Tosh Berman's Blog, page 100
March 20, 2021
Wallace Berman "Mail Art" to Billy Jahrmarkt (Batman Gallery)
A handmade mail art collage announcement made by Berman for an event at Billy Jahrmarkt’s Batman Gallery, which featured Lew Welch and Kirby Doyle reading, as well as a film or performance by Paul Beattie and Bill Spencer. The postcard is illustrated with a pasted down photograph by Wallace Berman, which features Lew Welch peering out from beneath a hole in a dock or floorboards, with the large leatherbooted foot of Kirby Doyle poised above his fingers. The image appears on p. 61 of Wallace Berman: Photographs.
The event which this commemorates was likely the joint reading of Welch and Doyle’s “Din Poem” in 1961, which is mentioned in the chronology in Ring of Bone. The event was likely held on the opening of George Herms’ show that year at the gallery – a reminiscence by George Herms in Foley notes that Beattie showed a film and Doyle and Welch read at his the opening of his exhibition that year [Foley p. 21]
The Batman Gallery had opened in November of the previous year, and though only active for 5 years, was in retrospect on the most important alternative art galleries of the west coast. The walls had been painted matte black by Bruce Conner, who was the first artist to be shown. Jahrmarkt was a close friend of Berman, whose Verifax collages were created on a machine given to Berman by Jahrmarkt. A very early work by Berman with an excellent assocation, linking him with a close associate and the greatest gallery of the time.
Berman, Wallace. Mail Art Announcement for an Exhibit at Batman Gallery.
San Francisco: 1961. Collage, silver gelatin print. ink, and postage stamp on card stock [3 5/8 x 6 1/4″]. Addressed in Wallace Berman’s hand to Billy Jahrmarkt and postmarked in May of 1961.
From Mail Art: Division Leap
March 19, 2021
Wallace Berman "Mail Art" from Beverly Glen, Los Angeles
Wallace Berman "Mail Art" which sort of sounds like our everyday life in Beverly Glen at the time. Sent to David Meltzer.
March 18, 2021
Ciné Salon: Tosh: Growing Up in Wallace Berman's World
Ciné Salon hosted writer, poet, and once publisher of TamTam Books, Tosh Berman, on Monday, March 8, 2021. Tosh Berman penned the acclaimed memoir Tosh: Growing up in Wallace Berman’s World (2019). Event description: Son Tosh Berman will approach his father’s art, the "father of assemblage art" Beat Generation icon Wallace Berman, with a deep-dive into the experimental collage film Aleph (1958-1976), a meditation on life, death, mysticism, politics and pop culture.
March 16, 2021
SIGNED TOSH books on the Artbook website
The image below is the 'now' me, or the adult. If you wish to purchase a SIGNED copy of my memoir about my youth: TOSH: Growing Up in Wallace Berman's World (City Lights) you can do so here: Signed Copies of TOSH here
Playlist for Book Musik's "The Velvet Mafia" Featuring Joe Meek, Tommy Steele, Billy Fury, etc.
We put together a playlist to go with the Book Musik episode on "The Velvet Mafia: The Gay Men Who Ran The Swinging Sixties." We interviewed the author Darryl W. Bullock for this podcast. The Playlist is very detailed and indepth. Everything from Tommy Steele's "Rock With The Caveman" to Lionel Bart to classic Joe Meek, including the amazing "Do You Come Here Often?" by The Tornados. And some Brian Epstein related tracks as well. Enjoy!
Spotify: The Velvet Mafia Playlist for Spotify
Apple Music: The Velvet Mafia Playlist for Apple Music
Wallace Berman (self-made) Announcement and Sent to Michael and Joanne McClure
An announcement Wallace Berman (made by hand) and sent to Michael and Joanne McClure.
March 15, 2021
Who Is Lun*na Menoh? at the Ashland Indie Film Festival April 20th and April 21st
WHO IS LUN*NA MENOH? will be playing virtually on April 20-21 on Ashland Indie Film Festival's Eventive page on https://watch.eventive.org/. Tickets will be on sale on April 7th.Stay tuned for more information. #AIFF2021
Book Musik: "The Velvet Mafia: The Gay Men Who Ran The Swinging Sixties" Discussion with author Darryl W. Bullock
Book Musik 042 – The Velvet Mafia: The Gay Men Who Ran the Swinging Sixties – discussion with author Darryl W. BullockPosted on March 15, 2021 by Book Musik
Tosh and Kimley are joined by author Darryl W. Bullock to discuss his new book The Velvet Mafia: The Gay Men Who Ran the Swinging Sixties. Rock ‘n’ roll as we know it would not exist if not for this group of gay men in the U.K. during the late fifties and sixties fondly referred to as “The Velvet Mafia.” Larry Parnes, Brian Epstein, Joe Meek, Lionel Bart, and Robert Stigwood are some of the major players in this book who left an indelible mark on the pop/rock world. At a time in the U.K. when being gay was illegal and when pop music could only be heard from pirate radio stations, they managed to push the needle forward and open up a culture that allowed us all to swing!
Theme music: “Behind Our Efforts, Let There Be Found Our Efforts” by LG17
March 14, 2021
Growing Up in Wallace Berman's World (Tosh Berman Reads from his Memoir)
TOSH is a memoir of growing up as the son of an enigmatic, much-admired, hermetic, and ruthlessly bohemian artist during the waning years of the Beat Generation and the heyday of hippie counterculture. A critical figure in the history of postwar American culture, Tosh Berman's father, Wallace Berman, was known as the "father of assemblage art," and was the creator of the legendary mail-art publication Semina. Wallace Berman and his wife, famed beauty and artist's muse Shirley Berman, raised Tosh between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and their home life was a heady atmosphere of art, music, and literature, with local and international luminaries regularly passing through.
Purchase SIGNED Copies of TOSH: Growing Up in Wallace Berman's World (TamTam Books)
One can purchase a SIGNED copy of my memoir TOSH: Growing Up in Wallace Berman's World (City Lights) here:
