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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 
a ritual set of black                 The timeline, for reference:
leotards and go strutting
around the West Village               1952 - "This is the beat generation"
of New York City.                            in the New York Times Magazine

                                      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 in                      with Bob Denver as Maynard
creativity on her part...                    G. Krebs

But try and imagine yourself                             <A HREF="KREBS.html">KREBS</A>
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 dim notion
supposed to be, the gauntlet          of what it was like 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
outright foolhardy.                   This is probably true on through
                                      the early-60s, but if I said 1962
   By anyone's numbering              I'd confuse someone who didn't
   system, the '59 beatnik            realize that in 1962 no one
   is at best the second              really knew the fifties were over.
   model on the market.
                                            (I could be wrong about
   But for that particular                  details though: were
   teenager, it's all the                   black leotards The Thing
   first time around.                       in '59?  Or was that later?
                                            Or never?)
   She plays the cards that
   were dealt her, but she
   plays them according to
   her own spirit.               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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