Miniature Milestones

I just read today that Peter Orlovsky died. Not that I ever knew him. He was a poet and the half-century partner to Allen Ginsberg, whose seminal poem "Howl" is dedicated to him. They met through the painter Robert LaVigne, one of the characters in Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie's art film PULL MY DAISY. The story is that Orlovsky was modeling for LaVigne and Ginsberg had already fallen in love with his portrait before the real man walked in the door. They travelled together for many years, Peter following Allen on his travels to Algiers and India.

In my teens, twenties, and onward I had a great fascination for the Beat Generation, and I wrote my Bachelor's thesis on Jack Kerouac. My college was located only two towns over from Lowell, Massachusetts. As a budding writer with similar dreams, I admired the writing and the life-model which Kerouac represented (though not his poor, early end). I read On The Road in high school and was hooked. My first semester in college was spent at Alfred University in upstate New York, and the town was all Seventh Day Adventist. What this means is that all the stores in town were closed on Saturdays instead of Sundays. I wanted to spend just as much time dreaming as I had to studying, and there was this great little book shop in town. There I found other copies of books by Kerouac and a book about the Beats by John Tytell called Naked Angels: The Lives and Literature of The Beat Generation which explored, in turns, their literary production and the texture of their internal lives. More on this later.............