The poetry of John Wieners is, I must say, one of my most interesting finds I have made. Wieners explored with perfect accuracy the pains and tribulations life had gift wrapped for him. Poet of minor fame (or rather, of none), his writing imagery and mental frame have created a prose of it's own. And the beauty to start off with his early - in which some are a tad weak, but talent surfaces - work to his later frame of mind and prose, in which, his prose trancends among the greats, not only of his era...but definately of a wider spectrum. Wieners is a sure bet and it's truly a shame that his name hasn't surfaced much during his living presence...and not of yet after his death. "...Cool breezes on my forehead / cool liquors down my throat / so soon if in years to come / someone hears a single note.".

In 1989 I had the opportunity to listen to John Weiners read and discuss his poetry. If discuss is the right word. By then Mr. Weiners mental state had pretty well deterierated to a point that he made little sense. But his poetry did. From his battles with drugs, his sexuality and religion, Mr. Weiners poetry spoke volumes about him and his life. I am not a poetry fan, but somehow someway his poetry spoke to me. His use of the language and his passion will touch and engage even a non poetry fan.

John Wieners' the authentic thing,surpassing all art-historic poetic requirement he's an insider from that ruthlessly over-publicized "BEAT" scene,"famous among the famous" if you will...He's an insider in the sense that he occupies the inside of an anonymous hotel like a religous retreat, inside his own sympathetic head where alls recorded in a private diarie, inside a lyrical quest for the heartbroken line eradicating everything...he's in the business of healing words: a modern-day Rilke with the gorgeous lyrical gift imparted on every page. One imagines his words coming from sitting on the edge of the bed like sitting at the edge of the world waiting for it all to painlessly end with the formality of an unacknowledged graceful bow. John Wieners knows the-HERO-IN-side-of-us-all; having suffered drugs:the divorce from societal companionship, the physicality of that narcotic hell,all for that invioable annihilating peace becoming of an unattainable suicide where forgivness reigns supreme. He knows the tortured homosexual shared-secret hell of keeping the forbidden joy hidden...as well as the erotic's supremacy of form and all's deposited in his pages in exquisite scripture. Reading his poems is comparable to getting high in a public restroom: consider it an indulgence in secret vice your closest friends can only guess at by the disturbed glint & gloss over your eyes. Going out in public is never the same after reading him, nor will the beat generation ever be the same for you again once you've found his work; a wholly unimaginable dimension of beatitude poetics will open your eyes, mind and legs to a vast new range of experience previously ignored by public and scholars alike. I do not consider it a startling sin he's un-recognized, un-acknowledged, and un-appreaciated, if anything it has merely made him stronger and deemed all his admirer's: initiates, and all those poets schooled by him: adepts. One more thing, besides the obvious study of evil he has accomplished in his verses lies all earthly and otherwordly heavens' astounding psalms. If you do not already become ecstatic when under the influence of poetry this will surely make you drunk, and if it's your first time, welcome;and if you don't heed the warnings of the fanatic,then for posterity's sake at least let me say : There is a hero-in-side-of-us-all...

Everyone knows a book about The Beatles, or any one of them, especially Lennon, is a guaranteed sell/ source of income. And those who cannot resist will write one. Lennon's political "activism" is hyped beyond that it was. He was naive in politics, as especilly shown by his bothering with (being used by) Rubin and Peel, both of whom I knew, and knew for what they were.

This book amazed me on how accurate and truthful it was. It contains many many quotes of Lennon which supports every bit of information presented. I originally borrowed the book from a library for a school project and was very unhappy about having to give it back! I would have loved to have kept it. It is a must have for any John Lennon fan.

It is true that Lennon had much to learn about politics.It is also true that he had even more to learn about life.He even had much to learn about music (he would have been the first to agree with the last point),but he had something that only a select few people from his "genre" had,and that was desire to be heard.Naturally,when he was heard he had much to say.When he got the opportunity to say it,he had much tendency to speak it with words that made only sense to the ones who lived in his world (or at least wanted to).There were a few messages he made,however,that did not only affect millions of lives,but may have even changed it for the better.This was a power he began to realize during the height of his success with the Beatles,and it scared the hell out of him.Probably beyond what any of us could possibly concieve,it ripped him to shreads.Yoko helped much in the way of opening him up,but in using him as a puppet (as many did),she really only made matters worse.It was not until just before his death that he really began to realize that what he wanted in life was peace and good music.Not the peace of the world,but peace of mind for himself.The book Come together captures this emotional roller coaster ride better than any book written on the subject.Next to Barry Miles' "Paul Mccartney:many years from now" it is without question the most honest and well written account on one of the greatest pop culture stories ever told.And it is written with wit and wisdom,as well as sympathy for a man that was terribly misunderstood,even by his own self.Something to be read numerous times,especially the account on the "more popular than Christ" contreversey.Lennon is a true icon for this century,but he was also very human (more than most),and this book portrays this fact very well.

What we need is a great book about Burning Man that rather than try to be artistic, instead is simply fun and factual and shows the diversity of Burning Man and how it blends Woodstock with Silicon Valley, Goddess, Nerd, Earthlovers, Nudist, meet in the high desert of Neveda and everyone lives in harmony for a week.

The Burning Man website gives the needed info and all I can do is encourage others to produce a book that can really be called The Burning Man.

I've been to the event-- first as a citizen and later as part of the volunteer labor force, and I own this book. It's true (as other reviewers have stated) it is not "complete"-- in the sense that its focus is primarily visual. (There is so much more to Burning Man!) But it does a marvelous job with those visuals! Each page turned elicits one of the following thoughts: "Gad! I didn't see that! How could I possibly have missed that?" or something like "Ahhhh, I remember that evening on the Promenade-- and how mysterious the light was..."

The reader who found the images too "extreme," "surreal," and "fringe" has not been there-- or he/she forgot to look around, because this is what you will see if you venture out of your tent... It's easy to come up with remarkable images in this remarkable temporary city, and this book does a fine job of hinting at the world that is Black Rock City. Go ahead, whet your appetite...

When I saw this book in my school library, I thought wow--gotta go! This looks like my idea of summer camp. The photos of people covered in mud are so cool and so is the biker in a tutu. The mushroom cloud looks so real and the truck with fins really rocks. Is this another planet? I will have to find out...

Well I just woke up from a long nap after trying yet again to *yawn* read a chapter of this *yawn* book. Definitely not nearly enough bananas or geese in it for me. If you want to hear long drawn-out stories about getting files from government agencies....well all I'm saying is I guess my primary interest in Lennon has always been his music and I just don't give a hoot about this stuff-- not enough entertainment value. I thought the book "The day Elvis Met Nixon" was much better. Oh go ahead write me a negative response.

Chronicling the bizarre FBI/CIA fear & obsession with ex-Beatle rock legend John Lennon during the 70's,Jon Wiener gathers up the dossier files & informant reports(etc) that have been released under the Freedom of Information Act by both intelligence agencies concerning their interests & worries with the "dangerous extremist" Mr.Lennon & his THEN struggle for acceptance & a 'Green-Card' in the U.S.-(And all this manifesting from a minor marijuana conviction in 1968)-. Weiner pushed & leaned on the agencies for years to get the documents published(as had other biographers)& quite a number of them are blanked out for purposes of "National Security". It's a great book for "hard-core" Beatle fans & it's a comprehensive study on Govt. paranoia for future generations to bewilder at. Thumbs up!

First a simple test. To whom was FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover referring when he wrote to President Nixon's Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, "[He is]...a paradox because he is difficult to judge by the normal standards of civilized life....His main reason for being is to destroy, blindly and indiscriminately, to tear down and provoke chaos...."? Adolf Hitler maybe, or some seminal Osama bin-Laden? Of course not, as you already know it was none other than our friendly, pudgy-faced, mop-headed, evil genius, that heinous John Lennon, composer of such bellicose anthems as "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance." Reason enough to warrant the FBI's surveillance of the man for 24 hours a day, for years on end? Well, not really, but they did it anyway. This book details the efforts by the author, Jon Wiener, and two ACLU attorneys, Mark Rosenbaum and Dan Marmalefsky, to obtain the 200 odd pages of documents held by the FBI on Mr. Lennon, that the agency had refused to release, (typically on grounds of either national security or ostensibly to protect confidential sources). To this end the attorneys employed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) as their basis to obtain these documents. The run-around that they were given by the government should be nothing new to students of previous such encounters, and the fact that it took 15 years to achieve it should not prove too surprising either. But without doubt the central point of this book, and one that cannot be overemphasized, is that it was the FBI (acting outside of its own charter and the explicit instructions contained in the FOIA) that violated the law, while finding no criminal activity on the part of Mr. Lennon. Possibly I'm too old, too jaded or just plain too cynical to be surprised to find out that the government, or its representatives, are capable of lying, placing illegal wire-taps, harassment, obfuscation and underhandedness. Certainly all of that happened here, and it is hats off to Rosenbaum and Marmalefsky for uncovering much of the skullduggery. Although most of the information on Mr. Lennon that was unearthed as a result of this effort was largely already known to any diligent reader of, for example, "Rolling Stone" magazine, following the trail of the hearings and legal arguments is a fascinating and worthwhile one, and the book's final chapter was (for me, at least) an eye-opener.