[1] Milton was a Bohemian, like Irving, and a classical composer, like his hero, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with whom he shared a birthday.
[1][3] Fiske joined Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky in a First Amendment-based defense of the Beat Generation coffee houses along Second Avenue in the East Village in 1964.
There, Barbara showed her paintings, along with those of others, and Irving began to give public talks on Tantra, Zen, Sufism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, and atheism, among many other things.
[4] Irving spoke out in favor of people finding their own creative path in life, enjoying themselves, being free of guilt and shame, and children's rights.
Hundreds of young people, including many who became well-known, such as Art Spiegelman (who dated, and lived with, Fiske's daughter Isabella)[6] and Stephen Huneck, began to visit Quarry Hill Creative Center.
After a period of some tension, he and Barbara reached a state of friendliness and mutual support, with the shared desire to see Quarry Hill continue.
[citation needed] Fiske's translation of Hamlet into modern English was never published, but was performed in public several times, once at Rollins College in Winter Park,Florida.
[citation needed] In 1947, Fiske filed a lawsuit against Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock for infringing upon Hamlet in Modern English.
[8] Most Saturday Review readers wrote in favor of the translation;[citation needed] as did such notable figures as William Saroyan, Orson Welles, Henry Miller, Upton Sinclair, Aldous Huxley, and George Bernard Shaw.