This evening, I watched a documentary called Walt Whitman, part of the Voices and Visions series, directed by Jack Smithie, and copyrighted in 1988 by the New York Center for Visual History. The documentary includes numerous excerpts from interviews of Allen Ginsberg, including one snippet where he mentions a sexual lineage that connected him to Whitman through Neal Cassady, Gavin Arthur, and Edward Carpenter (a claim he also apparently made in a Gay Sunshine interview).
I had a flashback to the time I spent with Ginsberg in Cambridge, MA, in 1982, when he told me that I was part of an erotic lineage that connected me to Whitman through him and Carpenter and others I didn’t remember from that time. I now know much more clearly who Neal Cassady is, although Gavin Arthur remains a mystery. One result of a quick Google search identifies Arthur as ” a certain astrologer and San Francisco character, Gavin Arthur (grandson of president Chester A Arthur), who gave lectures at San Quentin while Neal was a prisoner.” Another entry reports that he studied astrology with Ronald Reagan before Reagan started his political career.
I had interviewed Ginsberg for Gay Community News in an issue published on August 21, 1982. The funny part of the interview was how we decided to end it in print, that is, with Ginsberg’s question to me about whether I was going to refer to the conditions of the interview in publication, my question to him about what he meant, and his reply that the interview was conducted when we were in bed together.
A month or so ago, I found a cassette tape containing the whole interview and listened to it for the first time in more than 20 years. I was surprised at how fresh and relevant Ginsberg’s words remained to me and to the current political situation in the U.S.
Perhaps an archive somewhere would be interested in the recording? If so, please contact me. Or perhaps I should just transcribe the whole thing and post it on this blog. The incomplete interview, as published in Gay Community News, is now apparently selling for $22 an issue on the web, so I guess I should scrounge around in the basement to see if I still have any copies, eh?
I’d like to read it, perhaps V. Vale from Re/Search would transcribe the interview if you didn’t want to? I know he’d be interested in it.
I suggest you just put the recording online if possible, I’d like to listen to it.
If you needed hosting for it, the internet archive allows for such storage.
Jake, thanks for the suggestions. How can I get a cassette tape converted into some online format?
I’d love to hear that interview! We’ve just had a celebration of Ginsberg in Dublin last Thursday which went very well.
I’ve converted audio cassette to MP3 before. One way is via Nero software, which is mainly for burning DVDs and CDs. But I’ve also done it with Sonicstage Mastering Studio. Either way, you use a lead from the cassette recorder to the microphone socket on your computer. I think the freeware programme Audacity would work too, but couldn’t swear to it.