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The above clip is as frustrating as it is intriguing. The footage is of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, Mary Frank and children Pablo and Andrea, as well as Lucien's wife Francesca Carr and their three sons, Simon, Caleb and Ethan. Shot in New York in the summer of 1959 at the Harmony Bar & Restaurant at E 9th Street and 3rd Avenue, the footage is all silent (that's the frustrating part, however - it is somewhat fitting).
If you don't have five minutes to watch the above clip, here's a shorter (and better quality) version. And as mentioned a while back, there's also a clip of Kerouac on The Steve Allen Show (also shot in 1959).
Some history on two of the above: In 1944 Lucien Carr killed a man he thought was stalking him. After dumping the body in the Hudson River, Kerouac helped get rid of the evidence in Morningside Park.
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Wow, that is pretty amazing. Thanks for posting it. Love your blog.
I love the part where Lucien Carr went back in time so that he could kill the stalker after dumping his body in the Hudson. Ah, Gothamist, I love your unpredictable ways!
scaffolding and construction across the street from the bar - some things never change!
I can't possibly be the only one who thinks that Ginsburg, Kerouac et al., are completely overrated. Right?
"I can't possibly be the only one who thinks that Ginsburg, Kerouac et al., are completely overrated. Right?"
here's the thing. those guys(maybe not kerouac himself- but certainly many many of those writing at that time INCLUDING Ginsberg)
completely changed how poetry was written and would be written to come.
I once asked my undergrad english professor why 1950s (ie the beats) weren't being taught
granted i went to a very small college with a small minded english department,
but now in graduate school, those silly post-modernists might be overrated according to some, but poems such as "Howl", the ultimate Confessional poem, only has one "I". you might say that's not a big deal, but even something as "I" became something to discuss even more so.
Long post. sorry. The novels were weird, the poetry should be read.
I don't know, the novels of Kerouac have some literary value. In my experience, they were what high school kids read after The Catcher in the Rye about the same time that they discovered Hemingway and / or Fitzgerald.
Whether one thinks the Beats are quality literature or not, and I do, you cannot deny the influence that they've had on American culture --literature,music, film, art, attitude and style from the late 1950s to today all carry pieces of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs.
Mark,
you're right. i'm just not generally a huge fan of the fiction.
On the Road, Naked Lunch, yes yes...awesome books.
I dunno how many people can really stomach Naked Lunch (William Burroughs)
Thanks for the post, Jen.
Honestly, Mark, Alan, et al, I didn't get Ginsberg until I heard him read his own work. Remember, as was said above, this was a whole new way of looking at literary work. If you look at it on balance, some of it is crap, some of it is very, very good. So are they overrated? If someone is overrating them, then yeah, I guess so...
But make no mistake. Whether you love his stuff or it passes you by, Ginsberg is the real thing.
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn,burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars, and in the middle you see the blue center light pop, and everybody goes, 'Awwwww.'
- Kerouac