Sunday, August 19, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO: THE LEGENDARY CITY LIGHTS BOOSTORE / THE BEATS

I GUIDE YOU THROUGHT THE LEGENDARY CITY LIGHTS BOOSTORE and THE BEAT GENERATION!!

I AM THE BEATEN GENEARATION!! BEATEN BY MONEY....


I am standing in front of the famous, still independent bookstore City Lights in San Francisco, in North Beach.  This is the one of the founder of City Lights Bookstore and press City Lights Books. Founded 1953 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin.
City Lights is an important landmark of Beat generation history. Several of the surrounding streets have been renamed after Beat poets as well, commemorating their important contribution to the cultural landscape of San Francisco.
Me and Lawrence Ferlinghetti in Café Trieste. 


I met Mr. Ferlinghetti and we had a very nice conversation, about our talk you can read in another part of this BLOG. here: http://milenaoda.blogspot.com/2012/08/san-francisco-meeting-lawrence.html



Here you can see My and Topalantes VIDEO-GUIDE through the City Lights:



Jack Kerouac in Chinese. The small, narrow Jack Kerouac Alley connects the North Beach with the Chinatown, so far his name in Chinese, well, now he / it is absolut modern, everything is going to be in Chinese translated!





"Poetry Room" for Readings with other Authors and for reading poetry...



DAY & NIGHT (open till the Midnight!) direct from the highway, from my ROAD on the U.S. Freeways& Highways I went to the Bookstore, my destination (besides my other FAVORITE bookstore - ADOBE Bookstore in the MISSION District/ 16th St. see my Link to my performance in ADOBE bookstore.

A Brief Guide to the Beat Poets

 
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical
     naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry
     dynamo in the machinery of night . . .
     --Allen Ginsberg, "Howl"
I heard this poem directly from Allen Ginsberg, who visited many times Czechoslowakia / the Czech Republic. I was fortnunate to hear him twice!! It was an amazing performance!!

http://www.wussu.com/poems/agh.htm - here is the whole HOWL from Allen Ginsberg, book banned for its obscenity, 1956 by reading in San Francisco in a Art Gallery.  
Allen Ginsberg's first book, Howl and Other Poems, is often considered representative of the Beat poets. In 1956 Lawrence Ferlinghetti's press City Lights published Howl and Ferlinghetti was brought to trial the next year on charges of obscenity. In a hugely publicized case, the judge ruled that Howl was not obscene and brought national attention to Ginsberg and the Beat poets.

Beat poetry evolved during the 1940s in both New York City and on the west coast, although San Francisco became the heart of the movement in the early 1950s. The end of World War II left poets like Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso questioning mainstream politics and culture. These poets would become known as the Beat generation, a group of writers interested in changing consciousness and defying conventional writing. The Beats were also closely intertwined with poets of the San Francisco Renaissance movement, such as Kenneth Rexroth and Robert Duncan.
The battle against social conformity and literary tradition was central to the work of the Beats. Among this group of poets, hallucinogenic drugs were used to achieve higher consciousness, as was meditation and Eastern religion. Buddhism especially was important to many of the Beat poets; Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg both intensely studied this religion and it figured into much of their work.
Other Beat poets included Diane di Prima, Neal Cassady, Anne Waldman and Michael McClure. Although William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac are often best remembered for works of fiction such as Naked Lunch and On the Road, respectively, they also wrote poetry and were very much part of the Beats as well; Kerouac is said to have coined the term "Beat generation," describing the down-and-out status of himself and his peers during the post-war years. / This comment I copied from: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5646
 
And these are some of the many books about the Beat Generation.



Tuesday, August 7, 2012

VISIT WITH ME LOS ANGELES .... HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD and more...!

LOS ANGELES!!! - VISIT IN HOLLYWOOD...? 2010 and 2012!!

I show you now (just) the Hollywood Boulevard ...
This is a video from 2010, my first time in L.A. - in the Hollywood Hills, with Jonathan Slater - you can hear & see him, my great guide in L.A. - also this year he showed me streets, corners, areas in L.A.! I changed my mind now: I like L.A. - especially the architecture of the houses!! Rich people have amazing beautiful houses, I wish I had one like that... I show you in the next blog some of them...
Well, I would never see all in one as a newcomer so fast :-) - amazing, he knows pretty lot about L.A.! You can envy me, I had such a guide!


Here with his girlfriend and me.......girls in pink want to buy the small house posed in the trees of the Hollywood Hills!!!
I THANK HIM FOR taking time for me and guiding me through Los Angeles!!!  

And this is a typical Hollywood poster, what you MUST VISIT! Let´s go!!
This is everywhere... Behind me the Capitol Records, is major American record label, a wholly owned by EMI.
 And famous The PANTAGES (movie) theater in Art Deco style, opened 1930.... upon the time very famous!! Now thanks to the interesting historical decoration / architecture The Pantages Theatre is also a popular location for the filming of movies, TV shows, and music videos.  
STARS!! LIKE ....here...
 Just round around are streets with the stars... on the Earth...





 SATURDAY NIGHT IN HOLLYWOOD!! With a singer Pray Harper... at the big pool party at the famous Roosevelt Hotel!! Yeah, we rock!!

 And this is Hollywood Blvd. - one long famous street... I compare it like the Charles Bridge in Prague!! Full of people & kitch & simple attractions!!! There you can earn money like a robot, like a vampir, like ... well, everything counts there!! 

 And what a poor Hotel Mark Twain!! In comparison to the Roosevelt Hotel, this seems like a very shaby hotel, called unlikely Mark Twain... what a shame!!

And other poor hotel, this is also near to the Hollywood Boulevard, so not everything is fancy!! 
And a Post Office!! How important for me still though the internet prevails... Well, It took me a while to identify in the USA any post office, it is almost invisible any post everywhere...blue fade calour... not like in Germany BIG letters and yellow color; I had always really a trouble to find a post... And voilà now I had to take this picture! This post office, huge building cannot be ignored by anybody!!


In the L.A. subway - very clean subway!! So clean in contrary to New York Subway: see my poetry video from NYC subway:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiDd2adGIIU! Here is the entrance into the Hollywood Boullevard: you can see a camera! 


Almost empty on sunday... yes people in L.A. move (almost live) in the cars... so far, subway is a good option to come among people... and safe
 
AND almost everywhere in the streets were shooting some comercial film... and how interesting it was... almost all teams needed a RAIN! Apparently the rain isn´t very common experience in L.A. so far, good to put it in the film... mostly comercial. 

CNN do we get always the truths on TV? 




Friday, August 3, 2012

VISIT WITH ME LOS ANGELES... SANTA MONICA & BEAUTIFUL ARCHITECTURE & THE BEAUTY OF THE SUN!


One of the most famous beaches in the a beachfront city in western of Los Angeles (county) is SANTA MONICA BEACH in Santa Monica Bay.
I love so much the houses there behind... what a cool architecture!!
See here some of the houses: 



Surrounded by the Pacific Palisades, a famous place where some of the writers lived like my favorite American writer Henry Miller, the German writers in Exil like Thomas Mann and Lion Feuchtwanger.... and more...
Here you can see the PIER.
And the Santa Monica Looff Hippodrome (carousel) is a National Historic Landmark. It sits on the Santa Monica Pier, which was built in 1909. The La Monica Ballroom on the pier was once the largest ballroom in the US, and the source for many New Year's Eve national network broadcasts





I don´t like that much this beach... but it is the "close" one in the city... reachable by bus and I hadn´t a car to go to another beach... well, this is fine.. just to lay on the sand and have a sunbathe... This I can enjoy... the sun, beach and ocean is still so rare for me, the middle European! I enjoy every moment with the sun & beach & strong waves of the ocean! 

I like that picture!!


Cheers!!

PART III.- HOLLYWOOD. CZECH GIRL CHECKS OUT THE MAILS IN HOLLYWOOD!

HERE YOU CAN SEE something UNBELIEVABLE -  I AM IN HOLLYWOOD -  in the location "Lookout Mountains"  AND 
 I have found a great TREASURE - MAILS FOR HOLLYWOOD!!
Check with me out what I discovered in the (E)-Mails!!
Cheers!!

PART II. HOLLYWOOD: THE MOST FAMOUS GATES IN THE WORLD! GUESS WHO I VISITED?

THREE FAMOUS GATES IN THE WORLD!! And three neighbours!
I didn´t climb and hide at all, you just pass along... and if you get lost in the gates, there is ALWAYS a BUS of tourists and a guide who drives along and shows these tourists THE FAMOUS GATES and PART of the HOUSES of CELEBRITIES! I like to show the irony of the papparazzi, it is about this sadness, how people need even just see the GATES of the famous people! Because most of the houses are hidden... So I invite you now to some of the famous gates... I have a friend who lives in Hollywood and he showed me THESE GATES!! Enjoy the moments... :-)

This is an AMAZING GATE into the house of CHARLIE SHEEN!
I am honest, till today I haven´t seen anything with Charlie Sheen,  BUT I have already seen his house-gate! And this means maybe more for my knowledge... 
Ok, I just know how provocative he is... I ask now in Hollywood about him and I get immediatly an answer: Sheen's personal life has made headlines, including reports about alcohol and drug abuse and marital problems as well as allegations of domestic violence! OK! Everyone is sometimes fed up and needs to put his energy into the action... 
He lives very near to Jack Nicholson & Britney Spears - see HER GATE and HOUSE and ME in my other previous post: http://milenaoda.blogspot.com/2012/07/part-i-one-of-most-famous-gates-of.html...
 
THIS IS A GATE OF the house of great actor JACK NICHOLSON!!  - Tell me, isn´t the gate beautiful?? This you can find in the Hollywood hills, actually very near to the Britney Spear´s Gate / House.
Surely you know the movie with Jack Nicholson, my favorite one: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), directed by Miloš Forman.  


AWESOME!! THE GATE WITH PALMS AND BEHIND THE OCEAN!
--- HERE BEHIND THIS GATE LIVES the singer CHER!!!
THIS CHARMING GATE you can see on the freeway from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara!! Along the ocean!
Her the most famous songs: "If I could turn back time" or "Believe" 
 

 

 





CALIFORNIA!! Pacific Ocean, beaches, sun, sunday... on the freeway to Santa Barbara, direction San Francisco.
AND ME with an invisible gate above my head... a gate into the UNIVERSE!!
How thankful I am to be here! And can see all the gates! Gates in the fam´s world!!
Cheers!