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ntil recently, Lawrence Ferlinghetti was vacationing in Mexico, popping into City Lights — the trailblazing bookstore and publishing house he founded in San Francisco in the early 1950s — and working on his paintings and poetry. But the last couple years have been tough on the literary icon's body as he approaches his 100th birthday on March 24. Ferlinghetti is nearly blind, spends a lot of time resting and no longer does in-person interviews.

"There's an echo in my phone," he says when his aide, writer and curator Mauro Aprile Zanetti, connects our call. "I'm not getting your voice very clearly."

But as soon as the connection clears up, Ferlinghetti is like a Formula One driver. He leaves me in the dust.

"I have an engine that doesn't run on petroleum!" he says, with a wheezing chuckle. "It runs on pure energy."

The poet, publisher and activist wants to start a revolution. But he says America isn't ready for it yet.

"It would take a whole new generation not devoted to the glorification of the capitalist system," he says. "A generation not trapped in the me, me, me."