It was by chance that pop-minimalist icon Philip Glass and counterculture guru Allen Ginsberg met at St. Mark's bookshop in New York in 1988. Glass had just been asked to perform at a benefit for the Vietnam Veteran Theater, and asked Ginsberg to join him. At the performance, Ginsberg read his poem Wichita Vortex Sutra to music composed by Glass. The score, while clearly the product of Glass' minimalist musical language, incorporates what is for the composer a less characteristic element of chromatic inflection; this ironically nostalgic effect serves as an effective counterpoint Ginsberg's evocative commentary on postwar America. The Glass/Ginsberg collaboration on Wichita Vortex Sutra proved fruitful; the work served as the germ for their later, much acclaimed multimedia effort, Hydrogen Jukebox.

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