Evelyn and I went on a bookstore adventure yesterday and came home with this nice stack (minus the one on top, which came in the mail yesterday). None of these books are on my official reading list of the semester, but I guess they are now. I'm becoming increasingly interested in visual art and in the American culture of the 1950's and 60's (hence the Ginsberg and the Pop) - mostly the writing and the art, but also the culture as a whole, since that's out of which writing and art inevitably come from.....It's also interesting to note that quite a few poets were also painters, such as cummings, who is my favorite dead poet....
"Howl" is nice, but I never did think much of the pop culture overall. It seems like a rather plastic time in which they stole their ideas to be "in" and to make money. I suppose that does indeed say something about a culture who were just beginning to become too materialistic.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I care about from the period is Andy Warhol's "Velvet Underground and Nico".
I just picked up the new Michael Shermer book, good stuff.
ReplyDeleteLinda - Yes, "plastic" is the word that often comes to mind when I think about that era. I think what intrigues me most about that time, besides Ginsberg and Kerouac and the other writers, is the fact that art was being made from everyday working class images - gas stations, soup cans, etc.
ReplyDeleteAndy - I love picking up new books. Now I have to find the time to read them...