Songs for Schizoid Siblings
"Songs for Schizoid Siblings"
Lionel Ziprin
Lionel Ziprin was a beautiful, mad, sarcastic, eloquent kabalist, occultist, poet and dreamer. He lived most of his entire life in a handful of blocks on New York City's the Lower East side. By chance and destiny to become part of the culture and subcultures that took root through the LES in the second half of the 20th century. He hung with Beat writers like Allen Ginsberg, filmmakers like Jordan Belson and Harry Smith, and yet did not see himself as a Beat, or as anything else in particular. Lionel saw himself as an adventurer, someone doing things, sometimes public - often times not, that make the world more a interesting place.
I met Lionel originally in NYC in the 1990s through Ira Cohen, on a search for the mystical records Harry Smith had recorded of 12 hours of hebraic/yiddish singing by Lionel's grandfather Naftali Zvi Margolies Abulafia, who was something of a mystic among the Jewish communities of early 20th century NYC. Smith himself had sought out Lionel through Ira Cohen, the poet and photographer, to originally record Naftali.
This edition "Songs for Schizoid Siblings", published by The Song Cave, is a rare a wonderful piece of writing, ostensibly written by Lionel for his own children. It strings together his funny asides, sarcastic remarks, narrative detours and mystical flashes into a cohesive work of poetry.
Lionel is at his best when his work reflects the abstract form his thoughts would take. Tangential and yet always returning to the narrative, somehow keeping you interested in where his ideas might take one next. "Songs for Schizoid Siblings" captures this range of moods perfectly.
The one strange occurrence in this volume is the absolute lack of any mention of Ira Cohen in the introduction. Ira was a seminal part of Lionel's introduction to Ginsberg and the Beats and the reason why Harry Smith sought him out. Odd to have Cohen eliminated in the context of Lionel's work and life, though toward the end they didn't speak to each other. Grumpy old men the both of them.
Lionel was for a long time my teacher in things related to the intersection of traditional Jewish Kaballa and post 19th century ceremonial magic. His knowledge of Crowley, and the mistakes made by English occultists in approaching the kaballa, was extensive. Even after I left New York and moved to Chicago I spent long hours on the phone to Lionel from his dusty apartment on East Broadway listening to stories of his wife running off to live with Timothy Leary and how, despite years of reluctance, he would eventually translate his grandfather's edition of the Sefer Raziel. A visit with Lionel was always part of any return trip I made to New York over the years.
I look forward to more work coming out via the Lionel Ziprin Foundation mentioned in this volume. I hope that Lionel's mystical writings are published finally. It's commendable that publisher the Song Cave have finally given Lionel Ziprin some of the attention he deserves as an important and central poet in 20th century American literature.
Get your copy of "Songs for Schizoid Siblings" here:
Songs for Schizoid Siblings
Lionel Ziprin
