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<\/a>\nBill Cannastra: Beat Lothario<\/em><\/p>\n
Cannastra died when he stuck his head out of a moving subway near Astor Place in New York City in the spring of 1950 at age twenty-one. He was drunk and high and thought it cool to wave goodbye to his friends. What they witnessed instead was his head rolling on the tracks as the train went on down the tunnel, his eyes wide open, staring into space with disbelief. Afterward, Cannastra’s former lover Joan Haverty was so distraught over his death that she accepted a spur-of-the-moment proposal from Jack Kerouac and married him two weeks later.<\/p>\n
Culled from:\u00a0Genius and Heroin:\u00a0The Illustrated Catalogue of Creativity, Obsession, and Reckless Abandon Through the Ages\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Okay, well, here is Allen Ginsberg’s recounting of Cannastra’s death, which doesn’t have the decapitated head with disbelieving stare in it.\u00a0 I tend to believe Allen’s account because life is rarely that perfect in its irony.<\/p>\n In a letter to Neal Cassady on Halloween 1950, Allen Ginsberg tells the tale (culled from\u00a0RealityStudio<\/a>):<\/p>\n The party was leaving [Ann Adam\u2019s] house after a night of sticking and wandering, and on the way to Claude\u2019s Claude and Cannastra had become friendly and got drunk, pawing each other, recently. Subway to Claude\u2019s to get money, a touch O\u2019the dawn. When they talked about the Bleecker Tavern (negress Winnie\u2019s hangout) Bill lurched out of the window as a joke. He stuck his head and shoulder out, but apparently had misjudged his lurch and found himself hanging unbalanced out of the window. The others rushed to pull him back, and hung on to him, as the subway roared through the tunnel. His coat ripped, and they couldn\u2019t get a grip on him by his shoulders as he was too far out. When he saw what was happening he began screaming to be pulled back. He ducked, trying to avoid the pillars in the tunnel, hunched his head, but suddenly there was a thud and he was knocked out of the window to the tracks, out of their hands. When the train stopped, she went to the last car where his body was dragged and saw that his head was broken and brains showing out of the temple.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Weegee\u00a0was the\u00a0pseudonym\u00a0of\u00a0Arthur Fellig\u00a0(June 12, 1899 \u2013 December 26, 1968), a\u00a0photographer\u00a0and\u00a0photojournalist, known for his stark black and white\u00a0street photography. Weegee worked in\u00a0Manhattan,\u00a0New York City\u2019s\u00a0Lower East Side\u00a0as a press photographer during the 1930s and \u201940s, and he developed his signature style by following the city\u2019s emergency services and documenting their activity. Much of his work depicted unflinchingly realistic scenes of urban life, crime, injury and death.<\/p>\n This image is entitled, “Killed in a Car Crash” and is culled from\u00a0Weegee\u2019s New York: Photographs, 1935-1960<\/a>.<\/p>\nCar Crash Du Jour!<\/h3>\n