Early in 1963 — in the midst of wrangling with a local printer who refused to set type for a text vivid with expletives — Lawrence Ferlinghetti drafted a letter to his friend and fellow poet, Allen Ginsberg: “If it weren’t for having that there City Lights book rack, [my wife] Kirby and I would live out of the country permanently. We both have had enough of ‘the whole evil’ government scene of provincial petty back-biting San Francisco especially. A real hick town… What I continue to hang around for I’ll never fathom. Maybe I’ll move City Lights publishing to Paris...”

It’s a provocative “What if?”