This week we remember Richard Brautigan’s birthday on January 30. Brautigan would’ve been 81 this year. Celebrate this hippie happening with this 1970 release, Listening to Richard Brautigan…
This early-’70s cult classic doesn’t just feature hippie/beatnik writer Richard Brautigan reading from his novels “Trout Fishing in America,” “A Confederate General from Big Sur” and “In Watermelon Sugar,” as well as his short story collection “A Revenge of the Lawn” and various poems; it also has such tracks as “Here Are Some More Sounds of My Life,” which features the sounds of the author brushing his teeth, taking off his clothes and shaving. In other words, you really are “listening to Richard Brautigan,” and if those mundane sounds don’t pique your interest, then there are the disarming, poetic moments, like when you hear phones ringing while Brautigan explains why he won’t answer the phone, or when he shares the actual sound of the stream he wrote about in “Trout Fishing in America.” Special guests include Michael McClure, Imogen Cunningham and Bruce Conner, but for 52 minutes this is pretty much pure Brautigan, as whimsical and searching as ever.
Stay Awake!
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