HYPERLINK "http://videos.theonion.com/avclub_video/2011/poppilgrims/POP005-CityLights.flv" \t "_blank" http://videos.theonion.com/avclub_video/2011/poppilgrims/POP005-CityLights.flv Brian Berrebbi Host: When the A.V. Club travels we always make time to visit top cultural landmarks. If something memorable happened in the world of film, TV, books, or music we want to go there. We are not just tourists, we are top pilgrims. We are now on our way over to the City Lights Bookstore. People that we now consider part of the cannon of American Literature like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg. City Lights was the one that published their books. They were the only ones that sold their books at first, a landmark institution in the history of the changes that took place in America. Let’s start. Tell me about this place? Peter Maravelis Events Programmer, City Lights: Well it was founded in 1953 about Lawrence Ferlinghetti admit was modeled after the European Bookstore which had a publishing house as well as a bookstore in the same operation. Lawrence’s partner was a guy by the name of Peter D. Martin. Peter D. Martin is mostly instituted in the journal Ferlinghetti really had a broader vision which was to create a publishing house that issued forth quality paperbacks. Hard covers were very expensive and the great thing about a paperback is that you know you didn’t have to spend a weeks worth of wages on it. You wanted to make something that just some kid would come in and with an allowance money to be able to pick up and open up and just like inspire. You wanted to inspire a generation of people to look at poetry definitely. Brian Berrebbi: So Howl was published in the Pocket Poet series and then what were the— how di it wind up in court, what happened? Peter Maravelis: It was the San Francisco Police Department. It was looked at and they figured that they could charge Ferlinghetti with obscenity. Brian Berrebbi: Because? Peter Maravelis: Because there were words that were questionable in larger scale vernacular okay so you know certain four letter words and also the portrayals of human behavior and outlook. And the outlook was basically that something had gone wrong with America and I think that was the real reason. It wasn’t so much the form of words. Brian Berrebbi: Did they come and arrest— they arrested him for the publisher? Peter Maravelis: They put the hand cuffs on both Ferlinghetti and the manager at the time, Shigeyoshi Murao they were let on bail shortly thereafter, I mean someone made a mistake actually. They thought they could kind of quell City Lights by you know twisting their arm a little bit and realize that behind City Lights was— Brian Berrebbi: Yeah the entire community. Peter Maravelis: And not only that but you know a national community of not just writers about the public itself. You know this is so much is made of the beats and really what we have to understand is that with a longer continuum that they are simply a part of after the beats came the movements of the 60s later the punk rock movement and the seller of City Lights Search and Destroy which is a very, very influential punk rock journal was founded right here. Later the Zinn explosion so all kinds of things happened here. First and foremost we are a cultural center and this is really the nexus where the literary and political meet and so our job is to keep the avant-garde alive. Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) Author: I would come right here and I would sit on these very chairs. Brian Berrebbi: With these very chairs, are they the same chairs? Are they the same chairs? Daniel Handler: The Poet’s Chair has been here forever for sure and I bought Flowers of Evil which is right here and it changed my life. Brian Berrebbi: How did it change your life? Daniel Handler: Baudelaire spoke with kind of adolescent which was “the world is made of shit and everyone is behaving badly but I would rather gaze at the moon and a pretty woman than the deal with the lies of a tiny life” and I thought yeah that’s what meant tell Baudelaire. Brian Berrebbi: My girls. Daniel Handler: So one of the fun things to come here is to watch other people get radicalized and transformed and you see that every time you come in here. You see young people taking a book off the shelf and you think it’s about to happen. It’s like any other radicalizing cultural experience you know is when someone says I heard the Velvet Underground were pretty good maybe I’ll try this record with a banana on it. It looks like that. Peter Maravelis: I think what best exemplifies the mission here is something that happened to me a few years ago when I first started working here. A middle-aged woman approached me as I was working in the stacks, its written in the shelves and she said you know “would you help me out” my granddaughter was with me and I needed to put together a reading list for her so I walked over and here’s this 16 year old spiky hair, pierced-nose, tattoos shy as ever. He couldn’t even look me in the eye and I put together this list of you know everything from Hannah Arendt to --, a broad list of stuff. A few years go by and on my lunch break and we’re about to leave the store in this beautifully coifed room and walks up to me and the first thing I think is she’s going to serve me a summons and as she walks up and she goes “are you Peter” and I said “yeah” and she says “oh” she goes “I would like to thank you” and I’m just puzzled starring at her “what is this?” And she says “You put together a reading list for me many years ago which changed my life and I have come back and I have a reading list now of my own and would you help me find these books, I’m in a masters program and I want to become a teacher.” That’s my mission. City Lights Books 261 Columbus Ave, San Francisco, CA Behind the Scenes with FIAT The many hand-lettered signs hanging throughout the City Lights were drawn by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. City Lights is located in the Barbary Coast, San Francisco’s old red-light district that still houses many strip and burlesque clubs. It’s also next door to Vesuvio, a famous bar loved by writers. The bookstore’s basement once housed a Chinese dragon puppet and served as a meeting place for a Christian sect that painted cryptic slogans on its walls.