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Read more...Jackie Kennedy and Jack Kerouac: Cultural Symbols of 1959
Playboy Magazine’s most sought after cover of all time is undoubtedly their December 1954 inaugural issue featuring Marilyn Monroe. Their second most desired cover might arguably be the June 1959 issue, especially because three different types of fans truly love it: people who dig Italian motor scooters (that’s a Lambretta on the cover, not their […]
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Read more...Jean Varda in Sausalito
Jean Varda was a bigger-than-life character on the art scene in Northern California. He taught at the California School of Fine Arts (later SFAI), hung out with Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin in Big Sur, as well as Alan Watts, Gerd Stern, and Maya Angelou in Sausalito. In 1947, Jean Varda is the person who originally squatted on the 19th century, 414-ton ferry […]
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Read more...Miles: A Conversation
Credit: Kurt Hemmer & Tom Knoff, Harper College. Miles: A Conversation reveals what could have been a banal story of Barry Miles’ plan to start a bookstore with his friends in mid-1960’s London that took a pleasantly bizarre turn. What began as a simple idea led to Miles cavorting with the most influential pop stars […]
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Read more...Television Takes on the Beat Generation
In the late 1950s, television was dominated by Westerns: Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, The Rifleman, Have Gun Will Travel, and Bonanza. At a time when there were only three channels, 15 to 17 million households a week were tuning in to these shows. To give a sense of the allure of the Beat Generation, in a […]
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Read more...ruth weiss at Monroe, June 15, 2016
Video from ruth weiss' June 15, 2016, performance at Monroe (formerly the Jazz Workshop), accompanied by Doug O'Connor (bass), Rent Romus (sax), and Hal Davis (percussion).
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Read more...ruth weiss in Memoriam
We’re saddened to learn that ruth weiss—poet, playwright, performer, and artist—departed the world July 31, 2020 at age 92. ruth was a truly remarkable woman. Born in 1928 in Berlin, ruth and her family fled the rise of Nazism to Vienna in 1933, and then narrowly escaped to Amsterdam, before coming to America in 1939. […]
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Read more...Arrested for Selling Howl: The Shig Murao Story
Soon after Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin opened the City Lights Pocket Book Shop in 1953, they hired Shigeyoshi Murao as their first clerk. Shig was young and charismatic, with an infectious geniality that became as integral a part of the bookstore’s culture as the paperbound volumes on its shelves.
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Read more...‘Rebel Roar’: The Sound of Michael McClure
Credit: Kurt Hemmer & Tom Knoff, Harper College. Rebel Roar: The Sound of Michael McClure explores the poetry and thoughts of one of the original Beat poets. McClure’s relationship and influence on Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan, and the ’60s counter-culture are examined. Through readings and candid discussion of his work, new light is shed on […]
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Read more...Video: Keenan
Credit: Kurt Hemmer & Tom Knoff, Harper College. An intimate portrait of legendary photographer Larry Keenan capturing the transformation of the Beat Generation into the burgeoning 60’s rock counterculture and his visionary work beyond.
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Read more...Kerouac’s Letter Home, July 29th, 1947
A letter from Jack Kerouac to his mother, Gabrielle, after reaching Denver, includes some fascinating details at a pivotal moment the nascent writer's career, during his first journey west.
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Read more...As We Cover the Streets: Janine Pommy Vega
Credit: Kurt Hemmer & Tom Knoff, Harper College. As We Cover the Streets: Janine Pommy Vega intersperses photographs and descriptions of Vega’s peripatetic life with an extraordinary performance of her reading poetry from 2002. Vega, inspired by reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, joined the burgeoning Greenwich Village Beat scene in the late 1950s. As […]