"Howl" is about family, friends, lovers, nations that go mad, or die, or try to.  Allen lost his mother, but found Jack Kerouac and friends. The magnitude of the loss meant that the find couldn't simply be an inspired group of intimates; it had to give birth to something, it had to change the world.  In a sense, it did.

The great American modernist poet William Carlos Williams said that the job of the artist is to move the century forward an inch or two. I thought of that while watching this film.

Inception is James Bond meets Orpheus in the underworld meets Billy Pilgrim. Now, die Gedanken sind nicht frei; on the contrary, even your unconscious is a commercial for the corporation.

Poet, singer, songwriter and anarchist genius Tuli Kupferberg died on Monday. A founding member of the Fugs, the first underground rock band, he was 86.