I’m Not Making This Up

October 10, 2010 by PaulM Posted in Politics, Culture, Election 2010, History, Lowell, Poetry 2 Comments

The whole inside back page of the NYTimes Book Review today has an essay by Lee Siegel comparing the Tea Party with the Beats (Kerouac, Ginsberg, and the other Beat Generation writers of the 1950s and ’60s). The essay is a cultural stretch in many ways, but makes for surprising reading when you see how Siegel connects the two mindsets and social movements. Read the essay here, and get the NYT if you appreciate the thinking.

2 Responses to I’m Not Making This Up

  1. Michael Luciano says:

    Siegel’s essay is absurd on a few levels. Not the least of which is the fact that the Beats were counterculturists against the very culture that the Tea Party wants to “restore.” Hence Glenn Beck’s “Rally to Restore Honor,” which is code for a return to nuclear family mindset, presumably one nurtured by a (white) conservative president.

  2. Kosta says:

    I love it! anything that bends the mind. I can just see jack Kerouac, or Ginsbuurg, sitting down over a table in a coffee house or bar shooting the breeze with Sarah Palin, as they plot the overthrow of the existing order. On the other hand, she does “howl” – yes, another “obscenity” trial – just kidding.