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PocketCasts David Perlis: Everything You Love Is from Marin
The Marin-born author and former WFMU host joins us to discuss 'Morning in Marin,' his history of how Alan Watts, the Grateful Dead, George Lucas, and Philip K. Dick turned one county north of the Golden Gate into a center of postwar American culture.
This week we're putting The Tonearm's needle on author David Perlis. David grew up in Marin County and co-hosted Night People on WFMU.
His first book, Morning in Marin, is out now. It follows characters including Alan Watts, the Grateful Dead, George Lucas, Philip K. Dick and many others through America's postwar creative boom.
We talk about why he traded fiction for the true story, the letters of Gary Snyder and Alan Watts, and why young artists struggle to find a foothold in Marin today.
(The musical excerpts heard in the interview are from Bola Sete's The Kitchen Tapes, Jerry Garcia and Howard Wales's Hooteroll?, and Carlos Santana's Santana Brothers, each featuring a different song called "Morning in Marin")
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Dig Deeper
Author and Book:
- Visit David Perlis at daveperlis.substack.com and listen to Night People on WFMU
- Purchase Morning in Marin: Zen, Drugs, and Ewoks on the California Coast from Heyday or Bookshop.org
Coverage:
- The Long Reach of the "Marinaissance" (KQED Forum)
- A new book uncovers Marin's essential role in the counterculture movement (7x7)
- Kirkus review
People and Places:
- Elsa Gidlow and Druid Heights
- Alan Watts
- The ferryboat Vallejo
- Anna Halprin (Tamalpa Institute)
- Gary Snyder Papers (UC Davis Library)
- Lew Welch
- Elizabeth Terwilliger (Marin History Museum)
- Art Clokey and Gumby Dharma
- The WELL
The Three "Morning in Marin" Recordings:
- Bola Sete, The Kitchen Tapes
- Jerry Garcia and Howard Wales, Hooteroll?
- Carlos Santana, Santana Brothers
From The Tonearm:
- Jorma and Vanessa Kaukonen (Spotlight On)
- Jack Casady (Spotlight On)
- Grateful Dead, New York, NY, September 20, 1988
- Grateful Dead, New York, NY, September 13, 1991
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- Dig into this episode's complete show notes at podcast.thetonearm.com
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