An anniverary howl for Allen Ginsberg


Allen Ginsberg (above) died on April 5, 1997 and Herbert von Karajan was born on April 5, 1908. I'm probably the only person to find a connection between the two, so it's not surprising that if you type "allen ginsberg herbert von karajan" into Google.com the first two results are currently from On An Overgrown Path. Which means you can read about them here and here.

Image credit Summer of Love. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Pliable said…
Just to keep the record complete Louis Spohr was born on April 5, 1784 and Alonso Lobo died on April 5, 1617.

Anyone who can find a connection between them and Allen Ginsberg and Herbert von Karajan deserves a prize.
4:34 pm
Dennis said…
There is, of course, another connection between Ginsburg and HvK: a somewhat ambiguous relationship and youthful flirtation with totalitarian ideologies.

While Ginsburg was never an actual party member - unlike HvK and the Nazis - he expressed admiration for fundamental Communist tenets and admired people like Trotsky and Lenin. To wit, some lines from his 1956 poem "America": "America, I used to be a Communist when I was a kid I'm not sorry...America, when will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites...?"

I've never understood how a nation is to become "worthy" of Trotskyism, as if Trotskyism were just too good for America. Would one think to ask in 1956 whether a nation could likewise be deemed "worthy" of Nazism? Another manifestation of the "Intellectuals'" double standard viv-a-vis Communism vs. Nazism.
8:23 pm
Pliable said…
Dennis, there is another tenuous but interesting connection.

Karajan's second wife, Anna Maria Gütermann, who he married in 1942 was quarter Jewish. They divorced in 1958.
9:35 pm
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