*This program includes archival recordings of John Giorno reading his poems, and an excerpt from Pierre Huyghe's Sleeptalking*
A rollicking, sexy memoir of a young poet making his way in 1960s New York City.
When he graduated from Columbia in 1958, John Giorno was handsome, charismatic, ambitious, and eager to soak up as much of Manhattan's art and culture as possible. Poetry didn't pay the bills, so he worked on Wall Street, spending his nights at the happenings, underground movie premiers, art shows, and poetry readings that brought the city to life. An intense romantic relationship with Andy Warhol—not yet the global superstar he would soon become—exposed Giorno to even more of the downtown scene, but after starring in Warhol's first movie, Sleep, they drifted apart. Giorno soon found himself involved with Robert Rauschenberg and later Jasper Johns, both relationships fueling his creativity. He quickly became a renowned poet in his own right, working at the intersection of literature and technology, freely crossing genres and mediums alongside the likes of William Burroughs and Brion Gysin.
Twenty-five years in the making, and completed shortly before Giorno's death in 2019, Great Demon Kings is the memoir of a singular cultural pioneer: an openly gay man at a time when many artists remained closeted and shunned gay subject matter, and a devout Buddhist whose faith acted as a rudder during a life of tremendous animation, one full of fantastic highs and frightening lows. Studded with appearances by nearly every it-boy and girl of the downtown scene (including a moving portrait of a decades-long friendship with Burroughs), this audiobook offers a joyous, life-affirming, and sensational look at New York City during its creative peak, narrated in the unforgettable voice of one of its most singular characters.
This program includes the following archival recordings:
1. "There Was A Bad Tree" (2001), recorded by Bob Bielecki, 2010. Courtesy of Giorno Poetry Systems, New York, NY
2. Excerpt from Pierre Huyghe's Sleeptalking (1998), Courtesy of Pierre Huyghe studio
3. "Thanx 4 Nothing" (2007), recorded by Ernst Thoma, 2010. Courtesy of Giorno Poetry Systems, New York NY
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Great Demon Kings
A Memoir of Poetry, Sex, Art, Death, and Enlightenment
1 of 1 copy available
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
August 4, 2020 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781250752888
- File size: 329464 KB
- Duration: 11:26:22
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from March 9, 2020
The creativity and debauchery of gay artists and writers blooms in this exuberant memoir of avant-garde New York from the 1950s through the 1990s. Giorno (Subduing Demons in America), a poet and artist who died last year, recounts his relationships with a countercultural pantheon including Allen Ginsburg, whom he considered a “living god” before meeting him and who proved to be a “disappointment”; Andy Warhol, who filmed Giorno sleeping in the six-hour film Sleep; artists Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, with whom he carried on tempestuous affairs; and Beat deity William S. Burroughs, with whom he had an intense, mainly platonic friendship for decades. Giorno also discusses his conversion to Tibetan Buddhism and his technology-driven poetry innovations, including tape-recorded poetry “sound poems,” multimedia readings, and a “Dial-a-Poem” service offering callers recorded poems. The narrative is a whirl of parties, art openings, colorful personalities, and lots of graphic sex, written in prose that twines earthiness with Buddhist austerity. (“Pale light from a streetlamp streamed through the window mixed with the humid air and gave William a rat-gray fungus-like complexion,” he writes of having sex with Burroughs. “Our minds mingled in one taste, in the vast, empty expanse of primordially pure, Wisdom Mind.”) The result is an engrossing, passionate ode to a revolution in art and sensuality. Photos.
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