San Francisco's Diligent European Influence

In Terms of cultural influence as it has spread from the city of San Francisco, there are innumerable sites throughout the world that have drawn upon the thriving counter-cultural ideals manifested within the city confines. There were many examples brought up by Gray Brechin that of course have monetary, and even physical connections such as Rome, Mexico and even the Philippines, but not as many of belief or thought process. The Essay “Street Subversion” written by Timmothy W. Drescher appropriately focused on the murals and graffiti art present in particular districts especially the Mission, and the relevance of installations like Balmy Street and 24th street (Precita Eyes Muralists) upon the society’s culture, and sense of connectivity. The contada that I feel relates most to Drescher’s postulations on the subconscious role that street artists play in shaping the culture of any given site is France, because of the artistic precursors to the 1968 student protests leading to De Gaulle’s downfall. Although there really hasn’t been such an uprising as that in France, the graffiti throughout San Francisco is reminiscent of revolutionary culture, and in that way can be tied to all European cities whose populations contain that sect of artistic and counter-thinkers. The ideology in San Francisco is reflected in not only its architecture and design, but also in its artistic and poetic output as we have seen through Richard Brautigan and Allen Ginsberg as well as a number of mural arts centers. The overall San Francisco culture displays influence from South America, and many European sites, Italy in particular.
The formulation of the city of San Francisco is the product of input from a vast array of cultures, ideologies and locations throughout the world, adding to it’s dimension, while at the same time predisposing itself to the subjection of gentrification and district embodiment. North Beach is the Little Italy of the Bay Area, San Francisco in particular accepts Italia as a site that can be deemed correlated enough through infrastructure to be a contado of San Francisco. The word contado itself being Italian for county, it could practically lend itself to every county in the Pacific Northwest by the standards of relation that Brechin referred to in the multifaceted text Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin. The unrelentingly distinguishable city by the Bay perhaps should have adopted boroughs like those of New York so as to recognize more thoroughly the locations closer in proximity that hold responsibility for a larger portion of San Francisco’s success like San Mateo County, or even if all the counties with original Missions in them like San Benito and Santa Cruz for instance. One thing that can and most likely will always be attributed to Santa Cruz County is the country residence that Ken Kesey had which was so vividly and intensely described in Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (Wolfe, Tom) . Lest we forget the beautiful and beatific rant poetry of Jack Kerouac without which a more transgressive depiction of SF would never have occurred, and also without which the incredible tales of lives and minds of a generation “...destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,” would have gone much less documented.
With all of the imperious and virtuosic qualities to San Francisco, and the districts most intricately developed tending to attract the more artistic individuals, it could be stated that the distribution of poetry on the parts of Ferlinghetti and Brautigan that took place in such districts of San Francisco (primarily Golden Gate Park & North Beach) drastically romanticized life in the Bay. Of course the San Francisco Bay Area encompasses all of the surrounding cities and counties tied to the Fog city either geographically or socially, there are countless areas outside of this realm that can also be attributed to Brechin’s concept of cantado. New York for example holds within its limits the great Central Park, the likes of which can be seen echoed in the petite grandeur of Golden Gate Park. Despite San Francisco’s brief history in comparison to the great City-States that it pays respect to architecturally, the awareness of that brevity may be what allowed poets like Richard Brautigan to explain the modern significance of these sites as opposed to the intended purpose, mostly monetary influxes from tourism. Even tourism is viewed as cliché in San Francisco, and often strayed from as a primary activity within the City as You Are Here (You Think): A San Francisco Bus Tour describes. By visiting areas more derelict and culturally diverse, the people in the tour group experience a sort of metatourism that transcends the regular confines of a double-decker tour. Almost simultaneously in New York, before the fall of the Twin Towers Timothy “Speed” Levich gave his tour in a away that nobody could possibly experience and forget. When tour groups go through the Mission District in San Francisco and see all of the politically charged murals and their adjoining counter-culture forgetting is just as difficult. The point being that within the context of a city like San Francisco with its rapid development, and constant linkage to ties both international and local are observed in tour groups in a way very similar to the way the same scenes are presented through the poetry in Trout fishing in America as well as San Francisco Poems. Both of which contain imagery of one of the two locations previously discussed, primarily North Beach . While Ferlinghetti mildly depicts the social scenes there in a benign beatific manner, Brautigan more vividly and sharply describes people’s attitudes and reactions to the beat wino lifestyle that existed beneath the shiny reflective surface of San Francisco’s business center. The ties to Italy exist in the depictions of “The Old Italians Dying” as well as the winos so frowned upon by financial commuters, but also they exist fluidly through the shifting mindset and the association that San Franciscans can make between themselves and those outside of this country concerning political stances, ideologies and other essential matters.


1. 1968. Hysterical Realism interwoven with experiences with Hell’s Angels, Jack Kerouac, William Boroughs, the Grateful Dead especially and Bob Dylan.
2. Allen Ginsberg, Howl (City Lights Publications, 1956)
3. Lubell, Bernie. MacCannell, Juliet/Dean. City Lights Books. 1998.
4. Timothy “Speed” Levich eccentric tour guide responsible for numerous documentaries including “The Cruise” (1998) in which he poetically describes New York on a double-decker and with a slight cynical attitude throughout.
5. Brautigan, Richard. “Trout Fishing in America”.1967.
6. Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. “A Report on A Happening in Washington Square, San Francisco”.
7. Felinghetti, Lawerence. "San Francisco Poems"