Barbara Siegel... FOR: Albert Podell. For Immediate Release [press release suggesting that Big Table editor Podell be added to the Chicago Board of Film Censors]

[Chicago]: [195-]. Two 8.5x11 inch sheets stapled at corner; carbon copies of typed text, with a pen correction; minor handling, very good.

"An editor of Big Table, the Chicago literary magazine which publishes many of the Beat Generation writers and poets, has asked Mayor Daley to appoint him to fill one of the vacancies on the Chicago Board of Film Censors." A somewhat tongue-in-cheek proposal, noting Podell's qualifications ranging from having studied censorship and civil liberties at Cornell, to working as managing editor of Big Table (the first issue of which remained banned by the US Post Office). Podell asks the mayor to extend the Board's jurisdiction from movies to print publications. “A subtle, insidious, and grossly unfair form of censorship is quietly exercised over book and magazine wholesalers and retailers by certain religious organizations and other self-appointed censorship groups. Their standards are vague. Their methods are devious. And their effect is to stultify the cultural consciousness of Chicago.” Argues that it would be more fair “to enact laws accurately and fairly defining printed obscenity and to have the Board... and only the Board... see that these rules are enforced."
“When questioned about his known beatnik connections and specifically asked if he thought a beatnik would make a good film censor, Podell replied; 'I can think of few people beside the beatniks who, in this cold and crass civilization of ours, have the aesthetic nature and sensitivity needed to know a true work of art. In any case, better a beatnik than the artistically unlettered widows of political drumbeatniks who presently control the Board.'"

Cat.No: 347490

Price: $150.00