Hirschman, Jack

Les Vidanges

Berkeley, CA: Beyond Baroque, 1972. First Edition. Stapled Sheets. Signed by Jack Hirschman to Thomas Rain Crowe, his apprentice, friend & the co-authorial Founder of the Second San Francisco Renaissance. This, to be sure, is among the rarest of all Jack Hirschman titles: a fate perhaps granted it by slim budgets and publisher urgency. We don't know all that much about this item, but we know the following: generally speaking, efforts to trace the influence of Jewish mysticism on writing associated with the First and Second San Francisco Renaissance direct our readerly (or, literary-historical) attention to the following two people: Jack Hirschman (1933-2021) & Wallace Berman (1926-1976). Hirschman was a presence at Berman’s soirees, which played a role in the birth of the latter’s pioneering, multimedia, small press “mail-art” magazine, Semina. Those interested in Berman (those desirous of understanding Berman’s own relationship to Jewish mysticism, and the way that relationship influenced the art & thought of his friends) should check out Tosh Berman’s (Son of Wallace; b. 1954) 2018 memoir on his father & the scene surrounding his magazine. The record suggests that Wallace’s interest in Jewish mysticism—including, but not limited to the Kabbalah—influenced several important acolytes (of which Jack Hirschman is one). This influence of Berman acknowledged, Jack Hirschman was a top-flight scholar & veritable library unto himself. In Your Devoted VP-of-Operations here at TMB’s opinion, Jack actually took this study to another level in his poetry and translation work. This period of creation and study was enormously generative for Jack, and he took that study of religious mysticism into his own writing of poetry and parlayed the endowments they granted him into new and daring ventures: into foreign language scholarship & related anthropological studies. All of this work is on view in this short pamphlet: an almost unbelievable rarity in the Hirschman oeuvre. From the archive of Thomas Rain Crowe, the legendary American poet and co-authorial founder of the Second San Francisco Renaissance. For more information on the Thomas Rain Crowe archive (assembled & curated by Third Mind Books), see our book, Starting from San Francisco: Thomas Rain Crowe in Conversation with Third Mind Books (Item No. 3071) & the catalog for the Crowe archive (Item No. 1010), which contains several excerpts and quotations from the book as well as a full listing of the archive’s contents, which are now being offered for sale individually on the Third Mind Books site. This item is additionally signed & inscribed by the poet, & with significant association: from the way-leading Leftist to his close mentee and literary Brothersoul—Thomas Rain Crowe. Hirschman's signature, in thin, black pen ink, reads: "For / Tom / [indiscernible Cyrillic] / Ever, / ["Jack," in Cyrillic]. In relatively good-to-near fine condition with moderate-to-significant shelf-wear, rubbing, since-flattened bump-creases (of the vertical & horizontal varieties) to/at varying locales of verso & recto sides & at all fine-edges; minor-to-moderate spotting, foxing, smudging, and similar exhibits of age-toning in variation present, variously throughout; and while the publication is complete, the final page — (which contains the colophon) — has ‘thrown off its staple’ like Marxian “chains.” It’s detached from the rest of the manuscript, in other words. That said, this separation was the result of a loosening, not a tear, and thus separated ‘cleanly’ (a fact which collectors will be happy to hear). Good-Near Fine. [Item #7447]

Price: $300.00