Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

I took my son's christmas present, a $30 Chapters gift cert., and did what i usually do with such things...look for the bargain bin for deals...ended up with 4 books and a magazine for a measly $30...not bad...2 of the books are history, 1 is on terrorism, and the 4th is King of the Beats: Jack Kerouac, A Portrait, by someone called Barry Miles...this guy has also written books about ginsberg, burroughs, the beat hotel, paul mccartney, & the beatles

has anyone heard of this book or the author? am hoping i've found myself a steal here for $7

Speaking of bargains, I had dinner with a prof a couple of weeks ago. He was telling me about a book he bought at a garage sale sometime ago. It was a collector's Limited Edition Club, one of 1500 or so...of course it was signed by the author and the illustrator, a couple of cats named James Joyce and Henri Matisse.

The book? "Ulysseses.

Shit, how come I never find deals like that?

speaking of unfair

A kid brought in a book she'd bought for 10 shekels at a second hand book fair (that's about 2.50 US dollars)

It was Ginsberg's Howl - English with Hebrew translation, signed by Ginsberg himself and given to the kibbutznik who'd translated the work for him.

i, of course, tried to temporarily confiscate the book for examination purposes, but the kid found me out.


judih

Barry Miles owned either a record shop or a bookshop in London in the 1960s (I can't recall which). Ginsberg met him there and they became friends. Miles has been in and out of the Beat circle ever since.

If you're interested in the value of the Kerouac bio you found (or any other used, rare, out-of-print books), go to:

www.abebooks.com - the Advanced Book Exchange

Mattisse did Ulysses illustrations?
If I had money out the butt, I'd hunt down that edition.

I'm just about finished reading Town and City and that will complete my reading of JK's writings...Ironically the first he published....Have'nt read a bio of Mr. Beat but as a gift I was given a book called Kerouac and Friends ....Which is a great synopsis of a time and place with several essay type works about him including a lot of fine pics.....

thanks for the link lescaret...was under no pretensions that the book was worth anything...it wasn't a 2nd hand bin...just newish hardcover titles they wanted to get rid of

one of the books i got for $4 is callec Stone Country: An Unauthorized History of Canada...fun little book by George Bowering, canada's first poet laureate...funny tongue in cheek style writing about canada's history

a little excerpt:

We rely on the archaeologists to tell us what happened before the historical period in North America. "The historical period" is a phrase meaning whatever happened after the white folks got here. Hello, said John Cabot's men to the brown folks they found working in their front yards along the big river. Hello. We are bringing history from across the great water. History went on to kill most of the brown people.


he manages to keep it all relatively light...fun read

Barry Miles has been in the publishing news of late for his bio--somewhat critical-- of dada rock-composer Frank Zappa. Camille Paglia reviewed it in NY Times about 2 months ago: when in doubt, google, Capn' SquidKnipples.

Miles wrote much on Beat Generation; he was at the Kerouac Conference (along with the Charters and most of the then-living beat daddies) in Mork and Mindyland way back in '82 where I heard him speak: the really big shoe produced by karmacoupe of LitKicks fame, eh, LitKicks I--pre-sellout

yeah, i googled mencken you mencken him so much...thought i was onto something with some links between him and eugenics, but it was a dead end

You think Mencken was a nazi? Nope. He hated republicans and fundamentalists. He was slightly anti-semitic here and there--though one of his best pals was jewish-- but when he got the news about hitler and the camps he denounced them.

Or are you fond of eugenics, Capn?

read a bit more closely before replying, perry...

It is not I that needs to read more carefully, it is thou that needs to write more clearly.

Are you interested in eugenics (and Mencken's relation to it) as a form of crime prevention or population control, or because you are horrified at it? You failed to make that clear.

Perhaps its not Bon Capn' Squidknipple after all, but Herr Kapitan SkuidKnippel! javoll mein herr!

thought i was onto something with some links between him and eugenics, but it was a dead end

it's really pretty clear...i googled him and found some discussion of him and eugenics, but it was a dead end...couldn't pin him with it...he had, as you said, some minor anti-semitic tones, but not really all that much, and certainly not as much as many of his peers...and i found the holocaust revulsions, as well as his role as an early libertarian

but you see, when i said it was a dead end, it was pretty clear i hadn't found a real mencken-eugenics link...like i said, read closely