M. Night Shyamalan: My agent at the time was like, “Nobody is going to do this movie. No star is going to do this.”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti: And then we went for a walk in the evening. He disappeared into silence.
Shyamalan: He was so incredibly fearless.
Ferlinghetti: I sort of doubt it.
Shyamalan: Because it’s true. [Laughs]
•••
Ferlinghetti: I seemed to begin to get lost in the seventeenth century after I was there a few months.
Shyamalan: That was always the idea.
Ferlinghetti: What do you mean?
Shyamalan: Say you’re a songwriter. There’s no danger in that.
Ferlinghetti: For instance, well, look on the back.
•••
Shyamalan: That’s the beauty of making it smaller.
Ferlinghetti: Well, I was thinking of the main ones—Ginsberg and Gary Snyder and Gregory Corso, and Burroughs and Peter Orlovsky and… there were people associated with the group that also are in this issue.
Shyamalan: Fuck, what a year.
Ferlinghetti: Oh, yes. We were very honored and delighted to get it.
Shyamalan: I was like, “Well, there’s an editing room. Why don’t I just go in there?”