You can read Part I of Nanette's memoir of growing up in 1950s San Francisco here. I begin to make a habit of snuggling down behind the Shoji screen with a "Minka." I hold my breath when my mother comes looking for me to help with the … [Read more...]
Subterranean Boy
There was a time that I fell in love once: with life, slowly with myself, and with a beautiful boy who completely turned my world upside down. A beauteous man child who taught me about life and love and artistic vision as salvation, a stunning combination … [Read more...]
Neal and Carolyn Cassady’s house at 29 Russell St., San Francisco
It’s been about ten years now since I saw Beat legends Neal and Carolyn Cassady’s house. It was such a thrill for me; I can remember it perfectly. My old friends Kirstin and Colin, from Alaska had just moved down to San Francisco the year before in 1998, … [Read more...]
Dearly Beloved, Part I: Growing up in 1950s San Francisco
In San Francisco, a handsome old Lutheran Church is for sale. My "Beat Generation", progressive, bohemian, intellectual, Jewish, left-leaning, scholarly, non-conformist, art professor parents, Leonard and Helen Breger, are deeply devout prolific artists. … [Read more...]
San Francisco in the 21st Century: 75 color photographs and poem by Tisa Walden
San Francisco in the 21st Century, Tisa Walden's volume of photographs documents and explores the nuances of the present-day City by the Bay. Designed by John Gossage and published by Washington DC's Loosestrife Editions, it was printed in Verona, Italy … [Read more...]
Sleevelessness
My mom’s job is to sit on a stool in our basement. Thatʼs where her art studio is. She has a drawing table there that has a square leaned-up top and ink stains all around the edges. When she’s not making her own art, my mom draws fashion illustration … [Read more...]
On Painting On
“Why are the paintings going away?” Mommy explains: ”Your dad is having a very important one-man show at a big fancy gallery across from The San Francisco Opera House. We're going to get all dressed up and attend the opening.” I get to go and not … [Read more...]
Erin Messer on Latif Harris’ Barter Within the Bark of Trees
In 1981, the poet Latif Harris was working at — and living above — Browser Books in its former location a block up from the current store on Fillmore Street. Harris was behind the front counter when, he says, “the most beautiful woman in the world” walked … [Read more...]
Some Kind of Dharma: Photographs
“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 … [Read more...]
Poems by Sarah Stockton
North Beach You are so lonely you chat up the dodgy guy parking cars at the Italian restaurant, the place you could never afford, not even a plate of lusted-after spaghetti but you are so hungry for conversation the garlic scented smile he … [Read more...]
6 poems by Bradford Middleton
BORED AND ALONE This life of mine has become trapped In the lacklustre slow lane of a side road Labelled no turning back from here With no sign of hope or salvation out On the horizon of life that has now Simply been reduced to getting … [Read more...]
Michael McClure’s GHOST TANTRAS published by City Lights in new edition
Originally self-published in 1964 and long out of print, Ghost Tantras is one of McClure's signature works, a book mostly written in "beast language." A mix of lyrical, guttural and laryngeal sound, lion roars, and a touch of detonated dada, this is one … [Read more...]
Review – The Beats: A Very Short Introduction by David Sterritt
The Beats: A Very Short Introduction by David Sterritt / Oxford University Press / 978-0-19-979677-9 / 126 pages David Sterritt's work might be familiar to Beat or film aficionados through his previous books, which include Mad to be Saved: The Beats, … [Read more...]
I Am San Francisco
I have witnessed the waterfront decay the ships disappear the piers given over to tourists and sunbathing sea lions Gone the Haight Theater in the old Haight Ashbury where as a kid I paid a dime to see two movies a serial and a … [Read more...]
Charged Vision: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg
The photographs of Allen Ginsberg recently were on display at the Jewish Contemporary Museum in San Francisco. Walking through the museum is like going on a jaunt through Beat History. A spritely Jack Kerouac followed by the drunk. A youthful William … [Read more...]
Michael McClure & Ray Manzarek – The Piano Poems: Live From San Francisco
McClure & Manzarek's third CD Listen to tracks / buy at Amazon: Piano Poems: Live in San Francisco A collaboration between Ray Manzarek and Michael McClure, this live performance, recorded at an old San Francisco church, features both new and … [Read more...]
David Gitin: 5 From San Francisco in the Sixties
Outstretched Arms pumice the bone smooth berry juice illusion of blood to cover loss belly of the moon we penetrate what Venus do we carve?herbs and drugs do not restoreterritories of resurrection Earth poised in soma television … [Read more...]
A. D. Winans Looks Back at the Beat Generation
Generally speaking, counter-culture describes the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group or subculture in conflict with those of the cultural mainstream of the day, a visible phenomenon that reaches critical mass and persists for some time. … [Read more...]
Remembering Poet Kirby Doyle
Kirby Doyle & the Snows of Yesteryear by Michael McClure In 1958 Kirby Doyle's menage on Sacramento Street, in a basement apartment of the no-man's land between the wealthy on the Hill and the Black Fillmore District, had a Francois Villonesque air. … [Read more...]