by Suzanne Guldimann
Photo by Harry Varnas
Poet and publisher Pablo Capra is haunted by a place that no longer exists, the vanished bohemian Eden of Lower Topanga. The loss of his childhood home has been the catalyst for his life and art.
Lower Topanga was erased from the map
by the California Department of Parks and Recreation in the first decade of the
21st century. In 2002, the community of artists, poets, writers, musicians,
surfers, stoners, dreamers, and outlaws received eviction notices. By 2007, the
neighborhood of bungalows, shacks and tiny houses originally built in the 1920s
was gone, torn down to make way for park facilities.
That loss inspired Pablo Capra's quest to
preserve the history of his childhood home. "It was a motivation to make sure
it was not erased from memory," he told the "Messenger Mountain
News." "It's weird, it's like it didn't exist," he said.
"The house where we lived, even the road it was on are completely
gone."
Capra, who started out writing and
publishing poetry, including a collection of Lower Topanga poets called
"Idlers of the Bamboo Grove," has spent nearly two decades collecting
the history of Topanga Beach, interviewing former residents, gathering photos
and publishing the stories and images in a series of books called "Topanga Beach Experience."
Early books featured the quirkily pen
and ink illustrations of James Mathers. More recently, Capra has gravitated to
photographic covers, often images from his growing collection of archival
photos.
"I was 22 or something when I
started doing this," Capra said. "I kept putting together more. It
amazes me how much I've been able to find from the '60s and '70s. There's a lot
less from the '80s and '90s than from 50 years ago."
The era of the digital camera and
social media has dynamically added to the record of Topanga Beach, Capra
explained. "There's incredible stuff," he said. "Photos from 100
years ago, photos from one hour ago. There are so many people documenting the
area, the beach culture. There's always someone on the beach with a camera."
While Lower Topanga and Topanga Beach
have "taken up a lot of energies of the press," Brass Tacks Press has
unfolded in related directions, publishing the works of other poets, including
lifelong Malibu resident Alden Marin and Downtown Los Angeles poet laureate and
Brass Tacks Press co-founder Richard McDowell.
In 2016, Capra collaborated with
historian Jay Ruby to publish "The Property: Malibu's Other Colony,"
a history of a small artists' utopia located just west of Topanga Beach, near
Tuna Canyon, that shared much in common with the Lower Topanga community.
Capra recently contributed an essay on
life in Lower Topanga's lost paradise for Ruby's book "Bohemia in Southern
California," published earlier this year by San Diego State University
Press.
In his essay, Capra reflects on his
personal lost world. "When you're confronted with that kind of freedom,
you really get to develop your individuality," he wrote.
There was a dark side as well.
"Like in many bohemian communities, there were plenty of opportunities for
hedonism and abuse," Capra wrote. "The privacy was so seductive, and
the low cost of living was such a relief, that it was easy to overindulge.
Pushing that freedom was addictive. There was almost a sense of torch-bearing,
like we should do this because we can… before the end, which always seemed to
be looming."
When the end came, Capra was there to
document it and he's kept the stories alive for another generation, one that
will never know what [the late part-time resident and poet Robert] Campbell described
as:
a perfect place just to get away
from the annoying crossroads
and noisy street signs
from the hustle and bustle struggle
just to stay alive
a move back to the big sky
with the flowers and trees
to let his mind shimmer
in the summer breeze.
"How have these values served me
in life?" Capra asks in the essay. "I think mostly they’ve kept me
healthy, honest, and positive.... However, I still long for those idle days
that enticed me to explore my creativity, and hope to find a place that feels so
much like home again."
As one of the last children to grow up
in the storied Lower Canyon, and as the keeper of its history, Capra has found
a way no only to preserve the memory of place, he has set those memories free
to live in other people's thoughts, and perhaps to inspire them in turn.
Capra is one of the guest speakers at
this year's Transport Topanga Literary Festival, and will be speaking on
September 24, 3:45 - 5 p.m., with his collaborators Eric Dugdale, Paul Lovas
and Gail McDonald-Tune.
More information is available online at
www.topangaauthorsgroup.com.
Learn more about
Brass Tacks Press and the Lower Topanga Photo Archive at www.brasstackspress.com.
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