Beatnik/Beat Generation Writers - Search & Destroy

all these guys spoiled two generations of kids into thinking revision, meter, and rhymes were restrictions, man.

Apparently Ginsberg had a lot of charisma in person. It's from a cool distance that it's easy to see him as a clown.

i think 'america' and 'a supermarket in california' hold up just fine. most of these guys work better when you're hearing them read their stuff.

in tim lawrence's arthur russell biog it seems like ginsberg was really good to russell when he was dying of AIDS. pretty much everything else about russell's death is unbearably distressing so I find ginsberg's decency very touching & am positively predisposed to him as an individual. not sure if other beats took buddhism as seriously?

ginsberg is really aware of the fact that he's clowning, guys

"i wonder who allen could possibly be talking about"

ginsberg is really aware of the fact that he's clowning guys

does Bowles count? He's the only one who still scares me.

I mostly agree with Aimless though... Anyway, I love Bowles (search for Mohammed Mrabet) but you should try his wife, Jane.

As pointed out above, the soundtrack is better than the movie with the Beats, for me at least

No love for Corso?

don said something nice about him. i haven't read his stuff since i was a kid.

i'm not a big richard meltzer fan by any means but i remember his long essay reviewing a bunch of beat books (more than a hundred!) being really entertaining.

They always struck me as much more likely to be fun hanging out with than having to read their MSs.

i never finished on the road either but reading 3/4 of it at 17 was one of the best reading experiences of my life

Man, I thought the workd of OTR when I was 16, despite Capote's slagging off. I couldn't read it at all again when I was 21 even though it was the only English langauge book at at hand that week.

i feel like i would still dig it

This is the cover of the Subterraneans I read as a teenager.

http://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/files/2010/06/Kerouac-paperback-Subterraneans.jpg

I know it's apples and oranges, but if I want to revist that period, I'd rather read James Baldwin.

desire tormented by Jayne Mansfield doing the twist

You misspelled Ann-Margret.

started rereading 'big sur' last night to see if i still liked it and so far it's still a pretty intense read, very different from the laconic, aimless style of OTR. the first chapter has kerouac brooding bitterly on the idea of millions of readers thinking of him as a fun-loving 21-year-old when here he is a hard-drinking hermit in his 40s who can barely stand to go outside without having a panic attack. i feel like anyone who's tempted to reread OTR should just read this one instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaBnIzY3R00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcsUW_LBJlk

I became a much bigger Ben Hecht fan when I got older. I like hearing jack when he was younger and funny and lucid. he was quick. maybe not as quick as old man Hecht though.

that cover of the subterraneans is amazing, xpost.

i'm not sure how to articulate this but i like the lack of restraint, especially when read against the literary landscape of the time or whatever, the lack of restraint in putting things down in writing, and not just exciting stuff like getting your dick sucked but grocery list daily life bullshit that sort of makes legit and worthy those everyday, ugly things.

if i have to read kerouac, i've always liked dharma bums because it seems slow and nothing happens and even the parties seem pretty dull and it takes ages for the most mundane things to transpire and the overearnest depictions of ray thinking about buddhism are pleasantly ridiculous.

i like late burroughs, cities of the red night especially. but i like a lot of burroughs.

i sort of like gary snyder and rexroth but i do have trouble taking them seriously. it's interesting as someone interested in chinese literature and semi-interested in greater east asian literature to see how guys like snyder/rexroth approached it and it's fun to be frustrated by their misuses and misunderstandings of it.

not strictly a beat, but does anybody read terry southern any more? there's a great bit in the victor bockris bunker bk where southern and william s burroughs try out a grabbag of pharmaceutical drugs, just two crazy old hipster addicts hanging out.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/823f0e41be1c064fa5024b04770c3930/tumblr_mlgrojFmKZ1qd7l9to1_1280.jpg

i like the lack of restraint, especially when read against the literary landscape of the time or whatever, the lack of restraint in putting things down in writing

i feel you on this, and i disagree with Alfred's all these guys spoiled two generations of kids into thinking revision, meter, and rhymes were restrictions, man. because yeah, there's a lot of beat stuff i don't want to read (again) but i'm glad that that style is an option, that there's a corrective to mannered, "tasteful", writing-class prissiness which has its own virtues too but shd never ever be the only game in town

feel like the 'two generations of kids' bit is giving them too much credit tbh

not strictly a beat, but does anybody read terry southern any more?

i read 'candy' and 'the magic christian' a few years ago and loved them both. feels like a type of humor that's all but disappeared -- both of them read a little like lenny bruce-style put-ons stretched out to novel length.

Wow.

http://hoodline.com/2019/03/pioneering-san-francisco-poet-lawrence-ferlinghetti-turns-100-this-month?fbclid=IwAR20eFKDgkWAzsCxp_0oQbAD48dMNpniT1fdBjAWQ1jAlYYmXoBO5O6MZnc

bless him