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Read more...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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Read more...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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Read more...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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Read more...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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Read more...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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Read more...Hidden in Plain Sight
The magnificent Beat collection of artist Richard Prince.
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Read more...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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Read more...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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Read more...Interview with ruth weiss
Poet ruth weiss has spent much of her 91 years being witness to history. Born in Germany, as a girl she and her family narrowly escaped the rise of Nazism, fleeing to America in 1939. After the war, she and her family returned to Europe, and ruth began hitchhiking around the continent, writing all the […]
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Read more...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.
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Read more...Two Poems: North Beach Dark & Light
North Beach – Dark This magnificent citystands as beautiful as everskies as clear as freshly wiped glassstreets empty like desert highwaysThere is uncertainty in the airfear on people’s facescaution concernWalking Grant Ave I see people I’ve known for yearsrecognizing their eyes above maskswe talk ten feet apartWe check in with each othernervous laughterlooks of resignationDogs […]