A Book Clerk Who Was More Than a Clerk
Fifty-four years ago two undercover cops in San Francisco arrested a clerk at City Lights Bookstore for selling them an "obscene" book of poetry. The clerk was Shigeyoshi Murao. The book was Allen Ginsberg's Howl. Several months later, on October 3rd, a municipal court judge ruled that the book was protected by the First Amendment because it had "redeeming social importance."
If not for the bust and the trial, Howl might never have become as important as it did, either culturally or literarily. More than a million copies are now in print. Further, the ruling made way for the publication in the U.S. of such forbidden books as D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover, Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, and William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch.
Shig Murao (right) and Lawrence Ferlinghetti at the Howl trial.
The 54th anniversary of Judge Clayton W. Horn's historic decision would not, ordinarily, be marked for celebration. But Richard Reynolds, the former communications director of Mother Jones, has done it by taking the occasion to post an unusual Web site, Shigmurao.org. The site pays tribute to a book clerk who was "much more than a clerk," he notes, and "in danger of being written out of the history of City Lights and of the San Francisco Beat era."
As Reynold points out, "When Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman made their film of the trial in 2010, for instance, Shig was nowhere to be seen. Yet at the trial itself, Shig and Lawrence Ferlinghetti [poet, publisher, and owner of City Lights] were codefendants and sat next to each other throughout the proceedings." Furthermore it was Shig, he writes, who "managed the bookstore for its first twenty-two years and crafted the unique atmosphere that made San Francisco's legendary bookstore into the storied institution it remains today."
It's no surprise that Hollywood or, in this case, an indie flick with a maverick star (James Franco), will distort history because of a misguided need to simplify and streamline. What Reynolds doesn't say is that the flick was a complete bore, let alone a distortion. So for a detailed taste of the authentic, including primary materials, have a look at the site that Reynolds has put together. It's a many-layered labor of love and, unlike the flick, both entertaining and enlightening.
(Full disclosure: Shig hired me as a book clerk at City Lights back in the '60s.)
Sites to See
Abstract City
AmericaBlog
American Leftist
Andante
Antiwar.com
ArkivMusic.com
Articulate
Arts & Letters Daily
Blogcritics
Booknotes
Bright Lights Film Journal
Buck Fush
C-SPAN
Center for Cooperative Research
Noam Chomsky
Consortium News
Cost of War in Iraq
Council on Foreign Relations
Crooks and Liars
Cultural Weekly
TheCuttingFloor
The Daily Howler
David E's Fablog
Dark Roasted Blend
Democracy Now!
Devil Ducky
Editor's Cut
Ehrensteinland
Tim Ellis: Comedy
Eschaton
Film Threat
Robert Fisk
Fluxlist Europe
Glenn Greenwald
Good Reads
The Guardian (London)
GUERNICA: A Magazine of Art & Politics
Herman (Literary) Archive, Northwestern Univ. Library
The Huffington Post
Inter Press Service News Agency
International Relations Center
Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
Doug Ireland
Henry Kisor
Krugman's Blog:
Conscience of a Liberal
Lannan Foundation
Life During Wartime
Los Angeles Times
Low Culture
Metacritic
Mimeo Mimeo
Museum of Television & Radio
Nat. Arts Journalism Program
National Security Archive
The New York Times
NO!art
Onion Radio News
Open City
Open Library
Osborne & Conant
The Overgrown Path
Greg Palast
Political Irony
Postclassic Radio
Poynter/Romenesko:
Media People
Rain Taxi
The Raw Story
RealityStudio.org
Bill Reed
The Reeler
Rhizome
Rwanda Project
Salon
Seeing Black
Senses of Cinema
Seven Stories Press
Slate
Studs Terkel
TalkLeft
The Theater Times (Cris Gross)
The 3rd Page
ThugLit: Writing About Wrongs
Times Square Cam
The Tin Man
Truthdig
t r u t h o u t
Wading in the Velvet Sea
Walking Man
The Wall Street Journal
Wikigate
Wikipedia
The Washington Post
James Wolcott
World O'Crap Man

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