while psyched particularly to read the Niedecker/Zukofsky letters, I am reading When I Was Cool by Sam Kashner (Harpercollins 2004). he being the 1st student at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetry. gossip about Ginsberg and Burroughs and Waldman and Chogyam Trungpa. I'm not keen on AG's poetry, and am ambivalent about his celebrity (he's both magical and tiresome), but it's a fun read. Kashner manages felicities in his account. I mean, I read a book about Warhol by one of his posse that was just trenchant in the afterglow of Warhol, whose magic has yet to sway me. O'Hara is credited with a snappy line: "Kerouac once told Frank O'Hara that he was ruining American poetry, Allen said, but Frank answered back, 'That's more than you ever did for it.'" JK reveals the kind of the attitude Capote had towards Kerouac himself, if the story aint apocryphal. the JK School sounds like Black Mountain. part vision, part scam. sorry, I just don't trust Chogyam Rinpoche, don't even see why I should. I naturally react against The Place To Be, as Naropa and the JK School seem to be.