Thank you to everyone who came out for our weeklong series of events celebrating the first anniversary of the CCM and Allen Ginsberg’s centennial, to everyone who attended, told a friend, to our members, and particularly to all those who shared their knowledge, stories, and expertise as presenters—we appreciate you!
We started last week with Ann Cohen and Jesse Block, remembering poet Allen Cohen, founder of the San Francisco Oracle, the Haight-Ashbury’s premier rainbow newspaper. Jim Siegel, Linda Kelly, Steve Heilig, and Leigh Davidson held a wonderful live discussion about “neighbors helping neighbors,” and how organizations like the Switchboard and the Free Medical Clinic became critical mutual aid resources ahead of the “Summer of Love.” We journeyed with Bob Dvonch through his exquisite collection of original handbills and ephemera, and the legacy of the SF Diggers.
We spent an afternoon at the nexus of punk rock and independent publishing with V. Vale and Marian Wallace, founders of the Bay Area’s earliest punk zine, Search and Destroy, and their ongoing forays into cultural frontiers with RE/Search Publications. Filmmaker Eric Christensen and original Merry Prankster George “Hardly Visible” Walker reconnected after decades for a special screening of Eric’s documentary The Trips Festival Movie, about the legendary Acid Test both had attended in 1966.
Tate Swindell presented his label Unrequited Records’ latest release, America, Give a Shit! a double LP of Allen Ginsberg performing in 1980 with Peter Orlovsky and Steve Taylor in Graz, Austria. Susana Millman took us on a long, strange trip through the years she spent photographing the Grateful Dead.
Pat Thomas, editor of Material Wealth: Mining the Personal Archive of Allen Ginsberg, Listen, Whitey!: The Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975, and Evergreen Review: Dispatches from the Literary Underground, brought together the Beat Generation, the Black Panthers, and the Youth International Party (Yippies) in a discussion of critical counterculture intersections and personalities.
We held a screening of Chuck Workman’s documentary, The Source, on the history of the Beat Generation and the movements it influenced, featuring portrayals by Johnny Depp, John Turturro, and Dennis Hopper. That evening we heard from author and historian Dennis McNally, on his life’s work writing about history, counterculture, music, and the road to his latest book The Last Great Dream.
We celebrated Allen Ginsberg’s centennial on his birthday, June 3rd, with a screening of Kip Steinberg’s 2015 interview with Dr. Philip Hicks, the psychiatrist whose sessions with Allen proved cathartic in the poet making the choice to live an authentic life, and spent the evening reading selections from Allen’s poetry.
On Thursday we screened rarely-seen footage captured by Jerry Gainor at the West Coast memorial held for Allen at Temple Emanu-El on April 20, 1997, featuring tributes from Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, Diane di Prima, Andrew Schelling, Anne Waldman, Joanne Kyger, Robert Hass, Mark Linenthal, Stephen Kessler, Neeli Cherkovski, and G.P. Skratz.
Combined with festivities elsewhere in town, from the Allen Ginsberg Centennial event at The Chapel on May 11th, curated by Peter Hale, Jesse Goodman, the Allen Ginsberg Estate, and (((folkYEAH!))); to a screening of filmmaker Jerry Aronson’s documentary The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg at the Roxie theater, San Francisco gave much deserved tribute to one of our most beloved poets.