And so the daily round continues as autumn approaches. I had lunch with my old friend Andrew Sclanders, the Wild Man of Counter-cultural and Beat-Gen bookselling. Here we are checking out Darren Coffield’s New Colony Room, but as no-one appeared to serve us we waited for a while then departed without even serving ourselves in the correct sixties manner.

My son Theo and his girlfriend Minako attended a wedding. Here they are looking suitably spiffy. I think that’s a John Pearce suit. It’s mostly funerals for me these days.

Then Camila came to town to attend a meeting of the William Blake Cottage Trust in Felpham, in which they presented ideas for the community use of the cottage and received ideas from the local people. Before she headed into the country we managed a nice meal – that’s a steak tartare in the picture – saw the Vanessa Bell show at the Courtauld (tiny, only worth it if you also visit the Monet show, which was not yet open when we were there) and the Van Gogh show at the National Gallery which had just opened. Magnificent. It would cheer anybody up (except maybe poor Vincent himself). On the one level it is beautiful, luminescent, vibrating with colour and life but there is an underlying seriousness – thick black lines around trees, sinister almost threatening distortions. Many of the 61 pictures were painted when he was in the mental asylum. So, thought provoking as well as life-giving energy.
We also passed a few tourists sites which we dutifully recorded:



Meanwhile, an intriguing literary puzzle has emerged in the form of a glossary explaining terms used in Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”. It would appear to have been written by an English person before the publication of the book, but turned up among the papers of a young American in Paris two years after the book was published. Presumably it was compiled to aid a translator. I sent a copy to Peter Hale, who runs the Ginsberg Estate and does such a brilliant job of keeping Allen’s work in the public eye, and also one to Jean-Jacques Lebel, who was there in Beat Hotel days, but if anyone can shed any light on the author of this ms I’d love to hear from them. (I afraid I don’t often look at the emails sent to this web-site so I might take a little while in getting back to you.) Here’s the letter I sent to Peter and the glossary. Peter and I agree that it was written from a ms, copy of “Howl”, and almost certainly before 1956 when the book came out.
Dear Peter
Here’s a pretty thing. A friend of mine who used to work for Diana Phipps just catalogued her papers. Her husband was Harry Phipps, who befriended Allen and co at the Beat Hotel (and, oddly, whose family owned the land in Miami where Bill Burroughs’ family had their garden centre at Phipps Plaza). Harry died in the sixties of heroin, but Diana kept a load of his papers at her castle in Romania or wherever it was and has only just died. Fran was the one who sorted out the paperwork.
Among his letters she found this two-page text. It appears to be an explanation of terms used that a potential translator might need. Unfortunately, there is material missing but it can be reconstructed. The numbers refer to the line numbers in ‘Howl’. As Jean-Jacques Lebel was already engaged in translating Howl into French at the time Harry Phipps met Allen, it is hard to imagine who this was intended for. J-J, as you know, was educated in the States and speaks perfect English and would certainly not have needed this.
More curious is the mention of ‘Footnote to Howl’ that the author of this text does not have, suggesting that he was working from a manuscript rather than the book as ‘Footnote’ is in the book. But the book was published in October 1956 whereas Allen didn’t meet Phipps until c.June 1958 and we know that Allen had lots of copies of the book with him in Paris. (He gave one to Celine and one to Micheaux, among others).
This suggests that this ms was written before the book was published. But as Phipps had not yet met Allen, one wonders who wrote it. It is on European A4 size paper so it originated in Europe, presumably Paris, though the use of the word ‘flat’ instead of ‘apartment’ suggests the author is an Englishman. It is a top copy on thin ‘airmail’ paper used for international mail and for multiple carbon copies. The typeface is the same as that used by Allen in the original ms of ‘Howl’, and Allen did bring that portable typewriter with him to Paris, however there are very slight differences which suggest that it did not come from Allen’s typewriter: the ‘y’ slants slightly to the left in this ms whereas the ‘y’ on Allen’s typewriter slopes in the opposite direction – very slightly. …


And once again to end with the Palestinian flag – from the river to the sea, it is all Palestine. One day they will get their land back but, with the Israelis showing that you don’t have to be German to be a Nazi, I doubt I’ll see it in my time. But it will happen, as virtually all national liberation struggles have succeeded, but sadly often at tremendous cost.
