Places
City Lights
by Levi Asher on Saturday, August 27, 1994 01:24 pmCity Lights Books was founded by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin, editor of City Lights magazine, in 1953. It's located at 261 Columbus Avenue in San Francisco. The original pie-shaped store has been expanded to four times its original size over the years, first moving into the basement (originally used as a prayer meeting room) and then expanded on the ground level. It was conceived as a way to finance the rent for the second floor editorial offices of City Lights magazine. This eccentric, slope-floored store was supposedly America's first all-paperback bookstore. From the start it was a meeting ground for artists and writers and featured books of literature, politics and popular culture. Today it is still a vital part of the San Francisco literary community. The magazines it carries run to New Left Review instead of Newsweek and the books include classics, religion, poetry and a very small section of health books sold under a sign that reads 'Narcissism and Hypochondria.'
Peter Martin left for New York in 1954 and Shigeyoshi Murao was hired as manager. He eventually became a co-owner with Ferlinghetti. City Lights Books publishing house was launched by Ferlinghetti. Over the years, it has sometimes supported the bookshop, sometimes vice versa. The first book in its Pocket Poets Series, published in 1955, was Ferlinghetti's 'Pictures of the Gone World.' The second was Kenneth Rexroth's translation, 'Thirty Spanish Poems of Love and Exile.' Third was Kenneth Patchen's 'Poems of Humor and Protest.' But it was the fourth book, Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl and Other Poems,' published in 1957, that brought the store true notoriety. The publishing arm still publishes ten to fifteen titles a year, usually fiction, poetry or essays.
Peter Martin left for New York in 1954 and Shigeyoshi Murao was hired as manager. He eventually became a co-owner with Ferlinghetti. City Lights Books publishing house was launched by Ferlinghetti. Over the years, it has sometimes supported the bookshop, sometimes vice versa. The first book in its Pocket Poets Series, published in 1955, was Ferlinghetti's 'Pictures of the Gone World.' The second was Kenneth Rexroth's translation, 'Thirty Spanish Poems of Love and Exile.' Third was Kenneth Patchen's 'Poems of Humor and Protest.' But it was the fourth book, Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl and Other Poems,' published in 1957, that brought the store true notoriety. The publishing arm still publishes ten to fifteen titles a year, usually fiction, poetry or essays.
Bixby Canyon
by Levi Asher on Thursday, August 18, 1994 01:22 pmIf you've ever driven on the Pacific Coast Highway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, you've seen Big Sur, the dramatic series of dark cliffs, deep canyons and plunging peaks that form the California coastline south of the Bay Area.
I'll leave the rest of the descriptive phrases to the travel books, but let it just be said that this is a very impressive nature preserve. Lawrence Ferlinghetti owned a rustic cabin in Big Sur's Bixby Canyon, under the large white bridge on the Pacific Coast Highway (US 1). In the summer of 1961 he persuaded the increasingly troubled and alcoholic Jack Kerouac to go on a solitary retreat there to get his head back together.
Ferlinghetti is a good poet but may be a crummy therapist, because the trip turned out to be about the worst thing for Kerouac in his then-fragile state of mind. He was frightened by the dark elemental surroundings, and several nightmarish episodes that took place in Ferlinghetti's cabin, including a ghastly attempt at relating to a woman, are described in Kerouac's most depressing (but fascinating) novel 'Big Sur'.
Before the Beats discovered Big Sur (Ferlinghetti had bought the cabin not long before Kerouac's famous visit), Henry Miller was there, and wrote a book called 'Big Sur and the Oranges of Heironymous Bosch.' Richard Brautigan wrote a book called 'A Confederate General From Big Sur.'
Big Sur played a big role in the Sixties. The Esalen institute is there with its hot tubs, and a 1969 musical gathering featuring Joan Baez and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young was immortalized in the film 'A Celebration at Big Sur.'
A friend drove me through Big Sur several years ago. I'm from the East Coast and am not accustomed to those swooping, curving mountain roads. I must say, though, that whenever I peeked out from between my fingers and stopped screaming I was very impressed by the natural beauty of the area.
I'll leave the rest of the descriptive phrases to the travel books, but let it just be said that this is a very impressive nature preserve. Lawrence Ferlinghetti owned a rustic cabin in Big Sur's Bixby Canyon, under the large white bridge on the Pacific Coast Highway (US 1). In the summer of 1961 he persuaded the increasingly troubled and alcoholic Jack Kerouac to go on a solitary retreat there to get his head back together.
Ferlinghetti is a good poet but may be a crummy therapist, because the trip turned out to be about the worst thing for Kerouac in his then-fragile state of mind. He was frightened by the dark elemental surroundings, and several nightmarish episodes that took place in Ferlinghetti's cabin, including a ghastly attempt at relating to a woman, are described in Kerouac's most depressing (but fascinating) novel 'Big Sur'.
Before the Beats discovered Big Sur (Ferlinghetti had bought the cabin not long before Kerouac's famous visit), Henry Miller was there, and wrote a book called 'Big Sur and the Oranges of Heironymous Bosch.' Richard Brautigan wrote a book called 'A Confederate General From Big Sur.'
Big Sur played a big role in the Sixties. The Esalen institute is there with its hot tubs, and a 1969 musical gathering featuring Joan Baez and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young was immortalized in the film 'A Celebration at Big Sur.'
A friend drove me through Big Sur several years ago. I'm from the East Coast and am not accustomed to those swooping, curving mountain roads. I must say, though, that whenever I peeked out from between my fingers and stopped screaming I was very impressed by the natural beauty of the area.
Denver
by Levi Asher on Sunday, July 31, 1994 09:35 amI've never been to Denver, but I'm dying to go. I'd get drunk on Tokay at a Larimer Street dive, and then go street-crawling in search of Dean Moriarty's forever-lost father.
Denver is part of Beat history because of Neal Cassady, who left Denver in the early forties to meet his hometown friend Hal Chase at Columbia University, and ended up inspiring the invention of the Beat Generation.
Andrew Burnett, a native of Denver who knows more about Neal Cassady's roots there than anyone I know, e-mailed me offering to send me some of his notes on the old Neal haunts. I expected a page or two, but what he sent me was this sprawling virtual tour, (which has since been applauded in 'The New Yorker.')
As for me, I still don't know much about this city. It's at the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. It's just south of Boulder, home of the Naropa Institute, where Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman created the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.
So forget this meager page -- go to Andrew Burnett's Denver Tour instead ...
Denver is part of Beat history because of Neal Cassady, who left Denver in the early forties to meet his hometown friend Hal Chase at Columbia University, and ended up inspiring the invention of the Beat Generation.
Andrew Burnett, a native of Denver who knows more about Neal Cassady's roots there than anyone I know, e-mailed me offering to send me some of his notes on the old Neal haunts. I expected a page or two, but what he sent me was this sprawling virtual tour, (which has since been applauded in 'The New Yorker.')
As for me, I still don't know much about this city. It's at the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. It's just south of Boulder, home of the Naropa Institute, where Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman created the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.
So forget this meager page -- go to Andrew Burnett's Denver Tour instead ...
Paterson
by Levi Asher on Saturday, July 30, 1994 12:16 pmA small industrial city on the Passaic River in northern New Jersey, Paterson was the subject of an epic poem by William Carlos Williams, who celebrated its grimy, unspectacular American-ness. Years later Allen Ginsberg would emerge from Paterson's Jewish neighborhoods.
Ginsberg's Paterson is strikingly similar to Jack Kerouac's home town of Lowell, Massachusetts, and this may have been a factor in the close friendship these two writers shared. Both cities were built upon the textile industry, with mills lining the waterfronts, and both cities became decrepit, dividing into isolated ethnic neighborhoods, when the textile industry ceased to flourish during the first half of this century. Ginsberg never romanticized Paterson, though, the way Kerouac romanticized Lowell. This may have been because Williams had already done so, or maybe it was because Ginsberg is naturally a globalist; there does not seem to be much room for the humble small town in his work.
When Kerouac created the character of Sal Paradise to represent himself in 'On The Road,' he identified Paterson, not Lowell, as Sal Paradise's hometown.
Ginsberg did return to Paterson as a famous poet, and almost got arrested after announcing that he had just smoked pot at the town's waterfall during a walk with his father. I visited the Great Falls myself recently, and while I didn't happen to have a joint with me I thought about Ginsberg and his father as I watched the rushing waters. The Falls are very impressive, and it's a shame that more people don't visit them. The old mills still stand next to the river, where they are preserved as part of the Great Falls Historic Site.
Paterson was the scene of an important labor uprising in 1913. There's a recent book that discusses this uprising and the famous Armory Show in Manhattan (which introduced modern art to America) as two key events in American history. I'm trying to find a copy of this book, and when I do I'll write more about this subject.
Paterson is mentioned in Bob Dylan's song 'Hurricane,' about the boxer Hurricane Rubin Carter who was arrested for a murder that took place in a Paterson bar.
Ginsberg's Paterson is strikingly similar to Jack Kerouac's home town of Lowell, Massachusetts, and this may have been a factor in the close friendship these two writers shared. Both cities were built upon the textile industry, with mills lining the waterfronts, and both cities became decrepit, dividing into isolated ethnic neighborhoods, when the textile industry ceased to flourish during the first half of this century. Ginsberg never romanticized Paterson, though, the way Kerouac romanticized Lowell. This may have been because Williams had already done so, or maybe it was because Ginsberg is naturally a globalist; there does not seem to be much room for the humble small town in his work.
When Kerouac created the character of Sal Paradise to represent himself in 'On The Road,' he identified Paterson, not Lowell, as Sal Paradise's hometown.
Ginsberg did return to Paterson as a famous poet, and almost got arrested after announcing that he had just smoked pot at the town's waterfall during a walk with his father. I visited the Great Falls myself recently, and while I didn't happen to have a joint with me I thought about Ginsberg and his father as I watched the rushing waters. The Falls are very impressive, and it's a shame that more people don't visit them. The old mills still stand next to the river, where they are preserved as part of the Great Falls Historic Site.
Paterson was the scene of an important labor uprising in 1913. There's a recent book that discusses this uprising and the famous Armory Show in Manhattan (which introduced modern art to America) as two key events in American history. I'm trying to find a copy of this book, and when I do I'll write more about this subject.
Paterson is mentioned in Bob Dylan's song 'Hurricane,' about the boxer Hurricane Rubin Carter who was arrested for a murder that took place in a Paterson bar.
Mexico
by Levi Asher on Saturday, July 30, 1994 09:37 amIn the autumn of 1947, 25-year-old Jack Kerouac left San Francisco and headed for Southern California in search of unforeseen adventures. He met a Mexican girl named Bea Franco on a bus and ended up following her to an encampment of Mexican grape- and cotton-pickers, where they briefly contemplated a life together before Kerouac returned home. Kerouac's telling of this poignant episode would become part of the first trip in 'On The Road,' and was published as an excerpt ('The Mexican Girl') in The Paris Review. Kerouac hadn't even reached Mexico yet (he would soon), but the Beat fascination for Mexican culture was already clear.
The Beats didn't have much money, but they craved alternative cultures, and going to Mexico was the cheapest and easiest way to delve into what we now call the Third World. William S. Burroughs lived in Mexico City for a time, and it was here that he caused the death of his wife while playing with guns. He had to flee Mexico, but later explored South American jungles in search of a drug called Yage, and the letters he wrote to Allen Ginsberg during this time have been published as 'The Yage Letters.'
Ginsberg had his own Mexican adventures. The year before he became famous for 'Howl,' he went on an archeological expedition to the Mayan ruins of the Yucatan Peninsula, and ended up leading a spontaneous expedition of over fifty villagers to explore a volcano during an earthquake. This episode is typical of Ginsberg's career -- he didn't know exactly what he was doing, but he had the courage to do it, and when people sensed this they named him their leader.
There are more Beat connections to Mexico than I can possibly capture here. Kerouac's novel 'Tristessa' takes place there. Brooklyn poet Marty Matz was imprisoned there for four difficult years on a drug trafficking charge. Lawrence Ferlinghetti published a travel journal called 'The Mexican Night' in 1962. Timothy Leary's experiments with mind-altering drugs began with his discovery of natural Mexican psychedelics, although Leary soon adopted the use of synthetic psychedelics. Natural Mexican drugs like peyote and mescaline have always been popular, though, and Carlos Casteneda's 'Don Juan' books helped to spread this mystique. Ken Kesey, another one who liked to use synthetic psychedelics, was a fugitive from American justice in Mexico during the mid-Sixties. Neal Cassady died while trying to walk the railroad tracks between two Mexican villages on a cold night.
The European conquest of Mexico began in 1519, a few decades after Columbus' discovery of the Americas. Several advanced Native American populations such as the Aztecs and Mayans were decimated by Europeans (Cortez's murderous confrontation with Montezuma's grand empire is the subject of Neil Young's excellent song 'Cortez the Killer'). The area was known as New Spain, but the Native American population survived better than in North America, and the current population of Mexico is largely Native American in origin. The nation of Mexico was created in 1821, during the wave of independent uprisings that followed Napoleon's disruption of the European order and his conquest of Spain.
I've been to the Yucatan, and the Mayan ruins there are an amazing experience. I also just can't say enough good things about Mexican food, although I doubt any true Mexican would be very impressed by the California concoctions we Americans refer to as burritos and tacos.
The Beats didn't have much money, but they craved alternative cultures, and going to Mexico was the cheapest and easiest way to delve into what we now call the Third World. William S. Burroughs lived in Mexico City for a time, and it was here that he caused the death of his wife while playing with guns. He had to flee Mexico, but later explored South American jungles in search of a drug called Yage, and the letters he wrote to Allen Ginsberg during this time have been published as 'The Yage Letters.'
Ginsberg had his own Mexican adventures. The year before he became famous for 'Howl,' he went on an archeological expedition to the Mayan ruins of the Yucatan Peninsula, and ended up leading a spontaneous expedition of over fifty villagers to explore a volcano during an earthquake. This episode is typical of Ginsberg's career -- he didn't know exactly what he was doing, but he had the courage to do it, and when people sensed this they named him their leader.
There are more Beat connections to Mexico than I can possibly capture here. Kerouac's novel 'Tristessa' takes place there. Brooklyn poet Marty Matz was imprisoned there for four difficult years on a drug trafficking charge. Lawrence Ferlinghetti published a travel journal called 'The Mexican Night' in 1962. Timothy Leary's experiments with mind-altering drugs began with his discovery of natural Mexican psychedelics, although Leary soon adopted the use of synthetic psychedelics. Natural Mexican drugs like peyote and mescaline have always been popular, though, and Carlos Casteneda's 'Don Juan' books helped to spread this mystique. Ken Kesey, another one who liked to use synthetic psychedelics, was a fugitive from American justice in Mexico during the mid-Sixties. Neal Cassady died while trying to walk the railroad tracks between two Mexican villages on a cold night.
The European conquest of Mexico began in 1519, a few decades after Columbus' discovery of the Americas. Several advanced Native American populations such as the Aztecs and Mayans were decimated by Europeans (Cortez's murderous confrontation with Montezuma's grand empire is the subject of Neil Young's excellent song 'Cortez the Killer'). The area was known as New Spain, but the Native American population survived better than in North America, and the current population of Mexico is largely Native American in origin. The nation of Mexico was created in 1821, during the wave of independent uprisings that followed Napoleon's disruption of the European order and his conquest of Spain.
I've been to the Yucatan, and the Mayan ruins there are an amazing experience. I also just can't say enough good things about Mexican food, although I doubt any true Mexican would be very impressed by the California concoctions we Americans refer to as burritos and tacos.
St. Louis
by Levi Asher on Saturday, July 30, 1994 09:33 amWhen young Lucien Carr left his hometown of St. Louis to study at Columbia University in the early forties, he was setting off a chain reaction that would have effects beyond what he could have possibly imagined. An older St. Louis man named David Kammerer was in love with Carr (who was heterosexual) and followed him to New York. Carr would eventually be jailed for Kammerer's murder, but before then Carr would bring a young and impressionable Allen Ginsberg to Kammerer's apartment, where Ginsberg met an odd friend of Kammerer's, another native of St. Louis named William S. Burroughs. Thus two of the elements of the peculiar chemical reaction known as the Beat Generation were now in place.
Unlike Denver, St. Louis did not have much romantic appeal to the Beats, and they did not often visit there. It's a pleasant city, though, with a huge white arch on the banks of the Mississippi River, representing the gateway to the West.
Besides William S. Burroughs, St. Louis has been the birthplace of several other seminal figures, such as T. S. Eliot, who promptly left to become as British as he possibly could, so that today half the people who've heard of T. S. Eliot think he was British. Even more cool was Chuck Berry, who once recorded an album called 'From St. Louis to Liverpool,' but never claimed to actually be British himself. I'm a huge Chuck Berry fan (come on, the guy is a lyrical genius), and years ago when I was married I dragged my wife with me on a trip to St. Louis to search out the house where Berry lives, in a suburb called Wentzville (George Thorogood wrote a song about this town, 'Back to Wentzville'). We found Chuck listed in the phone book, gazed in wonder at his large estate, and went back to the hotel. I don't think my choice of a vacation spot particularly helped the marriage, in retrospect. We also took an elevator to the top of the Arch, and drove through the streets of East St. Louis, Illinois, one of the most impoverished areas in the country, where Chop Suey joints and honky-tonks line the streets. I wished Jack Kerouac could have seen the town as I saw it that day. I think he would have found quite a few Dharma Bums there.
Unlike Denver, St. Louis did not have much romantic appeal to the Beats, and they did not often visit there. It's a pleasant city, though, with a huge white arch on the banks of the Mississippi River, representing the gateway to the West.
Besides William S. Burroughs, St. Louis has been the birthplace of several other seminal figures, such as T. S. Eliot, who promptly left to become as British as he possibly could, so that today half the people who've heard of T. S. Eliot think he was British. Even more cool was Chuck Berry, who once recorded an album called 'From St. Louis to Liverpool,' but never claimed to actually be British himself. I'm a huge Chuck Berry fan (come on, the guy is a lyrical genius), and years ago when I was married I dragged my wife with me on a trip to St. Louis to search out the house where Berry lives, in a suburb called Wentzville (George Thorogood wrote a song about this town, 'Back to Wentzville'). We found Chuck listed in the phone book, gazed in wonder at his large estate, and went back to the hotel. I don't think my choice of a vacation spot particularly helped the marriage, in retrospect. We also took an elevator to the top of the Arch, and drove through the streets of East St. Louis, Illinois, one of the most impoverished areas in the country, where Chop Suey joints and honky-tonks line the streets. I wished Jack Kerouac could have seen the town as I saw it that day. I think he would have found quite a few Dharma Bums there.
San Francisco
by Levi Asher on Saturday, July 30, 1994 09:32 amLike several people who have more money than I do, The Beat Generation had two homes, one in New York and one on the San Francisco Bay. The Beat movement originated in New York City, but San Francisco's West Coast ways helped to mellow the hard-edged New York Beats -- they came away converted to Buddhism and aware of nature. San Francisco benefited from the association as well: the thriving acid-flavored San Francisco music scene of the 1960's originated with Ken Kesey's merry Beat-inspired escapades.
San Francisco first shows up in Beat history as one of several mystical destinations for Sal Paradise, Jack Kerouac's altar ego in 'On The Road.' He heads for 'Frisco' (I was later told that people in San Francisco do not actually call the city 'Frisco'), imagining scenes from the books of Jack London and Adam Saroyan, hoping to find ecstatic freedom from the spiritual oppressiveness of his own East Coast. He doesn't fully find it there, or anywhere else (except in a few isolated, unplanned moments that leave him more disconcerted than enlightened).
All of Kerouac's friends were wandering over to the Bay Area, though. Neal Cassady settled down in San Jose, on the South Bay, and worked there as a brakeman on the Southern Pacific Railroad. Visiting him, New Jersey native Allen Ginsberg made an important connection by showing up at Kenneth Rexroth's door with a letter of introduction from William Carlos Williams. Rexroth had already gathered together a vibrant community of San Francisco area poets and writers, which included Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure and two poets from Reed College in Oregon, Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen. In October 1955, several of these poets joined to present a now legendary poetry reading at the Six Gallery at Union and Fillmore. This period became known as the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance, and is also generally thought of as the kickoff point for the Beat Movement in literature.
San Francisco first shows up in Beat history as one of several mystical destinations for Sal Paradise, Jack Kerouac's altar ego in 'On The Road.' He heads for 'Frisco' (I was later told that people in San Francisco do not actually call the city 'Frisco'), imagining scenes from the books of Jack London and Adam Saroyan, hoping to find ecstatic freedom from the spiritual oppressiveness of his own East Coast. He doesn't fully find it there, or anywhere else (except in a few isolated, unplanned moments that leave him more disconcerted than enlightened).
All of Kerouac's friends were wandering over to the Bay Area, though. Neal Cassady settled down in San Jose, on the South Bay, and worked there as a brakeman on the Southern Pacific Railroad. Visiting him, New Jersey native Allen Ginsberg made an important connection by showing up at Kenneth Rexroth's door with a letter of introduction from William Carlos Williams. Rexroth had already gathered together a vibrant community of San Francisco area poets and writers, which included Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure and two poets from Reed College in Oregon, Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen. In October 1955, several of these poets joined to present a now legendary poetry reading at the Six Gallery at Union and Fillmore. This period became known as the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance, and is also generally thought of as the kickoff point for the Beat Movement in literature.
Geography of the Bay Area
The huge and peaceful San Francisco Bay provides all reference points for the area's geography. Some regions include:Northwestern side of the Bay
Marin County, including Sausalito and an impressive nature preserve, Muir Woods. In the late 70's I read a great satirical book about Marin County's ultra-mellow (but ultimately shallow) social scene, 'The Serial' by Cyra McFadden (which was unfortunately made into a hokey and condescending movie that you should not bother seeing).Southwestern side of the Bay
San Francisco proper, including North Beach, which was sort of like a Beatnik Times Square in the 50's and 60's, and where Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights bookstore can still be found at the corner of Broadway and Columbus. Southwest of North Beach, near Golden Gate Park, is the legendary Haight-Ashbury, the hippie nirvana of the late Sixties. This neighborhood is still cool to visit and has a lot of great book and music shops, although I think Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue scene is more happening.East Bay
Jerry Garcia dissed the East Bay (he explained keyboardist Brent Mydland's death in a 'Rolling Stone' interview by explaining that Brent was from the East Bay, which meant he had no cultural points of reference and couldn't get it together). But Berkeley is on the East Bay, and there's plenty of culture there. Oakland, birthplace of Gertrude Stein and home to Jack London, has a large African-American population and a good blues scene.San Jose and Palo Alto
Stanford University and Silicon Valley are here. Kesey and his Merry Pranksters emerged from La Honda, a little woodsy community in the shadow of Stanford, and the Grateful Dead formed in these neighborhoods as well. Despite this extraordinary legacy, though, the whole area is best known as the inspiration for the Dionne Warwick song "Do You Know The Way To San Jose?"Farther South
Farther south is Monterey, Carmel-by-the-Sea (where Clint Eastwood used to be mayor) and the mountainous coastline known as Big Sur, where Jack Kerouac, ultimately an East-Coaster, overdosed on nature and solitude in 1961. (He wrote a book about it.)Greenwich Village
by Levi Asher on Saturday, July 30, 1994 08:23 amCenturies ago, the term 'New-York City' referred to a tiny but bustling commercial center on the southern tip of Manhattan Island. Greenwich Village, a long walk away from what was then 'the city,' was an actual village; that is, people lived there because they didn't want to live in the city. Seems kinda strange now, doesn't it?
By the time Henry James wrote 'Washington Square', the Village was still an elegant residential town, although the city was starting to creep towards it. Bleecker Street was then known as the 'French Quarter', which explains the origin of all the cafes that can still be found there.
In the late 19th and early 20th Century, the commercial and business interests in the old New-York City began to rapidly expand. But this was the age of skyscrapers, and it was discovered that the ground under the humble Greenwich Village was too soft to build upon. The exploding city had to go all the way to the area now known as Midtown Manhattan, where the bedrock was stronger, to build its skyscrapers. Thus the Village never got swallowed up and remained, at least to some extent, a 'village.' And New York City got to keep a pleasant and humane residential town right in its center, dividing the 'old city' of Wall Street, Battery Park and the Brooklyn Bridge from the 'new city' of Fifth Avenue, the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center.
The Village was always a center for Bohemian culture. The film 'Reds' is a good portrait of the experimental literary and political community that gathered there in the early decades of the 20th Century.
In mid-century, the writers and assorted odd characters of the Beat Generation naturally made the Village their home base. Allen Ginsberg had an apartment in the East Village that became a major gathering spot. The San Remo and the Cedar Tavern were popular drinking spots. The Village Voice, a weekly tabloid partly founded by Norman Mailer, was an important voice for the radical and artistic factions in the 50's and 60's.
The Village was overrun by hippies and folksingers in the 60's. Bob Dylan lived on MacDougal Street for a while in the late sixties, until he was chased out by obnoxious ex-fans who didn't like the album 'Nashville Skyline'.
Forget proper definitions: for all practical purposes the Village is the horizontal strip of Manhattan Island between Houston Street and 14th Street. South of Houston Street is Soho (the name means South of Houston) and North of 14th is the beginning of midtown.
On the west of the strip is (naturally) the West Village, which has the nicest-kept apartments. There's a large gay population around Christopher Street. The Stonewall, where the first gay-rights riot took place in 1969, used to be here.
In the center of the Village is New York University and Washington Square Park (a great place for hanging out, though on nice summer days it's more like a noisy party than a park). Around Bleecker Street, a block south of Washington Square, you can find a lot of coffeehouses, live music clubs, bootleg record shops and antique (yeah right!) jewelry shops.
On the east is the East Village (it's almost too logical), where Cooper Union and Tompkins Square can be found. St. Mark's Place is freakier and less commercial than Bleecker Street. William Kotzwinkle's 'The Fan Man' is a good comic novel about the 60's/70's East Village scene. On 2nd Ave and 6th Street there are about forty excellent Indian restaurants (yum!) all on the same great, great block.
By the time Henry James wrote 'Washington Square', the Village was still an elegant residential town, although the city was starting to creep towards it. Bleecker Street was then known as the 'French Quarter', which explains the origin of all the cafes that can still be found there.
In the late 19th and early 20th Century, the commercial and business interests in the old New-York City began to rapidly expand. But this was the age of skyscrapers, and it was discovered that the ground under the humble Greenwich Village was too soft to build upon. The exploding city had to go all the way to the area now known as Midtown Manhattan, where the bedrock was stronger, to build its skyscrapers. Thus the Village never got swallowed up and remained, at least to some extent, a 'village.' And New York City got to keep a pleasant and humane residential town right in its center, dividing the 'old city' of Wall Street, Battery Park and the Brooklyn Bridge from the 'new city' of Fifth Avenue, the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center.
The Village was always a center for Bohemian culture. The film 'Reds' is a good portrait of the experimental literary and political community that gathered there in the early decades of the 20th Century.
In mid-century, the writers and assorted odd characters of the Beat Generation naturally made the Village their home base. Allen Ginsberg had an apartment in the East Village that became a major gathering spot. The San Remo and the Cedar Tavern were popular drinking spots. The Village Voice, a weekly tabloid partly founded by Norman Mailer, was an important voice for the radical and artistic factions in the 50's and 60's.
The Village was overrun by hippies and folksingers in the 60's. Bob Dylan lived on MacDougal Street for a while in the late sixties, until he was chased out by obnoxious ex-fans who didn't like the album 'Nashville Skyline'.
Where Exactly is the Village?
Forget proper definitions: for all practical purposes the Village is the horizontal strip of Manhattan Island between Houston Street and 14th Street. South of Houston Street is Soho (the name means South of Houston) and North of 14th is the beginning of midtown.
The West Village
On the west of the strip is (naturally) the West Village, which has the nicest-kept apartments. There's a large gay population around Christopher Street. The Stonewall, where the first gay-rights riot took place in 1969, used to be here.
Washington Square Area
In the center of the Village is New York University and Washington Square Park (a great place for hanging out, though on nice summer days it's more like a noisy party than a park). Around Bleecker Street, a block south of Washington Square, you can find a lot of coffeehouses, live music clubs, bootleg record shops and antique (yeah right!) jewelry shops.
The East Village
On the east is the East Village (it's almost too logical), where Cooper Union and Tompkins Square can be found. St. Mark's Place is freakier and less commercial than Bleecker Street. William Kotzwinkle's 'The Fan Man' is a good comic novel about the 60's/70's East Village scene. On 2nd Ave and 6th Street there are about forty excellent Indian restaurants (yum!) all on the same great, great block.
Columbia
by Levi Asher on Thursday, July 28, 1994 09:20 amThe Birthplace of the Beat Movement
What could be less 'beat' than Columbia University? This grand old Ivy League university may not even want to be the birthplace of the Beat Generation, but the fact is that that a young man named Jack Kerouac enrolled there on a football scholarship in 1940, and another young man named Allen Ginsberg arrived to begin his freshman year four years later.
Now, just the idea of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg being friends is kind of amusing. Jack was a macho athletic brooding football player, Allen a naive sissy homosexual. Jack's parents taught him to distrust Jews and leftists; Allen was both of these things and apologized for neither. Jack would spend his career writing gentle memory-rich piquant prose lifescapes; while Allen would express himself in explosive, sexually explicit poems.
But both had a mutual friend, Lucien Carr, who introduced them in 1944 when Ginsberg was 17 and Kerouac was 22. The less-than-successful first meeting, at the apartment of Kerouac's girlfriend Edie Parker, is described by Ann Charters in her biography, "Kerouac":
Allen walked into the living room to find Jack sprawling in the armchair, and trying to make an impression, looked at him with shining black eyes and confided in a deep voice, "Discretion is the better part of valor." Instead of finding this funny, Jack replied, "Aw, shut up, you little twitch," turning away to yell at Edie, "Aw, where's my food!"
Thus was the Beat Generation born. With many friends in common, the two could not long avoid growing to like each other, and through Lucien Carr they also met the uncategorizable lost intellectual from St. Louis, William S. Burroughs, who impressed the Columbia crowd with his combination of drug-addled worldliness and mature erudition.
Lucien Carr had provided the St. Louis connection, and another student named Hal Chase provided the equally important connection to Denver, Colorado. Chase shared a room with Ginsberg and was a close friend of Kerouac's. In the fall of 1946, Chase received a visit from his hometown friend Neal Cassady, which is the event that begins the book 'On The Road.' Hal Chase appears in this novel as Chad King, who later snubs his Denver friend 'Dean Moriarty.'
Jack Kerouac was an exceptional football player, but he fought bitterly with his coach, Lou Little, and dropped out when he realized the coach was snubbing him on purpose. Kerouac continued to hang around campus (in between voyages with the Merchant Marine), but would become unwelcome on campus after Lucien Carr committed a murder and enlisted Kerouac to help him hide the evidence.
Ginsberg didn't do much better. He was recognized as a promising young talent by several important English professors including Mark Van Doren and Lionel Trilling, but was disciplined for writing nasty graffiti on his dorm window and suspended for a year after allowing the renegade ex-student Jack Kerouac to sleep in his room. Ginsberg would attempt to continue at Columbia after this, and and stayed in touch with Mark Van Doren. Mark Van Doren (whose son was Charles Van Doren, one of the key figures in the 50's game show scandal depicted in the film 'Quiz Show') would go on to help several Beats-to-be get published.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti was a graduate student at the same time that Ginsberg and Kerouac were there, but did not meet them.
The University
Columbia is one of the eight Ivy League schools, and like the other seven has a lousy football team. The team was much better when Kerouac was a part of it, although he didn't play much.
Columbia University is located in Morningside Heights in upper Manhattan, far north of either midtown or downtown. It's next to Harlem, where Kerouac's life was changed by his discovery of jazz, and includes Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes among it's alumni.
The main campus is on Broadway and Amsterdam between 114th and 120th Streets. The entrances are inconspicuous, and I know people who've walked past the campus many times without ever glimpsing the gorgeous green lawns and elegant neoclassical buildings inside the gates.
Tom's Restaurant, the place with the blue sign where Seinfeld and George and Elaine and Kramer used to hang out, can be seen on Broadway and 112th. Suzanne Vega's song 'Tom's Diner' is about this same restaurant, but the food isn't that great.
Like Berkeley, Columbia was the site of some exciting student protests in the 60's. A book called "Strawberry Statement" tells the story of the protests from the vantage point of a student; it was later made into a film, but Columbia's protest scene (led by Mark Rudd) never became as prominent or legendary as Berkeley's (led by Mario Savio).
One of the ugliest modern sculptures I've ever seen is visible in front of the Law School Building at Amsterdam and 116th. And I've seen a lot of ugly modern sculptures, too.
Other Random Literary Stuff About Columbia
While Ginsberg was studying English at the University, one of the professors was Raymond Weaver, who had earlier led the rediscovery of Herman Melville, a sort of beat figure in his own way, decades after Melville had died in total obscurity.
One of my favorite contemporary writers, Paul Auster, is a Columbia graduate and has featured the neighborhood in several of his books, most notably his amazing 'City of Glass.' Another of his novels, 'Moon Palace,' took it's name from a Chinese Restaurant on Broadway and 112th. The restaurant no longer exists.
Lowell
by Levi Asher on Sunday, July 24, 1994 01:29 amLowell, Massachusetts is a small industrial city on the Merrimack River north of Boston. It was an important textile manufacturing center in the late 19th Century, and Charles Dickens, on a tour of American industrial sites, wrote approvingly of living conditions there.
But Lowell's economy declined significantly by the time Jack Kerouac was born there in 1922. He was raised in a highly insular and Catholic French Canadian community where a dialect of French known as joual was spoken more often than English.
You can see a few glimpses of Lowell, including Jack Kerouac's grave, in Bob Dylan's film 'Renaldo and Clara.' In recent years the town has become commendably proud of it's famous literary son. There is a monument to Kerouac downtown, and a festival celebrating his memory every October. Much of this is due to the work of an enthusiastic contingent of Kerouac aficionados who live in the area.
The American Impressionist painter James McNeil Whistler -- another one with a thing about his mother -- was also from Lowell.
I've only paid brief visits to Lowell, and the town still has a certain faraway sense to me, with places named Pawtucketville and Dracut and streets called Textile Avenue and Moody Street. In 1994 I exchanged emails with a former Lowell townie named Ken Weeks who wrote me the following:
"I never have managed to find Jack's grave in Edson Cemetery, but his family's house over the Textile Lunch was pretty easy to find, since the Lowell Tech school on the corner is now U Mass Lowell, and fairly well marked. Darn, it's something like Mammoth Street now, rather than Textile. The bridge at the bottom of the hill is still there where child Jack watched a man carrying a watermelon keel over and die. The Pawtucketville Social Club where Leo Kerouac worked is still there. Jack's house is a ram-shackle old 3-story tenement, it's a wonder it still stands. Astro's Pizza has a little picture of Jack and a local photographer hung up high on the ceiling - the guy behind the counter pointed it out to me. Jack and his family lived upstairs, on the second floor. Pawtucketville is on the outskirts of Lowell proper, on the other side of the river. Go on up the hill and you end up in Dracut, where Jack played ball for the Dracut Tigers.
"The French Canadian community in the Northeast was very insular - like many other ethnic groups they settled in concentrations of their own kind, spoke French whenever possible, and vested supreme authority not in the state, but in the church. So Jack's stories of early religious devotion and the church's heavy influence on his life really ring a bell with me. My grandfather was a dissenter - he was excommunicated by the local priest when he refused to bow to church authority. So while I wasn't brought up French-Canadian-Catholic myself, I know 2nd-hand just how uptight and authoritarian that little community could be!
"When I visited last year - to pay an important spiritual debt that I felt I owed Jack - I stood outside Astro's, leaned up against the wall, smoked a cigarette and just meditated a bit. Earlier that year I had walked back drunk through Chinatown in San Francisco, after spending the evening reading at City Lights and getting loaded at Vesuvio's across the alley ... an alley named Jack Kerouac Street, by the way. I wanted to kind of bring that back to Lowell, tell Jack about it. 2 AM, rain-soaked streets but the rain had stopped, not a soul in Chinatown but the blinking flashing clicking neons reflecting off the puddles, the cable whirring under California Street ... it was so beautiful, so much like he must have experienced it. Just had to go tell him.
"In the window of Astro's was a sign. 'Apartment for Rent'. Didn't say which floor...my gosh. Think of the ghosts...."
But Lowell's economy declined significantly by the time Jack Kerouac was born there in 1922. He was raised in a highly insular and Catholic French Canadian community where a dialect of French known as joual was spoken more often than English.
You can see a few glimpses of Lowell, including Jack Kerouac's grave, in Bob Dylan's film 'Renaldo and Clara.' In recent years the town has become commendably proud of it's famous literary son. There is a monument to Kerouac downtown, and a festival celebrating his memory every October. Much of this is due to the work of an enthusiastic contingent of Kerouac aficionados who live in the area.
The American Impressionist painter James McNeil Whistler -- another one with a thing about his mother -- was also from Lowell.
I've only paid brief visits to Lowell, and the town still has a certain faraway sense to me, with places named Pawtucketville and Dracut and streets called Textile Avenue and Moody Street. In 1994 I exchanged emails with a former Lowell townie named Ken Weeks who wrote me the following:
"I never have managed to find Jack's grave in Edson Cemetery, but his family's house over the Textile Lunch was pretty easy to find, since the Lowell Tech school on the corner is now U Mass Lowell, and fairly well marked. Darn, it's something like Mammoth Street now, rather than Textile. The bridge at the bottom of the hill is still there where child Jack watched a man carrying a watermelon keel over and die. The Pawtucketville Social Club where Leo Kerouac worked is still there. Jack's house is a ram-shackle old 3-story tenement, it's a wonder it still stands. Astro's Pizza has a little picture of Jack and a local photographer hung up high on the ceiling - the guy behind the counter pointed it out to me. Jack and his family lived upstairs, on the second floor. Pawtucketville is on the outskirts of Lowell proper, on the other side of the river. Go on up the hill and you end up in Dracut, where Jack played ball for the Dracut Tigers.
"The French Canadian community in the Northeast was very insular - like many other ethnic groups they settled in concentrations of their own kind, spoke French whenever possible, and vested supreme authority not in the state, but in the church. So Jack's stories of early religious devotion and the church's heavy influence on his life really ring a bell with me. My grandfather was a dissenter - he was excommunicated by the local priest when he refused to bow to church authority. So while I wasn't brought up French-Canadian-Catholic myself, I know 2nd-hand just how uptight and authoritarian that little community could be!
"When I visited last year - to pay an important spiritual debt that I felt I owed Jack - I stood outside Astro's, leaned up against the wall, smoked a cigarette and just meditated a bit. Earlier that year I had walked back drunk through Chinatown in San Francisco, after spending the evening reading at City Lights and getting loaded at Vesuvio's across the alley ... an alley named Jack Kerouac Street, by the way. I wanted to kind of bring that back to Lowell, tell Jack about it. 2 AM, rain-soaked streets but the rain had stopped, not a soul in Chinatown but the blinking flashing clicking neons reflecting off the puddles, the cable whirring under California Street ... it was so beautiful, so much like he must have experienced it. Just had to go tell him.
"In the window of Astro's was a sign. 'Apartment for Rent'. Didn't say which floor...my gosh. Think of the ghosts...."
