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THE BEAT GENERATION, ETC.
A group dedicated to all things from the Beat Generation, and in the spirit of it. From Beat poetry and jazz to cutting-edge statements in modern art -- if you like culture that pushes the envelope, you can share and discuss it here.
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Check Out Our Files Pages
In our Files pages we have a small library of poetry, essays, and other materials related to The Beat Generation, including works by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and many others. Items are listed in the order posted. To get there, click on "Files" in the pink area near the top center of this page.
3 months ago
Recent Messages
Should I Keep Turning The Lights On?
Just curious: would it make much difference to anybody besides me if this group were to go dark?
The Subject Is Jazz
Here's an episode of Billy Taylor's' 1958 TV show, "The Subject Is Jazz," featuring Bill Evans, Tony Scott, Art Farmer, Jimmy Cleveland, Doc Severinsen, Ed Thigpen, Mundell Lowe, Eddie Safranski and George Russell. It’s the show’s last episode, “The Future Of Jazz”. Presented on the web by by
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The episode is 25 minutes long. I sure wish this show was still on!
Welcome!
Welcome to JaydeSky, our newest member! We'd love to hear about your interest in The Beats, or any cutting edge art.Hope you enjoy the group.
Murals, Anyone?
One of the few things I miss about Philadelphia is the murals. This one is "A Message to the Child...The Hero Can be Found'" by John Lewis. It was created as part of the city's Mural Arts program / Anti-Graffiti Network.
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A Hidden Star In Dylan's Shadow
This scene is from Bob Dylan’s 1978 film “Renaldo And Clara,” a document of performances by him and his fellow artists on “The Rolling Thunder Tour”. The powerful, poetic song is “Need A New Sun Rising,” written and performed by the brilliant -- and oddly unappreciated – singer-composer-actress Ronee Blakley. If you’ve ever wondered whose was that strong female voice on Dylan's fiery hit “Hurricane,” this is her.
Ronee was also the closest thing to a main character in Robert Altman’s epic “Nashville” – she played Barbara Jean, the fragile country singer who is shot onstage at the climax of the film. She was nominated for an Oscar for her very moving performance in that role, but the award went to Lee Grant for her turn in "Shampoo".
Ronee was another of the people I was privileged to interview during my tenure as a journalist. She is a very bright, very open person, and also a wonderful poet. Currently, she has a spoken word CD available (“Freespeak”) and a DVD/soundtrack CD of her own rarely-seen film, “I Played It For You” which captures performances of many of her songs and chronicles her 7-year marriage to filmmaker Wim Wenders. (She also figures prominently in Wenders's film, "Lightning Over Water," a documentary about the final illness of "Rebel Without A Cause" director Nicholas Ray).
You can learn more about Ronee at her MySpace page:
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or at Wikipedia’s informative entry about her:
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To see a scene from “I Played It For You” (including her performance of the song “Waitin’”),
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David Hockney
Man Taking Shower In Beverly Hills, by David Hockney, 1964
Hockney, David (1937- ). British painter, draughtsman, printmaker, photographer, and designer. After a brilliant prize-winning career as a student at the Royal College of Art, Hockney had achieved international success by the time he was in his mid-20s, and has since consolidated his position as by far the best-known British artist of his generation. His early paintings, often almost jokey in mood, gained him a reputation of leading Pop artist, although he himself rejected the label. Often his work has a strong homo-erotic content.
This painting and text are from WebMuseum, Paris:
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Oldenburg's Clothespin in Philly
Clothespin, 1976 by Claes Oldenburg
Cor-Ten and stainless steels
45 ft. x 12 ft. 3 in. x 4 ft. 6 in. (13.7 x 3.7 x 1.4 m)
Centre Square Plaza, Fifteenth and Market streets, Philadelphia
Photo by Attilio Maranzano
Commissioned May 1974, through the Redevelopment Authority's Fine Arts Program; Installed June 25, 1976; Inaugurated July 1, 1976
From Wikipedia:
Claes Oldenburg (born January 28, 1929) is a sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions of normally hard objects.
Oldenburg was born in Stockholm, Sweden, the son of a Swedish diplomat. As a child he and his family moved to America in 1936, first to New York then, later, to Chicago where he graduated from the Latin School of Chicago. He studied at Yale University from 1946 to 1950, then returned to Chicago where he studied under the direction of Paul Wieghardt at the Art Institute of Chicago until 1954.
In 1953, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He moved back to New York City in 1956. There he met a number of artists, including Jim Dine, Red Grooms, and Allan Kaprow, whose Happenings incorporated theatrical aspects and provided an alternative to the abstract expressionism that had come to dominate much of the art scene.
Many of Oldenburg's giant sculptures of mundane objects elicited public ridicule before being embraced as whimsical, insightful, and fun additions to public outdoor art. In the 1960s he became associated with the Pop Art movement and attended many so-called happenings, which were performance art related productions of that time. This brash, often humorous approach was at odds with the prevailing sensibility that, by its nature, art dealt with "profound" expressions or ideas. But Oldenburg's spirited art found first a niche then a great popularity that endures to this day.
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In 1976 I was very active in the Philadelphia poetry scene. When this sculpture was first installed, I used it as an image in a poem that I often performed at readings. I would always joke, when introducing the poem, that -- since it was right across the street from City Hall, and Frank Rizzo was mayor at the time -- it should be clipped onto a giant nose.
Quentin Crisp: The Ultimate Character
Quentin Crisp
Quotes from Quentin Crisp:
An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing.
Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.
Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.
The trouble with children is that they're not returnable.
When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?
***
The following biography is from the memorial site “”The Quentin Crisp Archives”:
Quentin Crisp (1908–1999) is the author of the classic — and flamboyantly eccentric — coming-of-age memoir The Naked Civil Servant. The award-winning film version of The Naked Civil Servant, starring John Hurt, made him an instant international celebrity. Crisp also wrote numerous books and articles about his life and his opinions on style, fashion, and the movies. Often hailed as the 20th-century Oscar Wilde, Quentin Crisp was famous for his aphoristic witticisms. He performed his one-man show, An Evening with Quentin Crisp, to acclaim in theaters around the world, all the while spreading his unique philosophy: "Never keep up with the Joneses; drag them down to your level. It's cheaper." During the second part of his one-man show, Crisp answered questions from the audience and gave advice to audience members about how to find their individual style and live a happy life. He was always in the "profession of being."
Quentin Crisp was Oscar Wilde's perfect descendant. With his calculated caustic words, open homosexuality and wittily provocative attitude toward any kind of conventionality, Crisp caused a bit of a stir in conservative England during the 1950s and 1960s, and even on through the 1970s. In 1981, Quentin Crisp moved to New York City, bringing along his familiar and witty remarks and his eccentricity. Quentin Crisp charmed everyone and became "the face of a modern rebel."
Throughout his near twenty-year tenure on Manhattan, Mr. Crisp wrote a variety of books, reviews, appeared in several movies (most notably playing Elizabeth I in Sally Ann Potter's Orlando) and otherwise delighted us publicly and privately with his inimitable grace, wit and genius. Quentin Crisp died on the eve of touring his one-man show in Manchester, England, on 21 November 1999.
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I had the honor of interviewing Quentin twice when I was a journalist, and of meeting him several times. I didn’t know him well, but I miss him a great deal.
Maya Deren: The Mother Of Experimental Film
Maya Deren
She was the trancedance centerpiece of every red-hot Village party in the late 1940s and early 1950s, a wild-tousled, peasant-bloused 1960s flower child before her time, a Botticelli babe in high bloom with Modigliani almond eyes and matching elongated lips, shaking her booty to Haitian voodoo drums. Pre-Beat generation, nobody in New York was more mesmerizing than Maya Deren, the mother of American underground cinema, the filmmaker and star of Meshes in the Afternoon, At Land, Ritual in Transfigured Time, and other silent-cinema 1940s experimental masterworks.
GERALD PEARY
(February, 2003)
From IMDb:
This is a remarkable short experimental film by the great Maya Deren. Deren is best remembered for the powerful short "Meshes in the Afternoon" and her dance and films about Haiti. This film is perhaps her most rigorous and complex. It is entirely silent and has a remarkable fractured narrative connected by story fragments that have a perfect dreamlike logic. Few filmmakers have come closer to creating images and actions that have such emotional intensity and intellectual suggestiveness.
-- Author: Rigor from Chicago, USA
Silent Version:
Photos
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2 days ago
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A Message To...
4 days ago
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David Hockne...
10 days ago
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Clothespin, ...
13 days ago
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Maya Deren
17 days ago
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Diane di Prima
22 days ago
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