TALK OUT 1961

In February 2004 while packing up my father’s Brooklyn apartment, I found a reel to reel tape with this recording from Les Deux Mégots, the coffeehouse he had owned in the early 1960’s in New York City's East Village.

I put the tape on his old Revox reel to reel and was delighted to discover this wonderful piece of history. The recording was from one of the TALK OUT nights at Les Deux Mégots. TALK OUT nights were when guest speakers would come to discuss issues of the day, then take questions from the audience.

This night, October 3rd, 1961, the subject was Pornography, Obscenity and Censorship, issues that are still on the forefront of political debate today. The speakers were Tuli Kupferberg, Paul Krassner, Marty Geisler, James Finn and Robert Anton Wilson.

As I listened to the sometimes humorous, sometimes passionate exchange of ideas on the subject, I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if you could magically transport these speakers from their world of 1961 to today for just one hour. If you then showed them 15 minutes of Cable Television, had them listen to 15 minutes of shock-jock radio, spend 15 minutes surfing internet porn, then, finally, show them the infamous ‘wardrobe malfunction’ of the 2004 Superbowl, how might that change their perspective on the subject they discussed way back in 1961.

While it is impossible to know how the 1961 versions of Tuli Kupferberg, Paul Krassner, Marty Geisler, James Finn and Robert Anton Wilson might react, the surviving members of this group were delighted when I tracked them down and sent them a copy of the recordings

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