A Bright City Light
Commiserating with Lawrence Ferlinghetti on the state of the world

The morning after the election, I was in San Francisco at the Huntington Hotel, wanting to think about things other than the empty suit Minnesota elected to the U.S. Senate, still in a dark mood over the death of Paul Wellstone. I had a cup of coffee with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whom I'd admired for 40 years and never met. The poet and painter and proprietor of City Lights Bookstore, for whom the city even named a street. I'd heard a story about him the day before: of Ferlinghetti, who is 83, riding his bicycle and running into a hydrant while distracted by the sight of two beautiful women and crashing down in the street, and the two women running over to help him up, the poor old man, who was disappointed that they wouldn't give him their phone numbers.
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