IRVING ROSENTHAL was born in San Francisco on this date (d: 2022); He attended Pomona College and then the University of Chicago, where he did graduate work in human development.

In the late 1950s, Rosenthal became editor of The Chicago Review and succeeded in publishing poetry by Jack Kerouac, prose by Edward Dahlberg, and the first parts of William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch before the University of Chicago censored his editorial practice. After resigning from The Chicago Review, he moved to New York and started Big Table magazine with the help of a colleague. Its first issue included the entire contents of the suppressed 1959 winter edition of The Chicago Review. Although Big Table survived only briefly, its few issues strengthened Rosenthal’s connection to both the Dahlberg circle and the Beats.

Living in New York, Rosenthal developed particularly close relationships with Allen Ginsberg, Hubert Huncke, and other figures in the Beat movement. He subsequently visited Burroughs and Paul Bowles in Tangier and lived there from 1962 to1964. During this period he also began work on a novel, Sheeper, which was later published by Grove Press in 1967. Returning to New York, Rosenthal was drawn into the orbit of the experimental film maker, Jack Smith, and appeared in Flaming Creatures and No President .

In 1967 Rosenthal moved back to San Francisco with George Harris (soon to become Hibiscus and founder of the Cockettes) to start the Kaliflower commune, which continues to exist and where he lived until his death.

The Kaliflower spirit was one of communalism and cooperation. Many members saw their commune as their family. In one issue of Kaliflower, commune members wrote, “Nuclear family members don’t usually buy and sell to each other, are in fact communistic, and we wanted nuclear family intimacy among the communes”. It was common for members of Kaliflower to limit ties to relationships with non-communalist friends. Members gave their savings to the group and were encouraged to quit outside jobs and work inside the community instead. Some commune tasks included gardening, cleaning, cooking, running the Free Print Shop, maintaining a free store, or delivering the newsletter or food to other communes.

The community supported a culture of polyamory, resisting attachments to a single sexual partner. Many members slept in a group bedroom and regularly shared sexual partners, participating in what they considered to be a group marriage.

Major decisions were made by consensus within the daily meeting of committed community members. The commune also held voluntary criticism sessions to vent concerns with other commune members. During such a session, the member who asked for criticism would invite other members to participate, and then listen in silence while concerns & criticisms were aired. Customarily the member did not respond for three days. This system of self-governance was borrowed from the 19th-century American Utopian community at Oneida, NY.

Rosenthal brought his printing press to the basement of Kaliflower, and the space became known as the Free Print Shop, a free, underground publishing venue for Bay Area communes. The flyer for the opening of the Free Print Shop announced, “The Sutter Street Commune invites you to submit manuscripts, drawings, manifestos to our Free Print Shop. Free distribution guaranteed for whatever we print.” From then on, the Free Print Shop produced hundreds of publication including books, pamphlets, and flyers (for free services, ecology groups, political protests, announcements for free events), Food Conspiracy order sheets, and Free Medical Clinic prescription forms.

Rosenthal’s papers reside at Stanford University’s Green Library and the University of Delaware.