SOUVENIRS OF THE BEAT HOTEL
By baird bryant
Baird Bryant (1927–2008) was an American filmmaker, photographer and writer. He lived in Paris in the ‘Beat Hotel’ from around 1956 to 1961. He wrote a memoir of the experience that is now only available online via TheWayBackMachine (the link on https://realitystudio.org/bibliographic-bunker/baird-bryant/ is long gone). In the text Bryant writes about Jack Kerouac visiting; “One night Allen and Gregory came by with a stranger. Gregory introduced him. Baird, this is Jack Kerouac. Jack, Baird. Welcome to Paris, I said”. Something else that strikes me about “Souvenirs of the Beat Hotel.” is how magic featured so much in the everyday life of the people who lived there. At the centre of this was William S. Burroughs, for example:
“A few weeks after the magic coconut trip, still wearing my caste and with my arm in the sling, I made another one of my visits to Burroughs. When we had gone through the ritual and arrived in the promised land, Bill pulled the curtain and motioned for me to sit on the bed facing the armoire, which had a large mirror on the door. Look in the mirror, he said. I stared at myself for what seemed too long a time when suddenly everything disappeared. I was left hanging in space, peering into the void. An image took shape. A man with the air of a gangster about him was carrying a woman over his shoulder. I couldn’t see her clearly, but I got the impression she was someone I knew well. The man opened a door and carried her through. The scene faded away and there I was looking at my own reflection again. I described the vision to Bill.
She was familiar, hey?
Who could that be?
It could be my wife, I replied.
What was happening to her?
She was being carried away.
What would account for that?
She could have been drugged or murdered.
How long she been gone?
Six months.
And you¹re surprised she¹s being carried away? Come on!
I still care about her. I still love her.
He turned to me with eyes devoid of any trace of sentimentality completely ruthless.
He spit it out in my face: Love is a powerful weapon! Never forget that!”
A cleaned up PDF of the entire text (34 pages) can be downloaded here
The entire text is online in a poor setting here
