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BEATNIK_59

                                             March 9, 2004
                               Rearranged:   June 18, 2006
I keep coming back to
the example of the '59
Beatnik.

Imagine a teenage girl in
1959 choosing to put on               The timeline, for reference:
a ritual set of black
leotards and go strutting             1952 - "This is the beat generation"
around Greenwich Village                     in the New York Times Magazine
in New York City.
                                      1957 - "On the Road" published
It's not at all unusual to
look down on this girl as a           1958 - Herb Caen christens them
late-comer, a clueless kid                   "beatniks"
trying to hop on the post
"On the Road" bandwagon               1959 - The Dobie Gillis show begins,
without any exercise of                      with Bob Denver as Maynard
creativity on her part...                    G. Krebs

But try to imagine yourself                             KREBS
in her place... think about
how tightly constrained her
options are, the kind of              I selected 1959 for a reason:
messages she was fed all her          it's late enough that every
life about what she's                 teenager had some notion
supposed to be, the gauntlet          of what it meant to be a
of social pressure she needs          "beatnik", but early enough
to run.  That standardized            that the icon still had some
beatnik outfit stops seeming          power.
quite so trivial, and more
revolutionary -- if not               This is probably true on through
outright foolhardy.                   the early-60s, but if I said 1962
                                      I'd confuse someone who didn't
   By anyone's numbering              realize that in 1962 no one
   system, the '59 beatnik            really knew the fifties were over.
   is at best the second
   model on the market.                     (I could be wrong about
                                            details though: were
   But for that particular                  black leotards the thing
   teenager, it's all the                   in '59?  Or was that later?
   first time around.                       Or never?)

   She plays the cards that                     Edie Sedgwick sported them
   were dealt her, but she                      in the Silver Factory in '65,
   plays them according to                      and Life magazine labeled
   her own spirit.                              her "The Girl with the Black
                                                Tights" in November 1965.


          The '59 beatnik has to be regarded
          as a real individual, a seeker
          after the grail of hipness no less
          valid than those who blunder
          through the wilderness without a
          media engraved chess-board to move
          across.


          Everyone who lives       No one is ever
          is in the first          in the first
          generation.              generation.



                  Something like that.







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