Paris on the Government's Dime
I went into the Navy as Lawrence Ferling. Took part in D-Day and after the war I attended the Sorbonne on the G.I. Bill. ... Lots of guys did it. Spent four years in Paris, painting and translating poetry. And landed in San Francisco in 1950 with a sea bag over my shoulder. I liked the city; it had this insular feeling, like Naples. People there are Neapolitans first and Italians second. I came to North Beach, which was 90 percent Italian then, and I put the -hetti back on my name, and bought a partnership in the bookstore for $500, and here I am.
–Me, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, January 5th, 2003
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Julian Rose says:
piracies and it's spring
Mr. Ferlinghetti, thank you for what you did and what you are doing. Yours was a household name for me growing up; my dad had a poster of your poem "The World Is a Beautiful Place" up near all his books and I used to read it often. I shipped out to Japan in the Navy a few years ago, but before I did I visited your bookstore often and read everything I could. Now I am out of the Navy and attending the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo (also on the G.I. Bill), and I work for Alcatraz Cruises on the weekends. I saw you interviewed on Democracy Now recently and I do "pity the nation" I came back to after four years abroad with no exposure to U.S. commercials, and no FOX News. It was quite an unfriendly culture shock. It is very important for me and my generation to hear your perspective on how things came to be this way.
Just in case you are not hearing it enough, I wanted to let you know that your works, and Allen Ginsberg's and Jack Kerouac's, continue to excite the minds of young people today, and they continue to open doors in our minds that the U.S. corporatocracy would rather slam shut!
Steve Hauk says:
There's a fine piece . . .
. . . on the art of Mr. Ferlinghetti by Ben Bamsey in the (current) 2008 Spring issue of Artworks Magazine. He's as outspoken about his art as he is about poetry and literature and Artworks prominently displays the Ferlinghetti quote ``How long has it been since any prominent North American painter has made any important statements?'' Ferlinghetti's art is a kind of folk art, a high primitive kind of work that makes straight forward statements with strong images (a man in an electrice chair and the words ``This is not a man,'' a woman with head bowed and the words ``Silence is complicity''). Interesting background on him, from watching soldiers being killed during the D-Day Invasion of Normandy to seeing the bomb fall on Nagasaki just six weeks later. ``The devastation turned him into a lifelong pacifist,'' writes Bamsey.
Gail Harris says:
Ciao, Bello!
I loved your interview in the documentary, "Little Italy" - I think was the title...interviews with Italian Americans, a group I claim with great love and appreciation. I am at the moment on the beach in Mexico, but found you here in the Red Room and am honored to say, Ciao to you.
Gail Harris