The Beat Generation

[ball79]

Bands honoring the name in the 60's from all over the world B)

 

[ball79]

Beatnik major book store in "Frisco" (San Francisco)
Lawrence Ferlinghetti opened City Lights in 1953

Three cheers for Terry Danielson, winner of 1959's Universal Miss Beatnik Contest in New York City
(from New York Journal-American, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin)

 

[Estella*]

oh, great pictures ball! i saw this just now, thank you.

from www.1.mid-day.com

Fickle fashion

By: Farrukh Dhondy
April 17, 2004 I pride myself on having a minimal quotient of physical vanity. When I watch my kids and their generation obsessed with their size, hairstyles and designer clothes, I calculate that their cool has a very different temperature from ours. These vanities come in historical trenches.

Theirs is certainly affected by the celebrity and endorsement culture.

My idea of cool came from the beatniks of Europe and their American poet imitators. It was a fashion of poverty, a cultivation of misshapen, moth-eaten sweaters, torn jackets, beards and dark rimmed glasses to look aggressively intellectual.

The Beatles and Stones were latecomers to the long hair game in which Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti had already put centuries on the board. Problem was that sweaters, jackets were hot and bothery in Western India.

And even if one had got hold of them they would resemble the poor wintering clerk in government service in Lucknow rather than the beatnik intellectual, so the fashions of cool were modernised and one got the old cottons and torn kurta style with overgrown hair which turned to the jholleywala of Left wing revolt.

The adaptations were fresh and natively innovative. I defy any of the fashion gurus of today to do a real ‘retro’ Indian style and revive the barsati-kings and queens with their cloth bags and attempts to look like the peasantry by tying their hair back. On second thought, I don’t. Some University recalcitrants ought to revive it as the designers would charge a thousand rupees for every hole in their mortal dress.

Mahatma Gandhi it was, who started it all. He transformed what was essentially a talking shop of upper class lawyers into a mass movement by setting a fashion in what was certainly not peasant costume, but was taken to be a symbol of it. It inspired the schoolboy rhyme during the Second World War, which my father later taught me:

Hitler with his black shirt
His back against the wall
Mussolini with his brown shirt
Heading for a fall
Churchill with his dress shirt
Will dominate them all
Three cheers for Gandhi
No shirt at all!

I still have a letter from him (my father, not the Mahatma) urging me to shave my beard and cut my hair before going for an interview at the Tata Endowment for the Higher Education of Indians. After a tiny struggle of conscience, I decided he was right. I had principles and wouldn’t conform to the bourgeois dress code, but then temporary conformity would be tactical. The beard would come again. The opportunity to get a scholarship to go abroad wouldn’t.

At the interview I faced a lovely old lady called Mrs Vesugarh who looked, on first impression, like the venerable Bertrand Russell. She asked searching questions. I was very glad I had taken my father’s advice when she called in masterji and his tailoring assistant with their sample bales.

She was going to equip me with a suit, with ‘Oxford Bags’ (Horror and consternation! This was the sixties, not the thirties when Mrs V went to Oxford, but her memories were long and unvarying!) and a tweed jacket, s’il vous plait.

She chose the greys of the Bags and the tweed for me, keeping up the pretence that they were my selections and asked me which material I fancied for the suit. I searched through them, urged on by the unctuous masterji and came upon a rather nice fawn coloured piece.

“Mr Dhondy, no gentleman wears a brown suit,” she said and chose a navy blue bale instead.

I was lumbered with these things and with wash and wear shirts which my mum thought would be convenient for student life in England. How I discarded this wardrobe on getting to Cambridge and afforded the poverty of the Rockers who were then half the fashion amongst undergrads, is another story.

 

[Estella*]

'the beatniks, here they are!' an article from 1960 found on www.tacky-times.com

[font=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]

[/font]
[font=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]Young people rebelling against the establishment and the standard moral guidelines have been a well known factor in Europe for a couple of generations. Now the youth of America has joined in. "The New World" has got their beatniks, who bold and cheekily turn their backs on the technical civilization and the official American moral.
[font=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]
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[font=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]The "Gas House" down by the beach in Venice, California, started off as a fashionable club, now it is a refuge for the beatniks. Here they arrange art exhibitions and literary evenings. [/font]
[font=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]

This guy, Earl Watkins, stay at the "Gas House" all day long. He keeps curious people away and read anything from Freud to cheap magazines.[/font]

[font=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]Art is the main interest, This young couple runs the "Focus", a small art and book shop.

In the back room they live their quiet lives with friends and each other. They do also offer a bed for the night to homeless beatniks.[/font]

[font=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]This 9 foot statue by René Boise is placed outside the art and book shop to show passers by what to expect to find inside the shop.[/font]

[font=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]The young lady practice meditation several hours a day and she also deeply into philosophy[/font].
[font=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]

This bearded beatnick stays mostly at a friends house to play the piano, he can't afford one him self. During the day he plays Bach and other classics, at night jazz and calypso. [/font]

[font=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]Strictly speaking, no one is allowed to live at the "Gas House", but if no where else is to be found, so what. Jerry Walters, is one of those who have found a small room at the back. He has even managed to fix himself a small kitchen.[/font]

[font=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]The "Gas House" gathers beatniks for poetry and literary events. Every now and then, a guest might drop in to take part in the arrangement. This is Ingrid Lothigius, a Swedish actress, who had a sort of debut in Venice. Sitting on the table, she read the beatnik poem "I'm made this way". She has performed in Paris, New York and London.[/font]

[font=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]How old and tired of life you may look when you're 18 and living in Venice. This cute little lady's boyfriend runs "Venice West" cafe, where beatniks can eat and drink even when they're broke. She only cares about her "man".




From the Norwegian magazine "Billed Journalen"
No 13 - March 23d 1960[/font]
[font=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]

[/font]

 

[Estella*]

i think he gave some ispiration, too

 

[strawberry daiquiri]

Thanks.

 

[nr9dream]

Interesting articles above & wonderful photos this thread makes me want to watch Funny Face again!

It reminded me of this show/book:

'Beatsville- popculture history of the beatnik' by Outré Gallery Press

A few examples of beatnik inspired art:

Beatnik vs Beat, 2003
Shag

Jackson 500 series Painting 35, 2003
Tim Biskup

 

[nr9dream]

Jean, 2003
Larry Wessel
C-type photographs/Montage

It's a Folknick Jam, 2002
Bob Moss
Mixed media / woodburn


More at http://www.beatsvillepad.com/

 

[Estella*]

you're very welcome, strawberry

thanks so much for posting that link and the pictures, nr9dream!
i love the larry wessel montage

 

[Yppe]

The pics you are posted are great nr9dream! I love that kind of drawings.

This is just a test I've found, Which beatnik are you?
http://selectsmart.com/FREE/select.php?client=beatnik

 

[james]

I'm Allen Ginsberg. Thanks for the test, Yppe!

 

[Yppe]

You're welcome james, I'm Allen Ginsberg too!

 

[Sanguinity]

thanks a million for those pictures and the texts .. right now i'm reading Junky [ by Burroughs] and i'm enjoying it

 

[luxmode]

i'm gregory corso , but my second match is ferlinghetti

great pics and info everyone!

anna karina, i love the name ambrose hollingsworth btw

 

[emma peel]

i'm ginsberg too ... although in a suitably perverse way I wanted to be burroughs.

 

[nr9dream]

Glad you liked the drawings too, Yppe...i'm Ferlinghetti

 

[AlmostFamous]

These pictures are great.

 

[Tinuviel]

thanks pigling, yes there is a very special mood to these pictures...and it doesn't make today look bright but somehow i get a very happy feeling from them, too...they were so vital and wild and bright...shining..

Interesting thread AnnaK! It all reminds me of this line from On the Road, "...the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centrelight pop and everybody goes Awww!"

That artwork is adorable esp the Jackson 500 series. Thanks nr9dream! Need to look those up.

 

[in the miso soup]

bumpity bump bump

people will probably find this more relevant now, as "beatnik" is considered to be one of f/w's "bigger" trends. i can't say i'm surprised. but a little confused. i didn't think bein' beat could be a trend . . . it's more of a way of life.

alas, perhaps it has. i, however, STILL wish men dressed more like this today.

as for myself, i'm going for a more beat look this fall than i usually do. but not in the "mod" way it has been targeted. nope. i'm going for a jack k. look a la on the road, but with some more femine touches. newsboy caps, flannels, ties, menswear, but feminine jewlery and pointy-toed shoes.

 

[Estella*]

^yay, that sounds fantastic misosoup. you should post a picture in what are you wearing

and thanks for the beautiful quote, tinuviel