Noble and Legendary Typewriters, as evidenced at The Beat Museum, North Beach, San Francisco, Republic of California.
Tag Archives: san francisco
A Lunch with the Future, Contextualized
Marshall McLuhan in San Francisco 1965
Re: academic soothsayer Marshall McLuhan… in this case, a lunch in San Francisco 1965, introduced thusly (note recently deceased Tom Wolfe namecheck):
“Hot on the trail of this titan, I thought to myself, “Where is the last place in town you’d expect to see Marshall McLuhan?” and that’s where we I found him–at Off-Broadway in North Beach, lunching amid the topless waitresses with Writer Tom Wolfe, Adman Howard Gossage and Dr. Gerald Feigen.”
X (40th anniversary) + Mike Watt and The Secondmen / San Francisco
Sometimes, a plan comes together just right, and then sometimes there’s the opposite…. This night of X (Dec. 9, 2016) was definitely the opposite.
The “Plan” was to come back from a healing journey at an Ayurvedic clinic in India to meet up with old friends and celebrate this legendary punk band’s 40th anniversary. As it goes, my trip was cut short under frankly the worst circumstances (which I won’t bother you with here). Then, my friends decided to go to the LA shows instead of the San Francisco 3-night run, another friend simply didn’t show up, and phone calls to other pals couldn’t rally up any excitement.
Continue reading X (40th anniversary) + Mike Watt and The Secondmen / San Francisco
Jerry Day: About Jerry Day
On August 2nd, 2009, the Excelsior Cultural Group and the San Francisco Parks Trust will present the 7th Annual Excelsior District Jerry (Garcia) Day Celebration (Jerry Day 2009) at the Jerry Garcia…
Ferlighetti: I never wrote Beat poetry (etc) via SF Gate (for LF’s 90th birthday)
Ferlinghetti: I never wrote Beat poetry. Wide-open poetry (is) what Neruda told me in Cuba “I love your wide-open poetry’
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Catching up with Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Heidi Benson, Chronicle Staff Writer , Published Thursday, March 19, 2009
Excerpt:
Q: When you were named San Francisco’s first poet laureate in 1998, you spoke of the damage to the culture caused by the yawning gap between the city’s rich and poor. Have your worst fears been borne out?
A: When I arrived in the city, the citizens seemed to have an island, considering San Francisco a kind of offshore republic, founded by gold miners and gold diggers, cast-off seamen and vagabonds, railroad barons and rogue adventurers and ladies of fortune. What with the electronic revolution and the Information Age, we have joined the rest of the world.
Oldies such as myself talk about the good old days with nostalgia since that was when they were young and beautiful (and full of testosterone).
Q: You served as a ship’s commander in the Pacific during World War II. What’s the most important thing you learned in the Navy?
A: In four years at sea, I learned that the sea is a monster and can turn on you at any time. Seeing Nagasaki made me an instant pacifist.
Q: How have the concerns of poets changed since you began writing?
A: In the social revolution of the 1960s, the chant was “Be here now.” Today with television, e-mail and especially cell phones, it’s “Be somewhere else now.”
Q: Your favorite 19th century American poet?
A: Walt Whitman, of course. He gave voice to the people and articulated an American populist consciousness.
Q: Why do you prefer the term wide-open poetry to Beat poetry?
A: I never wrote “Beat” poetry. Wide-open poetry refers to what Pablo Neruda told me in Cuba in 1950 at the beginning of the Fidelista revolution: Neruda said, “I love your wide-open poetry.”
He was either referring to the wide-ranging content of my poetry, or, in a different mode, to the poetry of the Beats. Wide-open poetry also refers to the “open form” typography of a poem on the page. (A term borrowed from the gestural painting of the Abstract Expressionists.)
Q: Can writing be taught?
A: It has to be taut.
Q: Is texting poetry?
A: It can be.
Q: You’ve always been an activist, as well as an artist. What do you advise activists who are complacent now that a new, seemingly more enlightened administration is in charge?
A: The dictatorial reign of George the Second almost destroyed our civil liberties as well as our economy.
We shall now see whether an “enlightened” administration can defeat Washington, D.C.,’s culture of corruption. The press has given socialism a bad name, falsely equating it with Soviet Communism. What is needed today is a form of civil libertarian socialism in which all democratic civil rights are fully protected.
What with shrinking energy resources and radical climate change, a worldwide planned economy is needed. Why won’t any politician even whisper it?
Q: In the upcoming film of “Howl,” James Franco will play Allen Ginsberg. Who is playing you?
A: Charlie Chaplin.
Q: Who is the love of your life?
A: Life itself is the love of my life.
Q: What’s the secret of your beautiful skin?
A: Genetics.
The Merry Prankster Offspring Take A Trip On The Bus “Further”via Laughing Squid
The Merry Prankster Offspring Take A Trip On The Bus “Further”
After that first long, strange trip, the Pranksters moved the fun to the great state of Oregon which has since been home base. The Merry Pranksters spawned dozens of kids and grand kids who grew up…
Hitch a Thousand Miles to See a Friend – Postcard #56
From Halfmoon Bay on Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island, Dave gives it up for zen poet hero Gary Snyder and recounts beat history from The Old Ways and logging culture from Myths and Texts plus poems about hitchhiking, girls, baths, clear-cuts and the Buddha – then finishes with original freeverse poetry about the transient experience called “Railyards Passing By.”
Hit the road to Hitch a Thousand Miles to See a Friend – Postcard #56 (128k mp3, 29:04, 26MB)
Continue reading Hitch a Thousand Miles to See a Friend – Postcard #56
San Francisco Mission Stroll with Jack – Postcard #37
Continuing on with Kerouac’s San Francisco Blues, DaveO strolls down The Mission reading Jack’s choruses written on the same street in 1954 while observing butter trucks, museums and tolling bells, then listening to Clayton the Seabus busker sing about going home.
Pedestriate carefully for: San Francisco Mission Stroll with Jack – Postcard #37 (128k mp3, 11:32, 13MB)
Continue reading San Francisco Mission Stroll with Jack – Postcard #37