"San Francisco adventures and some that only began here" is the subtitle of a 4-CD author reading of early stories about fountain pens, Woody Allen, Pong, Rio Arriba, drug testing, identity theft and the flag. Print rights will be auctioned in April.
Woody Allen walked Elihu Blotnick to school, for $1 a week, once upon a time, in Long Beach, New York. The story is true. Later, Blotnick spent time in jail for his briefly banned narrative, Confessions of a Plastic Man". Both stories can be heard on California Street 1, the collected early works of Elihu Blotnick, available July 1, 2005, as a four CD audio release read by the author. The eleven stories included, called "fascinating and frightening" by the Pacific Historian, when they first appeared in book form under the same title in 1981, belong in the category of short story journalism and narrative non-fiction"; these are seminal stories, each resonant with a new character voice: from the beginning of electronic games, during a surge of alien claims on the U.S., at the advent of credit cards, and when fountain pens, the flag, and Woody Allen were fashionable. If re-told now, the details in some stories might change, but not the essence and outline or the personalities.
The stories were published in Scanlan's and San Francisco Magazine, written on assignment for Rolling Stone and Life, and pulled from his desk drawer. Blotnick is better known as a photographer; the original book contains many of his images. Since the loss of an eye however, he has shifted his focus to writing, and, in reviewing his past, rediscovered the recordings, made at his Little Known of Gallery, in San Francisco then, but a virtual site now.
Firefallmedia has remastered and rerecorded parts of the tapes for the current release. Accordingly, available July 1 in digital format on CD for the first time, California Street 1, a firefallmedia product, 0-915090-92-9, will be $24 retail, and available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or by ordering directly from the firefallmedia.com website.
Also to be released on July 1 is an audio CD of Russian Hill storm year, by the same author and on the firefallmedia label as well.
Review Copies and photos available on request. Interviews possible. Serial rights for print use of the Woody Allen story will be auctioned in April.
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