. . . in which Jerry Cimono talks about to Carolyn Cassady:
"She would say, 'Neal, you need to read Proust, and Jack, you need to read Hamlet--and then we're going to discuss them afterward.' So she was schooling these guys at the kitchen table."
However, we in Lowell MA know that certain information in San Francisco is not exactly true. Cimono says about the beats:
"They were basically intellectuals, and artists, and musicians, who really weren't out to change the world. They were just doing their own thing, but in the course of doing their own thing, they literally changed the world."
Jack Kerouac's social group here in Lowell in his high school years, meant to change the world. This progressive group socialization patterned how the Beats became organized in Kerouac's adult years. It is no accident, when someone impacts the world this way. It is by creative design and committed effort. It takes a lot of work, and knowing what to look for, what to do and what not to do. To say otherwise takes away from the genius that is 100% necessary.
Veterans of the original recital, which saw the poet sing his lines like a synagogue cantor as his confidence grew, while Kerouac chanted "Go, go, go" from the front row of the audience, still recall a sense of taking part in history. The feeling that youth and nonconformity were at last striking back engulfed the Bay area, then the US and much of the western world.
Ginsberg knows precisely what he is reading and what effect he would like it to have. Kerouac is the conductor, knowing exactly why he is egging Ginsberg on. Kerouac had been building to such a moment since he was a kid.
Carolyn Cassady, the last surviving member of Kerouac's closeknit coterie of friends and fellow Beats, now 84 and exiled in deepest Berkshire, is even more scathing about Noughties youth. 'It's all about money and surface now, the clothes you wear, the things you buy, and no one is the slightest bit ashamed of being superficial. I often thank God that Jack and Neal did not live long enough to see what has become of their vision'.
There is a little part of this video:
ReplyDeleteThe Beat Museum Grand Opening
San Francisco ABC7 KGO Interviews
Museum Curator Jerry Cimino
. . . in which Jerry Cimono talks about to Carolyn Cassady:
"She would say, 'Neal, you need to read Proust, and Jack, you need to read Hamlet--and then we're going to discuss them afterward.' So she was schooling these guys at the kitchen table."
However, we in Lowell MA know that certain information in San Francisco is not exactly true. Cimono says about the beats:
"They were basically intellectuals, and artists, and musicians, who really weren't out to change the world. They were just doing their own thing, but in the course of doing their own thing, they literally changed the world."
Jack Kerouac's social group here in Lowell in his high school years, meant to change the world. This progressive group socialization patterned how the Beats became organized in Kerouac's adult years. It is no accident, when someone impacts the world this way. It is by creative design and committed effort. It takes a lot of work, and knowing what to look for, what to do and what not to do. To say otherwise takes away from the genius that is 100% necessary.
Here is a paragraph from Howls in San Francisco and Leeds to mark the birth of Beat by Martin Wainwright in the Guardian a couple years ago.
Veterans of the original recital, which saw the poet sing his lines like a synagogue cantor as his confidence grew, while Kerouac chanted "Go, go, go" from the front row of the audience, still recall a sense of taking part in history. The feeling that youth and nonconformity were at last striking back engulfed the Bay area, then the US and much of the western world.
Ginsberg knows precisely what he is reading and what effect he would like it to have. Kerouac is the conductor, knowing exactly why he is egging Ginsberg on. Kerouac had been building to such a moment since he was a kid.
Yours,
Rus
Carolyn continues to have something to say:
ReplyDeleteCarolyn Cassady, the last surviving member of Kerouac's closeknit coterie of friends and fellow Beats, now 84 and exiled in deepest Berkshire, is even more scathing about Noughties youth. 'It's all about money and surface now, the clothes you wear, the things you buy, and no one is the slightest bit ashamed of being superficial. I often thank God that Jack and Neal did not live long enough to see what has become of their vision'.
from America's first king of the road