IZZY YOUNG R.I.P.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s the only music I was into was jazz, playing it myself and going to clubs to hear it. So I rejected the burgeoning "folk" scene and never went to The Folklore Center on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, run by Izzy Young. But I certainly knew who he was.

Then, in 1966, after four years in the military I ended up in Brooklyn Heights thanks to a literary patron who ran a new magazine, KALEIDOSCOPE, and had me run errands for the mag in return for her paying me and letting me and my wife Lee live in her co-publisher's fancy apartment. On my runs I'd have time to kill and by then, through my wife, I had opened up to folk music so used to stop by the new spot Izzy had found for his folklore center on Sixth Ave across the street from West Third.

I don't know how long he lasted there, but we became friendly and he took an interest in my poetry, suggesting I get in touch with some young poets he'd hosted at his shop and do a reading there. But circumstances led me and my wife to leave New York so I never did. I saw him again in the 1970s before he moved to Sweden (look him up). Many years later I wrote these poems in a series about that earlier time and place, in one of which I mention him.

1

The editor of KALEIDOSCOPE, Rita, a tall

shapely redhead, waited before an elegant

old townhouse on Remson Street with the

publisher, a dark-haired goateed man half

her size who made lots of money consulting

for corporations and the government on the

then still room-size computers. It kept him

out of town often, which is why he let us use

his pad full of priceless antiques, including

a collection of frog art: statuettes, toys, and

exotic carvings from around the world that,

as he showed me, if you turned over had e-

normous penises underneath. I hadn’t shaved

since Spokane so had the start of a beard too.

3

For about ten weeks almost daily I carried manuscripts

and galleys by foot from midtown Manhattan to the

printer on Canal Street and back. The magazine, on

loose narrow pages, came curled in a kaleidoscope

tube with tiny sample items from Village artisans

and stores. I ran into Curtis Powell, just back from

Europe, in the post office near Cooper Union, visited

DeWitt, Mel, and Cliff, while Cal and Cissie, and

Teddy and Lynn, visited us in our plush pad. I got to

know Izzy Young at his new FOLKLORE CENTER

located above OBIES, where I heard him ask a young

kid what Andy Warhol’s appeal was, after a monotone

Warhol radio interview. The kid said He’s cool. Izzy

pointed at me and said No he’s cool, Warhol’s COLD.