Basement of city lights bookstore [2/3]

San francisco. city lights bookstore

We discovered there was a basement just as ferlinghetti did- surprisedly. The website details the intriguing history of the basement.

And you could feel it here in the heavier air, the darker silence. The wood was more warped, and the flooring older. It seemed a mishmash of many souls and ideas pondered in here. Probably is a good place to hide during winter, where heat collects and thoughts can ferment. Every angle you look and corner you turn reveals another boggling arrangement of interesting titles. Sociology, religion, politics, geography. They were definitely wanting to get as much good stuff down as possible. Traffic was not a problem.

.

Upstairs [3/3]

.

Beneath this stairway was ferlinghetti’s “office” (now a storeroom). In here, ferlinghetti told kerouac that his favorite cat had died back home. Kerouac writes big sur shortly after. Every revolutionary idealist needs this book as a tripartite to the grand freedom of on the road, the wild hedonism of the dharma bums. Big sur takes you down-to-earth, where you already are anyway.