OPEN CITY No. 56, June 14–20, 1968 — Bukowski Front Page on the RFK Assassination, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Acid Rock and Revolution

An issue of the Los Angeles underground weekly in the full broadsheet format, featuring Charles Bukowski's "Notes of a Dirty Old Man." Given the entire front page in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, the column opens with a writer claiming he has something to write about Kennedy, and Bukowski launches into a wide-ranging meditation on assassination, the American political cycle, violence and power, Camus and freedom, the children who won't be murdered, and the machine that produces both assassins and the assassinated — arguing that the next one is already coming, that nothing changes, that America simply asks "Next? Next? Next?" This is the only issue in the run in which the Bukowski column occupies the entire front page.

The interior features John Bryan's early profile of Joni Mitchell alongside a Leonard Cohen interview. A two-page spread presents two views of the Kennedy assassination. An "Acid, Rock and Revolution" feature examines LSD as a political force. The back page carries a large advertisement for a four-day community festival at Wrigley Field featuring the Chambers Brothers, Pacific Gas and Electric, Lee Michaels, Frank Zappa, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Gloria Jones. Full broadsheet format, 22.5" x 15.5", red and black spot color on cover, black and white throughout interior.

Provenance: Mailing label on front cover addressed to John E. Bryan, 22420 Edgecliff Drive, Euclid, Ohio — the editor's father at his home address.

This copy is in great shape with even vertical and horizontal folds. There is a one-inch tear on the right side of the horizontal fold that impacts the cover and the following page. The paper is bright and white with a very small amount of browning.