Ain't No BEAT Without It...

The Beat idea of Perfection from Imperfection...sounds like the Western version of Japanese Wabi-Sabi.


Wabi-Sabi~ Is the Japanese belief that there is beauty in imperfection. "This idea accepts the natural cycle of growth, decay and death." So essentially, it is all around us-all the time!
(Source: What is Wabi-Sabi? ; http://nobleharbor.com/tea/chado/WhatIsWabi-Sabi.htm)


So....If the Beat generation was cultivating this idea of the eternal present, and the acceptance of flaws instead of virtues, isn't that the ultimate way to live? 


Life is imperfect! Sometimes we are addicts, or dead-beats, consumers, sinners, liars, cheats, guilty of not living to our full potentials...I could keep going...


What was the question?


Maybe, the aesthetic of the beats' just grew from the conformity of the Industrial Revolution? They felt repressed and controlled by time - like their lives were a punch card? 


Maybe, the beats' were just representing the legacy of poets and artists that had sacrificed before them - like Whitman or Pollock?


John Leland says, hip has a ..."fetish for failure and self-destruction"(155).

                                                                       Jack Kerouac


                         Maybe this is why we lost so many poets and artists at such a young age?  

There seems to be a sense of romance attached to being           immortalized through the myth of destruction!

Who are the modern 'beats'?

This is a tough question because just like hip is constantly re-defining itself, so is imperfection! 

In recent pop culture, it feels like we have moved past the beauty of flaws and back to the traditional idea of a perfect product, in my opinion. When you download 50 songs in 60 seconds for 99 cents, do you really care how they got there? In their remastered condition with zero static? 

I like my broken needle because the flaws of the album live there~

So...Here is a top 5 list of current hip makers

(whether they know it or not):

Jack White

Lady GaGa

Clint Eastwood

Zooey Deschanel

Chuck Palahniuk

~ Explanations for the Top 5 will be posted at a later date, Thank You.

We are what we hate...

So in today's modern society, where communication mostly involves electricity(she thinks as she types), do we even need F2F communication anymore? Has conversation fallen to the wayside, just like common courtesy and student loans? 


I was given a cell phone when I was 17 years old, for emergency use only. When I turned 18, I had to pay for said phone. 
My parents were always firm believers in not making cell phones a part of our everyday life.
As a result, I rarely check my cell phone or even know where it is. If there happens to be an emergency, I will reach for it like it is my lifesaver.


The other night when I was supposed to be visiting my parents, they were both slouched over in their seats, with both hands on their cell phones, texting! If there is a problem now, they will just text me. So if there ever is an emergency, I will be the last person to know. Thanks a lot! 


This must be another one of those, "do as I say, not as I do" moments, like smoking.


This is an epidemic problem that needs to be examined. 

Now, twitter me this? How egotistical do you have to be, to actually think people care about what you are doing at 2 a.m. at Walmart?

I may be cynical today, but I still won't have a keyboard on my phone tomorrow.

Everything is cheaper than it looks....

Ladies and Gentlemen, Los Angeles....

So when we think of pulp fiction stories and film noir, L.A. comes to mind for two reasons:

#1 – A new genre needs a new location. New York was already happenin’ and L.A. was just getting started.

#2 – L.A. had a certain mystique and mystery surrounding it, partly due to the film industry and partly because of the myth. “Hollywood, where dreams come true”.

Now John Leland has a great point too:

“The [west] coast was a place to contemplate the failure of the open road. Playing against the popular image of California as a land of sunshine and opportunity, pulp writers recast the state as a dark, violent place where the outcasts, drifters and grifters dug in after they ran out of room to run”.

~ So if life on the road was a symbol of masculine freedom, than by the time you reached California, it’s almost as if the road had changed these men into mysterious, dark figures.

~ Identity is out the window. No one really knows who’s who, because people can reinvent themselves by the hour.

I’m Just Shooting From The Hip Now,

There are  3  things that need to be discussed here –

HOW DOES HEMINGWAY= HIP?

If this were an algebraic expression, it may appear something like this:

 He + Id(t)* K= H

Where He= Hemingway, Id= Identity, t= Time, K= Knowledge, and H= Hip!

"Well, why do you think you're not my Facebook friend"? ~ Earnest

Now, how do all of these “things” relate to each other in a way that is comprehensive?

Let’s do this using Hemingway’s short story, “The Killers,” as an example:

Identity

>There is never a true sense of anyone’s identity or character. In fact, the story is purposefully confusing so that the reader can’t seem to figure out who’s who. Now, the one character in the story that is a constant is Sam. Ironically enough, Sam is the only black man. So is identity attached to our appearance?

Time

>Even the time of day is disoriented in this story! The clock is “twenty minutes fast” no one knows what the actual time is! Time becomes irrelevant. All that matters is what is happening right now! This is a very "hip" concept. Without a past or a future, you can be anything you want to!

Knowledge

>Now there are a lot of wise guy jabs at George, like calling him a “pretty bright boy,” but we don’t actually know anything about him. Also, the two gangsta’s make references to underground knowledge, for example one asks, “I mean, you got anything to drink?” This leads me to think that something else could be going on….

The circular motion in The Killers, reminds me more of a Gertrude Stein poem Stein poem is a Gertrude Stein poem is The Killers is The Killers is a Gertrude Stein poem The Killers?

"It's Hip' To Be A Saint In The City"

"I was the pimp's main prophet I kept everything cool

 Just a backstreet gambler with the luck to lose"

These lyrics are taken from the Bruce Springsteen song, "It's hard to be a saint in the city," which I immediately thought of when reading this weeks blog question: 


"Does the city play an essential role in the creation of "hip"? 


The song, infused with jazz,  is brilliantly written about the hard life situations that occur in the city, and how it's so easy to get caught up in a life of crime, but also the myth that is created around rebels. Here, you listen to it: It's hard to be a saint in the city

Okay, back to the question: Yes! Hip absolutely comes from the city and I feel that Leland hits the nail on the head when he says: 

"As a delivery system for hip, popular culture moves in tandem with technology and media. Technology has a way of making race an abstraction....."

Without the city, there would be no popular culture; it's hard to be popular on a farm!


Another example that jumps to mind is MODERN ART?! 
Would anyone know who Andy Warhol was if it wasn't for the city?






"City life has a way of living
 in the moment,
 and that's where hip lives."
~ I said that














And finally to CONTRADICT myself, hip also came from the country. More specifically, the blues came from the country. In a previous post, I discussed the origins of the blues, as outlined by John Leland, and without farms and plantations, blues didn't exist. 
Young blues artists got their start playing in rural areas and then they migrated into the city. 
So "hip" transcends the city.

Is a Hippopotamus hip?

I mean, it’s in the name!

no claim to fame, but if

you piss him off, he’ll

make lunch a game.

Now I understand hippos

are herbivorous, give ‘em

a chance, they’ll strike

a chorus….go hippo…go hippo…

Named after the Greek

word “river horse”

this mammals got style

and uses force!

They get their cool from

water or mud,

let’s face it ladies, that

bull’s a stud.

Hippos are from Africa,

not Nebraska,

And almost extinct

just like this beat….

~Goodbye Waterface

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippopotamus

"This Is What You Shall do"

"This Is What You Shall Do"_

Wake up every morning with a clean slate/Don't hold anything against yesterday-for it is never coming back/ Stretch out and feel good to be alive/Even though some days you wish you weren't/Always grant people second chances and third chances- if they are deserving/Life is too short-If there was ever a cliche to live by, this is the one!/Tell the people you love how much they mean to you- even if they already know/Take walks in the rain and be afraid that you don't have it all figured out-fear is your friend/
Except that bad things happen but that you have the power to make good things happen/
Take a deep breath and just feel the oxygen in your lungs and in your gut and know that you are alive/
Hold on to the things that make you feel at peace and let go of the ones that take your peace from you/
Know that you possess the ability for greatness and that your future is not written-no matter what people tell you/Also know that some people will try to deceive you- and you will know by the feeling in your soul/Be kind to all creatures even those who try to deceive you/Know in your bones that you are from the earth and one day you will return to the earth-and the sun will still shine./