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Marc Zegans's avatar

Marvelous piece. Wonderful to see Al's story so warmly rendered in print. Loved the bits about Bukowski and of course the colorful descriptions of the cafe's and bars in North Beach. A great contribution to the larger narrative of the people who tie the Beat Generation to the present day.

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Simon Warner's avatar

Thanks, Marc, for your warm remarks and I trust your judgement based on your own history…

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Dave Rubin blues harp's avatar

This led me to buy Lyon Street - "The San Francisco of the Mind" seems to have met the same fate as "The Greenwich Village of The Mind " -

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Marc Zegans's avatar

Thanks for picking up a copy of Lyon Street--very much appreciated. And, yes, the San Francisco of the Mind has in many respects gone the way of the Greenwich Village of the mind. I remember the latter well, as my grandparents lived in the Village and I visited it often as a child, teenager, and young adult. Such a different place then.

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Raoul Cesar's avatar

All these giants of poetry and music is this historic place, someone could do a game board and put all the pieces on different streets. What would be a good name for this? All these personalities are rich but the poem at the end is priceless. Antonio Pineda comes through with such incredible stuff, even Lord Byron would bow reading the very fine tone and beauty of it; it would make an incredible painting or mural somewhere in North Beach.

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Simon Warner's avatar

What fabulously positive thoughts you share here, Raoul. Thank you for taking the trouble to express these ideas. Happy reading!

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Raoul Cesar's avatar

I don't know what happened to this email, I finally found it. I really appreciate this.

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Paul Walmsley's avatar

Wonderful piece. So glad to know that A.D. is still on his Beat.

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Simon Warner's avatar

Thanks, Paul…

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Chris Deliso's avatar

A very interesting bit of San Franciscan literary and cultural history. Thank you.

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