Vietnam/The Sixties 2, Sixties Literature 3

106. (Handbills). A Collection. (San Francisco and New York): (1966-67). Approximately three dozen handbills of events on the east and west coasts, from rock concerts (Ten Years After and Sparrow); to poetry readings and films and folk music; jazz concerts; plays; cultural festivals ("It"); dances; food (Quasars); and basic humanitarianism ("Survive/ Free Breakfast"). Venues advertised range from The Matrix to California Hall to Cafe Au Go Go to Carnegie Hall. Artists include Stanley Mouse and Loren Rehbock, among others. Some of the images are reproduced in Art of Rock. Sizes range from 6 1/4" x 4 1/4" to 8 1/2" x 11"; production values from black on white to four color; styles from typeset to psychedelia. A few items have small corner tears, presumably from posting; most are fine.

107. (HEARST, Patricia). FBI Wanted Poster. Washington, DC: FBI, 1974. 10 1/2" x 16". Black and white poster with three fugitives, including the wealthy newspaper heiress, who was kidnapped by a shadowy radical group--the Symbionese Liberation Army--in the early Seventies and later joined with them, participating in various criminal activities. The other two fugitives on the poster, William Taylor Harris and Emily Montague Harris, were also members of the SLA. Hearst is listed as wanted on Federal firearms charges and as a material witness to a bank robbery. "Alias: Tania... last seen wearing black sweater, plaid slacks, brown hiking boots and carrying a knife in her belt." Verso printed with FBI addresses. Poster is corner clipped and several ink words have been rubbed out near Hearst's photograph. Folded in sixths, the design of this FBI self-mailer. Very good.

108. (Hell's Angels). REYNOLDS, Frank as told to Michael McClure. Freewheeling Frank. Secretary of the Angels. NY: Grove (1967). Autobiography of a principal member of the famous motorcycle club, co-written by a noted Beat poet. The Hell's Angels occupy an almost mythic spot in the history of the 1960s. As the quintessential freewheeling outlaws they were seen, in part, as models for the counterculture--individualistic, free-spirited, and sufficient unto themselves. Their propensity for violence, however, was notorious and made their alliance with the hippies uneasy at best. The Angels were occasionally called in for "security" at large events, in lieu of police or other "official" presence, but at the Altamont free concert, they ended up killing a man. Even at a legendary meeting some years earlier with Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, and others, at Kesey's house in La Jolla--an event preserved for posterity in an account by Kesey and a poem by Ginsberg--the Angels' inclination toward violence and antagonism was kept in check, but just barely. Spot to foredge; near fine in near fine dust jacket.

109. (Hell's Angels). REYNOLDS, Frank. 666. The Hymn to Lucifer. (San Francisco): (Hell's Angels) (1968). Portfolio collection of 12 four-color broadsides, approximately 8" x 10", in illustrated cardstock folder. Reproduces hand-lettered, illustrated sheets by Reynolds--free-form poems that delve into personal history and the Angels' camaraderie, and carry various allusions to the mystical and metaphysical, from astrological markings to the references to Satan, both in the title and in the broadsides. The hand-lettering reproduced straddles the border between the psychedelic writing of the time, found in posters and other counterculture graphic art, and the embellished lettering of the Hell's Angels' logo adorning the club members' outfits and printed materials. Evidently, this portfolio was originally to have been given out free. Owner name on folder, a few corner spots, and slight wear to folder; still near fine. An interesting glimpse at the juxtaposition of the Hell's Angels and the counterculture, at a single moment in time when they intersected and seemed to complement each other.

110. (Hippies). RAE, George William. The Rock Nations. NY: Paperback Library (1971). Paperback original, a novel of "a generation searching for peace, drugs and soul-shattering music--from the love of Woodstock to the hatred of Altamont." Near fine in wrappers.

111. (Hippies). MARNHAM, Patrick. Road to Katmandu. NY: Putnam (1971). "An account of life on the hippie trail from Istanbul to Katmandu." Nonfiction: accounts of various hippies' journeys on the overland trail through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, to Nepal, a trek that became commonplace--and which was renowned for the quality of the hashish encountered along the way--in the late Sixties and into the Seventies. Foxing to top edge; near fine in a near fine, spine-faded dust jacket.

112. (Hippies). SCHNEIDER, Paul. Delia. Los Angeles: Sherbourne Press (1971). Scarce novel of a hippie chick who upsets the life of a young, relatively straight man, and embroils him in a complicated and dangerous affair. By a small Los Angeles publisher known for its books aimed at the youth/counterculture market. Fine in a near fine dust jacket.

113. (Hippies). VINCENT, Peter. Sanglorians Run. NY: Delacorte Press (1971). A novel that is self-consciously written in the hip vernacular and thus seems extraordinarily, even painfully, dated now. This copy is inscribed by the author. Near fine in a dust jacket chipped and worn at the crown; about very good.

114. (Hippies). RICHMOND, Lee. High on Gold. NY: Charterhouse (1972). A novel of young dropouts in the late Sixties, which also has a novel-within-a-novel about a California gold prospector in 1848 whose experience and attitudes anticipate those of the counterculture, in terms of his being a free-spirited individualist with enough respect for human life that he is disgusted by the casual racism and violence of his time. Slight foxing to top edge; else fine in a fine dust jacket.

115. HOFFMAN, Abbie. Fuck the System. (NY): (n.p.)(n.d.)[c. 1964]. An unattributed pamphlet written and produced by Hoffman in the early 1960s when, as a social worker, he got a government grant to help the poor on New York's Lower East Side. Thirty pages of advice on getting some things free and on not getting some things (sexual diseases) ever. Some of the material was later used in Steal This Book. Kurt Vonnegut, in his book Fates Worse than Death, said of Hoffman: "He is high on my list of saints, of exceptionally courageous, unarmed, unsponsored, unpaid souls who have tried to slow down even a little bit state crimes against those Jesus Christ said should inherit the Earth someday. He did this with truth, anger, and ridicule." This is an early example. Small stapled wrappers; near fine. Scarce, ephemeral piece.

116. HOFFMAN, Abbie. Woodstock Nation. NY: Vintage (1969). The hardcover edition of Hoffman's homage to the Woodstock Festival, heavily illustrated with photographs and graphics. Hoffman, who had earlier written Revolution for the Hell Of It, was a founder of the Yippies--a politically active counterculture movement which favored direct action--and one of the most prominent East Coast counterculture celebrities from 1967 on. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket with the barest rubbing to the folds. An uncommon title in the hardcover edition, especially in fine condition.

Long Abbie Hoffman Letter Defending His Revolutionary Credentials

117. HOFFMAN, Abbie. Autograph Letter Signed. Seven sheets, 4½" x 7". No date, circa 1970. Written to John Wilcock, editor of Other Scenes magazine, and columnist for Penthouse. Hoffman begins politely, assuring Wilcock that, with regard to Hoffman's recent book, Steal This Book, both Wilcock's magazine and "all underground papers... can reprint the whole thing if they want." He then goes on to mention that he was "peeved at 2 things"--one having to do with not being credited in Wilcock's column and the second, clearly a sore point, about Hoffman "assembling" rather than "writing" the book, implying that he ripped off the contents from others and now he was standing to make the money and claim the glory for others' work. Hoffman is livid about this. He says, "First off I wrote the book. Make no mistake about it... I spent 50 times the amount of work, etc than I did on both my previous books." And he goes on to take even greater exception to the inference that he was making money off his celebrity: he defends his revolutionary credentials, talking about the "penthouse" he lives in as being "neat cause Anita & I fixed it up by ourselves [and] is nothing more than a 3 room railroad flat that rents for $135 on one of the toughest blocks of the Lower East Side." And with regard to his supposed wealth--an accusation frequently leveled at him because of his celebrity and his penchant for the media spotlight--Hoffman cites chapter and verse of where his money has gone: "I recently lost $25,000 (plus taxes) on Dharuba's (NY 21) bail when he fled to Algeria. In fact last year, I probably lost more on bail than any other individual in the country. Then there was the huge expense of our trial & appeal. Then $2000 to John Sinclair, $5,000 for Yippis [sic] Algerian trip, $1,000 to Mother-Fuckers, $3,500 to start Movement Speakers Bureau, $7,500 for Yippie stuff, about $10,000 to groups that I care not to mention, WPAX radio to South-East Asia has already cost $6,000 all but $50 has come out of my book royalties. & well you get the point..." He goes on to mention that "Anita & I really try to live by the BOOK - Steal this Book, that is..." and says that "last year including the Chicago Trial expenses" he gave away over $100,000--inadvertently confirming the point that was often made, that financially he was in another class than most of his fellow revolutionaries, even if that didn't make him a hypocrite and he gave most of the money away. The letter concludes on a bitter note: "I really resented your implications & just file it in the memory of back jabs that inevitable [sic] pile up in a bullshit movement." An outstanding, revealing letter by the most high-profile figure of the counterculture, a founder of the Yippies, and later an underground social activist and, eventually, a suicide--one of the emblematic figures of an era. One edge of pages rough, where the sheets were torn from a notebook, otherwise fine. Together with mailing envelope and a letter from Wilcock, apparently responding to this.

Dennis Hopper Photographs, pre-Easy Rider

118. HOPPER, Dennis. Out of the Sixties. (Pasadena): Twelvetrees Press, 1986. Quarto, a book of photographs by Hopper, taken during the years 1961-1967. Subjects include Andy Warhol, Martin Luther King and the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march, various rock musicians and groups, such as Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, and various figures from the New York art world and from Hollywood. Hopper directed Easy Rider in 1968-69 and stopped taking photographs at that point. One of four thousand copies. Fine in a fine dust jacket with slight rubbing.

Human Be-In Handbills, Three Variant Designs

119. (Human Be-In). Handbill. San Francisco: [1967]. Handbill announcing: "POW-WOW/A Gathering of the Tribes for a Human Be-In" and listing some of the participants--Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Snyder, Rubin, Leary, Dick Gregory, "All SF Rock Bands," etc. along with the pertinent details: "Saturday Jan 14 1-5 P.M. Free, Polo Grounds, Golden Gate Pk." 8 1/2" x 11" on beige-colored stock, printed by Double H Press in San Francisco. The Human Be-In was conceived as another of the unstructured celebrations of the San Francisco hippie community, in the tradition of the earlier Trips Festival. The presence of a roster of superstar figures--Leary, Ginsberg, Alan Watts, Richard Alpert--was intended to help draw out the largest possible crowd, but the star of the event was intended to be the crowd itself. Indeed, the speakers could not be heard much of the time but no one much cared. The bands played in the afternoon, and included Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, and others. After the sound system broke down at one point, it was announced that the generator would hereafter be guarded by the Hell's Angels. The event went smoothly: tens of thousands of people showed up, many smoking pot or tripping on LSD, but the police kept a low profile and didn't bust any of the people openly smoking pot; a priest from the San Francisco Zen Temple meditated on stage throughout the day. At the end of the day, Gary Snyder blew a conch shell--a traditional Japanese Buddhist ritual instrument--and Allen Ginsberg led a Buddhist chant, at which point the crowd drifted apart. The Human Be-In became one of the milestone events of the emerging counterculture and, in retrospect, one of its high points. It succeeded for a time in bridging the gap between the San Francisco hippie culture and the Berkeley-based radical political movement, finding some common ground for the two--a joining of two disparate, and sometimes divergent, movements that has had repercussions to the present day: today, cultural experimentation and alternative lifestyles go hand in hand with political critique, a trend that was considerably more uncommon prior to this occasion. Of the various handbills announcing the Human Be-In, this is the scarcest (Art of Rock, 2.216). Fine.

120. -. Same title, an alternate design. 8 1/2" x 11". Printed in black on white paper with an illustration of a guitar-playing Indian on horseback. This image was created by Rick Griffin, and was only his second major piece, after a black-and-white poster made for the Psychedelic Shop in Haight-Ashbury. As a result of this poster, Chet Helms invited Griffin to contribute to the Avalon Ballroom series and he became one of the most highly regarded poster artists of the era. Griffin also created a number of album covers, notably those of the Grateful Dead for the albums Aoxomoxoa, Wake of the Flood, and Blues for Allah. His distinctive psychedelic style in the late Sixties became emblematic of the counterculture, and was widely imitated. This handbill corresponds to the poster printed in Art of Rock, #2.215. Fine.

121. -. Same title, yet another design (San Francisco: Bindwood Press, 1967). This poster designed by Michael Bowen with lettering by Stanley Mouse. Purple and gray on white. This was the original poster created for the Human Be-In--an image of an Indian swami with a third eye added by Bowen. The image was also used as the cover for issue number 5 of the Oracle, the San Francisco underground newspaper, which took on a decidedly more psychedelic look with this number, timed to coincide with the festival. Reportedly, Mouse wasn't especially happy with the design: he felt that the image of the Hindu holy man had been foisted on him, but Bowen had chosen the holy man to help convey the notion that the be-in was styled after a Hindu "kumbha mela," in addition to its being conceived as a model for future events. (Note: Jerry Rubin's last name is misspelled as "Ruben.") 8 1/2" x 11". Fine.

122. JODOROWSKY, Alexandro. El Topo. A Book of the Film. (n.p.): Douglas, 1971. A narrative of the landmark cult movie by its author and director, heavily illustrated with photographs from the film together with a lengthy interview with Jodorowsky. This is the very scarce hardcover edition (there was a simultaneous paperback). Fine in a near fine jacket with the lamination beginning to separate in a few spots, and a short tear at the bottom of the front spine fold.

123. (Kent State). Chestnut Burr. Kent: Kent State, 1970 & 1971. Two volumes of the Kent State University yearbook. The National Guard shootings at Kent State, which killed four students, occurred on May 4, 1970, but are covered in the second volume, which is bound in a flag motif covered with intermittent circles (bullet holes or gunsights?) and emblazoned with a thick black horizontal stripe. The coverage of the incident consists of reprinted news reports from the Akron Beacon Journal of May 24, 1970--three weeks after the disturbances and the shootings--bound in as the final pages, and a recording of various news clips from the day before, and the day of, the shootings. The recording is approximately 25 minutes long, playable at 16 RPM, and is still bound into the book as a flexi-disk. It was compiled from various sources, including the student radio station and other news media, and is intended to give a realistic and immediate experience of what was said and heard by the students during the events leading up to the shootings. The Kent State killings by a group of National Guardsmen called to quell an antiwar demonstration on the Kent State campus after a night of rioting and window-breaking in the town, polarized the country more than any event since the assassination of Martin Luther King, and seemed evidence of an impending breakdown of the social order and the real possibility of armed revolution in the U.S., something that had only been considered rhetorically to that point. The books are approximately 11" x 11"; the first volume has a small gutter hole; both volumes have modest surface wear. The print run on the first volume was 9100 copies; on the second, 11,200 copies. Near fine. For both:

124. KEROUAC, Jack. Satori in Paris. NY: Grove (1966). The hardcover issue of the first edition of this short book, one of Kerouac's last. Part travelogue, part memoir, part novel, this book helped rekindle interest in Kerouac's writing, by bringing it up-to-date--keeping alive the flame begun with On the Road and keeping that book from becoming a relic of another era. Like both On the Road and The Dharma Bums, Satori in Paris puts Kerouac's spontaneous prose and his free-spirited travels into a context in which they are defined in terms borrowed from Zen traditions, and thus the personal quest is identified with a transcendent spiritual one. Old price erasure front flyleaf and minute wear to boards at spine base; otherwise fine in a fine dust jacket.

125. KEROUAC, Jack and ALLEN, Steve. Poetry for the Beat Generation. NY: Hanover Records (n.d.). The second of Kerouac's recordings for general distribution. 33 1/3 rpm, 12" mono LP, with music by Steve Allen and poetry by Kerouac. Kerouac and Allen had met at the Village Vanguard at a poetry reading Kerouac was giving, and Allen sat in with him for the second show. After the show, they decided to collaborate on this album, which they produced in one take. Dot Records, which was to have released it, got cold feet at the last minute, after they had already sent out the review copies; it was issued by Hanover with liner notes describing the controversy over its release and also describing the genesis of the album. Gilbert Millstein, who had reviewed On the Road for the New York Times in 1957, wrote the liner notes. Fine in a very good sleeve. Scarce.

126. KESEY, Ken. Kesey's Garage Sale. (NY): (Viking) (1973). An advance review copy of the hardcover issue of this collection of shorter pieces, spanning the years of the Sixties, when Kesey's activities moved far from the strictly literary path he had been on when he wrote his first two novels. This was the first book Kesey published after Sometimes a Great Notion. According to the author, the pieces were not conceived as a book but instead were drawn from various sources and put together, much as the title suggests, like the items in a garage sale--thrown out to the reader for inspection, perusal, consideration. Between the publication of the two books, Kesey had led the Merry Pranksters on their famous bus trip, become a counterculture hero and advocate, and been a fugitive from the law, spending time in Mexico as a result of a drug bust. Other contributors to this volume include Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, Ken Babbs, Paul Krassner, and others. Introduction by playwright Arthur Miller. Heavily illustrated with sketches by Kesey, photographs, etc. With publisher's review slip and photo and promotional sheet laid in. Near fine in a fine dust jacket.

127. -. Same title. A complimentary copy to Hal Ashby of the simultaneous issue in wrappers. Strip of abrasion to foredge of cover; very good.

128. -. Same title, another copy of the issue in wrappers. Very good.

129. KESEY, Ken. The Further Inquiry. (NY): Viking (1990). An account of Kesey's famous bus trip with the Merry Pranksters in 1964, written in the form of an imaginary "trial" of the spirit of Neal Cassady--holy fool and avatar or con man extraordinaire? Cassady was the driver of the bus, and a charismatic figure who both inspired and sometimes intimidated the mostly younger people who surrounded him. Small quarto, multi-colored pages, heavily illustrated with photographs including many of Cassady, and a "flip-book" moving picture of Cassady at the lower corner of the pages. Fine in a fine dust jacket.

130. (KESEY, Ken). The Last Supplement to the Whole Earth Catalog. (Menlo Park): (Whole Earth Catalog) (1971). Kesey co-edited this and contributed "The Bible," "The I Ching," and "Tools from my Chest," some of the tools being Dope, Lord Buckley, Ashley Automatics, Larry McMurtry, Wendell Berry, Ginseng, Faulkner, Hemingway, Woody Guthrie, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Grateful Dead, more. An interesting collection of short pieces by a countercultural icon. The cover bears an R. Crumb interpretation of "The Last Supper." Rubbed; very good. Kesey's contribution was reprinted in Garage Sale.

131. (KESEY, Ken). STONE, Robert. "The Man Who Turned on the Here" in One Lord, One Faith, One Cornbread. Garden City: Anchor/Doubleday, 1973. One of Robert Stone's scarcest book appearances, reprinted from Free You magazine. Stone's piece is about Ken Kesey, "on the lam" in Mexico, and is one of the few places these longtime friends are directly linked in print. Other contributors include Richard Brautigan, Wendell Berry, Vic Lovell (the dedicatee of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), Judith Rascoe (who co-wrote the screenplays for two of Robert Stone's novels) and Kesey himself, who contributes a poem, "Cut the Motherfuckers Loose." The Free You was the magazine of the Mid-Peninsula Free University, one of the earliest experimental universities in the Sixties, near Stanford. Many of the contributors were from the "Perry Lane" crowd that gathered in Palo Alto in the early Sixties and included a number of writers from the Stanford Writing Workshops of Wallace Stegner who were experimenting with LSD and other drugs at the time. Larry McMurtry wrote a novelized account of the scene in his book, All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers. This volume was only issued in wrappers. Sunned; near fine.

132. -. Another copy. Inscribed by co-editor Ed McClanahan in 1987. Slight rubbing, but still a near fine copy.

133. (KESEY, Ken). "Tranny-man" in Spit in the Ocean #1. Pleasant Hill: Intrepid Trips (1974). The first issue of Kesey's homegrown magazine, edited by him with contributions by Kesey himself, Ken Babbs, Wendell Berry, Paul Krassner and others, including Kesey's alter-ego "Grandma Whittier." This is the first printing, with no writing on the spine, which is considerably scarcer than the later printing(s). Fine.

134. (KESEY, Ken). STRELOW, Michael, ed. Kesey. Eugene: Northwest Review Books (1977). Introductory essays by Malcolm Cowley and John Clark Pratt (editor of the Viking Critical Library edition of Cuckoo's Nest) and selections from Kesey's manuscript notes for Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion, as well as a number of other previously unpublished writings and drawings by Kesey. This is an advance review copy of the issue in wrappers. Fine.

135. (KESEY, Ken). Sorcerers. (n.p.): Ariel (1978). Quarto, only issued in wrappers. A collection of fantasy art, with a foreword by Kesey. A surprisingly elusive book. Near fine in wrappers.

136. (KESEY, Ken). American Book Review, Vol. 3, No. 4. (NY): (American Book Review) (1981). Kesey reviews The Ancient Rain by Bob Kaufman. Uncommon appearance by Kesey, who seldom reviews books. Pages yellowing; very good.

137. (KESEY, Ken). WHITMER, Peter O. "Ken Kesey's Search for the American Frontier" in Saturday Review. (Columbia): (Saturday Review) (1983). An article about, and profile of, Kesey, the main subject of which was the news that Kesey was again writing a novel, his first in 20 years. Near fine.

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