The Last Times
The Last Times was a tabloid underground newspaper published in San Francisco in 1967 by beatnik poet and printer Charles Plymell. It lasted only two issues, but included work by William Burroughs, Claude Pelieu, Allen Ginsberg, and Charles Bukowski.
| Type | Newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Tabloid/Alternative newspaper |
| Founder(s) | Charles Plymell |
| Publisher | Charles Plymell |
| Founded | 1967 in San Francisco |
| Ceased publication | 1967 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, U.S. |
The Last Times featured William Burroughs' text Day the Records Went Up (a version of which later appeared in Evergreen Review, November 1968), Claude Pelieu's Do It Yourself & Dig It, Allen Ginsberg's poem "Television Was A Baby Crawling Toward that Deathchamber" (also published in Ginsberg's book T.V. Baby Poems , London: Cape Goliart Press, 1967), and a Charles Bukowski column, collected in his Notes of a Dirty Old Man, reprinted from the Los Angeles-based underground journal Open City.[1]
The Last Times #1 and 2 also contained articles by French avant-gardist Jean-Jacques Lebel and Man Suicided by Society by Antonin Artaud, translated by Mary Beach, Plymell's mother-in-law.[2] Issue #1 also contains the first Plymell printed work of R. Crumb that Plymell had "lifted" from the second issue of Yarrowstalks (a Philadelphia-based underground newspaper).
Plymell subsequently earned a bit of immortality in the underground press by publishing only the first printing of Robert Crumb's Zap Comix #1, which Don Donahue took over from Plymell when he purchased his Multilith 1250 printing press soon after.
References
- Open City vol. 2, #20 (Sept. 14–21, 1967).
- Bookseller's description (with photo)
External links