Live From City Lights: The City Lights Podcast » Beat Generation

Inventor, environmentalist, and literary icon John Dolphin Allen reflects on his life thus far

admin — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:32:10 +0000

John Dolphin Allen discusses his new book, Me and the Biospheres: A Memoir, published by Synergetic Press

Anyone suffering from the Global Warming Blues will cherish this uplifting account of the most ambitious environmental experiment of our time: Biosphere 2, a miniature Earth under glass, the world’s largest laboratory for global ecology. John Allen’s memoir, Me and the Biospheres is a rich and complex narrative, filled with rollicking adventure, exceptional camaraderie and mind-bending science.

Covering three acres of Arizona desert, Biosphere 2 contained five biomes: a 900,000-gallon ocean with coral reef, a rainforest, a savannah, a desert, a farm and a micro-city, all housed within an air-tight, sealed glass and steel frame structure. Eight people lived inside for two years (1991-1993) setting world records in human life-support, monitoring their impact on the environment, while providing crucial data for future manned missions into outer space.

Almost as astonishing as the structure is the story of how it came to be. Back in 1969, Biosphere 2 was a mere seed in the luminous mind of writer, actor, philosopher, inventor, and scientist John Allen. He prepared for the manifestation of Biosphere 2 by assembling smaller projects: the creation of a ship to study ocean and river ecologies and cultures; a rainforest enrichment project; a theater group; a world-class art gallery and more. As awe-inspiring as the great cathedrals, Biosphere 2′s building and operation demanded the efforts of the most diverse team of scientists, engineers, artists and thinkers from around the world with whom John Allen worked closely for decades.

Me and the Biospheres is also an account of the singular life John Allen has led: his travels to Egypt, Vietnam, Nepal, Tibet and India, his meetings with people like Buckminster Fuller, William Burroughs, Charles Mingus, and Ornette Coleman. From building developments in Iran to adobe houses in New Mexico, from Harvard Business School to cafés in Tangiers, from board meetings in Fort Worth to mystical moments with Sufi sages, John Allen has impacted millions of people with manifest integrity. His humorous and Whitmanesque memoir is a tribute to the ingenuity and dauntlessness of the human mind. Me and the Biospheres is a passionate call to reawaken to the beauty of our peerless home, Biosphere 1, the Earth.

Synergetic Press was founded in 1969 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. After 39 years of publishing, they are still fiercely independent and continue to follow their mission of advancing the most relevant and far-reaching work they can find in the fields of biosphere science, ethnobotany, and world cultures.

ACLU’s Stan Yogi & Elaine Elinson Discuss California’s Epic Civil Rights Battles

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:25:46 +0000

Elaine Elinson and Stan Yogi dropped by City Lights to talk about their new book, Wherever There’s a Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers, and Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California from Heyday Books.

Wherever There’s a Fight captures the sweeping story of how freedom and equality have grown in California, from the gold rush right up to the precarious post-9/11 era. The book tells the stories of the brave individuals who have stood up for their rights in the face of social hostility, physical violence, economic hardship, and political stonewalling.

It connects the experiences of early Chinese immigrants subjected to discriminatory laws to those of professionals who challenged McCarthyism and those of people who have fought to gain equal rights in California schools: people of color, people with disabilities, and people standing up for their religious freedom. The authors bring a special focus to the World War II internment of Japanese Americans, focusing on the infamous Korematsu case, which was foreshadowed by a century of civil liberties violations and reverberates in more recent times—regrettably, even today in the Patriot Act. And they follow the ongoing struggles for workers’ rights and same-sex marriage.

State and federal constitutions spell out many liberties and rights, but it is the people who challenge prejudice and discrimination that transform those lofty ideals into practical realities. Wherever There’s a Fight paints vivid portraits of these people and brings to light their often hidden stories.

Elaine Elinson was the communications director of the ACLU of Northern California and editor of the ACLU News for more than two decades. She is a coauthor of Development Debacle: The World Bank in the Philippines, which was banned by the Marcos regime. Her articles have been published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, Poets and Writers, and numerous other periodicals. She is married to journalist Rene CiriaCruz and they have one son.

Stan Yogi has managed development programs for the ACLU of Northern California since 1997. He is the coeditor of two books, Highway 99: A Literary Journey through California’s Great Central Valley and Asian American Literature: An Annotated Bibliography. His work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, MELUS, Los Angeles Daily Journal, and several anthologies. He is married to nonprofit administrator David Carroll and lives in Oakland.

This podcast was recorded live at City Lights Books on Nov. 11, 2009.

Speaking Obscenity To Power: Paul Krassner Reads At City Lights

admin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:00:23 +0000

Yippie co-founder. merry prankster and satirical provocateur Paul Krassner reads from Who’s to Say What’s Obscene?: Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today, published by City Lights Books, July 15, 2009.

Fans of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Onion will appreciate this timely collection of satirical essays by counterculture icon Paul Krassner. With irreverence and an often X-rated wit, Krassner explores contemporary comedy, and obscenity in politics and culture from “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” banners to scenes cut out of recent movies, including Borat.

In his essay “Don Imus Meets Michael Richards” Krassner examines racism in comedy from Lenny Bruce to Dave Chapelle, on The Sarah Silverman Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and in controversial comic strips like The Boondocks.

“These are times of repression,” says Krassner, “and the more repression there is, the more need there is for irreverence toward those in authority.”

Praise for Paul Krassner:

“He is an expert at ferreting out hypocrisy and absurdism from the more solemn crannies of American culture.” — New York Times

“To classify Krassner as a social rebel is far too cute. He’s a nut, a raving, unconfined nut.” — Federal Bureau of Investigation

“The FBI was right. This man is dangerous—and funny; and necessary.” — George Carlin

He Remains: Lew Welch Reads From His Work, 1968

admin — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:41:14 +0000

Lew Welch, advertising copy-writer, taxi cab driver, and one of the principal poets of the Beat Generation in San Francisco, reads from his poetry at a raucous evening at San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Church on June 8, 1968.

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This podcast was made possible by the generous folks at the Pacifica Radio Archi ves.

Jack Hirschman & Neeli Cherkovski Recall Life With Bukowski

admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:29:08 +0000

Former San Francisco Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman and poet Neeli Cherkovski remember life with the inimitable Charles Bukowski. The event took place at City Lights on the occasion of our publishing Portions From a Wine-Stained Notebook, a collection of unpublished essays and stories from the drunken bard, edited by David Calonne.

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994), one of the most outrageous and controversial figures of 20th-century American literature, was so prolific that many important pieces were never collected during his lifetime. Portions is a substantial selection of these wide-ranging works, most of which have been unavailable since their original appearance in underground newspapers, literary journals, even porno mags. Among the highlights are his first published short story, “Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip”; his last short story, “The Other”; his first and last essays; and the first installment of his famous “Notes of a Dirty Old Man” column. The book contains meditations on his familiar themes (drinking, horse-racing, etc.) as well as singular discussions of such figures as Artaud, Pound, and the Rolling Stones. Other significant works include the experimental title piece; a fictionalized account of meeting his hero, John Fante (“I Meet the Master”); an unflinching review of Hemingway (“An Old Drunk Who Ran Out of Luck”); the intense, autobiographical “Dirty Old Man Confesses”; and several discussions of his aesthetics (“A Rambling Essay on Poetics and the Bleeding Life Written While Drinking a Six-Pack (Tall),” “In Defense of a Certain Type of Poetry, a Certain Type of Life, a Certain Type of Blood-Filled Creature Who Will Someday Die,” and “Upon the Mathematics of the Breath and the Way”, revealing an unexpectedly learned mind behind his seemingly offhand productions.

Diane DiPrima: San Francisco Poet Laureate

admin — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:00:59 +0000

On the occasion of her becoming San Francisco’s 5th Poet Laureate, we thought we’d celebrate the work of Diane di Prima with a podcast of her reading from her book, Revolutionary Letters in October 2007. Di Prima succeeds Jack Hirschman, who served in the position from 2006 to 2009. Allen Ginsberg described her as “a revolutionary activist of the 1960s Beat literary renaissance.” City Lights was fortunate to have published her Pieces of a Song: Selected Poems in 1990.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti at City Lights

admin — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:28:50 +0000

For our first episode, we thought it might be fitting to hear from our founder. Lawrence Ferlinghetti read a series of his thoughts from Poetry As Insurgent Art on October 24, 2007. Enjoy!

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