"However headlong their steps into the unknown, Sal and Dean are traditionalists, looking to connect with old forms, not slay them." Taking a cue from a conservative Christian account of the novel, he declares that "maybe Kerouac’s legacy is not Woodstock and Dockers but Costa Mesa and Christian rock."
True enough I suppose, and relatable, but:
(1) That tradition is the continuation of how we relate to the country since the Civil War, a person-to-person bonding following the discovery that the "United States is" a singular proper noun, no longer plural, and open to us all, a psychic shift that in its genius extrapolated to the Western world and is extremely attractive to the Asia now, both West and East, and will cause still more foundations to shake;
and (2) Kerouacs legacy is Woodstock also--of course it is, and more, permeating the jazz scene, and whose shoulders is Bob Dylan standing on anyway--but that this is the can of worms, the Question, that he now has us living, a Question that the Middle East is facing as I write, a decisively different way of living, a very different vision.
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.
You cannot have a Kerouac, the driver and king of the beats, who is only conservative, chanting "Go, go, go" to Ginsberg's Howl. Kerouac knew that critical mass was being reached in a vision he had had and had been caretaking since adolescence here in Lowell.
Consider before Kerouac went on the road. Give him a proper pigeonhole, of being a student-athlete (doing double duty, they tend to be sheltered, not worldly, but with a tension to be worldly), gifted both ways, a leader with a sharp mind and a focus, packed with theory of how to get things done and the fortitude to do it, a writer writer writer, very very well read also, at all points in his life. Jack was central to his social group here in Lowell as well, an adolescent group that looked to change the world. This is why I favored Alicia Rebensdorf's article in Alternet 50 Years on, Kerouac's 'On The Road' Reveals the Beatnik as a Tender, Geeky Romantic, maybe like the other foundation shaker of the last century, Einstein, a geek before the geeks' time.
Hi Frank,
ReplyDeleteHere's a typical Kerouac pigeonhole:
"However headlong their steps into the unknown, Sal and Dean are traditionalists, looking to connect with old forms, not slay them." Taking a cue from a conservative Christian account of the novel, he declares that "maybe Kerouac’s legacy is not Woodstock and Dockers but Costa Mesa and Christian rock."
True enough I suppose, and relatable, but:
(1) That tradition is the continuation of how we relate to the country since the Civil War, a person-to-person bonding following the discovery that the "United States is" a singular proper noun, no longer plural, and open to us all, a psychic shift that in its genius extrapolated to the Western world and is extremely attractive to the Asia now, both West and East, and will cause still more foundations to shake;
and (2) Kerouacs legacy is Woodstock also--of course it is, and more, permeating the jazz scene, and whose shoulders is Bob Dylan standing on anyway--but that this is the can of worms, the Question, that he now has us living, a Question that the Middle East is facing as I write, a decisively different way of living, a very different vision.
Yours,
Rus
Let's look at this another way. Here is an article from 2005: The Guardian: Howls in San Francisco and Leeds to mark the birth of Beat. Here is an excerpt, on Ginsberg's reading of Howl:
ReplyDeleteVeterans 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.
You cannot have a Kerouac, the driver and king of the beats, who is only conservative, chanting "Go, go, go" to Ginsberg's Howl. Kerouac knew that critical mass was being reached in a vision he had had and had been caretaking since adolescence here in Lowell.
Yours,
Rus
Consider before Kerouac went on the road. Give him a proper pigeonhole, of being a student-athlete (doing double duty, they tend to be sheltered, not worldly, but with a tension to be worldly), gifted both ways, a leader with a sharp mind and a focus, packed with theory of how to get things done and the fortitude to do it, a writer writer writer, very very well read also, at all points in his life. Jack was central to his social group here in Lowell as well, an adolescent group that looked to change the world. This is why I favored Alicia Rebensdorf's article in Alternet 50 Years on, Kerouac's 'On The Road' Reveals the Beatnik as a Tender, Geeky Romantic, maybe like the other foundation shaker of the last century, Einstein, a geek before the geeks' time.
ReplyDeleteYours,
Rus