THE BLACK BOOK 1992-1993

Published by Bill Brent, San Francisco, first edition, 1992. Softcover, plastic comb binding, 200 unnumbered pages, illustrated in b&w throughout. Very Good Condition: wear to the covers, otherwise tight, bright, clean and unmarked. Uncommon.

Rare first issue of this alternative directory for San Francisco's Leather community.

Bill Brent was involved in the Bay Area bisexual, BDSM, Black Leather, radical faerie, and pro sex literary communities in the 1990s. He published The Black Book which is one of the first queer and alternative sexuality directories. A prolific author of sex-positive literature and a member of San Francisco's alternative sexuality communities, he died during the weekend of August 18-19 by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge after a long struggle with depression and chronic pain. He was 52.

SIGNED and INSCRIBED by RICK GRIFFIN "To Bruce Bard In Friendship." Signed in thick black pen in his cross like trademark style.

Rick Griffin. Published by Perigee Paper Tiger (G.P. Putnam's Sons), New York City, 1980. Stated First Printing. Photographs by Bob Seidemann. Publisher's illustrated glossy card wraps, perfect bound, 11.25" x 8.25", 95 pages. Fully illustrated in color by Griffin showcasing his legendary psychedelic posters, surf posters, underground comix, album covers, and more. Very Good Condition: light shelf wear and edgewear to the covers but the spine remains uncreased. Internally, a touch of age, overall tight, bright, clean and unmarked. Rare Signed.

Rick Griffin (1944 -1991) American artist. One of the legendary 'Big Five' psychedelic poster artists of the 1960s. His work appeared on many iconic San Francisco rock concert posters and Grateful Dead album covers. As a contributor to the underground comix movement, his work appeared regularly in Zap Comix. In the mid-1960s, he participated in Ken Kesey's Acid Tests. His first art exhibition was for the Jook Savages, celebrating the one-year anniversary of the Psychedelic Shop on Haight Street. As a boy, Griffin was influenced by Native American culture, comic books, and surf culture.

Bruce Bard was a Petaluma philanthropist, music lover, Deadhead, and old hippie.

BEATITUDE #8 Bob Kaufman Jail Poems, + Ginsberg, Meltzer, Weiss, Ferlinghetti, et al BREAD & WINE MISSION S.F. 1959

BEATITUDE #8. Published by the BREAD & WINE MISSION, San Francisco, 1959. Includes Jail Poems by Bob Kaufman and poetry by many others.

Twenty four (24) mimeographed leaves printed on one side only, including the cover sheet which is blue, 8.5x11 inches, side stapled.

Beatitude was printed at the Bread & Wine Mission in San Francisco, a hub of counterculture and beat poetry. Printed on simple mimeograph machines by the poets themselves, few copies of the early issues remain.

GOOD condition: The front cover printed face and stars of this copy have been shaded in with pencil - perhaps before being distributed (this was printed by the crazy Beats, after all), perhaps by the owner - giving the printed face the nice look of a person of color. There is an R written at the top left corner of the front cover. The pages have some toning, there is a variation in the intensity of the mimeo printing, and the mimeo process has left some smudges; one poem has a couple margin marks noting a passage and "Plato's allegory?" written in the margin beside the passage; overall a complete, solid, nice copy.

SCARCE BEATITUDE printed in 1959 at the BREAD & WINE MISSION in San Francisco.

From the first page:

******In the snakepit of our city jail, with a man next to him dying unattended and himself sick from having been stamped upon by a public SERVANT, Kaufman writes his poems of suffering and compassionate identification. Their immediacy characterizes much of the poetry here printed. Margolis adds his poem of protest. The two poems are "confiscated" from the window of the bagel shop by officer 67. Ed Freeman, descending on the beach [North Beach, San Francisco] for a week. makes some great scenes performing his poems and adds his sympathy to both the black and the blue. Ginsberg sends a telegram but his poem on sakyamuni counsels more. Beatitude changes offices, we run through three bad mimeo machines, finally get a good one. At last, with many poems we find beautiful to print and a good percentage of the poets out of jail, we resume our publication at the bread and wine mission, corner greenwich and grant or at various outlets on the beach.******

About the BREAD & WINE MISSION (From a 2021 Issue of Outside Lands - Journal of San Francisco History):

******Despite the place's obscurity today, the Bread and Wine Mission played a substantial role in the Beat scene by providing a space where poets, artists and intellectuals could commune and make their ideas manifest. [The article includes a photo with the caption: William Margolis, Eileen Kaufman, and Bob Kaufman printing Beatitude at the Bread and Wine Mission, April 1959.]******

TAYLOR OF SAN FRANCISCO Custom Leather, Body Jewelry Free Piercing, 3-Star Aroma, Leather Repairs, Hot Action Art, Toys For The Playroom [At The Brig]

Original 1978 Illustrated Advertising Poster. (I can't find information on the artist). B&W lithograph on heavy paper, 21" x 14.25". VERY GOOD CONDITION: stiff creases, some age toning to the rear, a handsome piece of San Francisco LGBTQ+ ephemera.

Way before the Folsom Street Fair, Leathermen paraded along the streets of SoMa, mostly after dark. Decked out in black or western leather chaps, vests, jackets, belts, harnesses, and codpieces, all that rigging, kink wear, BDSM restraints and body jewelry were made and sold in the fantasy leather and sex toy shops found in SoMa bars like Taylor of San Francisco at the Brig. South of Market was one of the most extensive and densely occupied Leather neighborhoods in the world.

Joe Taylor ran his leather goods shop at the back of Brig Bar in 1978 and moved to the Ramrod Bar circa 1982. He also ran a custom leather workshop and private dungeon (featured in the "Dungeons of San Francisco" issue of Drummer magazine, #17) on Clementina in SoMa from the late 70s into the mid 80s. In the style of the times, Taylor billed his business as "Taylor of San Francisco" following the gay icon "Tom of Finland." Taylor was a SoMa icon in his own right and his workshop is listed in the SoMa registry of historic places.

EXTREMISTS RIGHT AND LEFT

Concern: A Discussion Series. Published by Silver Burdett Company, Morristown, NJ, 1970. Softcover, illustrated wraps, side staple bound, 10" x 6", 56 pages, illustrated throughout with evocative b&w photographs and bold red and blue graphics. VERY GOOD CONDITION: former owners name stamp on the inside of front and rear covers, light bookplate remnants on inside front cover, light edgewear, some age toning and light signs of use and wear, overall tight, bright, clean and unmarked.

Scarce 1970 work addressing the radical counterculture, race and extreme political polemics. The "Concern" series was a set of discussion booklets aimed at engaging students in critical thinking and discussion around various social issues. They were used in school settings to promote dialogue and understanding of complex topics like violence, poverty, and civil rights.

Peoples Forum, Vol. I, No. 17, March 1, 1977. Published by Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ, San Francisco, CA. First edition, broadsheet format, one folded sheet, four pages printed on newsprint. GOOD CONDITION: tender at the folds with tiny chips/wear, some edge tears/wear, and light age toning, otherwise bright and clean. Scarce.

In April 1976, Jim Jones' Peoples Temple launched Peoples Forum. Distributed on the street by Temple volunteers and dropped on doorsteps throughout San Francisco, it served as the Temple's monthly newspaper and main source of promotion and communication. The header shows three faces of different races, civil rights related imagery Jones used to advertise his interracial religious movement.

Jones' increasing radicalism and connection to the civil rights movement became apparent with the Peoples Forum. While early issues contain articles on "subjects as diverse as killer bees, Muhammed Ali, freedom of the press, and Jones hosting a TV show," later editions are more radical, illustrating Jones' support for Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party. In late 1976 Peoples Forum covered a story about the FBI's role in the death of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton. The cover photo from this March 1, 1977 edition shows Jones and Newton shaking hands. Peoples Forum exemplifies the increasing involvement Peoples Temple had in California with Black rights leaders, racial issues, and activism. Additionally, Peoples Forum denounced and exposed the rising dangers of neo Nazism in San Francisco.

Jim Jones' Peoples Temple is notorious for the way it ended in on November 18, 1978 with more than 900 people dying in a mass murder suicide at the Peoples Temple Settlement in Jonestown, Guyana. The majority of the Jonestown massacre victims were black women.

METABIOTICA / METABIOTICS. Monograph on the Brazilian Graphic Street Artist ALEXANDRE ORION.

SIGNED and DATED by ORION on the back cover.

Printed in Sao Paolo, Brazil, by EGM Grafica, 2006. Polyglot edition, text in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish. ISBN 10: 8598614033 ISBN 13: 978-8598614038.

Softcover book in printed slipcase, 12x12 inches (30x30 cm), 80 pages. Fully illustrated throughout.

Condition: NEAR FINE book, tight, bright, clean and unmarked; in a VERY GOOD slipcase that has a touch of wear at its folds. A lovely copy.

RARE, especially so SIGNED.

About ALEXANDRE ORION (from Wikipedia):

******Alexandre Orion, b.1978 in Sao Paulo, is a Brazilian street artist, multimedia artist and muralist.

He started as a graffiti artist in 1992, soon expanding into murals, photography and multimedia. Orion has held a number of solo exhibitions internationally and his work has been exhibited or acquired by such venues as the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Centro Cultural da Caixa, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Fondation Cartier Pour l'Art Contemporain in Paris, Centrum Beeldende Kunst of Rotterdam, Milwaukee Museum, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Spencer Museum of Art, and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.******

SUPERMARKET Words and Music By LEW WELCH and CHRIS ROBERTS

BROADSIDE, self published 1965, 13" x 9.75", reproduced holograph manuscript music score and chord chart for spoken word, voice and orchestra, printed on thin brown paper.

NEAR FINE CONDITION. This copy is from the personal collection of Donald Allen. Scarce, only one copy held in institutional hands located in the Lew Welch Papers at Special Collections & Archives UC San Diego, which was originally acquired from Donald Allen.

LEW WELCH (1926-1971) prominent Beat and cult figure, one of a handful of poets including Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Michael McClure, who emerged from the San Francisco Renaissance of the 1950s. Welch was a misfit even among the Beats. He wrote for the hipsters, Beats and beatniks who gathered nightly in San Francisco to listen to jazz, drink cappuccinos and sip red wine. In 1971 he wrote a suicide note that read, "I never could make anything work out right and now I'm betraying my friends." Then, with gun in hand he wandered into the forest surrounding Gary Snyder's home in the Sierra Nevadas, his body has never been found.

DONALD ALLEN (1912-2004) Lew Welch's literary executor, Grove Press editor, publisher, and author of The New American Poetry 1945-1960, the landmark literary anthology that has come to define the canon of early Beat poetry.

GRATEFUL DEAD - TWENTY FIVE YEARS - EUROPE 1990.

SIGNED & INSCRIBED in SILVER on the FRONT COVER by KEN KESEY, Friend, Mentor and LSD Guru to the Grateful Dead:

"Hmmm... / that's either Bill Graham's ghost or a live version of / Ken Kesey".

SIGNED & INSCRIBED in GOLD on the first two page panel by KEN BABBS, an LSD laden Merry Prankster and friend of the Grateful Dead and Ken Kesey:

"I didn't Go! - DURN! - Ken Babbs".

Softcovers, side stapled, 11.75x11.75 inches (the shape of a vinyl album cover), 26 pages. illustrated with photographs of the band and its Dead members.

NEAR FINE condition, just lightly handled, tight, bright, clean and clear. A lovely copy.

RARE SIGNED & INSCRIBED ASSOCIATION COPY that combines the GHOST of BILL GRAHAM, with the MERRY PRANKSTER MISCHIEVOUS WIT of KEN KESEY, and the LSD mindset of Prankster and Dead Friend KEN BABBS.

A Unique Item from the Pranksters and the Dead.

About KEN KESEY (excerpts from Wikipedia):

******Ken Kesey, b.1935 d.2001, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Sometimes a Great Notion, Merry Pranksters, Acid Tests, Grateful Dead... After One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was published, Kesey began hosting happenings with former colleagues, miscellaneous bohemian and literary figures, and other friends (Ken Babbs et al), collectively known as the MERRY PRANKSTERS; these parties, known as ACID TESTS, integrated the consumption of LSD with multimedia performances. KESEY MENTORED THE GRATEFUL DEAD (THE ACID TESTS' HOUSE BAND) throughout their early years and continued to exert a profound influence upon the group throughout their career.******

About KEN BABBS (from Wikipedia):

******Ken Babbs, b.1936, is a famous Merry Prankster who became one of the psychedelic leaders of the 1960s. He, along with best friend and Prankster leader Ken Kesey, wrote the book Last Go Round. Babbs is best known for his participation in the Acid Tests and on the bus Further. He and Ken Kesey said The Acid Tests were conceived when the Pranksters met the Grateful Dead.******

About BILL GRAHAM (from Wikipedia):

******Bill Graham, b.1931 d,1991, was a German-American rock concert promoter from the 1960s until his death in 1991 in a helicopter crash. On July 4, 1939, he was sent from Germany to France due to political uncertainty in his home country. At age 10, he settled into a foster home in the Bronx, New York. In the early 1960s, Graham moved to San Francisco, and in 1965, began to manage the San Francisco Mime Troupe which eventually led to his becoming one of the world's greatest Rock Concert Promoters. His promoted concerts at the Fillmore and Winterland Ballrooms made such bands as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, world famous. The San Francisco Civic Auditorium was renamed The Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in his honor.******

MACUNAIMA (1969). A Brazilian Cinema Novo masterpiece, considered one of the most important films in Brazilian history. Directed by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, in Portuguese with English subtitles. A box office hit in Brazil, it was released in a dubbed version for American audiences in 1972 by New Line Cinema.

Illustrated by underground New York psychedelic comic artist Frank Mell. His incredible work is similar to legendary R. Crumb Comics, but much less known. His work is in the collection of the Oakland Museum, he illustrated psychedelic album covers, posters, and his work can be found in counter culture periodicals.

Original MOVIE POSTER, Offset lithograph on paper, 37" x 24.5". GOOD Condition: stored rolled for decades, so the colors remain very bright, the bottom margin has some waviness and shorelining/staining, the top edge has some light creasing, there are a few light smudges here and there and a few signs of wear, but overall the poster is solid, bright and clear.

An epic psychedelic adventure fantasy on Brazilian themes and myths, based on a Modernist novel written in 1928 by Mario de Andrade (no relation to the film's director), the metaphorical, savagely satirical film has drawn comparisons to the work of Fellini, John Waters and Lina Wertmuller. A revealing allegory of Brazil's complex racial and cultural history with subtle references to its repressive military rule. Like the musical style Tropicalia gave the world a uniquely Brazilian beat, Macunaima exhibits a strong Brazilian identity.

When the film was first released in the United States, its most sensational elements were played up. In a comprehensive 1976 essay about it in the media review journal Jump Cut, author J.R. Molotnik wrote that the movie had been dubbed "Jungle Freaks" for its U.S. release and was advertised in the Village Voice as "95 Minutes of Brazil Nuts." "New Line Cinema, the film's U.S. distributor, was clearly seeking to attract the Voice's avowedly offbeat readers with promises of an exotic spoof," Molotnik wrote. "The movie buff likely to attend such an 'underground' film was thus readied for a far-out lighthearted film, one bearing little resemblance to the 'heavy' classics of Latin American revolutionary cinema."

Will be shipped carefully rolled in a sturdy mailing tube.

MODERN UTOPIAN: COMMUNES, JAPAN. By Richard Fairfield, with Photographs by Consuelo Sandoval, Sankichi Nomoto & Mamo Kato.

"Material on Japanese communes was compiled from personal experience and interviews in the communes themselves with added material and insights from other writers and visitors, including Meyer Steinbach, M.D.; Noboyoshi Tezuka, Michael Howden, and staff of the Japan Kibbutz Association."

Japanese Communes in this book include: Itto-en Community; New Village; Ohoyamato Ajisai; Shinkyo Commune; Yamagishi-kai Association; Hokkaido Yamagishi-ism; The Tribe; and more. (I wonder if Haruki Murakami based the commune in his book 1Q84 on one of these?)

Published by Alternative Foundation, San Francisco, 1972. First Edition. ISBN: 0912976020

GOOD condition, the covers have some light toning and corner creases; internally just lightly used, tight, bright, clean, clear and unmarked. A solid, presentable copy.

RARE and interesting look at the Japanese Utopian Communes of the early 1970s.