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EVOLVING_BEAT

                                             April 20, 2008

A project I've been meaning to work on
some time is to track the evolving            Jack Kerouac says
meaning of "beat" amongst the members         many different things
of the "beat generation"...                   at many different times,
                                              and myself, I suspect his
                MUTATION                      intellectual honesty,
                                              if not grasp on reality.
    Luc Sante, writing about
    the Kerouac scroll (the                      My hypothesis is that
    original version of "On                      the association between
    the Road") in the New                        "beat" and beatitude
    York Times, August 19,                       developed only later.
    2007:
                                                    When you're in charge
    "In the scroll the use                          of a "movement" the
    of the word 'holy' must                         temptation is always
    be 80 percent less than                         to stretch it to
    in the novel, and                               cover more ground.
    psalmodic references to
    the author's unique                                To find room in
    generation are down by                             the positive for
    at least two-thirds;                               negative...
    uses of the word 'beat',
    for that matter, clearly        GENESIS_OF_THE_CYBER-PUNKS
    favor the exhausted over
    the beatific."
                                                       Or (I suppose)
        GOING_UNDER     the negative in
                                                       the positive.

         Kerouac had trouble                             (How else can
         living up to his ideals                         one fight a war
         of spontaniety, and                             in Christ's name?)
         could resist some
         revisions... even in
         the meaning of "beat
         generation" itself.


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