Wednesday, June 1
Lincoln Debates
Not all is well at Lincoln Center–the City Opera finally bolted for greener (hopefully more acoustically sound) pastures, and the City Ballet’s season was described by our venerable dance critic as “schizophrenic.” Plus, they have a theater named after a tea-partying Koch brother! But the site’s ongoing redevelopment continues apace, Read More
The one-bedroom place Allen Ginsberg lived in for decades has been snapped up by a lucky new tenant, and they’ve already moved in. The walk-up at 437 East 12th Street — which boasted both a reasonable $1,700-a-month rent and close proximity to nine Starbucks locations — is no longer available. The new inhabitant for Read More
Earlier today, a one-bedroom apartment at 437 East 12th Street went on the the rental market. Though it’s certainly remarkable for its price—$1,700 a month? In the East Village?—its primary claim to fame is that it housed Allen Ginsberg for over two decades. Here Ginsberg lived with his lover, Peter Orlovsky, and would host Read More
Manhattan Transfers Cheat Sheet
- Society staple Countess Sharon Sondes sold her Trump International Hotel & Tower pied-a-terre for $1.45 million to a buyer cloaked under the LLC One CPW 408. Countess Sondes, born and bred on Park Avenue into the now-less prestigious Lehman banking family, abandoned the hullabaloo of Manhattan in favor of the more demure, Read More
Noted graduate student James Franco will be portraying Allen Ginsberg in the upcoming film Howl, which was shown at Cinema Society on Monday.
Franco has more than a Columbia education in common with the Beat poet, he tells Vanity Fair. For example, a love of poetry:
“I’m in film school right Read More
Bookish hunk James Franco, who spent his free time during the filming of his latest movie reading the collected works of Thomas Pynchon, has signed on to star in the Gus Van Sant-produced Allen Ginsberg biopic Howl. The movie, written and directed by documentarians Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, will also feature David Read More
Hey Jack, how bout a mojito?
Famous Jack Kerouac, Dizzy Gillespie, and Joe College hangout the West End Café has officially reopened for business–”about five minutes ago,” a publicist told The Observer late Thursday afternoon.
Albeit with a slightly altered moniker: Havana Central at the West End.
Dig it: Kerouac’s favorite burger joint Read More
Hyperbolic titles invite dissent. So here’s mine: What makes Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” “the poem that changed America,” as the cover of this essay collection proclaims?
Ginsberg might’ve responded by saying, as he did in a 1986 essay included here, that when San Francisco’s City Lights Bookstore published “Howl” 50 years ago, changing America was part Read More
Hyperbolic titles invite dissent. So here’s mine: What makes Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” “the poem that changed America,” as the cover of this essay collection proclaims?
Ginsberg might’ve responded by saying, as he did in a 1986 essay included here, that when San Francisco’s City Lights Bookstore published “Howl” 50 years ago, changing America Read More
Wednesday 16th
It’s still February …. On the positive side of things, the fashion fascist brigade has finally cleared out of town, replaced by the equally-lovely-to-look-at-but- higher-IQ-bearing saffron gates in Central Park. If today you happen to find yourself at the Time Warner mall, do not be alarmed by an excessive amount of swankily swathed Read More
