My mom alerted me to the deaths of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Johnny Pacheco. Ferlinghetti was a seminal figure of the Beat generation, the owner of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, the publisher of Kerouac and Ginsberg, and a prolific and respected poet and painter. Here's what my Howard said in texts the other night (Howard has lived in San Francisco for over 20 years):
"we are alll in mourning here, def my coolest neighbor. i went to his 100th bday party. also wrote him in the 80s to see if he would carry The Howling Mantra poetry zine at City Lights that I made with a friend...and he did! H E R O"
Here's an interesting recent piece from PBS on him:
And salsa giant Johnny Pacheco. Here he is with la gran diva, Celia Cruz. Pacheco is the dude playing the flute.