberg and Lobsang on the subway back to Manhattan from Brooklyn. I will never forget that night. How lovely to see Lobsang so young, and Charles ! thank you Robin !

I love this man who had a profound impact upon me as a young man and ongoingly, still, now, in almost old age - to hear this discourse in one big long exhale of mind (and the shapeliness thereof of G's mind and expression) endears me to him all the more. I live near where he used to here in the East Village of NYC, I would often see him walking about the neighborhood, sitting on a bench at the end of my street, once on a grave in the old graveyard, at St. Marks Church, and would thrill at the sighting. Too shy to say hello or approach I ghosted around him hoping that some contagion of poetry would catch in me by indirect but close transmission from Allen. This video talk serves as such along with many more films, documentaries, his books and songs. Grateful for him and to him. Truly brilliant mind and man and human, all too human, as are we all. Here's a late poem by Allen written in the East Village: Fourth Floor, Dawn, Up All Night Writing Letters Pigeons shake their wings on the copper church roof out my window across the street, a bird perched on the cross surveys the city's blue-grey clouds. Larry Rivers 'll come at 10 AM and take my picture. I'm taking your picture, pigeons. I'm writing you down, Dawn. I'm immortalizing your exhaust, Avenue A bus. O Thought, now you'll have to think the same thing forever!

One of the greatest poets of the modern age, and a personal icon for me.

Thank you for posting this wonderful documentary, Robyn. It has enriched my appreciation of Alan Ginsberg poetry.

Thank you Allen Ginsberg for visiting Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas in October 1994 as the Featured Poet of the Arkansas Celebration of the Arts in Poetry. Walking beside you up Bathhouse Row toward the Arlington Hotel where you were holding a poetry recital. You chanted the Heart Sutra. It was a technicolor day and I was walking beside you. Thank you for keeping my letters in your papers donated to Stanford. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

This is really great. A wonderful informing story of Allen´s path and America´s path of awakening.

What a gift. Thank you.

This is really fantastic! A gold mine. Thank you so much for posting.

Ginsberg's transcribed lectures on literature delivered at Naropa are so insightful and clear, well worth finding in his nonfiction books. OK?

Thank you for posting this excellent video. It is an accurate portrait of the complexity of this man. There are some very revealing statements of the poet's mind, unguarded expression about the world, language, and the progress of consciousness.

Thanks for posting. I'm using this for some research and it is very helpful.

Thank you for posting this. Very interesting!

this is great for my dissertation thank you for posting.

Wow how that great poetic voice can remember to remember. Thank you.

Thank you!

top class thank you.

Thanks a lot!

Marvelous storyteller

Ginsberg mentions Suzuki Roshi several times in this interview, but he's actually talking about DT Suzuki.

What an amazing language to understand. I am grateful to have English as my mother tongue

The beat generations PR man. Affecting the image to suit any era.

Oh thank you ...... xxx

Excellent source information about Allen Ginsberg's involvement in founding Shambhala with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in 1970-1987.

these writers were not trying to escape or 'beat' anything except the waste of time club that is materialism. I grew up in a town next to Paterson NJ, and eventually rode my bike to the top of Garret Mountain overlooking Paterson Falls. I was astonished that such a beautiful sight was right there, next to my home town, yet no one I knew in my town mentioned it. Williams "Paterson" was never mentioned by anyone outside of poetry. No one in my town seemed to know about Williams. I'm so grateful for Allen who appreciates every writer and is the best of his generation. Maybe any generation. I met him in Boulder in 1974 as a student.

🖤

I have a heavy case of Ginsberg resentment, I always have. Thank you for uploading, wonderful stuff

I came into contact with the Naropa Institute in 1978. Someone stole the postcard though. Robbers have not left me alone since then. see the talk. I'll vote that I like this film. Hot water system stopped working last night. Had been telling myself that a meditation practice doesn't work won't do it tonight. Is hat poetic justice?

1:02:00 on how to write a haiku.

Ran into A.G but never spoke-I suppose what was to be discussed I covered in my reading of his and others of a like mind.Never the less I feel that I understood him and simply had little to discuss. The world could use a few more philosophers and poets of the same caliber as A.G.But I guess we are really on are own and don’t need anyone to explain what should be obvious by now. Knowing this I still miss his voice.

Allen Ginsberg was a great man and a great poet and a very wise man that I wish I could have known him and some of the other be writers especially Jack Kerouac great god and goddess bless all of them.

Knowledgeism is narrower or wider in time and space person to person

knowing something doesn't necessarily mean you can escape the intellectual spiral of self flagellation

People giggle when acid is mentioned, it was a serious business not just getting stoned

Much respect to Ginsberg. BUT there is something in this video that reminds me of experience I had with some American students of Buddhism. Some people take Buddhism classes and most likely mean well and have sincere interest in reaching enlightenment. But I think they fundamentally do not get something, OR perhaps fail to honestly identify their own motivations for studying Buddhism. I think they are more interested in the American counter culture that started in the 50s and the American politics as opposed to in the Buddhism itself. I think to them Buddhism and enlightenment is secondary to their political/cultural activism but they are not honest about it. I have no doubt some people understand what I am referring to. It feels wrong and feels like unknowingly they are doing a disservice to other seekers.

From "Rumor Has It That ---," (a show of Apocrypha & Hipocrypha" Rumor has it that the producers of "Gilligan's Island" originally wanted to have a character on the Island whom the writers named "Wacky Beatnik Poet." Ginsberg tried out for the part but wasn't hired because before each of his lines he would say, "According to The Buddha, ... ." Allen then put together his own "Beatnik Poet" act and took it on the road. He opened at the "Gay Paree Cocktail Lounge & 24 Hr. Laundromat," which is about two miles from the Las Vegas Strip. His act was a hit, but he was fired because after each show he insisted on giving a lecture on some topic which nobody was interested in, such as "Can You Be Buddhist and Gay?," and a guide for Slackers and Grifters called "Tell Them You're a Poet," which included a list of places where one could purchase a Beatnik costume, complete with a Beret (one size fits most), a paste-on Goatee and a book titled, "The Beginner's Guide to Passing Yourself Offas a Wacky Beatnik Poet." TRUE: Since most poets die either broke or in debt, Ginsberg must have been doing something right, since he had $3 million in the bank at the time of his death.

All is mind

interesting

1:02:03

“The web of hypocrisy of today hangs on the frontiers of two domains, between which our time swings back and forth, attaching its fine threads of deception and self-deception. No longer vigorous enough to serve Morality without doubt or weakening, not yet reckless enough to live wholly to egoism, it rembles now towardthe one and now toward the other in the spider-web of hypocrisy, and, crippled by the curself halfness, catches only miserable, stupid flies.” - Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own.” “Another [article of] our faith is that the human soul is a colleague of angels, and that when it behaves in accordance with what is written in the Torah, while it i still [alive] in its body,then [after death] it ill return to its place, to be illuminated by the light of life; but if it sins, it will be rebuffed from its place, and unable to reach it until its sins are expiated, and the length of this rebuffed will be in accordance with the severity and amount of the sins- and our sages call this rebuffed “Gehinnom.”...” - Mordecai Ben Nissan I think Karaite scholars like this are interesting in reference to our turn to Buddhism; its as if they're looking for a more humane version of Judaism or Catholicism when what we need is an immanent critique of Abrahamaic ways of thinking though and I think the Karaites possess this.

11:30 Chant

what did he say at 39:40 ?

I'd love to have been there. I would ask about the black crown ceremony with 16 karmapy. Also I'd have to ask about Dylan.

🙏☯️👁

Showing my age but it is scary to see his legacy being slowly eroded due to his views/actions regarding 'young boys'

18:00

Lucien Carr brought the gang together and called the Beat Generation Lu was the glue.

As a kid, the Beats were my idols. As I mature and learn more of history, philosophy, and politics; the Beats more and more show themselves to have been drug-fueled hedonists with hilariously inflated senses of intellect self-importance....

NAMBLA advocate Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg is a very intelligent human being. But even at his level he barely scratches one grain of sand out of all the combined sands in the universe. Our mortal 75 years on Earth make going farther an impossible feat. If you are with me so far, you have now arrived at the door step of Everlasting Glory Everlasting praise to God the Father.

Well Mr. Ginsberg, Im not sure if youre still with US but to me this sounds like old stoned stories. I may be wrong but I feel you have made a comfortable living out of name droppin and association with maybe the odd occasional book thrown in here and there. I dont like to be too harsh about it and you were one of the beat crew but name droppin and old stories, while interesting are only a(happened to be there) thing and not an achievement. Yet being there is probably just enough.This is not a hostile comment because even genius needs encouragement, which I beleive you did give. Alot. Alot.

I've never understood the attraction

did he say g**k ?!

Just Be careful everyone of Allen Ginsberg. Please I love each and everyone of you please be very careful of Allen Ginsberg. Yes he is awesome but be careful

I just wanted to say that the Lord Jesus Christ loves you very much and died on the cross of Calvary for you. You can accept Jesus as your savior anytime you want Paradise the old saying goes he is only a prayer away could Peter the Pumpkin Eater

JESUS loves you.

Such mumblings...yawn.