1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,000 SEGMENT S2 - ``Beat Culture and the New America'' 2 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,534 Three writers -- Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, 3 00:00:04,534 --> 00:00:07,267 and William Burroughs -- met in New York in 1944 and became 4 00:00:07,267 --> 00:00:10,200 catalysts for a movement that became known as the Beat 5 00:00:10,200 --> 00:00:11,267 Generation. 6 00:00:11,267 --> 00:00:13,968 The current exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 7 00:00:13,968 --> 00:00:18,200 ``Beat Culture and the New America, 1950-1965'' takes a 8 00:00:18,200 --> 00:00:20,467 look at the movement in all of its complexity. 9 00:00:20,467 --> 00:00:23,968 Here to talk about Beat culture, its contribution to American 10 00:00:23,968 --> 00:00:28,067 life and the legacy it has left are Allen Ginsberg, the poet who 11 00:00:28,067 --> 00:00:31,067 helped to shape the Beats; Steven Watson, who has written a 12 00:00:31,067 --> 00:00:34,300 book, The Birth of the Beat Generation -- he also served as 13 00:00:34,300 --> 00:00:38,033 a consultant to the exhibit; Nat Hentoff, a columnist at The 14 00:00:38,033 --> 00:00:41,868 Village Voice; and George Herms, the California artist whose art 15 00:00:41,868 --> 00:00:44,901 exemplified the Beat aesthetic. 16 00:00:44,901 --> 00:00:47,167 I am pleased to have all of them here for this exhibit and to 17 00:00:47,167 --> 00:00:50,067 talk about Beat culture beyond the exhibit. 18 00:00:50,067 --> 00:00:52,067 Welcome. 19 00:00:52,067 --> 00:00:54,501 The exhibit, it says -- this is the book of the exhibit from the 20 00:00:54,501 --> 00:00:57,300 Whitney -- saying ``Beat Culture and the New America, 21 00:00:57,300 --> 00:00:58,701 1950-1965.'' Why 1950? 22 00:00:58,701 --> 00:01:01,701 Steven, you were a kind of a consultant to this. 23 00:01:01,701 --> 00:01:04,701 Your book, this in fact says, The Beat-- The Birth of the Beat 24 00:01:04,701 --> 00:01:08,667 Generation: Visionary Rebels and Hipsters, 1944-1960. 25 00:01:08,667 --> 00:01:10,934 STEVEN WATSON, Author: Right. 26 00:01:10,934 --> 00:01:13,400 And let me speak to the book immediately, because-- CHARLIE 27 00:01:13,400 --> 00:01:14,400 Okay. 28 00:01:14,400 --> 00:01:16,767 --forty-four is the time when Allen and-- 29 00:01:16,767 --> 00:01:19,167 Allen, Jack, and-- STEVEN WATSON: --Jack 30 00:01:19,167 --> 00:01:21,234 Kerouac and William Burroughs first met one another and, and 31 00:01:21,234 --> 00:01:23,200 came together. 32 00:01:23,200 --> 00:01:25,467 And a lot of what we consider Beat culture really happened in 33 00:01:25,467 --> 00:01:27,467 the late '40s-- CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. 34 00:01:27,467 --> 00:01:30,334 --in terms of the actual coming together -- 35 00:01:30,334 --> 00:01:33,067 the relationships that were formed, many of the experiences 36 00:01:33,067 --> 00:01:34,734 that were later transformed into the Beat literature. 37 00:01:34,734 --> 00:01:38,834 I think Lisa Phillips, who is really the curator of the 38 00:01:38,834 --> 00:01:40,934 Whitney exhibition, was interested in capturing this 39 00:01:40,934 --> 00:01:44,634 period of the Eisenhower years and looking how that led to the 40 00:01:44,634 --> 00:01:47,968 hippie years and to the, the later years in the '60s. 41 00:01:47,968 --> 00:01:51,601 So I think tho-- that's how it was-- her rationale for tho-- 42 00:01:51,601 --> 00:01:54,133 for choosing those 15 years. 43 00:01:54,133 --> 00:01:57,767 Was there, Allen, a da-- an event that marked the 44 00:01:57,767 --> 00:01:59,968 beginning of all this? 45 00:01:59,968 --> 00:02:03,634 I mean, we talk about the coming together of you and Jack 46 00:02:03,634 --> 00:02:05,634 and William-- ALLEN GINSBERG, Poet: Yeah. 47 00:02:05,634 --> 00:02:08,968 Actua-- I, I would think so in terms of the relation to the, 48 00:02:08,968 --> 00:02:10,934 the square, or the regular culture. 49 00:02:10,934 --> 00:02:14,334 I think we were listening to Truman on the radio, and Joan 50 00:02:14,334 --> 00:02:16,767 Burroughs said tha-- ``He sounds like a haberdasher.'' And-- 51 00:02:16,767 --> 00:02:19,901 And what-- so you-- ALLEN GINSBERG: 52 00:02:19,901 --> 00:02:22,567 --[unintelligible] sort of sniffed. 53 00:02:22,567 --> 00:02:27,434 It sounded like some sort of a different kind of talk that was 54 00:02:27,434 --> 00:02:30,934 coming through on the radio than we were used to in personal 55 00:02:30,934 --> 00:02:34,701 life, sort of the more relaxed and funnier and more humorous 56 00:02:34,701 --> 00:02:37,100 and more open and more frank and more candid conversation-- 57 00:02:37,100 --> 00:02:38,100 Yeah. 58 00:02:38,100 --> 00:02:39,934 --although Truman wasn't a bad guy by 59 00:02:39,934 --> 00:02:41,501 hindsight-- NAT HENTOFF, ``The Village Voice'': Compared to 60 00:02:41,501 --> 00:02:42,501 others. 61 00:02:42,501 --> 00:02:43,334 Yeah. 62 00:02:43,334 --> 00:02:46,501 Nonetheless, he did blow up a bomb. 63 00:02:46,501 --> 00:02:49,534 Yeah. 64 00:02:49,534 --> 00:02:52,567 If it began in '44 and began in this exhibit to look at the 65 00:02:52,567 --> 00:02:55,534 Eisenhower years, when did it end? 66 00:02:55,534 --> 00:02:57,767 I mean, why the difference in terms of the exhibit, 1965, 67 00:02:57,767 --> 00:02:59,601 and your book, 1960? 68 00:02:59,601 --> 00:03:04,067 Well, I'm trying to describe the birth, the rise 69 00:03:04,067 --> 00:03:07,801 of the, of the group and how the-- when they first came to 70 00:03:07,801 --> 00:03:11,200 really major public attention. 71 00:03:11,200 --> 00:03:14,000 By 1960, that major public attention was full there. 72 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:16,467 When did it come to your attention? 73 00:03:16,467 --> 00:03:18,501 To my attention and to a lot of other people I 74 00:03:18,501 --> 00:03:22,033 knew at the time was when On the Road was published-- CHARLIE 75 00:03:22,033 --> 00:03:24,033 Yeah. 76 00:03:24,033 --> 00:03:26,467 --and Gil Millstein, of The New York Times 77 00:03:26,467 --> 00:03:30,667 wrote a daily review that was so enthusiastic-- I mean, so 78 00:03:30,667 --> 00:03:35,100 compelling, it was like a harbinger of, of spring after 79 00:03:35,100 --> 00:03:38,434 many deadly years -- because this was a period when a very 80 00:03:38,434 --> 00:03:41,300 prominent academic, Daniel Bell at Harvard, had written a book 81 00:03:41,300 --> 00:03:43,634 called The End of Ideology. 82 00:03:43,634 --> 00:03:46,434 And, and Norman Podhoretz, in Commentary, said, ``There's 83 00:03:46,434 --> 00:03:48,434 nothing more to be excited about. 84 00:03:48,434 --> 00:03:50,434 You know, everything that will happen now will be 85 00:03:50,434 --> 00:03:52,834 incremental.'' And here is this book, which I read -- as, as 86 00:03:52,834 --> 00:03:55,767 well as the review -- that was decidedly nonacademic. 87 00:03:55,767 --> 00:03:57,968 It was really a little like Charlie Parker breaking into the 88 00:03:57,968 --> 00:04:00,534 whole of jazz and turning it-- CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. 89 00:04:00,534 --> 00:04:02,868 --upside down, and it was very exciting. 90 00:04:02,868 --> 00:04:04,834 It was almost rejuvenating. 91 00:04:04,834 --> 00:04:06,968 Before we go to some slides at the exhibit, all 92 00:04:06,968 --> 00:04:10,767 of you tell me what it was about and what it-- what was its 93 00:04:10,767 --> 00:04:14,267 essence, what was its march, why was it different than what had 94 00:04:14,267 --> 00:04:17,267 come before. 95 00:04:17,267 --> 00:04:19,601 For my money, for-- thinking from '44 on-- 96 00:04:19,601 --> 00:04:22,100 Yeah. 97 00:04:22,100 --> 00:04:25,601 --to the present, a liberation movement 98 00:04:25,601 --> 00:04:30,534 beginning with spiritual liberation, then liberation of 99 00:04:30,534 --> 00:04:34,601 the word -- that is, what was discovered in-- through 100 00:04:34,601 --> 00:04:39,067 spiritual liberation in terms of vision or perception or 101 00:04:39,067 --> 00:04:42,100 alteration of consciousness or alteration of what-- frame of 102 00:04:42,100 --> 00:04:45,467 reference. 103 00:04:45,467 --> 00:04:48,367 Then gay lib proceeds from that, and perhaps a catalyst then for 104 00:04:48,367 --> 00:04:50,400 other liberation movements, certainly the gay-- NAT 105 00:04:50,400 --> 00:04:52,400 Yeah, I would, I would doubt that. 106 00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:55,000 --the gay-- well the gay lib was, I think, 107 00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:56,000 quite an important breakthrough. 108 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:57,000 Yeah. 109 00:04:57,000 --> 00:04:58,033 Okay. 110 00:04:58,033 --> 00:04:58,534 But, but before-- go ahead. 111 00:04:58,534 --> 00:05:02,100 Then also an interest in Eastern thought from 112 00:05:02,100 --> 00:05:04,100 the very beginning-- CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. 113 00:05:04,100 --> 00:05:06,100 --from the '50s on, certainly, with the 114 00:05:06,100 --> 00:05:08,100 development of people like Gary Snyder and Philip Whelan, who is 115 00:05:08,100 --> 00:05:10,133 now the Abbot of the Hartford Street Zen Center in San 116 00:05:10,133 --> 00:05:12,334 Francisco. 117 00:05:12,334 --> 00:05:15,133 So, Buddhism, meditation, interest in the texture of 118 00:05:15,133 --> 00:05:17,200 consciousness as part of the spiritual liberation -- 119 00:05:17,200 --> 00:05:20,534 therefore, interest in marijuana, therefore realization 120 00:05:20,534 --> 00:05:27,534 of the hooks of the federal laws on marijuana and the trap of 121 00:05:27,534 --> 00:05:30,968 the-- that junkies are put into when they should be sent to 122 00:05:30,968 --> 00:05:35,734 doctors instead of criminalized like Jews in Nazi Germany with 123 00:05:35,734 --> 00:05:38,667 dogs after them. 124 00:05:38,667 --> 00:05:42,200 Then an interest maybe in pacifist politics, rising from a 125 00:05:42,200 --> 00:05:45,334 realization of meditation and many outgrowths of that. 126 00:05:45,334 --> 00:05:47,968 There was always then sort of a literary 127 00:05:47,968 --> 00:05:49,968 sensibility at its core. 128 00:05:49,968 --> 00:05:52,033 Oh, the whole thing was art as sacred. 129 00:05:52,033 --> 00:05:54,934 And sex as sacred, too. 130 00:05:54,934 --> 00:05:57,334 Sex-- CHARLIE ROSE: Sexual liberation-- ALLEN GINSBERG: 131 00:05:57,334 --> 00:05:58,334 --and art as sacred. 132 00:05:58,334 --> 00:05:59,701 Right. 133 00:05:59,701 --> Yeah. 134 00:05:59,701 --> 00:06:00,501 Well, it's se- eros as sacred and sacramental. 135 00:06:00,501 --> 00:06:02,701 It was self-liberation in every 136 00:06:02,701 --> 00:06:04,734 quintessential way so far as I could see, but it was not-- it, 137 00:06:04,734 --> 00:06:06,734 it was a social movement in some ways, as Allen pointed out. 138 00:06:06,734 --> 00:06:08,734 Primarily literary, I would say. 139 00:06:08,734 --> 00:06:10,734 Yeah. 140 00:06:10,734 --> 00:06:12,734 But it was not essentially a political movement. 141 00:06:12,734 --> 00:06:14,734 Now, what, what-- ALLEN GINSBERG: Not at all. 142 00:06:14,734 --> 00:06:17,234 No. 143 00:06:17,234 --> 00:06:20,734 But what is now being said about it -- and that's the mythology I 144 00:06:20,734 --> 00:06:24,167 meant -- it is now said, as it was on a program on CBS Sunday 145 00:06:24,167 --> 00:06:27,467 morning -- that after all, out of the Beat whatever -- history, 146 00:06:27,467 --> 00:06:31,400 impetus -- came the civil rights movement, came the anti-war 147 00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:33,400 movement. 148 00:06:33,400 --> 00:06:35,968 And I was thinking, sure, Abbie Hoffman, as you said before, 149 00:06:35,968 --> 00:06:38,334 went on-- he went down South with a copy of On the Road in 150 00:06:38,334 --> 00:06:40,334 his pocket. 151 00:06:40,334 --> 00:06:43,033 But those black kids in Greenville, North Carolina, 152 00:06:43,033 --> 00:06:46,000 sitting at the lunch counters, getting their heads beat in-- 153 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:47,567 Greensboro. 154 00:06:47,567 --> 00:06:50,334 --I will bet you they'd never heard of Kerouac. 155 00:06:50,334 --> 00:06:52,334 Yeah. 156 00:06:52,334 --> 00:06:54,334 They were impelled by something else. 157 00:06:54,334 --> 00:06:56,968 There was a degree of pacifist involvement in the anti-war 158 00:06:56,968 --> 00:06:58,133 movement, but it was mainly through people like Byard Rusten 159 00:06:58,133 --> 00:06:59,133 and H.A. 160 00:06:59,133 --> 00:07:00,133 Mustie, who-- ALLEN GINSBERG: And David Dillinger, and-- NAT 161 00:07:00,133 --> 00:07:01,133 And they would-- yeah, well Dillinger is something else 162 00:07:01,133 --> 00:07:02,133 again. 163 00:07:02,133 --> 00:07:03,901 David Dillinger and David MacGregor. 164 00:07:03,901 --> 00:07:06,534 But the point, the point is the anti-war people, if 165 00:07:06,534 --> 00:07:08,767 there had been no Beat movement, because of Vietnam, there would 166 00:07:08,767 --> 00:07:10,767 have been an anti-war movement. 167 00:07:10,767 --> 00:07:11,767 Okay. 168 00:07:11,767 --> 00:07:12,033 Valid point. 169 00:07:12,033 --> 00:07:14,767 But what is it-- it shared-- if it is not a direct link in terms 170 00:07:14,767 --> 00:07:17,767 of cultural and social-- with a literary sensibility at its 171 00:07:17,767 --> 00:07:21,734 core, what did it share with those movements that later 172 00:07:21,734 --> 00:07:23,734 became political and changed the face-- coming out of the '60s. 173 00:07:23,734 --> 00:07:25,968 I think in ter-- in terms of individuals, I 174 00:07:25,968 --> 00:07:28,367 expect it shared a lot. 175 00:07:28,367 --> 00:07:31,434 In terms of the collective movement, the impetus, the 176 00:07:31,434 --> 00:07:33,601 people running all these things-- CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. 177 00:07:33,601 --> 00:07:34,601 --A. 178 00:07:34,601 --> 00:07:35,601 Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, not much. 179 00:07:35,601 --> 00:07:36,901 Not much kinship-- NAT HENTOFF: Not 180 00:07:36,901 --> 00:07:37,901 much. 181 00:07:37,901 --> 00:07:38,901 --there. 182 00:07:38,901 --> 00:07:39,734 No. 183 00:07:39,734 --> 00:07:41,901 Well, I don't know. 184 00:07:41,901 --> 00:07:43,901 Except-- let me just say, as an artist, that there's a thing 185 00:07:43,901 --> 00:07:46,367 called freedom of expression, which I see as saloon doors that 186 00:07:46,367 --> 00:07:49,200 have to be kicked open. 187 00:07:49,200 --> 00:07:51,367 And there was a generation that came along and kicked those 188 00:07:51,367 --> 00:07:53,767 saloon doors open. 189 00:07:53,767 --> 00:07:56,000 The, the saloon doors go back shut. 190 00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:58,334 I mean, they have to continually-- every generation 191 00:07:58,334 --> 00:08:00,868 coming along. 192 00:08:00,868 --> 00:08:03,934 And I think the interest in the Beat Generation now, we have a 193 00:08:03,934 --> 00:08:07,267 political climate not unlike the '50s, and so these advances that 194 00:08:07,267 --> 00:08:10,100 were made in civil rights, they're being closed down, too, 195 00:08:10,100 --> 00:08:13,167 so that there is something about the individual needing that 196 00:08:13,167 --> 00:08:15,834 freedom of expression we all fought for in our-- in the kind 197 00:08:15,834 --> 00:08:18,467 of art we made. 198 00:08:18,467 --> 00:08:19,834 So you're suggesting that sort of the, the 199 00:08:19,834 --> 00:08:22,234 conservative political philosophy that is in the 200 00:08:22,234 --> 00:08:24,834 majority today may very well spring a new kind of Beat 201 00:08:24,834 --> 00:08:26,834 culture that-- GEORGE HERMS: I would, I would-- I'd swear on 202 00:08:26,834 --> 00:08:28,367 it. 203 00:08:28,367 --> 00:08:30,834 --will kick the saloon doors. 204 00:08:30,834 --> 00:08:31,834 Already has. 205 00:08:31,834 --> 00:08:32,701 I'd swear on it that it is going on. 206 00:08:32,701 --> 00:08:34,834 But don't be surprised-- [crosstalk] Don't be 207 00:08:34,834 --> 00:08:37,167 surprised if Newt Gingrich suddenly tells us that he read 208 00:08:37,167 --> 00:08:40,100 On the Road and that had a great influence on him. 209 00:08:40,100 --> 00:08:42,100 [Crosstalk] ALLEN GINSBERG: However, one time-- CHARLIE 210 00:08:42,100 --> 00:08:44,100 Yeah. 211 00:08:44,100 --> 00:08:46,100 --in terms of what you were saying -- and Nat 212 00:08:46,100 --> 00:08:47,934 would know this really well -- there was the problem of real 213 00:08:47,934 --> 00:08:48,934 censorship of books. 214 00:08:48,934 --> 00:08:50,200 Yeah. 215 00:08:50,200 --> 00:08:52,934 In those days, you couldn't print the classic 216 00:08:52,934 --> 00:08:55,968 poet, Catullus-- CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. 217 00:08:55,968 --> 00:08:58,234 --in, in English, and the so-called 218 00:08:58,234 --> 00:09:01,000 salacious passages had to be printed in Latin. 219 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:03,868 The Modern Library edition of Sotoric and of Petronius' 220 00:09:03,868 --> 00:09:06,734 Arbiter had Latin passages where you were no-- people were not 221 00:09:06,734 --> 00:09:09,067 supposed to read it in America. 222 00:09:09,067 --> 00:09:11,701 Henry Miller was forbidden. 223 00:09:11,701 --> 00:09:12,701 D.H. 224 00:09:12,701 --> 00:09:14,667 Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover was forbidden. 225 00:09:14,667 --> 00:09:15,634 And Allen Ginsberg was censored on public radio. 226 00:09:15,634 --> 00:09:18,300 Well, well-- my book was censored in the-- NAT 227 00:09:18,300 --> 00:09:20,300 Yeah. 228 00:09:20,300 --> 00:09:22,300 Yeah. 229 00:09:22,300 --> 00:09:23,300 And finally, a series of court trials ending in 230 00:09:23,300 --> 00:09:24,634 nineteen sixty-- nineteen sixty-two, which liberated 231 00:09:24,634 --> 00:09:26,334 Burroughs' Naked Lunch, and that opened the doors-- NAT HENTOFF: 232 00:09:26,334 --> 00:09:27,334 That's right. 233 00:09:27,334 --> 00:09:29,300 --to the literary salon-- NAT HENTOFF: 234 00:09:29,300 --> 00:09:30,300 That's right. 235 00:09:30,300 --> 00:09:31,300 --but now they're shut again by the 236 00:09:31,300 --> 00:09:32,300 neoconservatives, especially Jesse Helms-- NAT HENTOFF: Oh, 237 00:09:32,300 --> 00:09:34,033 yeah. 238 00:09:34,033 --> 00:09:36,300 --because the same kind of censorship has been 239 00:09:36,300 --> 00:09:38,300 opposed on radio and television, but through the FCC by a law put 240 00:09:38,300 --> 00:09:40,701 in by Jesse Helms forbidding so-called-- STEVEN WATSON: 241 00:09:40,701 --> 00:09:43,667 Indecency. 242 00:09:43,667 --> 00:09:45,667 --undefined, indecent ex-- language. 243 00:09:45,667 --> 00:09:47,667 These are the seven words or something. 244 00:09:47,667 --> 00:09:49,667 Yeah, the seven dirty words. 245 00:09:49,667 --> 00:09:51,667 Twenty-four hours a day-- CHARLIE ROSE: 246 00:09:51,667 --> 00:09:53,667 Yeah. 247 00:09:53,667 --> 00:09:55,667 --so that my poetry, which is studied in 248 00:09:55,667 --> 00:09:57,667 college textbooks and high school textbooks is forbidden on 249 00:09:57,667 --> 00:09:59,534 the air during the hours when the kids are studying it. 250 00:09:59,534 --> 00:10:01,701 And don't forget the school libraries and 251 00:10:01,701 --> 00:10:03,701 classrooms. 252 00:10:03,701 --> 00:10:05,834 Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition said at his last 253 00:10:05,834 --> 00:10:08,434 convention, ``I would rather have a thousand school board 254 00:10:08,434 --> 00:10:09,434 members than a President of the United States.'' He knows where 255 00:10:09,434 --> 00:10:10,434 he wants to go. 256 00:10:10,434 --> 00:10:12,167 He understands the politics of how the grass-- 257 00:10:12,167 --> 00:10:13,300 Right. 258 00:10:13,300 --> 00:10:15,267 --roots movements-- NAT HENTOFF: 259 00:10:15,267 --> 00:10:16,601 Basically, those guys are like Stalinists that want to control 260 00:10:16,601 --> 00:10:18,501 everybody's mind. 261 00:10:18,501 --> 00:10:19,501 Sure. 262 00:10:19,501 --> 00:10:19,868 All right. 263 00:10:19,868 --> 00:10:23,434 Before we go further and look at some of this, tell me more about 264 00:10:23,434 --> 00:10:26,601 some of the ethos, though. 265 00:10:26,601 --> 00:10:29,868 What it was like in the sense of, of the feeling at the time. 266 00:10:29,868 --> 00:10:33,701 Well, as a middle class kid, I was attracted -- 267 00:10:33,701 --> 00:10:36,701 just like these school boards that he wants. 268 00:10:36,701 --> 00:10:39,367 I came out of this milieu attracted to poetry and art, and 269 00:10:39,367 --> 00:10:41,934 now, in hindsight, we're looking back and the Beats are being 270 00:10:41,934 --> 00:10:43,934 called conservatives, Allen. 271 00:10:43,934 --> 00:10:45,934 Do you realize that? 272 00:10:45,934 --> 00:10:47,934 Because we believed in an older tradition of beauty, 273 00:10:47,934 --> 00:10:50,734 truth, art -- all these, these ideas that were not part of the 274 00:10:50,734 --> 00:10:53,367 Eisenhower years and the rampant materialism that was being 275 00:10:53,367 --> 00:10:56,901 foisted on the public through advertising, something that we 276 00:10:56,901 --> 00:10:57,634 know a lot about today. 277 00:10:57,634 --> 00:10:59,767 It's still going on. 278 00:10:59,767 --> 00:11:02,467 And for-- all over America and around the world, actually, 279 00:11:02,467 --> 00:11:05,367 there was this magnetic attraction of people trying to 280 00:11:05,367 --> 00:11:07,634 find something other than what's the latest thing that you're 281 00:11:07,634 --> 00:11:10,167 supposed to buy according to what the advertisements tell you 282 00:11:10,167 --> 00:11:12,167 to buy. 283 00:11:12,167 --> 00:11:14,167 But now-- GEORGE HERMS: It was liberating. 284 00:11:14,167 --> 00:11:15,534 --through no fault of yours, the Beat ethos, the 285 00:11:15,534 --> 00:11:18,434 Beat artifacts are being used to tell [crosstalk]. 286 00:11:18,434 --> 00:11:21,200 The culture devours everybody sooner or later. 287 00:11:21,200 --> 00:11:23,200 I don't think that that's so bad. 288 00:11:23,200 --> 00:11:25,767 I think that maybe-- NAT HENTOFF: I'm not saying it's 289 00:11:25,767 --> 00:11:27,734 bad. 290 00:11:27,734 --> 00:11:28,734 --a subliminal message is coming through that 291 00:11:28,734 --> 00:11:29,734 could not be broadcast directly. 292 00:11:29,734 --> 00:11:30,734 Not a bad idea. 293 00:11:30,734 --> 00:11:31,400 Listen-- CHARLIE ROSE: What was its music? 294 00:11:31,400 --> 00:11:33,734 The music was jazz, clearly. 295 00:11:33,734 --> 00:11:35,734 Well, bop. 296 00:11:35,734 --> 00:11:38,000 Bop and Charlie Parker at the center of it. 297 00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:40,000 Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk-- 298 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:42,067 Yeah, but then again, those three people you 299 00:11:42,067 --> 00:11:43,067 just mentioned had no sense of what was going on in terms of 300 00:11:43,067 --> 00:11:44,934 Beat culture. 301 00:11:44,934 --> 00:11:47,067 Oh, yes, they did. 302 00:11:47,067 --> 00:11:49,067 I knew Thelonius Monk. 303 00:11:49,067 --> 00:11:51,400 In 1960-- NAT HENTOFF: I, I spent a lot of time with 304 00:11:51,400 --> 00:11:53,534 Thelonius and, and-- look, if, if you interviewed him on that, 305 00:11:53,534 --> 00:11:55,534 fine, but in conversation it never came up. 306 00:11:55,534 --> 00:11:57,534 I had a very interesting conversation with 307 00:11:57,534 --> 00:11:59,534 him about my poem, ``Howl.'' NAT HENTOFF: Yeah. 308 00:11:59,534 --> 00:12:01,534 Oh, that I could understand. 309 00:12:01,534 --> 00:12:03,000 Yeah, I, I gave him-- I gave it to him, and I 310 00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:04,000 said-- and, and a week later, I went to the Flat Spot and said, 311 00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:04,634 ``What did you think?' 312 00:12:04,634 --> 00:12:07,000 ' He said, ``Makes sense.'' CHARLIE ROSE: We're going to 313 00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:09,000 take a look at some of the things that are at-- these are 314 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:11,534 slides-- ALLEN GINSBERG: That same year I also delivered some 315 00:12:11,534 --> 00:12:14,133 psilocybin to him from Leary. 316 00:12:14,133 --> 00:12:15,133 Uh-huh. 317 00:12:15,133 --> 00:12:17,133 And also to Dizzy Gillespie. 318 00:12:17,133 --> 00:12:18,133 That made sense, too. 319 00:12:18,133 --> 00:12:19,133 That's 1960 [crosstalk] CHARLIE ROSE: Well, 320 00:12:19,133 --> 00:12:20,133 in-- ALLEN GINSBERG: Intersecting circles. 321 00:12:20,133 --> 00:12:20,767 Yeah. 322 00:12:20,767 --> 00:12:23,133 For artists and the work of artists to be 323 00:12:23,133 --> 00:12:25,133 incorporated as part of a sensibility does not necessarily 324 00:12:25,133 --> 00:12:28,100 mean that the people who are the artists neces-- they have to be 325 00:12:28,100 --> 00:12:30,367 considered proponents-- NAT HENTOFF: Or, or even-- CHARLIE 326 00:12:30,367 --> 00:12:32,367 --of a culture. 327 00:12:32,367 --> 00:12:34,567 --conscious of it. 328 00:12:34,567 --> 00:12:37,367 I mean, their work can be adopted without 329 00:12:37,367 --> 00:12:39,367 their-- even consciousness. 330 00:12:39,367 --> 00:12:41,367 That's right. 331 00:12:41,367 --> 00:12:43,434 And the team Beat culture is something that 332 00:12:43,434 --> 00:12:44,200 we are talking about now and historically about a period. 333 00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:46,434 It's not necessarily that they-- CHARLIE ROSE: Well, was there 334 00:12:46,434 --> 00:12:49,133 at that time a sense of we are, we are part of a new culture, we 335 00:12:49,133 --> 00:12:50,200 are part of a Beat culture, we are sort of on the threshold of 336 00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:51,734 something that's different? 337 00:12:51,734 --> 00:12:54,200 Or was it just happening, and people knew it? 338 00:12:54,200 --> 00:12:56,234 Well, from '45 on, it wasn't -- no-- Burroughs 339 00:12:56,234 --> 00:12:57,234 or Kerouac, myself didn't think of it as Beat. 340 00:12:57,234 --> 00:12:58,534 And that was-- Ker-- CHARLIE ROSE: You thought of it as 341 00:12:58,534 --> 00:13:00,501 what? 342 00:13:00,501 --> 00:13:01,501 New vision. 343 00:13:01,501 --> 00:13:03,400 New vision. 344 00:13:03,400 --> 00:13:05,501 Taking that from William Butler Yeats' Book 345 00:13:05,501 --> 00:13:07,501 of Vision and taking it from Rimbaud's ``When shall we be the 346 00:13:07,501 --> 00:13:09,501 first to see Christmas on earth?' 347 00:13:09,501 --> 00:13:11,834 ' CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. 348 00:13:11,834 --> 00:13:14,767 A little, a little-- a beautiful phrase of 349 00:13:14,767 --> 00:13:17,234 ``The Season in Hell'' by Rimbaud, who was the first punk, 350 00:13:17,234 --> 00:13:19,868 in a way, and also one of the early hashish smokers-- GEORGE 351 00:13:19,868 --> 00:13:22,834 Yeah. 352 00:13:22,834 --> 00:13:24,834 --and also one of the young kids. 353 00:13:24,834 --> 00:13:25,934 He wrote his best work between, what, 15 and 17. 354 00:13:25,934 --> 00:13:27,067 Yeah. 355 00:13:27,067 --> 00:13:27,834 By the time he was 22. 356 00:13:27,834 --> 00:13:30,067 But there also were bars around New York and 357 00:13:30,067 --> 00:13:32,968 San Francisco and probably other cities, when you were aware-- I 358 00:13:32,968 --> 00:13:34,767 was aware of being part of a, of a new vision culture, whatever, 359 00:13:34,767 --> 00:13:36,534 like the Cedar Tavern. 360 00:13:36,534 --> 00:13:38,367 There was a spirit in the, in-- ALLEN 361 00:13:38,367 --> 00:13:39,367 Or the San Remo. 362 00:13:39,367 --> 00:13:40,367 Or the San Remo, yeah. 363 00:13:40,367 --> 00:13:41,367 A spirit off the street, so to speak-- NAT 364 00:13:41,367 --> 00:13:42,367 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 365 00:13:42,367 --> 00:13:43,367 --that was a pa-- and-- that was in the air. 366 00:13:43,367 --> 00:13:44,400 Yeah. 367 00:13:44,400 --> 00:13:45,400 But that was also a continuation of the 368 00:13:45,400 --> 00:13:46,400 ancient Bohemian tradition. 369 00:13:46,400 --> 00:13:47,400 That's right. 370 00:13:47,400 --> 00:13:48,400 Artistic Bohemia. 371 00:13:48,400 --> 00:13:49,400 It's Bohemia. 372 00:13:49,400 --> 00:13:50,400 Before there was Beat, there was Bohemia. 373 00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:51,400 Yeah. 374 00:13:51,400 --> 00:13:51,501 And after [unintelligible]. 375 00:13:51,501 --> 00:13:54,400 And it seems like every decor-- every, you know, 376 00:13:54,400 --> 00:13:57,367 decade goes along, I'm the same person walking along. 377 00:13:57,367 --> 00:13:59,367 In every decade, there's these new cat calls, you know, like 378 00:13:59,367 --> 00:14:00,367 beatnik and hippie and punk and freak-- CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, 379 00:14:00,367 --> 00:14:01,367 right. 380 00:14:01,367 --> 00:14:01,934 --and I'm the same person and-- [crosstalk] 381 00:14:01,934 --> 00:14:03,367 But you still seek-- ALLEN GINSBERG: Slacker. 382 00:14:03,367 --> 00:14:05,367 That's right. 383 00:14:05,367 --> 00:14:06,367 Isn't that true, Allen? 384 00:14:06,367 --> 00:14:07,367 Yeah. 385 00:14:07,367 --> 00:14:08,367 I mean, and, and-- things were just called 386 00:14:08,367 --> 00:14:09,400 the works, really. 387 00:14:09,400 --> 00:14:11,367 You know, there wasn't this specialization and narrowing 388 00:14:11,367 --> 00:14:13,367 down. 389 00:14:13,367 --> 00:14:15,400 Well, thanks to the Whitney we're talking about 390 00:14:15,400 --> 00:14:17,400 it, and thanks to Steve's book. 391 00:14:17,400 --> 00:14:18,400 But let me-- ALLEN GINSBERG: Maybe thanks to the nuclear 392 00:14:18,400 --> 00:14:19,400 bomb, too, that there was a sudden sort of moment in history 393 00:14:19,400 --> 00:14:20,400 when-- CHARLIE ROSE: Of a nu-- nuclear fatalism? 394 00:14:20,400 --> 00:14:21,400 Well, no. 395 00:14:21,400 --> 00:14:22,767 No. 396 00:14:22,767 --> 00:14:25,400 When people realized there was a danger to the earth if, if-- NAT 397 00:14:25,400 --> 00:14:28,367 It was a trauma, terrible shock. 398 00:14:28,367 --> 00:14:30,367 --mankind, womankind went on with this 399 00:14:30,367 --> 00:14:32,367 destructive consumption-- NAT HENTOFF: Yeah. 400 00:14:32,367 --> 00:14:34,367 --of themselves, and this sense of 401 00:14:34,367 --> 00:14:36,367 aggression and anger that goes along with that, socially. 402 00:14:36,367 --> 00:14:38,367 See, there, too, John Hersey's total issue of The 403 00:14:38,367 --> 00:14:40,367 New Yorker-- CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. 404 00:14:40,367 --> 00:14:42,367 --on the result of the bombing of Hiroshima, 405 00:14:42,367 --> 00:14:44,133 Hiroshima. 406 00:14:44,133 --> 00:14:45,367 That, I think, was also a part of the epiphany of the times. 407 00:14:45,367 --> 00:14:48,367 How, how can this be? 408 00:14:48,367 --> 00:14:50,400 What do we, what do we do now? 409 00:14:50,400 --> 00:14:52,400 Well, what, what was its sexuality? 410 00:14:52,400 --> 00:14:54,400 Let me come back to that, Allen, and, and ask Steven -- 411 00:14:54,400 --> 00:14:57,000 the sexuality that infused this. 412 00:14:57,000 --> 00:15:00,400 Well, there's-- CHARLIE ROSE: Other than just 413 00:15:00,400 --> 00:15:03,400 liberation. 414 00:15:03,400 --> 00:15:05,400 Well, first of all, there was very very close 415 00:15:05,400 --> 00:15:07,400 male bonding-- CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. 416 00:15:07,400 --> 00:15:10,367 --that-- some of it was homosexual, some of it 417 00:15:10,367 --> 00:15:12,367 was bisexual, some of it was just friendly. 418 00:15:12,367 --> 00:15:14,367 But there was, there was an enormous exploration of 419 00:15:14,367 --> 00:15:16,868 different kinds of sexuality that I think really fueled the 420 00:15:16,868 --> 00:15:18,367 group in many ways and was, was very important in terms of the 421 00:15:18,367 --> 00:15:20,367 spiritual liberation that Allen was talking about. 422 00:15:20,367 --> 00:15:22,367 And, and reflected in your work. 423 00:15:22,367 --> 00:15:23,367 Yeah. 424 00:15:23,367 --> 00:15:25,067 Oh, yeah. 425 00:15:25,067 --> 00:15:26,367 I began writing about it more or less directly, 426 00:15:26,367 --> 00:15:28,400 and that's what got my work censored, when I began saying 427 00:15:28,400 --> 00:15:30,400 what I experienced-- CHARLIE ROSE: I've got to-- ALLEN 428 00:15:30,400 --> 00:15:32,400 --for real. 429 00:15:32,400 --> 00:15:34,400 --get to these slides. 430 00:15:34,400 --> 00:15:36,400 Let me take a look at the first one, which is-- George, you'll 431 00:15:36,400 --> 00:15:38,400 recognize this: ``The Librarian.'' GEORGE HERMS: Yes. 432 00:15:38,400 --> 00:15:40,400 You can see it over there. 433 00:15:40,400 --> 00:15:40,567 It's-- GEORGE HERMS: Right. 434 00:15:40,567 --> 00:15:43,300 Tell me about it. 435 00:15:43,300 --> 00:15:46,367 ``The Librarian'' -- in 1960, I would start my 436 00:15:46,367 --> 00:15:49,367 days going to a dump in a little town-- CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. 437 00:15:49,367 --> 00:15:52,367 --and gathering things to make sculptures out 438 00:15:52,367 --> 00:15:55,367 of, and one day all these books appeared. 439 00:15:55,367 --> 00:15:58,367 And it's actually a portrait of the librarian in a little town. 440 00:15:58,367 --> 00:16:01,367 And the, the question of whether this is anti-intellectual, 441 00:16:01,367 --> 00:16:04,367 Allen, comes up, and I think it's an affirmation that the, 442 00:16:04,367 --> 00:16:06,968 the spirit goes on. 443 00:16:06,968 --> 00:16:08,367 The material goods are going to all fade, but the-- CHARLIE 444 00:16:08,367 --> 00:16:10,367 Next slide. 445 00:16:10,367 --> 00:16:12,400 Kerouac's Buddha. 446 00:16:12,400 --> 00:16:14,400 Yes. 447 00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:16,400 Tell me about it, Allen. 448 00:16:16,400 --> 00:16:18,400 Well, I, I've just only seen it recently in 449 00:16:18,400 --> 00:16:20,400 the last couple years. 450 00:16:20,400 --> 00:16:22,400 I didn't know he did that. 451 00:16:22,400 --> 00:16:24,400 But it's got a kind of dazzling effect, actually. 452 00:16:24,400 --> 00:16:26,400 And he's got himself sitting there in the lower right. 453 00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:27,434 Yeah. 454 00:16:27,434 --> 00:16:31,367 But it's a pretty ac-- dazzling, the funny 455 00:16:31,367 --> 00:16:34,367 little halo. 456 00:16:34,367 --> 00:16:36,367 I apologize for having to run through these, but 457 00:16:36,367 --> 00:16:37,667 time forces me to. 458 00:16:37,667 --> 00:16:40,367 And there's a lotus at the bottom, but it's an 459 00:16:40,367 --> 00:16:42,367 interesting one. 460 00:16:42,367 --> 00:16:44,367 This is ``The Rose'' by-- GEORGE HERMS: This 461 00:16:44,367 --> 00:16:46,367 is Jay Defeo's ``Rose,'' which-- CHARLIE ROSE: Jay Defeo, yeah. 462 00:16:46,367 --> 00:16:48,367 --is an absolutely beautiful 463 00:16:48,367 --> 00:16:50,200 resurrection of a piece that she worked on for seven years. 464 00:16:50,200 --> 00:16:52,367 And when I finally saw this in the Whitney show, I wept at 465 00:16:52,367 --> 00:16:54,367 seeing it. 466 00:16:54,367 --> 00:16:56,400 You did. 467 00:16:56,400 --> 00:16:58,400 It's just-- it's a very moving-- a piece that a 468 00:16:58,400 --> 00:17:00,400 lot of art has grown out of even though this was done, what, in 469 00:17:00,400 --> 00:17:02,400 the late '50s, early-- ALLEN GINSBERG: I think that's-- 470 00:17:02,400 --> 00:17:05,133 --sixties. 471 00:17:05,133 --> 00:17:06,400 --nineteen fifty-nine. 472 00:17:06,400 --> 00:17:08,400 Steven. 473 00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:10,400 The experience of seeing that in the Whitney 474 00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:12,400 and the sheer physicality and magnitude of it is, for my mind, 475 00:17:12,400 --> 00:17:15,367 it's, it's the most moving work in the show, I think. 476 00:17:15,367 --> 00:17:17,367 This is? 477 00:17:17,367 --> 00:17:19,367 This is, yeah. 478 00:17:19,367 --> 00:17:21,367 Okay. 479 00:17:21,367 --> 00:17:23,367 Next slide. 480 00:17:23,367 --> 00:17:25,367 Again, Jay-- Dr. Jazz. 481 00:17:25,367 --> 00:17:27,367 Jay De-- Dr. Jazz, yeah. 482 00:17:27,367 --> 00:17:29,367 Very large-- this is showing the abstract expressionist ground 483 00:17:29,367 --> 00:17:31,367 that a lot of Beat art came out of and the use of real objects, 484 00:17:31,367 --> 00:17:33,367 which was something -- how to, how to have a place that could 485 00:17:33,367 --> 00:17:35,367 have both realism and abstraction. 486 00:17:35,367 --> 00:17:37,400 Is that yours? 487 00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:37,567 No, no, no. 488 00:17:37,567 --> 00:17:40,467 That's Jay Defeo's painting. 489 00:17:40,467 --> 00:17:42,667 That's-- GEORGE HERMS: See, to me, she, she was 490 00:17:42,667 --> 00:17:44,868 like the de Kooning of the West Coast, with this, this 491 00:17:44,868 --> 00:17:46,868 beautiful, gestural, huge, strong, bold-- NAT HENTOFF: I'm 492 00:17:46,868 --> 00:17:48,868 intrigued by the title. 493 00:17:48,868 --> 00:17:49,868 Dr. Jazz. 494 00:17:49,868 --> 00:17:51,267 Yeah, yeah. 495 00:17:51,267 --> 00:17:52,868 Well, that's part of her-- you know-- NAT HENTOFF: Mythos. 496 00:17:52,868 --> 00:17:55,200 Ja-- I, I think jazz was the music that lived 497 00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:57,200 through it all. 498 00:17:57,200 --> 00:17:59,501 This is a Wallace Berman, and he, to me, is the quintessential 499 00:17:59,501 --> 00:18:00,767 Beat artist. 500 00:18:00,767 --> 00:18:04,501 ``Poppa's Got a Brand New Bag.'' GEORGE HERMS: 501 00:18:04,501 --> 00:18:06,501 Yeah. 502 00:18:06,501 --> 00:18:08,501 That's off of a James Brown tune, and this introduces some 503 00:18:08,501 --> 00:18:10,601 of his way of working with an early coffee machine, called a 504 00:18:10,601 --> 00:18:12,601 Verafax, which appeared in this. 505 00:18:12,601 --> 00:18:14,601 And he's a-- you know, his magazine was called Semina, and 506 00:18:14,601 --> 00:18:16,601 he's definitely-- to me he should have edited the entire 507 00:18:16,601 --> 00:18:19,567 universe, as far as [unintelligible]. 508 00:18:19,567 --> 00:18:20,801 Next slide. 509 00:18:20,801 --> 00:18:22,634 My God, there he is. 510 00:18:22,634 --> 00:18:24,634 Bob Thompson. 511 00:18:24,634 --> 00:18:26,634 Portrait of Allen, Bob Thompson. 512 00:18:26,634 --> 00:18:28,634 Yeah, I went over to his studio one day in a 513 00:18:28,634 --> 00:18:30,634 pink shirt, just to visit. 514 00:18:30,634 --> 00:18:32,634 Yeah. 515 00:18:32,634 --> 00:18:34,634 He was an African-American, a really 516 00:18:34,634 --> 00:18:35,667 friendly-- I, I knew him pretty well, and he had a whole circle 517 00:18:35,667 --> 00:18:39,000 of painter friends and-- like, the photographer Robert Frank. 518 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:41,000 Yeah. 519 00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:43,000 And I just dropped in the studio, and he 520 00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:45,000 said, ``Well, why don't you sit down there?' 521 00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:46,000 ' So I put myself in the lotus posture, and, bam, he did it in 522 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:46,968 maybe an hour. 523 00:18:46,968 --> 00:18:49,000 The next one is, is ``Anger of Madame Gnu's 524 00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:51,000 BBQ.'' GEORGE HERMS: Right. 525 00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:53,000 Barbecue. 526 00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:55,000 That's Wally Hedrick's, isn't it? 527 00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:56,334 Wally Hedrick, yeah, who-- ALLEN GINSBERG: I 528 00:18:56,334 --> 00:18:57,334 didn't know he was so political. 529 00:18:57,334 --> 00:18:57,534 Yeah. 530 00:18:57,534 --> 00:18:59,334 Well, that's the thing is that he actually destroyed all his 531 00:18:59,334 --> 00:19:00,334 paintings during the Vietnam War. 532 00:19:00,334 --> 00:19:01,334 Oh. 533 00:19:01,334 --> 00:19:02,334 All-- everything that led up to it, just-- 534 00:19:02,334 --> 00:19:03,334 At one time? 535 00:19:03,334 --> 00:19:04,334 --as a protest. 536 00:19:04,334 --> 00:19:06,067 Yeah, as a protest. 537 00:19:06,067 --> 00:19:08,300 Why-- I mean, what was the rationale for the 538 00:19:08,300 --> 00:19:10,300 protest? 539 00:19:10,300 --> 00:19:11,467 Well, the-- you know, everything was going to 540 00:19:11,467 --> 00:19:12,467 hell in a hand basket, you know, and-- ALLEN GINSBERG: Okay. 541 00:19:12,467 --> 00:19:13,467 That would be '63, '64. 542 00:19:13,467 --> 00:19:14,467 Yeah. 543 00:19:14,467 --> 00:19:16,467 Last slide, ``Couch.'' GEORGE HERMS: Yeah, 544 00:19:16,467 --> 00:19:18,467 this is-- CHARLIE ROSE: Bruce Connor. 545 00:19:18,467 --> 00:19:20,467 --Bruce Connor's, and this has that horror of the 546 00:19:20,467 --> 00:19:22,534 Holocaust of the atomic bomb. 547 00:19:22,534 --> 00:19:24,534 So there's a-- NAT HENTOFF: The horror. 548 00:19:24,534 --> 00:19:26,534 The horror. 549 00:19:26,534 --> 00:19:28,567 Yes. 550 00:19:28,567 --> 00:19:30,567 Yeah. 551 00:19:30,567 --> 00:19:32,567 The-- and the couch has this kind of-- horrific, maybe, is a 552 00:19:32,567 --> 00:19:34,767 better way to describe it. 553 00:19:34,767 --> 00:19:37,567 Now, I have read a lot of reviews about this 554 00:19:37,567 --> 00:19:40,434 exhibit and, and there seems to be some debate about whether 555 00:19:40,434 --> 00:19:42,567 this is anthropology, whether this is in fact the best 556 00:19:42,567 --> 00:19:45,334 reflection of the Beat Generation, and whether it is 557 00:19:45,334 --> 00:19:47,067 something else. 558 00:19:47,067 --> 00:19:49,334 I have some views on the literary aspects. 559 00:19:49,334 --> 00:19:51,334 Gary Snyder-- CHARLIE ROSE: I'm talking about the exhibit now. 560 00:19:51,334 --> 00:19:53,334 Yeah. 561 00:19:53,334 --> 00:19:55,467 Gary Snyder is not sufficiently represented with his 562 00:19:55,467 --> 00:19:58,868 calligraphy, nor the Zen master, Philip Whelan, our first [00:43:05:19-] southern co-- San Francisco renaissance poet Zen master or [-00:43:11:03] abbot. 563 00:20:04,334 --> 00:20:07,234 Philip Lamatia, who was associated with the Surrealists 564 00:20:07,234 --> 00:20:09,234 as a young kid. 565 00:20:09,234 --> 00:20:11,234 Right. 566 00:20:11,234 --> 00:20:13,934 There's not enough of his work there, not 567 00:20:13,934 --> 00:20:16,467 enough of Peter Orlovsky's drawings, though his presence is 568 00:20:16,467 --> 00:20:17,968 there with the portraits of him by Robert Levine, who was a 569 00:20:17,968 --> 00:20:18,100 great painter. 570 00:20:18,100 --> 00:20:21,000 And not enough of Levine, who was the court painter for a lot 571 00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:24,567 of us and for Kerouac and for Gary Snyder and others in San 572 00:20:24,567 --> 00:20:26,701 Francisco at the time. 573 00:20:26,701 --> 00:20:28,701 I'm almost out of time. 574 00:20:28,701 --> 00:20:30,701 Steven, speak to it since you were a consultant. 575 00:20:30,701 --> 00:20:32,701 One thing that strikes me about the response to 576 00:20:32,701 --> 00:20:35,334 this show is that there's been real difficulty even talking 577 00:20:35,334 --> 00:20:37,901 about the West Coast artists. 578 00:20:37,901 --> 00:20:42,267 One of the things that this show brings to New York and to the 579 00:20:42,267 --> 00:20:45,534 museum context is a lot of people like George Herms and 580 00:20:45,534 --> 00:20:49,234 Bruce Connor and Wallace Berman, who haven't been seen. 581 00:20:49,234 --> 00:20:52,300 And yet the reviews essentially stick with the New York School 582 00:20:52,300 --> 00:20:55,934 painters and are they or are they not Beat. 583 00:20:55,934 --> 00:20:59,601 I think the concept of Beat culture is inherently a messy 584 00:20:59,601 --> 00:21:02,667 one: It's about a confluence of a lot of different things, like 585 00:21:02,667 --> 00:21:06,133 spontaneity and spirituality and community and antimaterialism. 586 00:21:06,133 --> 00:21:09,934 It's, it's a wide-ranging thing, and it certainly isn't a, a 587 00:21:09,934 --> 00:21:12,934 narrow aesthetic school in any way. 588 00:21:12,934 --> 00:21:15,601 I'll tell you one very positive thing that's come 589 00:21:15,601 --> 00:21:18,567 out of it, and that's Allen's battle through the years and 590 00:21:18,567 --> 00:21:20,734 into the present against censorship throughout this 591 00:21:20,734 --> 00:21:23,100 country and for the human rights of writers all over the world. 592 00:21:23,100 --> 00:21:25,033 I thank-- NAT HENTOFF: You, you transcended 593 00:21:25,033 --> 00:21:26,634 what a lot of the other Beat guys just-- they stayed within 594 00:21:26,634 --> 00:21:27,634 themselves. 595 00:21:27,634 --> 00:21:29,467 You didn't. 596 00:21:29,467 --> 00:21:30,334 Gary Snyder is on ecology-- NAT HENTOFF: It's 597 00:21:30,334 --> 00:21:31,634 not-- yeah, but-- ALLEN GINSBERG: --and indigenous 598 00:21:31,634 --> 00:21:32,634 rights. 599 00:21:32,634 --> 00:21:33,634 Yeah, but you've gone farther and with more 600 00:21:33,634 --> 00:21:34,634 courage, I think. 601 00:21:34,634 --> 00:21:35,634 I thank-- ALLEN GINSBERG: Well-- CHARLIE ROSE: 602 00:21:35,634 --> 00:21:36,634 --you. 603 00:21:36,634 --> 00:21:37,667 --publicly. 604 00:21:37,667 --> 00:21:38,667 Thank you, Allen. 605 00:21:38,667 --> 00:21:39,667 Thank you, Steven. 606 00:21:39,667 --> 00:21:40,667 Thank you, George. 607 00:21:40,667 --> 00:21:40,801 Thank you, Nat. 608 00:21:40,801 --> 00:21:42,667 Thanks for your hospitality. 609 00:21:42,667 --> 00:21:43,667 Yes, pleasure. 610 00:21:43,667 --> 00:21:44,667 Thank you very much. 611 00:21:44,667 --> 00:21:44,834 We'll be right back. 612 00:21:44,834 --> Stay with us. 613 00:21:44,834 --> 00:21:46,100 SEGMENT E2