SLPAD 10 - Beats

[Michael Bailey]

“…only a glancing acquaintance with the Beat movement.”

Not having, like, attended a Slim Gaillard show or hopped a freight train
with Jack Kerouac, ridden with Neal Cassady, or conversed intimately with
Allen Ginsberg, I guess he means.

Serendipitous finding of the first issue of “Evergreen Review,” golden
hours in jazz clubs, sunglasses at night, much discourse about intermittent
weed connections, and song circles on Navy ship decks* determine a bold
tangent line to the phenomenon, though, don’t they?



* (some service people are still musically inclined & putting up songs on
YouTube last time I checked - this is more formal but
https://youtu.be/X9k7jRxVR7c, and there are more informal ones such as Numa
Numa
https://youtu.be/puVmKfCwb4M or Sun King’s “Hey Ya”
https://youtu.be/QEkYqL9n7vo )


When he returned to college, he found points of similarity between the
degreed academics concerned about “Evergeen Review” (even just its cover)
and the officers in the Navy who were puzzled & inquisitive about Elvis.

The tenor of that comparison reminded me that even established institutions
came out of popular groundswells in the first place & naturally respond to
societal currents. Because of embedded characteristics, they might not be
first responders or early adopters, but they are interested parties.