The Spirit of Zen: A Way of Life, Work and Art in the Far East
Watts, Alan. The Spirit of Zen: A Way of Life, Work and Art in the Far East. Grove Press, 1960 (16th Printing). Softbound. Texas-born cover designer Roy Kuhlman, who got his start as a fine artist and regularly treated himself with an orgone accumulator throughout much of his life, was hired at the age of 28 by Grove Press's Barney Rosset after two abstract pieces accidentally slipped from a side pocket of his portfolio during an otherwise disastrous job interview. He would go on to design over 700 Grove covers, including this seminal installment in the publisher's Wisdom of the East series, released at the height of the popularity of Watts's weekly radio program on Berkeley's listener-supported Pacifica Radio station, KPFA. The self-described 'philosophical entertainer' spent much of his life in a cabin at Druid Heights, the Marin County bohemian community founded by poet Elsa Gidlow with Isabel Quallo and Roger Somers. After a period of heavy drinking, Watts died mysteriously there in 1973 at the age of 58, his body quickly whisked away and cremated by Buddhist monks on a wooden pyre at nearby Muir Beach.
