#herb caen

[oldshowbiz]

Carol Doda of San Francisco

[andallshallbewell]

[davidhudson]

Herb Caen, April 3, 1916 – February 1, 1997.

1953 photo by Fred Lyon.

[justforbooks]

Herbert Eugene Caen was born on April 3, 1916. He was a San Francisco humorist and journalist whose daily column of local goings-on and insider gossip, social and political happenings, and offbeat puns and anecdotes—"A continuous love letter to San Francisco"—appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle for almost sixty years (excepting a relatively brief defection to The San Francisco Examiner) and made him a household name throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

"The secret of Caen's success", wrote the editor of a rival publication, was:

his outstanding ability to take a wisp of fog, a chance phrase overheard in an elevator, a happy child on a cable car, a deb in a tizzy over a social reversal, a family in distress and give each circumstance the magic touch that makes a reader an understanding eyewitness of the day's happenings.

A special Pulitzer Prize called him the "voice and conscience" of San Francisco.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[retropopcult]

San Francisco, 1953

[collectorsweekly]

The Gay Old Days: If You Really Want To See San Francisco's Future, Go Back to 1957

(Illustrations from “Herb Caen’s Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area,” 1957.)

[oldshowbiz]

Herb Caen Way

[oldshowbiz]

Herb Caen, the man who coined the term “beatnik.”