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Some Kind of Dharma: Photographs

Steve Paul

“to just start at the beginning and let the truth seep out”

Grant Street, San Francisco, 2009

You can quite intentionally make a Beat pilgrimage in San Francisco, soaking in the aura, the coffee, the Bohemian spirit in North Beach nooks, bars and alleys. I did not do that. I chanced upon this sidewalk marker on Grant Street, Chinatown’s main drag, and it held me for a while. Capturing this series of moments, of daily life occurring just above this gritty and subtly textured literary memorial, seemed to say something about the passage of time, memory, contingency and impermanence. The title quotation comes from the opening of Kerouac’s novel, The Subterraneans (1958).

Some Kind of Dharma 1 - Steve Paul
Some Kind of Dharma 2 - Steve Paul
Some Kind of Dharma 3 - Steve Paul
Some Kind of Dharma 4 - Steve Paul
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Steve Paul

Steve Paul, a native of Boston, has been a writer and editor for 40 years, and is currently Editorial Page Editor at The Kansas City Star. His interest in the Beats and photography goes back even longer. Over the years, as a book critic and arts journalist, he has written about Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and others. He's the editor of Kansas City Noir (Akashic, 2012) and co-editor of War + Ink: New Perspectives on Ernest Hemingway's Early Life and Writing (Kent State U Press, 2014). You can find him on Twitter at @sbpaul and at alas-sbpaul.tumblr.com.

Author: Steve Paul Tags: Jack Kerouac, photography, San Francisco Category: Beat Generation February 24, 2015

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Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

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