A Year in Books/Day 164: The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats

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  • Title: The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats The Beat Generation and American Culture
  • Editor: Holly George Warren
  • Year Published: 1999 (Hyperion)
  • Year Purchased: 2000/2001
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: Whether the Rolling Stone moniker entices or repels you, this is a fine compilation of essays, musings, reviews and treatises on The Beat Generation and its various, and fantastically varied, players. Although many of the entries were written expressly for this book, others are from Rolling Stone’s archives or from outside sources. Lydia Lunch, Hunter S. Thompson, Graham Parker, Johnny Depp, Patti Smith, Richard Hell, and Lester Bangs number among the crazy quilt of contributors. The insiders’ perspective is voiced by Michael McClure, Joyce Johnson, Hettie Jones, Carolyn Cassady and William S Burroughs. The cacophony of opinions, insights and viewpoints is bold and often contradictory, which should be the intent of any decent compilation. The entirety of the beat experience is presented in vivid, emotive, intelligent terms. Each entry is a micro world of its own, quite unlike any of the others. The photos are notable, and many are rare. If you have any interest in the subject-which really encompasses many subjects loosely gathered under a too-small banner-make this part of your to-read list.
  • Motivation: I have a long, deep shelf dedicated to the writers and miscellaneous participants of The Beat Generation. This was one of the earliest non-fiction additions to my collection.
  • Times Read: 3
  • Random Excerpt/Page 85: “Bob Kaufman and John Wieners are the greatest of the nonsense Beat poets, whatever that means-the social second unit?-people who didn’t spend scads of time with the frontrunners. They’re also two supreme sufferers, and Kaufman, in particular, swallowed more broken glass than all the others combined.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9

10 thoughts on “A Year in Books/Day 164: The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats”

  1. There’s also a good Rolling Stone book, a collection of rock journalism, called MEATY, BEATY, BIG & BOUNCY. With horrifying stuff about Elvis and Chuck Berry.

    Lydia Lunch, Slim Pickens and Rip Torn, three of my favourite stage names.

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    • I won’t have to work to remember that title! Rip Torn is a classic, although Torn is his real last name and “Rip” is a nickname that has been held by generations of Torn males. So it is not quite as much of a stage name as the others, although it is still a hoot. Slim Pickens, though, is hilarious. I’ve also no idea how he came by that moniker but I am sure it is an interesting story.

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      • No, you must be thinking of someone else. If he had gotten into politics, that career would have ended when he broke (crawling) into a bank in 2010 in the middle of the night, armed with a gun and drunk off his ass. He claimed he thought he was breaking in to his own home, which was down the street. Fortunately for his nonexistent constituents, he is just an actor.

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      • I just have a vague memory of him in the news, in a suit in some formal capacity as something. A snippet of memory.

        I grew up around actors. One of them, now a victim of suicide, tried to invent an instant condom with rubber latex and had to call my mother, who did costumes and make-up at that stage, to help him remove it. She had a look and refused.

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