Beat memories : the photographs of Allen Ginsberg 

I just happen to have been reading some of Allen Ginsberg’s poems recently (as one does!), so finding this on the new books shelf was a pleasant surprise. He was of course intimately (in so many ways) connected to the Beat Generation, and this selection of his photographs gives us a fly-on-the-wall view deep into the inner-circle of this exuberant, culture transforming group of friends.

Portobello Road : the early sixties,  photographs by John Petty

Before Portobello Road in London became ground zero for the “swinging sixties” with its hippies, mods and Carnaby Street fashionistas, it was already well established as the home of some of London’s most quirky and interesting  shops and street stalls. John Petty captures it at its uncool best in this wonderfully evocative series of black and white photographs, snapped over 3 years on the very eve of  its transformation. Fabulous……

Max’s Kansas City : art, glamour, rock and roll, edited by Steven Kasher

No Dorothy, we’re definitely not in Kansas anymore! Max’s Kansas City was infact a bar/hangout in New York where the worlds of art, fashion and music raucously collided from the sixties to the early eighties. Everybody from Andy Warhol to a young Madonna could be found there in its heyday, while in its second incarnation in the mid-seventies it became one of the leading venues for the new Punk movement; and as Lady Bracknell would say, “I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to?”

I bet Cliff Richard would’ve been seen down Portobello Road in the sixties (but maybe not Max’s place!)