Los Angeles The Other City: Part I© Robert Edward Bell
Feb 1, 2004
Los Angeles The Other City
Part I
The Beat experience spread as a literary
movement through the decades of the l950's and
l960's into the early l970's capturing the minds
and imaginations of poets, writers, and critics.
The literary elite had certainly noticed the prose
and poetry of the Beats, in those early years.
Although many critics still cannot determine if
the writings of these writers was only pop culture turned into the beautiful musings of the
literary age, or if those writers had hit upon
a spark of literary quality and had come together
to produce a true literary movement, whose
heritage would last for generations, giving a
lasting legacy to succeeding generations; many
in the higher circles of America's literary elite
could not help noticing the sounds and sights
that had begun to emerge from the literary streets
of San Francisco. With the publication of "Howl"
by Allen Ginsberg, the Beats had achieved gaining
the publicity that they had intially so earnestly
sought amid the chaotic beginnings in those early
years. Only time would tell if the Beat movement
would last creating a new and different art form;
a lasting legacy in the aesthetic literary world.
Years flowed into years and time slowly passed by
as the cars on Columbus Avenue flowed by in a
seemingly neverending circle through bars, events, shows, coffee shops, memories. Writers
grew old. Some died. The notes of the Jazz sound
mixed over the poetic rhythms of poetry turned
into rock and roll. Rents, as always, in San
Francisco continued to rise. Many an artist would
find him or herself moving to the humble old abode
of Victorian structures found in the Haight-Ashberry district. Richard Brautigan would soon
emerge from those streets leading into the gateway
of Golden Gate Park as a major poetic literary
voice; until he silently drove away one day in
his old pick-up truch seeking unknown adventures
in lands unknown. Years have passed and as English literature
moves into another century, scholars and critics
in the literary world, with-in the safe confines
of the University, and the dangerous realms of
writers and other artists still seem to be debating the merits of the Beat art form; and
whether the poetry and prose has stood the test
of time forming a definitive new art form in the
annals of the printed word. Clues abound in the
dust and littered pages of books waiting to be
read on shelves, whose haunts run past the silent
swells of the most adventuresome. Many of these
clues, delicate pieces to an ever-growing
intermingling puzzle of words, music, phrases,
and sounds can be discovered in the stoned wooden
buildings where the Beat poets first discovered
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