The Beat Generation
August 26, 2015 6:24 PM   Subscribe

The Word is Beat: Poetry, Jazz, Literature and the Beat Generation "It is the aspiration of much literature that it wants to change the way we look at the world, but few authors and poets have been as influential as the group of writers labeled the Beat Generation. They saw a lot that they did not like about American society in the fifties when they came of age, and they did their best to change it through their literature and a new practice of living."
posted by Seekerofsplendor (4 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is a fine summary of all that, one that captures the names and the shifts, but one I think the audience here is familiar with. I think the clip below is a decent distillation of 'Beat' at least as far as Kerouac took it. Others took it elsewhere and maybe further (Snyder, probably), but this bit of Kerouac's from Visions of Cody has always stood out to me as exemplary. It has the pace and the focus and the sound right. After that? Well that's the question.
WENT TO HECTOR’S, the glorious cafeteria of Cody’s first New York vision when he arrived in late 1946 all excited with his first wife; it made me sad to realize. A glittering counter—decorative walls—but nobody notices noble old ceiling of ancient decorated in fact almost baroque (Louis XV?) plaster now browned a smoky rich tan color—where chandeliers hung (obviously was old restaurant) now electric bulbs within metal casings or shades—But general effect is of shiny food on counter—walls are therefore not too noticeable—sections of ceiling-length mirrors, and mirror pillars, give spacious strange feeling—brown wood panels with coathooks and sections of rose-tint walls decorated with images, engraved—But ah the counter! as brilliant as B-way outside! Great rows of it—one vast L-shaped counter—great rows of diced mint jellos in glasses; diced strawberry jellos gleaming red, jellos mixed with peaches and cherries, cherry jellos top’t with whipcream, vanilla custards top’t with cream; great strawberry shortcakes already sliced in twelve sections, illuminating the center of the L—Huge salads, cottage cheese, pineapple, plums, egg salad, prunes, everything—vast baked apples—tumbling dishes of grapes, pale green and brown—immense pans of cheesecake, of raspberry cream cake, of flaky rich Napoleons, of simple Boston cake, armies of eclairs, of enormously dark chocolate cake (gleaming scatological brown)—of deepdish strudel, of time and the river—of freshly baked powdered cookies—of glazed strawberry-banana desserts—wild glazed orange cakes—pyramiding glazed desserts made of raspberries, whipcream, lady fingers sticking up—vast sections reserved for the splendors of coffee cakes and Danish crullers—All interspersed with white bottles of rich mad milk—Then the bread bun mountain—Then the serious business, the wild steaming fragrant hot-plate counter—Roast lamb, roast loin of pork, roast sirloin of beef, baked breast of lamb, stuff’d pepper, boiled chicken, stuff d spring chicken, things to make the poor penniless mouth water—big sections of meat fresh from ovens, and a great knife sitting alongside and the server who daintily lays out portions as thin as paper. The coffee counter, the urns, the cream jet, the steam—But most of all it’s that shining glazed sweet counter—showering like heaven—an all-out promise of joy in the great city of kicks. But I haven’t even mentioned the best of all—the cold cuts and sandwich and salad counter—with pans of mountainous spreads of all kinds that have cream cheese coverings sprinkled with chives and other bright spices, the pink lovely looking lox—cold ham—Swiss cheese—the whole counter gleaming with icy joy which is salty and nourishing—cold fish, herrings, onions—great loaves of rye bread sliced—so on—spreads of all kinds, egg salads big enough for a giant decorated and sprigged on a pan—in great sensuous shapes—salmon salads—( Poor Cody, in front of this in his scuffled-up beat Denver shoes, his literary “imitation”suit he had wanted to wear to be acceptable in New York cafeterias which he thought would be brown and plain like Denver cafeterias, with ordinary food)
What did you want to say about the Beats, Seekorofsplendor?
posted by notyou at 11:02 PM on August 26, 2015


Er, yes. But maybe a shorter? And maybe a little less, er, smug?
posted by JHarris at 3:23 AM on August 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


Beet poet, you say? sorry couldn't help myself
posted by yoHighness at 4:17 AM on August 27, 2015


I could never work out why Jack Kerouac didn't self publish "On the Road" and sell it from the back of that Hudson Hornet him and Jack Cassidy used to drive round in.
posted by Narrative_Historian at 3:44 AM on August 28, 2015


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