“Before Enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After Enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.” – old Buddhist proverb City Lights was so packed that people…
When Time referred to Kenneth Rexroth as the “Father of the Beats,’ he said, “An entomologist is not a bug.” That seems a bit off, though,…
Bossy and controlling women are not hard to find in this country, but I avoid them if I can. One reason my father moved to…
I was sitting at the bar in a room with high wooden ceilings from the 1920s. There was an elk head on the wall and…
There was no one sitting in the “poet’s chair” in the poetry room at City Lights, so I did. The room was filling up for…
ruth weiss was in town for the 60th anniversary of City Lights Bookstore. She was also in town when City Lights began in 1953. In…
In the Museum The wife and I were planning to see Allen Ginsberg’s photos at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, “Beat Memories,” but we had an argument…
One of the original computer scientists, Jaron Lanier (who coined the phrase “virtual reality”) began his talk at City Lights by playing a mouth organ…
I had a conversation with a schizophrenic once. Or rather, I was listening to him talk and after a while I was spaced out, trying…
The wife was out of town and I was all set to watch “Reservoir Dogs”, which I have never seen and which she won’t go…