What does “Beat Generation” mean today, 60 years after Michael McClure, Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg rocked a San Francisco crowd with a world-changing poetry reading, and 46 years after Jack Kerouac’s wan and befuddled death in St. Petersburg, Florida? And what, I wonder, does it mean personally to … Read the rest
It was very easy for me to meet Herschel Silverman, then a Beat/jazz poet of some renown, around twenty-five years ago when I began frequenting the downtown New York City poetry scene that swirled between St. Marks Church, ABC No Rio and the Nuyorican.
These were the years when Allen … Read the rest
(Today is the 21st birthday of Literary Kicks. I’m making it my new habit to celebrate these birthdays with memories from friends of the site, so here’s Tim K. Gallaher remembering way back when. Tim is a former member of the 1970s San Francisco punk rock band Church Police … Read the rest
The Grateful Dead’s 50th anniversary final shows are now over. Blowing past the boring cliches about aging hippies, the finale turned out to be a spectacular tribute to a gentle cultural phenomenon that offers balm and hope to a pained world … as well as a glorious summertime-flavored dive … Read the rest
One of the exciting things about the Beat Museum’s Beatnik Shindig which is happening next weekend in San Francisco is the activity it’s stirring up. The photo above, which has never been published before, shows a gang of unknown beatniks on a now-legendary Sausalito barge that became a group home … Read the rest
The Beat Museum in San Francisco is hosting a major literary conference this summer. The Beatnik Shindig or 2015 Beat Generation Conference will take place at the Fort Mason Center on San Francisco’s beautiful waterfront from June 26 to June 28 … and I will be one of the participants!… Read the rest
When I’m feeling stressed out, I head for nature. I found myself driving to Old Rag Mountain in Virginia’s Shenandoah range this weekend.
I’ve done a few amazing hikes in this region: Mary’s Rock, Catoctin, Hawksbill, Big Schloss, sometimes with others and sometimes alone. The challenging eight-mile Old Rag hike … Read the rest
GET RID OF MEANING. YOUR MIND IS A NIGHTMARE THAT HAS BEEN EATING YOU: NOW EAT YOUR MIND.
I saw Kathy Acker’s name fly by in a tweet yesterday. Her name carries power for those who remember it. Alternative and transgressive literature blossoms in today’s Internet-powered cultural scene, but there … Read the rest
Update, March 13 2015: Daevid Allen has died, according to a message from his son.
Daevid Allen, a brilliant songwriter and archetypal hippie prog-rocker who co-founded Soft Machine in 1966 before reaching his peak as the mad visionary genius of Gong, has announced that he is dying of cancer… Read the rest
