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Get ready to ‘Howl in the City’

Friend of Ginsberg’s to read famous poem at Busboys

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“We are blind and live our blind lives out in blindness.”

So wrote the great American mid-20th century modernist poet William Carlos Williams in 1956, in his introduction to the printing of Allen Ginsberg’s provocative and now famous poem “Howl.”

The poem that helped to change America.

The poem in which the young poet Ginsberg — heir to fellow gay poets Walt Whitman and Hart Crane — put his own queer shoulder to the wheel of history and found a new place of greater sexual freedom and personal liberation.

The poem Ginsberg first read the year before to a wildly cheering audience, for they must have intuitively understood that “some rough and shaggy beast was crouching towards America to be born,” in that reading at a San Francisco art gallery.

And now that poem will be read, with musical accompaniment, as “Howl in the City,” tonight and tomorrow night, July 23 and 24, at Busboys and Poets (5th and K streets, N.W.), in a partnership with the National Gallery of Art and the museum’s showing of Ginsberg’s photography on exhibit there through Sept. 6.

“We are blind,” Williams wrote in the opening pages of the City Lights Books edition of the poem, adding that “poets are damned but they are not blind, they see with the eyes of angels.”

“Angel headed hipsters,” Ginsberg called his generation, but they were also “the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,” he wrote, doomed by the blandness and blindness of the post-World War 2 years of conformity and conventionality and sexual singularity. And Ginsberg’s early masterpiece surely stands in the literary canon with T.S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and James Joyce’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” as well as Jack Kerouac’s own experiment in “beat” writing, the novelistic “On The Road” as a testimonial and confessional of the coming of age of a creative talent turned loose in a barren landscape, where the blind are leading the blind. And in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

Anne Waldman, who will read “Howl” as well as from some of her own poetry at both 8 and 10 p.m. each night, was by Ginsberg’s side through much of his life in his later, post-“Howl” years.

“I met Allen in 1967,” she told the Blade in an exclusive interview from Boulder, Colo., where she teaches each summer at Naropa University, the center of higher consciousness as well as learning she and Ginsberg helped to found in the 1970s.

“He was then still a very young poet when we met at the Berkeley poetry conference, and I worked with him extensively after that, in New York, and London and we spent summers together in the 1970s,” when she lived on his farm in Cherry Valley, N.Y. In 1974, she recalls, “we came out to Boulder for what we thought would be just a summer session, but we ended up founding the Kerouac School there and Allen ended up teaching there until his death,” in 1997 at age 70. The school continues with a year-round program of courses and is fully accredited for BA and MFA degrees in writing, psychology and contemplative studies, according to Waldman, who now lives in New York City except during summers when she returns to Boulder.

In addition to reciting the memorable lines from “Howl,” Waldman will read from her own recent published work, including poems from “Manatee/Humanity,” which she calls “an ecological hybrid poem” and is now available in a Penguin paperback.

Speaking of Ginsberg, she calls him “a prophet — he was prescient, he was a seer, a very appropriate word, in fact, invoked by the (French symbolist) poet Rimbaud.” So prescient in fact that Waldman points out how in “Howl” Ginsberg’s language seems eerily to forecast the events of 9/11, even the bodies falling from the World Trade Center towers as people leaped to their deaths.

Writing nearly 50 years earlier, Ginsberg invoked Moloch, the Old Testament Canaanite fire-god of destruction who, as Waldman said, “demanded that parents sacrifice their children in a ritual auto da fe,” or test of their faith, much like Abraham when he was asked to sacrifice his own son.

“Moloch,” wrote Ginsberg, “whose eyes are a thousand blind windows!

“Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets … and antennae crown the cities!

“Moloch whose love is endless oil (and) whose soul is electricity and banks!

“Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving!”

“Allen was writing this section presumably under the influence of peyote,” says Waldman, “and it’s a shout towards the hold of ‘Moloch’ — this mind-control, tyrannical hold on our imagination and our freedom.”

Joining Waldman for each of the “Howl in the City” readings will be the musician Kyp Malone.

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Bars & Parties

MAL kicks off Jan. 11 with Bootcamp

Mid-Atlantic Leather begins with party at Bunker

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MAL Weekend kicks off next week. (Image courtesy of Bunker)

Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend arrives next week with a kickoff event Thursday, Jan. 11 from 10 p.m.-3 a.m. at Bunker. Organizers at Kinetic promise a surprise drill sergeant who will whip you into shape. Joshua Ruiz DJs the event. This event is for VIP pass holders only; visit kineticpresents.com for details.

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Bars & Parties

A roundup of New Year’s Eve parties in D.C.

Celebrate the start of 2024 in style

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Xavier Entertainment LLC will host the seventh annual Times Square NYE Celebration at 10 p.m. at Ivy City Smokehouse. Tickets start at $20 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.

New Year’s Eve 2024 at Lost Society will be at 7 p.m. at Lost Society. There will be unique entertainment all night along with a journey of the senses through captivating light shows and LED displays, music, and bottle service presentations throughout the evening. Tickets start at $25 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.

Busboys and Poets will host New Year’s Eve Open Mic and Party at 10 p.m. at 2021 14th St., N.W. This will be an evening of poetry, live DJ, dancing, food, and good company in a vibrant atmosphere where local artists take the stage, showcasing their talents in various genres. The night will be hosted by the talented Charity Blackwell and will feature award-winning poet Black Chakra. Dyanna Monet will deejay. Tickets start at $15 and can be purchased on Eventbrite

QueerTalk DC will host Sapphic New Year’s Celebration at 8 p.m. at FigLeaf Bar & Lounge. The event will celebrate Sapphic, trans, and non-binary communities and feature complimentary hors D’oeuvres, a Champagne toast and DJ sets by DJ Clamazon and DJ Q. For more details, visit Eventbrite

The Queers Upstairs will host Heels & Ties: A Queer New Years Eve Surprise at 9 p.m. at Aliceanna Social Club. This evening will be an unforgettable LGBTQ New Year’s Eve party where you can sip your favorite cocktails and enjoy small bites while dancing the night away with music from DJ Rosie & DJ Missy. Tickets start at $30 and can purchased on Eventbrite

BuffBoyzz Gay-Friendly Male Strip Clubs will host a male revue that caters to men and women at 8 p.m. at Buffboyzz Male Strippers. The event will be an exciting, entertaining and sexy show of exotic male dancers in that will entertain your pants off. Tickets start at $10 and can be purchased on Eventbrite

International Events Washington DC will host the 2024 Black Tie New Year’s Eve Gala at 7:30 p.m. at the Willard InterContinental Washington, D.C. There will be free-flowing Champagne, an open bar, a spectacular balloon drop in the Euro Discotheque Ballroom and live bands and DJs. For dinner, guests can choose from an elegant sit-down, three-course dinner with Champagne or a dinner buffet of international cuisine. Tickets start at $189 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.

Social Architects will host the 12th Annual New Year’s Eve Casino Night at 8 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Arlington, Va. There will be six rooms of entertainment spread across three floors. The DJs will spin hip hop, R&B, salsa, Afrobeats and old school music. Tickets start at $60 and can be purchased on Eventbrite

Pitchers and A League of Her Own will host a NYE party with complimentary Champagne toast at midnight, party favors, and a DJ all night long.

Shaker’s plans a drag extravaganza with Tatianna and Crystal Edge among others starting at 10:30 p.m.; the $10 cover includes a glass of Champagne. 

Bunker hosts a 12-hour masquerade ball with several DJs, including Joe Gauthreaux. The party starts at 9 p.m. and goes until 9 a.m. on Jan. 1. Tickets start at $45 and are available at bunkerdc.com.

DJ Alex Love spins NYE at Dirty Goose with drink specials at midnight.

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Bars & Parties

Labor Day sees return of SunFestival to Rehoboth Beach

DJs, live auction, comedy and more planned for end-of-summer bash

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A scene from previous SunFestival celebrations. (Blade file photo by Daniel Truitt)

Labor Day Weekend in Rehoboth Beach brings more than the end of summer — it brings the annual SunFestival celebration benefitting CAMP Rehoboth.

The weekend promises two nights of revelry with entertainers and nationally known DJs creating the “ultimate party to close out summer” Sept. 2-3.

Saturday’s $45 general admission tickets are sold out but you can join a waitlist at the event’s website. That ticket grants you access to a comedy show and an auction where you can bid on six experiences like an eight-day boat tour through Belgium and the Netherlands or a week’s stay in Lisbon, Portugal. Organizations have donated these experiences to CAMP to auction off, with all proceeds going to the organization.

The $95 pass to both nights is also sold out. But general admission tickets for the Sept. 3 dance party starting at 7 p.m. with DJs Robbie Leslie and Joe Gauthreaux remain available. CAMP Rehoboth promises a “state-of-the-art club-like atmosphere,” with new design elements and video imaging.

Visit camprehoboth.com for tickets and more information. The weekend’s schedule is below:

Saturday, Sept. 2: A Night of Comedy, Drag, and Song, plus a LIVE Auction! (Doors Open at 6:30 p.m. Auction and show promptly start at 7:30 p.m.) Featuring Dixie Longate and Randy Roberts.

Serving up Tupperware lady realness, join in Dixie’s living room party and all its hilarity. Randy Roberts brings thrills with uncanny impersonations of iconic female vocalists and cabaret.

Experience a night filled with laughter and song as these talented performers will lift your spirits and tickle your funny bone. And not to be missed: the live auction. Check out the live auction items camprehoboth.com/sunfest2023live.

Sunday Sept. 3: A Night of Dance. (Doors open at 7 p.m. Dance ends at 1 a.m.) Featuring DJ Robbie Leslie and DJ Joe Gauthreaux.

Both DJs will offer an unforgettable musical journey starting with classic mirror ball memories, dance floor anthems, and the latest club beats, according to a CAMP Rehoboth statement. Events are held at the Rehoboth Beach Convention Center, which CAMP promises will be transformed “into the ultimate dance party to close out the summer.”

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