The hippest school in the land, cat.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Ok hipsters, here's the crux of it.

I love this theme. I've never been a hipster. Never dug the beatnik thing. I've gone through many transformations in my life and learned to walk many walks. This is new for me and it's absolutely grand. Thanks to certain someones that introduced this to us.

At the library Jack Kerouac's On the Road (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0140042598/qid=1106116826/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/002-5637010-5593653?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), a cultural landmark in beatnik history, crossed my desk. Fate, man. I grabbed it and have chewed through half already. It's music to me, and I really am a picky reader. (Ironically, he keeps mentioning how much he loves Hemingway, whom I can't stand.) Now I'm thinking in his style, and want to write in it. This always happens when I pick up on a new groove.

Tonight GD and I watched the original Pink Panther. Nice bit of swank culture in there. I've already been shown some incredible Bob Fosse choreography and couture. I dig Frank Sinatra. I had a minor schooling in big band swing back when it made a minor comeback. There are so many facets to "swank", mainly because it encompasses so many eras and styles. Beatnik or Lounge or Twist, 1947 or 1955 or 1962?

So here, here we'll get together. We'll pool our resources. Tell us of your encounters with vintage swank from the 40's, 50's and 60's. Books, movies. I want to soak this up.

So yeah, I'm starting with Beatnik, at its most basic. Kerouac's book chronicles his journeys with his mad friends across the country and back again and across again and back again.....for no reason, really. With no money and no goal, no stability and no point, they just go and see what happens. They steal and hunt for girls and try everything that they stumble over. "Swank" is used in the book but to describe pricey places. Stealing a loaf of bread because you haven't eaten in 30 hours or disappearing on a girl you just married definitely isn't swank. I can't say I endorse what they do, or that I would ever follow them on such a path, but damn, what an eye-opening perspective on the world. Highly recommended reading, cats.

So, spill. What movies should I put in my queue, what books should I get from the library? I'd love to expand my mind in all things hip.

[€uroMeinke]

Alan Ginsberg's Howl (http://www.people.virginia.edu/~jng2d/enlt255/texts/howl/howl.htm)is the classic ode of this genre, pick that one up and read it aloud.

Better yet, pick up a copy at City Light in San Francisco's north beach, it's run by another beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Oh, and it should be a road trip.

[Perle]

The Beat Page (http://www.rooknet.com/beatpage/index.html) is pretty slick. There's a mini-bio page for each of the main scenesters.

[MerryPrankster]

The Beat Page (http://www.rooknet.com/beatpage/index.html) is pretty slick. There's a mini-bio page for each of the main scenesters.

Thanks, Perle! I'm gooving on The Beat Page. :cool: Of course, Ken Kesey is one of my faves.

[Not Afraid]

A couple of really hip films that come to mind are:

Paris Blues - Paul Newman as a jazz musician in Paris
Dangerous Liaisons (1960) - Roger Vadim's version of the story set in 1960's Paris

To get another perspective of the happenings of "On the Road" from Neal Caassidy's POV, read "The First Third".

There's a lot of poetry and novellas out there. The BIG names are Alan Gisnberg, William S. Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Neal Cassidy and Gregory Coroso. THere's also a collection called The Beat Reader which is sometimes a good way t go as an introduction.

Music & Art: Thelonious Monk is so very Beat. So is Jackson Pollock, Hans Hoffman and Elaine DeKooning.

[Jazzman]

I'd recommend Round Midnight (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090557/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxteD0yMHxzZz0xfGxtPTIwMHx0dD1vbnxwbj 0wfHE9Um91bmQgTWlkbmlnaHR8aHRtbD0xfG5tPW9u;fc=1;ft =3;fm=1), a sin-to-be-missed film starring the legendary and incomparable Dexter Gordon as aging jazzman Dale Turner. It's set in a Paris club and full of grab-your-soul-and-pull-you-into-another-world jazz (actually created by the man onscreen, no less.)

What's swank about it? Not much. What's hip? Well, if Dex's melancholy tenor ain't hip, then hip is dead. I'd say that watching it won't show you "hip," but it could help you get in touch with your own inner, truer hipness. To paint a masterpiece you need a whole pallet of colors, and to truly be hip a cat has to dig a whole range of hipness, and Dex explores it all.




Not that I'm biased or anything. ;)

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

I'd like to suggest Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest.

Jon-Luc Godard movies, especially http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053472/

And for music, I suggest the trumpeter Lee Morgan.