Vintage mags from Comptoir de L'image

More from the fabulous Comptoir de L'image... Besides the beat poets I found two brilliant cultural icons from my youth...
A stack of Interview magazines and an equally impressive trove of vintage Vogue.
Interview coloured our lives in my teens - took my friend T and I out of boarding school bounds and into the exotic world of 1980s American art, film, fashion, music, culture - Isabella Rossellini, Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, Cyndi Lauper - the cover art was always fantastic and so different from the drudgery of Dolly and friends on the shelves at the good ole Wahroonga Franklins...
And then there was Vogue.... there's something about the vintage editions that lifts them to a time so much more glamorous than the current. Maybe it's the original artwork, the timelessness of the models and Hollywood icons of old school cinema, the lack of ads and mass consumer chain store rip offs...
Resisted the temptation to lug them all home but did content myself with a cover print from French Vogue, 1 June 1921... I wonder if, in 90 years' time, someone will hang the Oct 2010 cover on their wall?

Synchronicity... oui!

Some may call it coincidence but I say it's synchronicity all the way... I've mentioned it a few times here - 5 February On Rivers comes to mind. So sit back and enjoy this tale of synchronicity and serendipity...

On the 10th of June 2010 I came across a photographic exhibition that was on in Washington DC - Allan Ginsberg's personal snapshots of his beat poet friends. Wow, I would have loved to have seen that.

On the 27th of June, planning a then-imminent trip to France, I blogged about a second hand bookstore Comptoir de l'image that was on my 'non-negotiable drop-ins' list for Paris.

On the 17th of July I walked into said bookstore and the first, the first, book I saw sitting on top of a pile waist high blocking my tracks was:..... the book from the Ginsberg exhibition! Aah... It had my name written all over it. 

So here it is. And what a find. The photos are a fascinating - somewhat voyeuristic - insight into the lives of the beat poets. (Yes that is Lou Reed, second photo from top, left.) Love the handwritten captions beneath each image too. And of course, there's Jack.

Top 5 Famous Literary Hotels

Which literary residences have outlived the authors they inspired? And who keeps track of things of importance such as this?
It has been reported that the Grand Hôtel des Bains — Thomas Mann’s residence on the Lido and the backdrop for his novella Death in Venice — will close its doors to be converted into luxury apartments.
Coming to you from the world wide web's inexhaustible supply of 'lists', a writer by the name of Chelsea Bauch nominates five famous hotels that have earned their place in literary history. You can check out her list here.
Take a look at two of her top five:

New York's Hotel Chelsea: 'A go-to residence for artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers for more than a century — many of whose non-monetary payments still decorate the walls — this infamous landmark has inspired as many scandals as it has stories. Dylan Thomas lived and died on the premises, poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso matched intellectual wits within its walls, Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey there, and other literary guests (both short and long-term) have included Thomas Wolfe, Eugene O’Neil, and William Burroughs.'

The Stanley Hotel, Colorado: 'Although accounts vary regarding the basis for the Overlook Hotel — the isolated and endlessly creepy setting of Stephen King’s The Shining — it’s widely reported that King conceived the basic novel idea while staying at this out-of-the-way Colorado hotel with his wife. The Stanley Hotel’s Georgian style is just one of several accommodations that King reportedly drew from for his chilling house of horrors, but this is apparently where it all started.'


Can you add to the list?

Long live livres anciens

In the footsteps of Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound and friends wandering through the muddled streets of Faubourg Saint-Germain-des-Prés on a summer saturday in Paris... bookstores galore and a moveable feast of ancient articles de valeur to admire...

Can't stop the Beat...

Jack Kerouac wandering along East 7th Street, Manhattan, 1953. Passing the statue of Congressman Samuel 'Sunset' Cox, 'The Letter-Carrier's Friend' in Tompkins Square, after visiting William S Burroughs at the pad he shared with Allen Ginsberg.

Flashback to 1998: road trip across the USA with my mate Boyo and the Marines, in a two-seater Cherokee jeep, utes blaring country music in convoy behind, boards on top, camping gear in the back, and a dog eared copy of Big Sur in hand as we pulled into... Big Sur, California. 
It was late summer and I was sure I could smell the faint smoke of the bush fires Kerouac's alter ego, Jack Duluoz, was charged with sighting from his perch high in the trees in the Bixby Canyon wilderness back in 1962. 
The cabin in which Kerouac/Duluoz sought solitude belonged to his long time friend and fellow Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. 
The lady with whom he then sought respite from solitude, was Billie (in real life Jackie Gibson Mercer)...mistress of Cody Pomeray, a thinly veiled portrayal of his other close and real life mate, Neal Cassady.
You follow? 
Anyhow, it was epic.
Today: Kerouac, Cassady, Burroughs and Ferlinghetti feature in a collection of 79 photographs of Beat poets and friends taken by Allen Ginsberg, himself a poet of the Beat generation, regularly spoken of in the same breath as Kerouac.
So this is a rare moment in time when I say 'I wish I was in Washington DC' because then I could go to the National Gallery of Art and gaze rapturously at rarely seen portraits of Kerouac [insert appreciative phwoarr here], a genius of stream-of-conscious writing and patron of the School-of-Self-Inflicted-Hard-Knocks.
Beat memories: The photographs of Allen Ginsberg is on until September 19. The Gallery says his images are far more than just historic snap shots: 'the same ideas that inform his poetry — an intense observation of the world, a deep appreciation of the beauty of the vernacular, a celebration of the sacredness of the present, and a faith in intuitive expression — also permeate his photography.'
Aah pictures... they do tell a thousand words.

Neal Cassady and his love of that year (1955) the star-cross'd Natalie Jackson