Spoke to the painter Mary Beach the other day for the first time in a long, long time. As she Mary and Claude<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>, At the time, Mary was the publisher of Beach Books, Texts & Documents, which brought out Earthquake, which lasted for five issues and was distributed by City Lights Books, also The first issue, co-edited with Gail Chiarrello (then using her married name Dusenberry), was Claude died 18 months ago at 68, long regarded in his native France and elsewhere in Europe Charlie, who refers to himself now as a white-bearded old poet, continues working, too. Mary’s literary papers are held by New York University in the Beach Archive<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> at
\nsaid, “It’s been a thousand years.” When we knew each other back in the late ’60s in San
\nFrancisco, we collaborated on a little magazine together with the French writer Claude P\ufffdlieu and
\nthe artist Norman O. Mustill. It was called
\n
\nwho lived together, were workaholics when I knew them. They invariably spent their days
\nwriting, translating and slicing up reams of magazine illustrations for
\napartment up the hill from North Beach was the scene of many drunken evenings. The two of
\nthem were incomparable hosts who prized intelligence, wit and balls above everything. Next came
\nbarbed gossip about overrated literary poobahs that usually ended in fits of laughter.<\/P>
\n
\nMustill’s
\n“With Revolvers Aimed
\nFingerbowls,”<\/FONT><\/EM> <\/B><\/A>Carl Weissner, P\ufffdlieu and Burroughs’s
\ncollectors’ items now.<\/P>
\n
\npublished those writers and artists, along with many others: Charles Plymell, Ed Sanders, Allen
\nGinsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ed Ruscha, Dick Higgins, Robert Duncan, Michael McClure,
\nFrank O’Hara, Gail Dusenbery, Janine Pommy-Vega, Doug Blazek, Sinclair Beiles, Harold Norse, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Liam O’Gallagher and Nanos Valaoritis.<\/P>
\n
\nprinted by Mary’s future son-in-law, Charles Plymell<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>,
\non the old Multilith press in his bedroom. Charlie printed a lot of firsts on that Multilith, including
\nRobert Crumb’s first Zap Comix<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>
\n(scroll down), No. 0<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>.<\/P>
\n
\nas a major figure among counterculture writers. Mary, who is 85, continues to paint. Here, for
\ninstance, is her portrait of Allen
\nGinsberg<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>, and here is her portrait of Claude
\nP\ufffdlieu<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>. She’d probably laugh at me for mentioning that she was briefly
\ninterned in a Nazi prison camp and that, yes, she’s a relative of Sylvia Beach, as
\nsolo show in 1943 in Pau, France, and that she won the Prix du Dome at the Salon des Femmes
\nPeintres in 1959 and 1st Prize, Vichy, France, Silver Medal, also in 1959.<\/P>
\n
\nProbably best known for his prose memoir “The Last of the
\nMoccasins”<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> — here’s
\n(scroll down), among them “Apocalypse
\nRose”<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> and “Neon Poems”<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>
\n(two of his earliest) and “Hand On The
\nDoorknob<\/FONT>“<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> (his latest). He’s also
\nthe co-founder (with his wife Pamela and Josh Norton) of
\n
\nThe Fales Library & Special Collections. Mine<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> are held by
\nthe Special Collections divison of Northwestern University Library. I don’t know where Charlie’s
\npapers are. Hey, Charlie — who’s got ’em?<\/P>
\n
![No. 0<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>.<\/P>\nClaude died 18 months ago at 68, long regarded in his native France and elsewhere in Europe\nas a major figure among counterculture writers. Mary, who is 85, continues to paint. Here, for\ninstance, is her portrait of Allen\nGinsberg<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>, and here is her portrait of Claude\nP\ufffdlieu<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>. She’d probably laugh at me for mentioning that she was briefly\ninterned in a Nazi prison camp and that, yes, she’s a relative of Sylvia Beach, as the Enderlin Gallery notes<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>, or that she had her first\nsolo show in 1943 in Pau, France, and that she won the Prix du Dome at the Salon des Femmes\nPeintres in 1959 and 1st Prize, Vichy, France, Silver Medal, also in 1959.<\/P>\nCharlie, who refers to himself now as a white-bearded old poet, continues working, too.\nProbably best known for his prose memoir “The Last of the\nMoccasins”<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> — here’s an excerpt<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> — he’s the author of 11 books<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>\n(scroll down), among them “Apocalypse\nRose”<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> and “Neon Poems”<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>\n(two of his earliest) and “Hand On The\nDoorknob<\/FONT>“<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> (his latest). He’s also\nthe co-founder (with his wife Pamela and Josh Norton) of Cherry Valley Editions<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>. <\/P>\nMary’s literary papers are held by New York University in the Beach Archive<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> at\nThe Fales Library & Special Collections. Mine<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> are held by\nthe Special Collections divison of Northwestern University Library. I don’t know where Charlie’s\npapers are. Hey, Charlie — who’s got ’em?<\/P>\nPostscript:<\/STRONG> “It’s Wichita State University<\/FONT><\/EM><\/STRONG><\/A>.” — <\nEM>CP<\/FONT><\/EM><\/STRONG><\/A><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spoke to the painter Mary Beach the other day for the first time in a long, long time. As she said, “It’s been a thousand years.” When we knew each other back in the late ’60s in San Francisco, we collaborated on a little magazine together with the French writer Claude P\ufffdlieu and the artist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-755","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-cb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/www.lambiek.net\/artists\/crumb\/crumb_zap0_big.jpg\"\ntarget='new\"'){kind=link}