Spoke to the painter Mary Beach the other day for the first time in a long, long time. As she said, "It's been a thousand years." When we knew each other back in the late '60s in San Francisco, we collaborated on a little magazine together with the French writer Claude Pelieu and the artist Norman O. Mustill. It was called The San Francisco Earthquake.

Mary and Claude, who lived together, were workaholics when I knew them. They invariably spent their days writing, translating and slicing up reams of magazine illustrations for pop collages. But after work they partied. Their apartment up the hill from North Beach was the scene of many drunken evenings. The two of them were incomparable hosts who prized intelligence, wit and balls above everything. Next came barbed gossip about overrated literary poobahs that usually ended in fits of laughter.

At the time, Mary was the publisher of Beach Books, Texts & Documents, which brought out Mustill's "Flypaper," William S. Burroughs's "APO-33," Pelieu's "With Revolvers Aimed Fingerbowls," Carl Weissner, Pelieu and Burroughs's "So Who Owns Death TV?" They're collectors' items now.

Earthquake, which lasted five issues and was distributed by City Lights Books, also published those writers and artists, along with many others: Charles Plymell, Ed Sanders, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ed Ruscha, Dick Higgins, Robert Duncan, Michael McClure, Frank O'Hara, Janine Pommy-Vega, Doug Blazek, Sinclair Beiles, Harold Norse, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Liam O'Gallagher and Nanos Valaoritis.

The first issue, co-edited with Gail Chiarrello (then using her married name Dusenberry), was printed by Mary's future son-in-law, Charles Plymell, on the old Multilith press in his bedroom. Charlie printed a lot of firsts on that Multilith, including Robert Crumb's first Zap Comix (scroll down), No. 0.