I got to get in because I read at the Babar a bunch of times with David, Julia and the rest of the Barbarians. I was kind of like their Los Angeles relief pitcher. I'd drive up once a month or so and get to throw an inning. Those readings were alive, honoring the SF City Lights past while at the same trying to obliterate it! My first book of poems was a 1989 chapbook on Zeitgeist Press that David Lerner edited, called "On This Train". The first line: "Grab your two-tone '57 Chrysler Paranoia, grab your bitter pill to swallow, grab your sheriff's badge and vest/Grab blindfold, smoke and last request but leave all your luggage at home".
You can't really grock that scene without mentioning Bruce Isaacson who started, and I believe still runs Zeitgeist. He was the Ferlenghetti. He put out a lot of books, creating a permanence to go along with the fierce impermanence of the reading. The Barbarians were serious about it. It was for keeps and in blood, and had an authentic "poetry can't save the world but it can save us" honesty.
If anyone cares to check it out, I happen to have to a poem I read at the Babar in 1988 posted on my substack right now.
Thanks again for keeping all this alive. It was a definitely a time, and it's only through luck and grace that I'm still here to remember, and not be remembered.
Great reflections, Tommy! Love the line, "Those readings were alive, honoring the SF City Lights past while at the same trying to obliterate it!" Bingo! Bruce Isaacson's testimony and recollections the Babar and Julia will be well-represented in the Vinograd doc.
I encountered Julia often on Telegraph in the early 1970s when I was a waitress at a now defunct Persian restaurant there called Darvish. She was surprisingly down to earth. One just assumed she would always be there. Everybody should happily support the filmmakers here.
Big shout out to photographer Richard Gibson who documented the Babar scene in dozens of photos, many of which will be featured in my Julia Vinograd documentary. The reader in the first photo is QR Hand, Julia is sitting in the lower right, and on the back wall you can see a couple elephant characters in homage to the French children's book 'Histoire de Babar' by Jean de Brunhoff. Julia is reading in the bottom photo. The Cafe Babar readings were my introduction to the San Francisco literary underground back in 1986. I read my own tepid verse twice, maybe three times at the Babar. I was weird enough on the inside but not proud enough on the outside. However, I felt at home there because the Babarians were the living embodiment of my favorite painting, The Scream, by Edvard Munch. I intuited that someday I'd channel my inner scream through my films. The Cafe Babar scene was an intoxicating crucible for producing weapons of mass CONSTRUCTION and will be the central chapter of my in-progress Julia Vinograd doc. Please join the film's mailing list so you can be notified once the 'Night at Cafe Babar' audio recording becomes available!
As a "French" neighbor (with a shirt tail Detroit and San Francisco connection) to Alvin Stilman, former owner of both Alvin's (Detroit) and Cafe Babar (SF), I wanted to jump in and share the love for all things poetic and barbarian inspired by "Les Moustaches" as Alvin was known here in the deep French countryside. He shared a home in my village with Renee Luby and we were a small but fierce expat family when they were in residence. Alvin often talked about the Babar, his Joint, over those last 30 years. He left the room a year ago- October 17 2022. I called him the Great Intergalactic Connector as he always knew someone that you knew.
You'll be happy to know that I'm officially dedicating my Julia Vinograd documentary to Alvin Stillman. I took some photographs of him earlier in the year he passed and posted my favorite in my December 2022 film newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/eeb38b715d47/december-vinograd-film-news
Mouth to mouth is the only real poetry there is... One poem for another, and another, and another...no intervals, breathing each other’s breath...Just a long breath before the first word...Till you die and live forever...falling in glitter and sawdust.
I encountered Julia often on Telegraph in the early 1970s when I was a waitress at a now defunct Persian restaurant there called Darvish. Even served her hash browns and eggs once. She was surprisingly down to earth. One just assumed she would always be there. I only wish I would have known her better. Everybody should happily support the filmmakers here. It is not every day we get a Julia Vinograd.
The repress of Book of Jerusalem just went to proof with a new full color cover of the original, and there is a new Andy Clausen book coming out beginning of next year, The Fabled Damned (a Whitman reference), foreword by Danny Shot of Long Shot magazine. Not to mention a bunch of young writers in the spirit of the original Babar reading. Feel free to check out Cleaning the Gutters of Hell by Tohm Bakelas, New Jersey social worker, Rotgut by Andrew Romanelli, or upcoming in the next couple months An Umbrella Costs the Same, Even If It Doesn't Rain by Walker Rose. And yes, Bruce Isaacson just released a new title, Anthems of the Doomed.
Of the more than 40 people I've interviewed for the film, no one made an allusion to the Yellow Submarine. But folks did note that yellow and black were her favorite colors to wear. As a beader, she had sewing skills. The sections of her cap were constantly regenerating as needed.
I loved reading this great piece of history about the cafes people my grandpa is Alvin Stillman he was one of owners of cafe babar he brewed music into my life at a young age i have countless recordings of music and poetry from him that i wish to make public someday.
I got to get in because I read at the Babar a bunch of times with David, Julia and the rest of the Barbarians. I was kind of like their Los Angeles relief pitcher. I'd drive up once a month or so and get to throw an inning. Those readings were alive, honoring the SF City Lights past while at the same trying to obliterate it! My first book of poems was a 1989 chapbook on Zeitgeist Press that David Lerner edited, called "On This Train". The first line: "Grab your two-tone '57 Chrysler Paranoia, grab your bitter pill to swallow, grab your sheriff's badge and vest/Grab blindfold, smoke and last request but leave all your luggage at home".
You can't really grock that scene without mentioning Bruce Isaacson who started, and I believe still runs Zeitgeist. He was the Ferlenghetti. He put out a lot of books, creating a permanence to go along with the fierce impermanence of the reading. The Barbarians were serious about it. It was for keeps and in blood, and had an authentic "poetry can't save the world but it can save us" honesty.
If anyone cares to check it out, I happen to have to a poem I read at the Babar in 1988 posted on my substack right now.
Thanks again for keeping all this alive. It was a definitely a time, and it's only through luck and grace that I'm still here to remember, and not be remembered.
Great reflections, Tommy! Love the line, "Those readings were alive, honoring the SF City Lights past while at the same trying to obliterate it!" Bingo! Bruce Isaacson's testimony and recollections the Babar and Julia will be well-represented in the Vinograd doc.
"Even the toilet bowl boiled over with emotion." So good!
I encountered Julia often on Telegraph in the early 1970s when I was a waitress at a now defunct Persian restaurant there called Darvish. She was surprisingly down to earth. One just assumed she would always be there. Everybody should happily support the filmmakers here.
Big shout out to photographer Richard Gibson who documented the Babar scene in dozens of photos, many of which will be featured in my Julia Vinograd documentary. The reader in the first photo is QR Hand, Julia is sitting in the lower right, and on the back wall you can see a couple elephant characters in homage to the French children's book 'Histoire de Babar' by Jean de Brunhoff. Julia is reading in the bottom photo. The Cafe Babar readings were my introduction to the San Francisco literary underground back in 1986. I read my own tepid verse twice, maybe three times at the Babar. I was weird enough on the inside but not proud enough on the outside. However, I felt at home there because the Babarians were the living embodiment of my favorite painting, The Scream, by Edvard Munch. I intuited that someday I'd channel my inner scream through my films. The Cafe Babar scene was an intoxicating crucible for producing weapons of mass CONSTRUCTION and will be the central chapter of my in-progress Julia Vinograd doc. Please join the film's mailing list so you can be notified once the 'Night at Cafe Babar' audio recording becomes available!
"Barbarian" in the original Greek means "outsider". The world needs "outsider" poets, such as the one in "Little Feline's Poetry Periodical".
As a "French" neighbor (with a shirt tail Detroit and San Francisco connection) to Alvin Stilman, former owner of both Alvin's (Detroit) and Cafe Babar (SF), I wanted to jump in and share the love for all things poetic and barbarian inspired by "Les Moustaches" as Alvin was known here in the deep French countryside. He shared a home in my village with Renee Luby and we were a small but fierce expat family when they were in residence. Alvin often talked about the Babar, his Joint, over those last 30 years. He left the room a year ago- October 17 2022. I called him the Great Intergalactic Connector as he always knew someone that you knew.
You'll be happy to know that I'm officially dedicating my Julia Vinograd documentary to Alvin Stillman. I took some photographs of him earlier in the year he passed and posted my favorite in my December 2022 film newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/eeb38b715d47/december-vinograd-film-news
Mouth to mouth is the only real poetry there is... One poem for another, and another, and another...no intervals, breathing each other’s breath...Just a long breath before the first word...Till you die and live forever...falling in glitter and sawdust.
I encountered Julia often on Telegraph in the early 1970s when I was a waitress at a now defunct Persian restaurant there called Darvish. Even served her hash browns and eggs once. She was surprisingly down to earth. One just assumed she would always be there. I only wish I would have known her better. Everybody should happily support the filmmakers here. It is not every day we get a Julia Vinograd.
The repress of Book of Jerusalem just went to proof with a new full color cover of the original, and there is a new Andy Clausen book coming out beginning of next year, The Fabled Damned (a Whitman reference), foreword by Danny Shot of Long Shot magazine. Not to mention a bunch of young writers in the spirit of the original Babar reading. Feel free to check out Cleaning the Gutters of Hell by Tohm Bakelas, New Jersey social worker, Rotgut by Andrew Romanelli, or upcoming in the next couple months An Umbrella Costs the Same, Even If It Doesn't Rain by Walker Rose. And yes, Bruce Isaacson just released a new title, Anthems of the Doomed.
Not only a reprint of the original, but many additional Jerusalem poems will be included in the forth-coming edition.
Does anyone know: was her iconic yellow with black stripe vinyl hat (which cracked over the years) an homage to Yellow Submarine?
Of the more than 40 people I've interviewed for the film, no one made an allusion to the Yellow Submarine. But folks did note that yellow and black were her favorite colors to wear. As a beader, she had sewing skills. The sections of her cap were constantly regenerating as needed.
A yippee cartwheel!!! Thank you for this! Look forward to learning more
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got that beat energy.
“When poets are outlawed, only outlaws will have poems.”
Thanks for sharing the memories.
Honesty...as the day unfolds
Bravo
Hell yeah!! Read there fairly regularly in the late 80s. One of a kinda boiler plate readings!!~
I loved reading this great piece of history about the cafes people my grandpa is Alvin Stillman he was one of owners of cafe babar he brewed music into my life at a young age i have countless recordings of music and poetry from him that i wish to make public someday.