Beat Scene Magazine
By Marty
Jack Kerouac’s 120 foot-long scroll of “On The Road” is En Route to the UK and Ireland. It will be on show at the University of Birmingham, UK, from December 3rd 2008 - January 28 2009, and in University College Dublin, Ireland, from February 5 – March 31. (Just down the road from me so I’ll be going to see it.)
Pocket Edition No 6 is called High Peak Hiakus An Interview With Gary Snyder by James Campbell. It give a small insight into Gary Snyder with a some information on the last page about his bio, works and awards. According to the Beat Scene web site this interview has only appeared in one newspaper some years back.
Pocket Edition No 7 is called The sad and Lonely Death of Richard Brautigan by Kevin Ring. A nice essay accounting the death of Brautigan, with some good anicdotes about him from the likes of Jan Kerouac (Jacks daughter) and Michael McClure. An early version of this essay first appeared in Beat Scene Magazine in 1998.
Pocket Edition No 8 is called A Fierce God And A Fierce War an Interview with Michael McClure By Rod Phillips. A great and interesting read with a nice surprise at the end, the 1965 anti war poem Poisoned Wheat.
Pocket Edition No 9 is called Jack Kerouac At 681 Lexington Avenue by Elizabeth Von Vogt. She shares some nice, fond memories of Jack Kerouac. One of my favorites.
Pocket Edition No 10 is called Arizona Highway and Other Poems by Dan Fante. More of Dan Fante’s great work in the form of poems.
Pocket Edition No 11 is called Mutate or Die-With Burroughs in kansas by David Ohle. David Ohle knew William S Burroughs for the last 10 years of his life, he kept a log of the time they spent together, this chap book contains some of the entries of them times.
Pocket Edition No 12 is called Rexroth, Bukowski and the Politics Of Literature by Ben Pleasants. To me it what it says it is, the politics of literature with some interesting comments and takes on the subject.
Pocket Edition No 13 is called Scenes form East Hill Farm, Seasons with Allen Ginsberg by Gordon Ball. This one is excerpts from Gordon Ball’s “book length manuscript, East Hill Farm, Seasons with Allen Ginsberg” A really enjoyable read, leaving me wanting to read the rest of the manuscript.
Pocket Edition No 14 is called Neal and Anne At Gough Street by Charles Plymell. This covers some of the time that Charles Plymell spent sharing a “Pad” with Neal and Anne. Plymell may not be as widely known as some of the other beat writers, but always had an iron in the fire and can stand next to any of the others when it comes to writing.
Pocket Edition No 15 is called Charles Bukowski Letters to Beat Scene by Kevin Ring. In here are some letters that Bukowski sent to Kevin Ring, giving some insight into what the man was really like. It’s always hard to know what someone is really like until you read their letters. Apart form anything else this one is a great read.
Pocket Edition No 16 is called Remembering Jack Kerouac by John Clellon Holmes. I was always of the opinion that Holmes had a interesting and funny take on Jack kerouac, well worth a read from someone who knew Kerouac well.
Pocket Edition No 17 is called Cool Kerouac by Jim Burns. This touches on the influence Jazz had on the writings of Kerouac. Where most Kerouac fans will immediatly connect both Jazz and kerouac, some wouldn’t. So this is an ideal starting point for those who want to explore the subject, and a nice read for those who do connect both. Jim Burns is the author of many books of essays and poetry, and is also the assistant editor of Beat Scene magazine.
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“…and everything is going to the beat – It’s the beat generation, it be-at, it’s the beat to keep, it’s the beat of the heart, it’s being beat and down in the world and like oldtime lowdown and like in ancient civilizations the slave boatmen rowing galleys to a beat and servants spinning pottery to a beat…” Jack Kerouac.
The Beat Generation.
Jack Kerouac, author of On The Road, first coined the phrase The Beat generation in the late 1940s. He used the term to broadly describe the non conformist, anti government youth that was forming in New York at the time. Kerouac and a small group of his friends such as Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs used to sit around Jazz clubs enjoying the music, or cafes drinking copious amounts of black coffee, talking and debating about the state of their country, their writings and poetry. They were sometimes known as “The New York Beats”
Some would say The New York Beats could be called the fathers of the Beat Generation with each of the three writing the most recognisable of The Beat Generation Books. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, and perhaps the most well known of all, Jack Kerouac’s On The Road.
Gregory Corso once pointed out that “Three friends does not make a generation”. There were also other groups of beat writers in other parts of America, such as the “San Francisco Renaissance” with writers like Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Kirby Doyle and others. There was another group called “The Black Mountain Poets” with members like Robert Creely and Robert Duncan.
Where Gregory Corso may have been right that three friends does not make a generation, but Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs did conceive and father what is know known as The Beat Generation.
The word “Beat” carries a different meaning for different people.
On hearing the word “Beat” some people think of down and out, or sad and lonely, maybe someone beaten by the world. Jack Kerouac had other ideas about the meaning of this word. He once referred to the Beat Generation as “A generation of crazy, illuminated hipsters suddenly rising and roaming America, serious, bumming and hitchhiking everywhere, ragged, beatific, beautiful in an ugly graceful new way”
Kerouac liked to use the opposite meaning of the word beat, such as “upbeat” or “beatific” (Meaning supreme happiness or blessedness),or “on the beat” A musical term used at the time meaning “perfect pitch and timing.
In an article for the San Fransisco Chronicle, Herb Caen coined the phrase Beatnik. It is said that he came up with this term by adding the Russian suffix nik after sputnik (the Russian space craft) to the word beat. Some say he did this to show or imply that beat writers and poets were UN-American in their values, attitudes and lifestyles.
The word generation in the context of The Beat generation, is a group of people of approximately the same age living in the same time frame.
Some might say that using the word generation in this way is presumptuous and should not be used to describe a bunch of feckless anti government drug addicts, but lovers of the beat generation can see into their hearts and minds of the writer, and through their work can understand and take away their own lessons from whatever they read.
I always had an interest in the Beats, in particular Jack Kerouac. And after a couple of emails back and forth i found that Kevin was (and still is) the man behind Beat Scene Magazine.
Beat Scene is a magazine devoted to The Beat Generation, it’s writings and writers and anything connected to the Beat Generation and is well worth checking out.
It is a high quality, glossy magazine at a very reasonable price. Also there are excellent 5 X 8 inch chap books in limited editions. For more information go to http://www.beatscene.net and for a glimpse of some of the magazines check my Beat stuff page, there are also some of my Kerouac books there too.
New York City in the spring of 1951 Kerouac started typing ”On The Road” using teletype paper which he taped together so he could write with a flow and without interruption. It took him 3 weeks to type it, but it took him a lot longer to put it together in his head. One could be forgiven for thinking he just sat down and blurted it out on paper but it probably would have taken a lot of piecing together in his head and from notes he had taken a few years before 1951. After experimenting with as many as six drafts (to try and please editors) it was finally published in 1957 with the help of his agent Sterling Lord.
One of the most interesting things to me is that some of the text in the original scroll is different to what was published. Some parts were shortened, names had to be changed for fear of libel. The last few feet of the scroll are lost due to a dog eating it. There is a note at the end of the scroll handwritten by Kerouac reading “DOG ATE [Potchky-a-Dog] Potchky who ate the last few feet of the scroll was belong to Lucien Carr a friend of Kerouac. 
Last year Penguin Modern Classics published “On the Road The Original Scroll” which is the text as it was when first typed out by Kerouac in 1951. It’s Edited by Howard Cunnell, he inserted paragraph breaks, corrected spelling but all in all left the scroll as it would be if you had it on your lap. There are also great introductions by Penny Vlagopoulos, George Mouratidis and Joshua Kupetz. They all give fine insights and interesting background reading.
I read the regular “On the Road” (for the third time) on a plane trip to Colorado last April, when I came home I read the “Original Scroll” to see if there was much of a difference. I was not looking for differences such as name changes, but differences in flow or how it read or felt. I’m not going to say that I was “moved” or “felt closer to Kerouac” or anything trite like that. I will say though it was a pleasure to read knowing it is for the most part untouched and how Kerouac probably wanted folks to see it.
On a related note, the latest issue of Kevin Ring’s Beat Scene Magazine is on display next to the original scroll where it is being exhibited in the US. It’s well deserved I reckon considering what Kevin has done over the years to Keep the memory of Jack Kerouac and keeping the Beat Generation alive. You can see the pictures here http://www.beatscene.net/news.asp
Here is a short video of Kerouac reading from “On The Road” on the Steve Allen Show.
Hey,
This is a nice little post. I’m glad to see people trying to keep the Beats alive, and offering support to the great things the Kev and Beat Scene are trying to do.
Anyway, this is a great blog in general.
There is also another Beat Generation magazine, that is my one, Beatdom. It’s found at http://www.beatdom.com and we have much the same motivation as Beat Scene – keeping people interested, and keeping the Beat going.
I found your blog through my own one, Korean Rum Diary, which is written about my travels in Asia on the back of reading (and collecting) too many Gonzo and Beat Generation books.
I’ll be adding you to my blog roll as soon as I can!
All the best,
David Wills