Lawrence Ferlinghetti, City Lights Bookstore

my inner Jess Mariano fangirl had to visit the bookstore Howl was originally published at

finally crossed it off my list

@ksfd892 @stellaluna33

“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” ―Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

A Distance From The Sea

A Distance From The Sea To Ernest Brace

"And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not." —REVELATIONS, x, 4.

That raft we rigged up, under the water, Was just the item: when he walked, With his robes blowing, dark against the sky, It was as though the unsubstantial waves held up His slender and inviolate feet. The gulls flew over, Dropping, crying alone; thin ragged lengths of cloud Drifted in bars across the sun. There on the shore The crowd's response was instantaneous. He Handled it well, I thought—the gait, the tilt of the head, just right. Long streaks of light were blinding on the waves. And then we knew our work well worth the time: The days of sawing, fitting, all those nails, The tiresome rehearsals, considerations of execution. But if you want a miracle, you have to work for it, Lay your plans carefully and keep one jump Ahead of the crowd. To report a miracle Is a pleasure unalloyed; but staging one requires Tact, imagination, a special knack for the job Not everyone possesses. A miracle, in fact, means work. —And now there are those who have come saying That miracles were not what we were after. But what else Is there? What other hope does life hold out But the miraculous, the skilled and patient Execution, the teamwork, all the pain and worry every miracle involves?

Visionaries tossing in their beds, haunted and racked By questions of Messiahship and eschatology, Are like the mist rising at nightfall, and come, Perhaps to even less. Grave supernaturalists, devoted worshippers Experience the ecstasy (such as it is), but not Our ecstasy. It was our making. Yet sometimes When the torrent of that time Comes pouring back, I wonder at our courage And our enterprise. It was as though the world Had been one darkening, abandoned hall Where rows of unlit candles stood; and we Not out of love, so much, or hope, or even worship, but Out of the fear of death, came with our lights And watched the candles, one by one, take fire, flames Against the long night of our fear. We thought That we could never die. Now I am less convinced. —The traveller on the plain makes out the mountains At a distance; then he loses sight. His way Winds through the valleys; then, at a sudden turning of a path, The peaks stand nakedly before him: they are something else Than what he saw below. I think now of the raft (For me, somehow, the summit of the whole experience) And all the expectations of that day, but also of the cave We stocked with bread, the secret meetings In the hills, the fake assassins hired for the last pursuit, The careful staging of the cures, the bribed officials, The angels' garments, tailored faultlessly, The medicines administered behind the stone, That ultimate cloud, so perfect, and so opportune. Who managed all that blood I never knew.

The days get longer. It was a long time ago. And I have come to that point in the turning of the path Where peaks are infinite—horn-shaped and scaly, choked with thorns.

But even here, I know our work was worth the cost. What we have brought to pass, no one can take away. Life offers up no miracles, unfortunately, and needs assistance. Nothing will be the same as once it was, I tell myself.—It's dark here on the peak, and keeps on getting darker. It seems I am experiencing a kind of ecstasy. Was it sunlight on the waves that day? The night comes down. And now the water seems remote, unreal, and perhaps it is.

City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco

Angela Y. Davis, The Prison-Industrial Complex [Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO, May 5, 1997], in The Meaning of Freedom: And Other Difficult Dialogues, Foreword by Robin D. G. Kelly, City Lights Books, San Francisco, CA, 2012, pp. 35-54 (pt. 1) (pt. 2 here)

today at city lights

photo credit: Peter Breinig, The San Francisco Chronicle, 1965

I'm so pumped, my friend Stella Levy (top row, left) is going to be in a book! She'd managed to hold her own in the male-dominated Bay Area beat scene, becoming an editorial assistant at City Lights Bookstore and paving the way for other women involved in the counterculture. (You may recognize City Lights or its owner, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, because they were instrumental in publishing and distributing "Howl", Allen Ginsberg's transgressive, anti-capitalist poem whose graphic depictions of queer and straight sex led to an obscenity trial. Ginsberg and his partner are also pictured here.)

And yet, despite the countercultural mindset that drove City Lights, this famous photo of its big personalities only has one woman. Stella isn't sure if other women had been invited and had scheduling conflicts, but it would take a pretty big coincidence to account for the total lack of gender parity in the photo.

Documentary filmmaker Immy Humes recently began to wonder what it was like to be the only woman included in iconic photos like this. What would go through your head? How did these women get to where they were? So she's compiled iconic photos with only one woman into a book, and tracked down these women to hear more of their side of the story. If this sounds like something you'd want to read, The Only Woman is available for pre-order and will come out in August! And you might be able to recommend it to your local library once it's out.

Partners

By Stephen Housewright about his relationship with Jerry Hunt

Prompt 218

“Moom, there’s yellow-eyed creeps fighting ninjas outside the window again!” 

Danny sighed, taking a deep breath- in for ten, out for eight- as he set the pot he was cleaning back in the sink. Dan- currently six- came running in from the living room of the apartment, where he was watching TV. Or he should have been if not for the bullshit outside. 

He sighed again, picking up baby Ellie- currently closer to two- out of her highchair (even if she could just float out) and let his oldest drag him to the window. Sure enough, another fight was happening, with no vigilante in sight stopping it. Look, he knew most people didn’t live here, but it was still rude. 

“Jordan, remember how I told you how violence isn’t always the answer?” Danny asked sweetly, Dan’s expression shifting to a wicked grin as he opened the window. “Feel free to practice tossing some fireballs while I clean up your sister, yeah?” 

Ah, the sweet sound of surprised cursing and startled ecto-signatures. Maybe they’d be polite enough to take their spar elsewhere. 

Rat's Ass Review Fall-Winter 2022

Rat’s Ass Review Fall-Winter 2022

Check out this online magazine with a quirky name. Rat’s Ass Review. Scroll down to the T’s (alphabetical order by authors) for my poem “City Lights Bookstore” by Mark Tulin. Image by Carl Scharwath. “A stream-of-conscious fast read,in the laid-back confinesof the City Lights Bookstore…”

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name moodboard for “john” for @psychological-tire-fire-fan

black cats n bookstores

pics i took at city lights when i was in san francisco<3

Fall/autumn moodboard won the poll for what moodboard should I do next?