Michael J. Solomon was
born on New York City’s Lower East Side where at seventeen he
murdered his rabbinic father when the stupid man tried to prevent him
from selling his Bar Mitzvah gift Talmud for opium. During his
seventeen-year prison sentence <according to the gematria (Jewish
mystical numerology), thirty-four (17 + 17 for you goyim who
can’t uncover numbers and add) is the Hebrew word for “and
live”> Mr. Solomon corresponded with luminaries such as Michel
Foucault and Allen Ginsberg. Two days following his release from prison
Michael Solomon was found naked and strangled in a Bronx junkyard
bathtub. The manuscript for 34, what The New York Times
would later call “thirty-four uncanny bombs of the most darkly
genius poetry of our time” was found beside him on a toilet with
precise instructions for publication. To date, the book has been
translated into exactly thirty-four languages across the globe. In
1996, the Michael J. Solomon Foundation was created in his memory to
provide scholarships for young and aspiring Jewish drug addicts.