Destination: San Francisco
No. 9: “The Innocents Abroad” by Mark Twain
by Michael Yessis | 05.23.06 | 9:32 PM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 1869
Territory covered: Europe and the Holy Land
Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad marks a turning point for both the author and American travel writing. In 1867, Twain boarded the ship the Quaker City for a five-month Journey through Europe and the Holy Land, and he convinced the Daily Alta California, a San Francisco newspaper, to pay him $1,250 to file letters from abroad for publication. He sent 51, and those, along with a few others written for newspapers in New York, comprise “Innocents Abroad.” The dispatches, followed by lectures he delivered based on his travels, helped establish Twain’s voice as an American original. During Twain’s lifetime, “Innocents” was his most popular book, and today it remains perhaps the most celebrated travel book by an American writer. Some critics credit its longevity to its fresh approach: It was written from a different angle than most travel books of its time. As Twain writes in the preface:
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzKilling My Lobster in San Francisco’s Mission District
by Michael Yessis | 03.03.06 | 1:16 PM ET
The acclaimed San Francisco comedy group Killing My Lobster finishes up a two-weekend run of its travel-themed show “Killing My Lobster Takes a Cruise” tonight and tomorrow at the Brava Theater Center in San Francisco. I recommend this or any other Killing My Lobster event. The group puts on themed shows several times a year, and when I lived in San Francisco a few years back I saw a bunch of performances. All were hilarious. Here are a few ideas for what to see and do before and after the show.
San Francisco: The Mission District
by Michael Yessis | 03.03.06 | 1:05 PM ET
San Francisco’s Mission District, with its strong Latin tradition, is beloved by artists, activists, hipsters and foodies. “I try to get anybody coming to San Francisco to come to the Mission,” San Francisco-based writer Dave Eggers recently told the New York Times. “Not to misuse the word ‘authentic’—I think that’s such a troubling word—but the Mission really does have all the best parts of San Francisco intersecting here.”
The Beat Museum Opens in San Francisco
by Jim Benning | 01.20.06 | 1:00 AM ET
A one-room museum celebrating Beat Generation luminaries such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg has opened in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood with a slew of memorabilia, including photos, early book editions and an autographed copy of “Howl.” Jerry Cimino, a 51-year-old Beat fan and collector who worked at American Express and IBM, started the museum to “make more of a difference doing something no one else would try,” he told the Associated Press.
Key Notes
by Michael Yessis | 01.17.06 | 1:14 AM ET
I just returned from a long weekend in San Francisco, where I stayed at the travel-themed Hotel Carlton. It’s got many great touches—globes throughout the lobby, travel photos hung on the walls, maps and postcards decorating the interior of the elevators—but I liked the hotel’s room key cards most.
Kerouac’s “On the Road” Manuscript to be Displayed in San Francisco
by Jim Benning | 12.19.05 | 5:38 PM ET
A yellowing, 36-foot section of the original “On the Road” manuscript scroll will be displayed at the San Francisco Public Library from Jan. 14 to March 19, along with Kerouac-related books and photographs.
“Kerouac wrote the novel over a 20-day span in 1951, typing on 12-foot rolls of tracing paper so he didn’t have to pause to load paper in his typewriter,” an AP story on ABC News explains.
The AP story also notes:
After Kerouac died from alcoholism in 1969, the single-spaced manuscript, which has become yellow and brittle with time, changed hands several times. Some said it spent time in a dorm room closet before it turned up at the New York Public Library. Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay bought the scroll in 2001 at an auction for $2.43 million.
Related on World Hum:
* Jack Kerouac’s “Dharma Bums” Mansucript Moves to Florida
Gilmore v. Gonzales: Should U.S. Airline Passengers Have to Show ID?
by Michael Yessis | 12.14.05 | 1:08 AM ET
Last week the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals heard arguments in the Gilmore v. Gonzales case, in which San Francisco resident John Gilmore is challenging the requirement for air passengers to show identification before boarding a flight within the United States.
Is Simon Winchester Inadvertently Creating Natural Disasters?
by Jim Benning | 11.18.05 | 12:54 PM ET
You be the judge. He wrote “Krakatoa,” which involved a tsunami, and shortly thereafter, tsunamis struck South Asia. Then he wrote “A Crack in the Edge of the World” about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and a horrific quake hit Kashmir. Winchester himself told an amused audience in Menlo Park, California last month that his publicist is concerned: “She said, ‘Simon, have you ever thought people are going to start to say, whenever Simon Winchester writes a book, Stay indoors?’”
Early Morning with the Orange Army
by Michael Yessis | 06.01.01 | 1:07 AM ET
Crazed supporters of the Netherlands' national soccer team visited a San Francisco pub to watch them play in Euro 2000. Michael Yessis joined them.
- « Prev Page
- Next Page »