title of a painting by american artist jean-michel basquiat. this painting is exposed in the manic museum in our PAINTERS section.'to repel ghosts' is also a book by kevin young about the life and work of basquiat. this book synchronizes the harmony and discord of Basquiat's canvases, adapting them as a bass line to improvise and play upon. The core of the book is a cycle of poems Young composed to accompany a travelling exhibit of Basquiat's work in 1998, tracing the artist's life from his Brooklyn childhood to his vagabond teen years, where he garnered street cred under the handle 'SAMO', both for his daring grafitti (contemporary with Keith Haring's) and for his trademark pre-fashionable mohawk, through his famous love/hate association with andy warhol and his solo endeavors until his death from a heroin overdose in 1985.

Subtitled 'Five Sides in B Minor', the book is organized and laid out as if a five-album boxed set - a nod to Basquiat's love of records - with each of the poems constituting tracks.