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You might like to explore 'The Holy Barbarians' by Beat poet Lawrence Lipton - 1959 (if you can find a copy). It gives excellent background to the entire Beat scene.

The poetry of Gregory Corso you'd also find interesting..

    But I should get married I should be good
    How nice it'd be to come home to her
    and sit by the fireplace and she in the kitchen
    aproned young and lovely wanting my baby
    and so happy about me she burns the roast beef
    and comes crying to me and I get up from my big papa chair
    saying Christmas teeth! Radiant brains! Apple deaf!
    God what a husband I'd make! Yes, I should get married!
    So much to do! like sneaking into Mr Jones' house late at night
    and cover his golf clubs with 1920 Norwegian books
    Like hanging a picture of Rimbaud on the lawnmower
    like pasting Tannu Tuva postage stamps all over the picket fence
    like when Mrs Kindhead comes to collect for the Community Chest
    grab her and tell her There are unfavorable omens in the sky!
    And when the mayor comes to get my vote tell him
    When are you going to stop people killing whales!
    And when the milkman comes leave him a note in the bottle
    Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust


You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sun May 18th, 2008 at 05:25:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Ahhh Corso.  What a brilliant drunk.  One time Corso runs up to me on the street, holding the San Francisco Chronicle aloft.  "They've done it, they've committed Poesy," he shrieks.  The headline on the paper:

SHAH FALLS!  IRAN!

Skennah Kowa

by Crazy Horse on Sun May 18th, 2008 at 06:02:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Good grief! Am I speaking to a denizen of the City Lights bookshop? Am I communing with an acquaintance of the source of all my disturbed brain patterns?

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Sun May 18th, 2008 at 06:13:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Across the street from City Lights are two bars, one for the power elite, where even though smoking was illegal, you could smoke while watching Bono dance on the bar, especially if you were the Mayor.  Strangely, i was also permitted to go there.

The second bar was the writers' bar, a museum really, called Specs.  It was the derelict bar, frequented by the Corso's and would-be-Corso's of the world.  I was also permitted to go there.

Next to City Lights was another bar, Vesuvios, which took the spillover.  It was this nexus which gave San Francisco its reputation.  Strangely, to this day, it is still (in my mind, wherever i put it) the Bohemian capital of the world (or at least in my world.)

Despite all the famous bars with all their famous experiences, it was Ferlinghetti's City Lights which gave birth to the next generation of amurkan counter culture.  I'm still permitted there, and my visits lately, twice in the past few months, show that the City Lights spirit ain't dead yet.

Sven, tell us how this intersection of Beatnik and Dylan and Hippie, overseen by Ginsburg, affected you.

Skennah Kowa

by Crazy Horse on Sun May 18th, 2008 at 06:31:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Oh, right, i used to read stuff there (City Lights) as well, usually with bug-eyes that this could happen in amurka.

Skennah Kowa
by Crazy Horse on Sun May 18th, 2008 at 06:33:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]
While the rest of my schoolboy pals were researching the origins of R&B in obscure 'Race' records, I was researching (getting my hands on anything connected to) the Beat revolution.

I was given 'The Holy Barbarians' by a sculptor then dating my older sister and later, husband. I really don't know why this all clicked for a middle class virgin - but it seemed like a whole other explanation for existence that nobody had told me about. It is probaby connected to my father who was totally bowled over by India where he was stationed during the war. He gave me a copy of the Upanishads when I was 9, which, now I come to think about it, was a weird gift to a son at a tender age. He also gave me a copy of 'Ripley's Believe it or Not' at the same time, which had quite a lot of strange things that people had avoided telling me about before (so I reasoned).

Of course, all this was just a typical imprinting intersection with hormonal changes. Nothing we can do about that. The just born duck sees a football rolling by at the critical imprinting moment and then dedicates its life to leather sphericalness. My football is a patchwork of stitched up panels of heretics who can write unusually.

But it is indeed a privilege to meet someone who actually visited such hallowed haunts with the same nonchalance that I occupied Swinging London, thinking that eating sausages with Lennon was what people did. My naivity was then a blessing.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sun May 18th, 2008 at 07:00:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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