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David Amram & Jerry Cimino Live
At Beatnik Shindig 2015, musician, composer, author, and raconteur David Amram performed with Jerry Cimino, reading from Ferlinghetti, Kerouac, and Ginsberg, sharing stories, perspectives, insights, and some sage wisdom for the ages.
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Human Be-In Mini Documentary
Directed by Jesse Block On January 14, 1967, a massive “Gathering of the Tribes” was convened in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park for a Human Be-In (named in the same mode as the sit-ins and teach-ins of the civil rights and anti-war movements preceding it). The event served multiple purposes, one being to bring together […]
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From Beetles to Beatles: It was 60 years ago today
How Beat and a British poet changed the history of rock music by Simon Warner Liverpool, at the start of a brand-new decade. There is a beat in the air, there are beat groups, too; soon there will be a sound christened Merseybeat and not long after a weekly newspaper called Mersey Beat to record […]
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David Meltzer at Beatnik Shindig 2015
At our Beatnik Shindig in 2015, David Meltzer gave a performance encapsulating 67 years as a poet.
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An Interview with Dr. Philip Hicks
Psychiatrist to Allen Ginsberg In 1955, Allen Ginsberg began attending weekly therapy sessions at the Langley Porter Clinic in San Francisco. His therapist was a young psychiatrist named Dr. Philip Hicks. It was in these sessions that Allen related to Hicks his dissatisfaction with his job in advertising, and his desire to write poetry instead; […]
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BIG MIX: Michael McClure / Ray Manzarek / Rob Wasserman / George Brooks / Jay Lane
Live at Yoshi’s June 6, 2008Directed by Jesse Block
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Hidden in Plain Sight
The magnificent Beat collection of artist Richard Prince.
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An Interview with Henri Cru
Henri Cru (known as "Remi Boncoeur in On the Road) was one of Jack Kerouac's oldest and most enduring friends.
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The Beats and Underground Newspapers of the 1960s
The Sixties were one of the most turbulent times in American history. As the Baby Boomers came of age, underground newspapers were born with a focus on political and cultural topics the conventional press was ignoring. The antiwar movement, the sexual revolution, gay liberation, and the drug culture became the everyday focus for this burgeoning underground. […]
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Interview with ruth weiss
Poet ruth weiss discusses escaping the rise of Nazism in Europe, coming to America, her introduction to jazz and poetry in Chicago, and hitchhiking the country, and ending up in San Francisco.
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Interview with Ron Turner
We sat down with Turner to talk about his publishing career at Last Gasp, standard-bearer of the San Francisco counterculture, the Beat Generation, and their numerous intersections.