Author event: "Beyond the Outer Shores - the Untold Odyssey of Ed Ricketts, the

EVENT - BEYOND THE OUTER SHORES

In the 1930s, while the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression sent most of America into the doldrums, a lively intellectual and artistic community formed in the West, revolving around three legendary friends: Ed Ricketts, John Steinbeck, and Joseph Campbell. Steinbeck immortalized Monterey's bohemian spirit in Cannery Row, a novel that was inspired by his mentor and best friend, Ed Ricketts. Today, he's usually remembered as "Doc"-the beer-drinking philosopher-scientist who presides over Monterey's population of "whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches" in Cannery Row.  Untold is the fact that Ricketts was actually a trailblazing ecologist whose two books, Between Pacific Tides and Sea of Cortez (coauthored with Steinbeck) are still considered classics. And hardly a soul has any idea about Ricketts' enormous influence on Joseph Campbell, the twentieth century's great mythologist. Author Eric Enno Tamm will talk about this lone, largely marginalized scientist-an outcast to academia with no university degrees, memberships or honors. Some sixty years after his untimely death, Ed Ricketts' ecological approach and ethic are more relevant than ever to a generation now waking to full environmental consciousness. Although this odyssey ends in unspeakable tragedy, the lessons learned as you travel alongside Ed Ricketts are life affirming nonetheless.