Chaos averted - I lived through christmas and new years and all the things before and after - even a few of the ones during.
It was great and then it was hungover and then it was great again and then i just really wanted to sleep and sleep and sleep. But a few good things came out of it - I finally got around to reading "Oranges are not the only fruit" I loved it, but not as much as I loved sexing the cherry and not anyway near "the passion" but what can live up to the passion anyway? I heard it was very lesbian, but it was actually very very tame! She only started going all fantastical world inside her head towards the end too. I did enjoy it - Myles says it's better than "the passion" but then Myles needs to be beaten up more! Never take advice from a dancing boy with a beard!
I lived through "Howl"s 50th anniversary- which may sound like a terrifically wonderful thing to live through and believe me it was, but I was sporting the worst hangover ever experienced by anyone on this earth or any other earth or water for that matter.
Tommy Tiernan was so wonderful- I didn't fancy him before he started reading but by the time he had finished his rendition of Howl he was a very attractive man lol. He put all his heart, soul, limbs, and tonsils into telling us about all these beat boys dragging themselves 'through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix', getting committed and Moloch!!!
And I love Moloch so- he was this god who parents would sacrifice their children to- im sure my parents would have if they had known they were supposed to ;)
Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream
Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in
Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!
Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom
I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch
who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy!
Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch!
I love the repeition, it makes me giggle! � And I love karl solomon and his electric shocks and I love the way Tommy Tiernans voice grows louder and more emotional as he reads it.
I'm with you in Rockland
where fifty more shocks will never return your
soul to its body again from its pilgrimage to a
cross in the void
When Tommy Tiernan read to us he did so with a "neeeavvvan" accent- he did so with a country lilt and onamatapaeia! The clatters sounded like claaaatteren', his arms rose angryily, crazily, frustrated- his voice went from calm tranquil reflections to angry shouts and mental rollercoaster rants without time to collect your thoughts. He said before he began reading that sometimes it could be hard to understand all over the poem, it just washes over you like waves, and othertimes you were swimming in it or something to that effect- but he promised us one thing, that whatever the outcome or our level of understanding by the time the poem ended we'd know we'd been in the "wattar" He finished with the footnote to howl, but when he finished the footnote he decided that there were a lot more holy things in the world and preceded to shout out placenames in Ireland and shout "Holy" manically- it was wonderful and it really was Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!
The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand
and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is
holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!
There were stories by various writers about how they met Ginsberg. Theo Dorgan told us how he lured Ginsberg to Ireland by promising him an irish tweed suit(he couldnt afford ginsbergs usual $5,000 fee)- ginsberg wrote to him and said 'it was the suit that got me' Ginsberg was then buried in that same suit.
Tommy Tiernan described stalking Ginsberg through Dublin bars yelling at him as he passed by "I love Bob Dylan" only to have Ginsberg turn and say that he loved him too. He later jumped in on a conversation Ginsberg was having to inquire if he though "William Bouroughs and Samuel Beckett would have got along"- ginsberg thought they would have, I think they probably would have killed each other by accident but the survivor would write many interesting things about the death so it would all have been good! I gained a huge level of respect hearing of Tommy stalking Ginsberg through bars- it made me wish i had the chance to stalk him too!
Other notable highlights were Theo Dorgans own version of Howl, Gabriel Rosenstocks translations of Ginsbergs Haikus into Irish where we learned the irish for strange things and of course a special mention has to go to Dermod Moore for reading "Please Master" with all the gritt, desperation and passion that the poem deserves, he emphasised all the kinky bits, and read wildly about things that would make a rent boy blush.
We ended back in my place where I was a bad hostess and a grump nursing my headache, but stayed up all night listening to funny songs with our beloved stevie and trying to make stevie play that song of his I love. If my head wasnt throbbing it would have been far more magical, but then we vowed not to get quite as drunk the night before the 100th anniversary- only 50 years to wait ;-)
P.S. Ailbhe catches it all here.... "http://angelicish.journalspace.com/?cmd=displaycomments&dcid=69&entryid=69"
