silez + ukuk

The hipster world that Kerouac and Ginsberg drifted in and out of from the mid-forties to the early-fifties was an amorphous movement without ideology, more a pose than an attitude; a way of “being” without attempting to explain why. Hipsters themselves were not about to supply explanations.

Their language, limited as it was, was sufficiently obscure to defy translation into everyday speech. Their rejection of the commonplace was so complete that they could barely acknowledge reality. The measure of their withdrawal was their distrust of language. A word like cool could mean any of a number of contradictory things —its definition came not from the meaning of the word but from the emotion behind it and the accompanying non-verbal facial or body expressions. When hipsters did put together a coherent sentence, it was always prefaced with the word like as if to state at the onset that what would follow was probably an illusion. There was neither a future nor a past, only a present that existed on the existential wings of sound. A Charlie Parker bebop solo —that was the truth.

The hipster’s world view was not divided between “free world” and “Communist bloc”, and this too set it apart from the then-current orthodoxy. Hipster dualism, instead, transcended geopolitical lines in favor of levels of consciousness. The division was hip and square. Squares sought security and conned themselves into political acquiescence. Hipsters, hip to the bomb, sought the meaning of life and, expecting death, demanded it now. In the wigged-out, flipped-out, zonked-out hipster world, Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Truman, McCarthy and Eisenhower shared one thing in common: they were squares …[T]he hipster signified the coming together of the bohemian, the juvenile delinquent, and the negro.

Most rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read,” [Frank Zappa] says. That doesn’t leave much room to like him personally and he makes it obvious he doesn’t like you much either, whoever you are.

Θέλω να γράψω ένα μανιφέστο. Δεν χρειάζεται να λέει πολλά. Λίγα και καλά, και να λειτουργεί ως εγχειρίδιο. Θα μπορούσε ας πούμε να λέει:

“Να είσαι καλός”.

Αλλά επειδή αυτό χωλαίνει λίγο λόγω γενικότητας, θα μπορούσε να γίνει:

“Να είσαι καλός αλλά όχι τόσο ώστε να σε περνάνε για μαλάκα, και ταυτόχρονα να μην κάνεις πουστιές, και ταυτόχρονα να μην τρως μπάμιες”.

Κάτι τέτοιο.

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