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TIME Magazine - oh well of shit
CHEK T
From the Magazine | Books
Mentholated Eggnog
SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHOR
Posted Monday, Jun 1, 1959
THE HOLY BARBARIANS (318 pp.)—Lawrence Upton—Messner ($5).
A reader who picks up a book on, say, unidentified flying objects, knows that he is not going to be told, on the first page, that flying saucers are imaginary. The author has an advance from his publisher, and he is going to see the thing through, complete with wiring diagrams and interviews with little green men. The case of the beatniks is similar; the unwashed T shirts are tangible enough, but is there anything new, socio-religio-artistically speaking, inside them? The author of this Baedeker to Beatland says, naturally, that there is. The barbarians, he reports, are within the gates of U.S. civilization, armed "not with the weapons of war but with the songs and ikons of peace."
Author Lipton, a minor poet and novelist (Rainbow at Midnight, In Secret Battle), is well situated to serve as middleman between the beatniks and the squares. He owns a necktie, and he lives in a seaside slum of Los Angeles called Venice West, which is as cool and beat as a mentholated eggnog. Lipton himself is not really beat, but because of his advanced age (58) and full refrigerator, he is allowed to serve as Big Dada to the tribe.
Needed: Deodorants. Lipton describes the ectoplasmic entrance of one of his pals: "The doorbell rang again, and it was Itchy Gelden, peering in, fidgeting and scratching his crotch. 'Like I don't want to bug you man, if you're busy . . . Are we gonna blow some poetry, maybe?' . . . He shambled in, mumbling his little high-pitched murmurs, half-words, more for sound than meaning. [Emphasis mine.] Itchy scratched because he had no skin; he was open to the world as a turtle without a shell, sensitive to all the world's hurt and all the world's love."
There is a strong scent of social science in Venice West, and Lipton relates that all beatniks possess paperback editions of Margaret Mead. Love among the far out is casual and kaleidosexual, but just as among the savages of Samoa, there is a code. Said one beard, explaining why he rejected a girl's advances: "At the time, I was going with my wife." Beatniks prefer not to work, and when forced to, try to find employment suitable to their talents —such as deodorant testing for cosmetics firms. Shoplifting is only a stopgap.
Wanted: Junior Flips. Not working has always been a reasonable dodge of bohemians, but Lipton has elevated the beatnik's indolence to the dedication of a mendicant order. "Only poverty is holy," he quotes approvingly. "Moneytheism" is the tail-finned dragon that the tattered saints are fighting. All such beatnik absurdities would not matter if their writings and paintings had some value. But most of the art that Lipton's shaggy sufferers turn out is not better, he admits, than the weekend seascape by the vice president of a spark-plug firm.
The Holy Barbarians can be taken as a professionally written, well-documented report on the intriguing, if minor social phenomenon. But the reader may discount the conclusions about the beatniks' spiritual value. Once at Brooklyn College, Lipton relates, "some square lecturer was giving a lecture on Dadaism," and one Ostrogothic student pelted him with potato salad. Unfortunately, what the beatniks are throwing at the rest of the world nowadays is not nearly as nourishing as potato salad—or even as much fun as Dada used to be.
Perhaps Author Lipton ought to meet the young airman in San Francisco who recently described himself to an Eastern visitor as being not a beat but a "junior flip." The difference? "A junior flip throws away his books and is young and happy. Beats are cynical and unhappy."
End Quote
I can't fucking believe I'm so goddamn fucking famous as shit.
From the Magazine | Books
Mentholated Eggnog
SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHOR
Posted Monday, Jun 1, 1959
THE HOLY BARBARIANS (318 pp.)—Lawrence Upton—Messner ($5).
A reader who picks up a book on, say, unidentified flying objects, knows that he is not going to be told, on the first page, that flying saucers are imaginary. The author has an advance from his publisher, and he is going to see the thing through, complete with wiring diagrams and interviews with little green men. The case of the beatniks is similar; the unwashed T shirts are tangible enough, but is there anything new, socio-religio-artistically speaking, inside them? The author of this Baedeker to Beatland says, naturally, that there is. The barbarians, he reports, are within the gates of U.S. civilization, armed "not with the weapons of war but with the songs and ikons of peace."
Author Lipton, a minor poet and novelist (Rainbow at Midnight, In Secret Battle), is well situated to serve as middleman between the beatniks and the squares. He owns a necktie, and he lives in a seaside slum of Los Angeles called Venice West, which is as cool and beat as a mentholated eggnog. Lipton himself is not really beat, but because of his advanced age (58) and full refrigerator, he is allowed to serve as Big Dada to the tribe.
Needed: Deodorants. Lipton describes the ectoplasmic entrance of one of his pals: "The doorbell rang again, and it was Itchy Gelden, peering in, fidgeting and scratching his crotch. 'Like I don't want to bug you man, if you're busy . . . Are we gonna blow some poetry, maybe?' . . . He shambled in, mumbling his little high-pitched murmurs, half-words, more for sound than meaning. [Emphasis mine.] Itchy scratched because he had no skin; he was open to the world as a turtle without a shell, sensitive to all the world's hurt and all the world's love."
There is a strong scent of social science in Venice West, and Lipton relates that all beatniks possess paperback editions of Margaret Mead. Love among the far out is casual and kaleidosexual, but just as among the savages of Samoa, there is a code. Said one beard, explaining why he rejected a girl's advances: "At the time, I was going with my wife." Beatniks prefer not to work, and when forced to, try to find employment suitable to their talents —such as deodorant testing for cosmetics firms. Shoplifting is only a stopgap.
Wanted: Junior Flips. Not working has always been a reasonable dodge of bohemians, but Lipton has elevated the beatnik's indolence to the dedication of a mendicant order. "Only poverty is holy," he quotes approvingly. "Moneytheism" is the tail-finned dragon that the tattered saints are fighting. All such beatnik absurdities would not matter if their writings and paintings had some value. But most of the art that Lipton's shaggy sufferers turn out is not better, he admits, than the weekend seascape by the vice president of a spark-plug firm.
The Holy Barbarians can be taken as a professionally written, well-documented report on the intriguing, if minor social phenomenon. But the reader may discount the conclusions about the beatniks' spiritual value. Once at Brooklyn College, Lipton relates, "some square lecturer was giving a lecture on Dadaism," and one Ostrogothic student pelted him with potato salad. Unfortunately, what the beatniks are throwing at the rest of the world nowadays is not nearly as nourishing as potato salad—or even as much fun as Dada used to be.
Perhaps Author Lipton ought to meet the young airman in San Francisco who recently described himself to an Eastern visitor as being not a beat but a "junior flip." The difference? "A junior flip throws away his books and is young and happy. Beats are cynical and unhappy."
End Quote
I can't fucking believe I'm so goddamn fucking famous as shit.
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