Spoke to the painter Mary Beach the other day for the first time in a long, long time. As she
said, “It’s been a thousand years.” When we knew each other back in the late ’60s in San
Francisco, we collaborated on a little magazine together with the French writer Claude P�lieu and
the artist Norman O. Mustill. It was called The San Francisco Earthquake.
Mary and Claude,
who lived together, were workaholics when I knew them. They invariably spent their days
writing, translating and slicing up reams of magazine illustrations for pop collages. But after work they partied. Their
apartment up the hill from North Beach was the scene of many drunken evenings. The two of
them were incomparable hosts who prized intelligence, wit and balls above everything. Next came
barbed gossip about overrated literary poobahs that usually ended in fits of laughter.
At the time, Mary was the publisher of Beach Books, Texts & Documents, which brought out
Mustill’s “Flypaper,” William S. Burroughs’s “APO-33,” P�lieu’s
“With Revolvers Aimed
Fingerbowls,” Carl Weissner, P�lieu and Burroughs’s “So Who Owns Death TV?” They’re
collectors’ items now.
Earthquake, which lasted for five issues and was distributed by City Lights Books, also
published those writers and artists, along with many others: Charles Plymell, Ed Sanders, Allen
Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ed Ruscha, Dick Higgins, Robert Duncan, Michael McClure,
Frank O’Hara, Gail Dusenbery, Janine Pommy-Vega, Doug Blazek, Sinclair Beiles, Harold Norse, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Liam O’Gallagher and Nanos Valaoritis.
The first issue, co-edited with Gail Chiarrello (then using her married name Dusenberry), was
printed by Mary’s future son-in-law, Charles Plymell,
on the old Multilith press in his bedroom. Charlie printed a lot of firsts on that Multilith, including
Robert Crumb’s first Zap Comix
(scroll down), No. 0.
Claude died 18 months ago at 68, long regarded in his native France and elsewhere in Europe
as a major figure among counterculture writers. Mary, who is 85, continues to paint. Here, for
instance, is her portrait of Allen
Ginsberg, and here is her portrait of Claude
P�lieu. She’d probably laugh at me for mentioning that she was briefly
interned in a Nazi prison camp and that, yes, she’s a relative of Sylvia Beach, as the Enderlin Gallery notes, or that she had her first
solo show in 1943 in Pau, France, and that she won the Prix du Dome at the Salon des Femmes
Peintres in 1959 and 1st Prize, Vichy, France, Silver Medal, also in 1959.
Charlie, who refers to himself now as a white-bearded old poet, continues working, too.
Probably best known for his prose memoir “The Last of the
Moccasins” — here’s an excerpt — he’s the author of 11 books
(scroll down), among them “Apocalypse
Rose” and “Neon Poems”
(two of his earliest) and “Hand On The
Doorknob“ (his latest). He’s also
the co-founder (with his wife Pamela and Josh Norton) of Cherry Valley Editions.
Mary’s literary papers are held by New York University in the Beach Archive at
The Fales Library & Special Collections. Mine are held by
the Special Collections divison of Northwestern University Library. I don’t know where Charlie’s
papers are. Hey, Charlie — who’s got ’em?
Postscript: “It’s Wichita State University.” — <
EM>CP
