Feb 10, 2026
Please contact us
with corrections
or breaking news
Please contact us
with corrections
or breaking news
Ferlinghetti Forever, or At Least 100
by Doniphan Blair
City Lights Bookstore celebrates founder Ferlinghetti's 100th Birthday. Photo: D. BlairLAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI CELEBRATED
his 100th Birthday with a big bash at his bookstore, City Lights, last Sunday, March 24th, although he himself was a tad too tired to attend. Regardless, some 500 beats, hippies and punks descended on North Beach, San Francisco, jabbering, drinking, reciting poetry, recalling various art projects and having a fabulous time
I certainly did. Indeed I met over a dozen old friends, including Lalo Obregon, a Mexican cinematographer I hadn’t seen in thirty years, and made some new ones, notably Hanson Lee, a Chinese-American, who said poetry helped him endure the Cultural Revolution. Comraderie was easy given the overwhelming joie de vivre and all those books, provided by that great and stable beatnik, Lawrence.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, circa 1955, put his money where his mouth was in terms of literature, law and love. Photo: courtesy City LightsNot only was Ferlinghetti an avant-garde poet and anarchist, he was schooled in classical French literature, served in WWII, on a dangerous minesweeper boat, and became a businessman. In fact, he became a prodigious publisher of hundreds of titles, including political analyst Michael Parenti, poet Jack Hirschman, musician Ry Cooder and French philosopher Georges Bataille, as well as dozens of his old beat buddies.
He also had Italian influence, although his father died before he was born—in Yonkers, New York—and Jewish ones, from his mother. While that makes him Jewish, technically, I’m guessing her people were secular, hence not much purchase on his soul.
Lawrence is the veritable opposite of the dissolute Kerouac, the beats’ fairy god mother Ginsberg and their junkie father and language re-inventor Burroughs. Indeed, he stood tall-short for stable-crazy, socialist-capitalist, classicist-renegade and urban-wilderness, as is often only possible in California.
Jimmy didn't claim to be a beat, hippie, or anything save an aficionado of Greek fishing caps also favored by Ferlinghetti. Photo: D. BlairCity Lights Booksellers & Publishers, which he started in 1955, the year after I was born, and ran to the end of the millennia, is doing great, I was told by an employee, Chris. Although the pay isn’t excessive, it's a bookstore after all, “It’s fabulous in all other regards,” he said. It didn’t become a collective, as one might suspect, given its syndico-anarchist owner, but it’s in good business hands, largely those of stalwart Elaine Katzenberger, executive director and publisher for the last few decades.
Before that, it was quite the wild ride. Indeed, Ferlinghetti was arrested in his very first year for publishing Ginsberg's “Howl”, which led to a groundbreaking First Amendment trial.
In January, 1967, he crossed town to the Haight to be the principal poet at the Be-In, which attracted some fifty thousand people and triggered the Summer of Love. He refused to pay taxes going to the Vietnam War, in 1968, nearly going to jail, but was crowned Poet Laureate of San Francisco thirty years later. In his acceptance address, he decried the automobiles and yuppies destroying a once artistic city.
A disabled poet celebrates Ferlinghetti's 100th. Photo: D. BlairInterestingly, City Lights faces San Francisco’s Little Italy—and the tittie bars where Lenny Bruce broke open the zeitgeist in 1963—but it backs up on Chinatown. If you tunneled through the store’s back wall, in fact, you would essentially emerge in China. “You need a visa just to walk down the street,” quipped my new friend Lee (coincidentally the monniker used by Burroughs in many of his novels for himself).
Lawrence undoubtedly did venture into Chinatown, to attend literary groups discussing China’s great beatnik poet, Li Bai from the 8th century, say, or to smoke opium, which may have still been around when he first rented the store.
I was about to ask Lawrence about those intriguing details when Elaine Katzenberger saw my list of fifteen questions and freaked.
Cinematographer Lalo Obregon(cntr) and Gustavo Vazquez, director of UC Santa Cruz Film & Digital (rt), old time friends of cineSOURCE. Photo: D. Blair“Have mercy, he’s half blind for god’s sake. He doesn’t want to be bothered by your philosophical drivel.”
“OK, how ‘bout two?” I asked.
“A couple questions, OK," she allowed, "but make them ones he might be interested in.”
“What would he be interested in?”
“I don’t know, for god's sake—really busy with his birthday here—use your imagination.”
Although Lawrence just released an experimental autobiographical novel “Little Boy”, arguably one of his best books, see the laudatory NY Times review, and he would make a perfect cineSOURCE feature, the magazine was similarly un-forthcoming with what was needed for a fully-researched article.
Although Asian-Americans are slow to jump on the legal weed band wagon, this hipster graphic designer saw no reason why not. Photo: D. BlairAll I could do is shoot 200 photos and crack my first edition of his “Coney Island of the Mind” (1958), title from a line by Henry Miller, whose life work I was also obliged to synopcize this week (see article).
Rereading “Coney Island”, which has been translated into nine languages and sold over a million copies, I was deeply taken with the poetics of “I Am Waiting”, but also surprised at the term “darkie” around half way through.
Although that was central to one of my unanswered questions, I assume it was just something someone would say when Lawrence was growing up in the 1930s. Other then that, "Coney" was a newly-installed street lamp lighting the way in the onrush of doom and gloom.
And a bit more. Photo: D. BlairOne of the many malignant elements Lawrence continues to rail against is San Francisco’s cut-throat gentrification. Chinatown and North Beach have strict zoning laws, which keep buildings under four stories, but a few blocks away in the financial district, the sky is being scraped—a painful metaphor for a visionary, back-to-nature poet.
Although Elaine would not pass Lawrence my questions, I heard his answers to the big media she let into his apartment, on the radio or read them in the papers. What he seemed to be saying is:
Run for your lives.
Scoop Nisker, author of bestseller 'Essential' as well as comedian and meditation instructor entering City Lights for his reading. Photo: D. BlairDon’t let the capitalists eat you.
Try and find some peace and enjoy it right now before they destroy it forever.
Keep painting (as he did, he was also an accomplished painter).
Keep writing and thinking, or stop thinking, as the case may be.
As I surveyed the celebration, I noticed it was almost entirely over-60 hipsters, with a smattering of over-80 beats—not a techie, rapper or kid of color in sight, save the seven-foot-tall black guy, undoubtedly a poet, whose name I didn't catch. Nevertheless, the vibe was open enough to accept us all, as Whitman, our poetic father-mother recommended, and we’ll be here when they’re ready to build on that history.
Claire Greensfelder, local nonprof maestra, who used to hitchhike in to SF as a kid to hear beat poets . Photo: D. BlairWith the bookstore, now with three large rooms, flourishing from paper books, not digital copies, smack dab in the middle of North Beach, a fantastically expensive area, the survival of poetry, beatitude and the arts in San Francisco seems entirely possible, if not guaranteed
So long live Lawrence as well as the beats, hippies and punks—as well as the kids to come.
We here at the minor media outlet of cineSOURCE salute you.
Indeed we vow to carry on the tricky poetic process—eviction, alienation, cynicism, accusations of elitism and threats of arrest be damned.
Doniphan Blair chatting with an African-American poetry aficionado. Photo: Tracy Welsh
Posted on Mar 28, 2019 - 11:28 PM
by Doniphan Blair
City Lights Bookstore celebrates founder Ferlinghetti's 100th Birthday. Photo: D. Blairhis 100th Birthday with a big bash at his bookstore, City Lights, last Sunday, March 24th, although he himself was a tad too tired to attend. Regardless, some 500 beats, hippies and punks descended on North Beach, San Francisco, jabbering, drinking, reciting poetry, recalling various art projects and having a fabulous time
I certainly did. Indeed I met over a dozen old friends, including Lalo Obregon, a Mexican cinematographer I hadn’t seen in thirty years, and made some new ones, notably Hanson Lee, a Chinese-American, who said poetry helped him endure the Cultural Revolution. Comraderie was easy given the overwhelming joie de vivre and all those books, provided by that great and stable beatnik, Lawrence.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, circa 1955, put his money where his mouth was in terms of literature, law and love. Photo: courtesy City LightsHe also had Italian influence, although his father died before he was born—in Yonkers, New York—and Jewish ones, from his mother. While that makes him Jewish, technically, I’m guessing her people were secular, hence not much purchase on his soul.
Lawrence is the veritable opposite of the dissolute Kerouac, the beats’ fairy god mother Ginsberg and their junkie father and language re-inventor Burroughs. Indeed, he stood tall-short for stable-crazy, socialist-capitalist, classicist-renegade and urban-wilderness, as is often only possible in California.
Jimmy didn't claim to be a beat, hippie, or anything save an aficionado of Greek fishing caps also favored by Ferlinghetti. Photo: D. BlairBefore that, it was quite the wild ride. Indeed, Ferlinghetti was arrested in his very first year for publishing Ginsberg's “Howl”, which led to a groundbreaking First Amendment trial.
In January, 1967, he crossed town to the Haight to be the principal poet at the Be-In, which attracted some fifty thousand people and triggered the Summer of Love. He refused to pay taxes going to the Vietnam War, in 1968, nearly going to jail, but was crowned Poet Laureate of San Francisco thirty years later. In his acceptance address, he decried the automobiles and yuppies destroying a once artistic city.
A disabled poet celebrates Ferlinghetti's 100th. Photo: D. BlairLawrence undoubtedly did venture into Chinatown, to attend literary groups discussing China’s great beatnik poet, Li Bai from the 8th century, say, or to smoke opium, which may have still been around when he first rented the store.
I was about to ask Lawrence about those intriguing details when Elaine Katzenberger saw my list of fifteen questions and freaked.
Cinematographer Lalo Obregon(cntr) and Gustavo Vazquez, director of UC Santa Cruz Film & Digital (rt), old time friends of cineSOURCE. Photo: D. Blair“OK, how ‘bout two?” I asked.
“A couple questions, OK," she allowed, "but make them ones he might be interested in.”
“What would he be interested in?”
“I don’t know, for god's sake—really busy with his birthday here—use your imagination.”
Although Lawrence just released an experimental autobiographical novel “Little Boy”, arguably one of his best books, see the laudatory NY Times review, and he would make a perfect cineSOURCE feature, the magazine was similarly un-forthcoming with what was needed for a fully-researched article.
Although Asian-Americans are slow to jump on the legal weed band wagon, this hipster graphic designer saw no reason why not. Photo: D. BlairRereading “Coney Island”, which has been translated into nine languages and sold over a million copies, I was deeply taken with the poetics of “I Am Waiting”, but also surprised at the term “darkie” around half way through.
Although that was central to one of my unanswered questions, I assume it was just something someone would say when Lawrence was growing up in the 1930s. Other then that, "Coney" was a newly-installed street lamp lighting the way in the onrush of doom and gloom.
And a bit more. Photo: D. BlairAlthough Elaine would not pass Lawrence my questions, I heard his answers to the big media she let into his apartment, on the radio or read them in the papers. What he seemed to be saying is:
Run for your lives.
Scoop Nisker, author of bestseller 'Essential' as well as comedian and meditation instructor entering City Lights for his reading. Photo: D. BlairTry and find some peace and enjoy it right now before they destroy it forever.
Keep painting (as he did, he was also an accomplished painter).
Keep writing and thinking, or stop thinking, as the case may be.
As I surveyed the celebration, I noticed it was almost entirely over-60 hipsters, with a smattering of over-80 beats—not a techie, rapper or kid of color in sight, save the seven-foot-tall black guy, undoubtedly a poet, whose name I didn't catch. Nevertheless, the vibe was open enough to accept us all, as Whitman, our poetic father-mother recommended, and we’ll be here when they’re ready to build on that history.
Claire Greensfelder, local nonprof maestra, who used to hitchhike in to SF as a kid to hear beat poets . Photo: D. BlairSo long live Lawrence as well as the beats, hippies and punks—as well as the kids to come.
We here at the minor media outlet of cineSOURCE salute you.
Indeed we vow to carry on the tricky poetic process—eviction, alienation, cynicism, accusations of elitism and threats of arrest be damned.
Doniphan Blair chatting with an African-American poetry aficionado. Photo: Tracy Welsh
