In the glow of the storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic lights, the ninth annual HOWL! Festival took place this weekend in Tompkins Square Park. Artists, musicians and poets gathered to celebrate Allen Ginsberg's seminal poem along with the ever-changing face of counterculture, and create some art of their own. In particular, more than 140 artists of all ages participated in "Art Around the Park", contributing to an eight-foot-high, 900-foot-long blank "canvas" encircling the exterior of the park. Nobody overturned any symbolic pingpong tables (as far as we know), but the artists morphed the canvas into a colorful reflection of its myriad creators. Click through to get a glimpse at the artists at work for the project.
Photos: Painting The Canvas At HOWL! Festival 2011
Video: James Franco Says Stuff At The 92nd St Y
Man, the 92nd Street Y is on a roll. First Steve Martin drops by to talk about art, and more recently James Franco stopped by and he didn't even make out with a mirror! Below is video from his visit, which almost lost us at "auditory incantation"—but if you push through he flashes that dapper smile talks about Howl, and how he took a class about the Beats. Adorable. And yes, he actually did read Howl, he tells the audience: “I read it to myself in it’s entirety, I don’t know how many times... fortunately it comes in a very small volume so I could walk around New York and just read that out loud, and I did that.”
Video: James Franco in Howl
It's been almost a year since we got our first glimpse of James Franco playing Alan Ginsberg in his upcoming movie, Howl. And now, after being forced to get our Franco-fix through daytime television... here are some clips from the film (which hits the big screen tomorrow). Bonus: Don Draper!
Will Franco Make a Good Ginsberg?
That's pretty much a rhetorical question, because the above photographic evidence is undeniable (okay, not everyone agrees). We can now see that James Franco will not only make a fantastic (looking) Ginsberg, but following the news that he's practically the next Proust all but confirms he can encapsulate the influential poet's spirit. The biopic he's starring in, the Gus Van Sant-produced Howl, is currently filming in NYC (where the actor attends school) and concerns the 1957 obscenity trial that almost got the famous poem banned. (Spoiler alert: Judge Clayton Horn ultimate ruled that "Howl" was of "redeeming social importance.")
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