Beat Museum a 'Howl' of a time

Beat Museum a 'Howl' of a time

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/21/DDGJ18NTBC.DTL

Kenneth Baker, Chronicle Art Critic
Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Only at the Beat Museum will you find an emergency exit warning you
that an alarm "will HOWL" if the door is opened.

References to Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) and his epic poem "Howl"
make many appearances besides this one in this offbeat "museum" of
all things and personalities tied to the Beat phenomenon in San Francisco.

The Chronicle's own Herb Caen (1916-1997) gets credit here more than
once for coining the term beatnik. (The Beat Museum has no fear of
redundancy, or no confidence in the viewer's short-term memory.)

The Beat Museum's North Beach neighbor, City Lights Books, first
published "Howl and Other Poems" in 1956, a year after Ginsberg's
first public reading of the poem at the Six Gallery, an event
regarded as the Beat sensibility's proclamation of its own existence.

A trove of memorabilia, displayed as it might be in someone's bedroom
- vintage photographs, letters, magazine and newspaper clippings,
books, album covers - traces the links between the Beats' rebellion
and the hippiedom that followed it. With his interests in Eastern
spirituality, world peace and liberated sexuality, Ginsberg makes a
good hinge between the '50s and the '60s and beyond.

But the presiding spirit at the Beat Museum is the more glamorous and
short-lived Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), who befriended Ginsberg long
before his 1957 "On the Road" sent Kerouac's name rocketing around
the world. Numerous foreign-language editions of the book fill a
locked case at the museum.

Two shabby pieces of upholstered furniture draw attention to
themselves and then to a small sign explaining that they specifically
have no connection to Kerouac's life, they merely typify the seating
the writer would have used, until the genuine article comes along.

Anyone who leaves the Beat Museum feeling cheated can demand the
return of his $5 admission. But the large first-floor bookstore will
more than repay the investment of time and curiosity.

Thursday: the Castro.

The Beat Museum: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Wed.-Sun., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Tues.
General admission: $5. 540 Broadway, San Francisco. (800) 537-6822.
www.thebeatmuseum.org.
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E-mail Kenneth Baker at kennethbaker@sfchronicle.com.

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