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The Subterraneans
''The Subterraneans'' is a 1958 novella by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. It is a semi-fictional account of his short romance with Alene Lee (1931–1991), an African-American woman, in Greenwich Village, New York. It was the first work of Kerouac’s to be released following the success of ''On the Road''. ''The Subterraneans'' and its following novel,''The Dharma Bums'', both proved to be popular when released in 1958, and are now seen as important works of the Beat Literature. A Hollywood film adaptation would be released in 1960. Background Kerouac met Alene in the late summer of 1953 when she was typing up the manuscripts of William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, in Ginsberg's Lower East Side apartment. In the novella, Kerouac moved the story from New York City to San Francisco and renamed Alene Lee "Mardou Fox". She is described as a carefree spirit who frequents the jazz clubs and bars of the budding Beat scene of San Francisco. Other well-known personalities and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian ancestry, Kerouac was raised in a French-speaking home in Lowell, Massachusetts. He "learned English at age six and spoke with a marked accent into his late teens." During World War II, he served in the United States Merchant Marine; he completed his first novel at the time, which was published more than 50 years after his death. His first published book was ''The Town and the City'' (1950), and he achieved widespread fame and notoriety with his second, ''On the Road'', in 1957. It made him a beat icon, and he went on to publish 12 more novels and numerous poetry volumes. Kerouac is recognized for his style of spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics such as his Catholic spirituality, jazz, travel, promiscuity, life in New Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gore Vidal
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit, erudition, and patrician manner. Vidal was bisexual, and in his novels and essays interrogated the social and cultural sexual norms he perceived as driving American life. Beyond literature, Vidal was heavily involved in politics. He twice sought office—unsuccessfully—as a Democratic Party candidate, first in 1960 to the U.S. House of Representatives (for New York), and later in 1982 to the U.S. Senate (for California). A grandson of a U.S. Senator, Vidal was born into an upper-class political family. As a political commentator and essayist, Vidal's primary focus was the history and society of the United States, especially how a militaristic foreign policy reduced the country to a decadent empire. His political and cultural essays were published in ''The Nation'', the ''New Statesman'', the ''New York Revie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by amazon (company), Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 and based in Beverly Hills, California. MGM was formed by Marcus Loew by combining Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Productions, Louis B. Mayer Pictures into one company. It hired a number of well known actors as contract players—its slogan was "more stars than there are in heaven"—and soon became Hollywood's most prestigious film studio, producing popular musical films and winning many Academy Awards. MGM also owned film studios, movie lots, movie theaters and technical production facilities. Its most prosperous era, from 1926 to 1959, was bracketed by two productions of ''Ben-Hur (1959 film), Ben Hur''. After that, it divested itself of the Loews movie theater chain, and, in the 1960s, diversified ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Diamond (composer)
David Leo Diamond (July 9, 1915 – June 13, 2005) was an American composer of classical music. He is considered one of the preeminent American composers of his generation. Many of his works are tonal or modestly modal. His early compositions are typically triadic, often with widely spaced harmonies, giving them a distinctly American tone, but some of his works are consciously French in style. His later style became more chromatic. Life and career He was born in Rochester, New York, and studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Eastman School of Music under Bernard Rogers, also receiving lessons from Roger Sessions in New York City and Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He won a number of awards including three Guggenheim Fellowships. Diamond's most popular piece is ''Rounds'' (1944) for string orchestra. Among his other works are eleven symphonies (the last in 1993), concertos including three for violin, eleven string quartets, music for wind ensemble, other chamber music ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Keck
Bill(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States) * Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature * Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer * Bill, a bird or animal's beak Places * Bill, Wyoming, an unincorporated community, United States * Billstown, Arkansas, an unincorporated community, United States * Billville, Indiana, an unincorporated community, United States People * Bill (given name) * Bill (surname) * Bill (footballer, born 1978), ''Alessandro Faria'', Togolese football forward * Bill (footballer, born 1984), ''Rosimar Amâncio'', a Brazilian football forward * Bill (footballer, born 1999), ''Fabricio Rodrigues da Silva Ferreira'', a Brazilian forward Arts, media, and entertainment Characters * Bill (''Kill Bill''), a character in the ''Kill Bill'' films * William “Bill“ S. Preston, Esquire, The first of the titular duo of the Bill & Ted film series * A lizard in Lewis Carroll's ''Alice's Adv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Clellon Holmes
John Clellon Holmes (March 12, 1926, Holyoke, Massachusetts – March 30, 1988, Middletown, Connecticut) was an American author, poet and professor, best known for his 1952 novel '' Go''. Considered the first "Beat" novel, ''Go'' depicted events in his life with his friends Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg. He was often referred to as the "quiet Beat" and was one of Kerouac's closest friends. Holmes also wrote what is considered the definitive jazz novel of the Beat Generation, ''The Horn''. Life and career Holmes was more an observer and documenter of beat characters like Ginsberg, Cassady and Kerouac than one of them. He asked Ginsberg for "any and all information on your poetry and your visions," (shortly before Ginsberg's admission into the hospital) saying that "I am interested in knowing also anything you may wish to tell... about Neal, Huncke, Lucien in relation to you..." (referring to Herbert Huncke and Lucien Carr), to which Ginsberg replied with an 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luanne Henderson
Neal Leon Cassady (February 8, 1926 – February 4, 1968) was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s. He was prominently featured as himself in the "scroll" (first draft) version of Jack Kerouac's novel '' On the Road'', and served as the model for the character Dean Moriarty in the 1957 version of that book. In many of Kerouac's later books, Cassady is represented by the character Cody Pomeray. Cassady also appeared in Allen Ginsberg's poems, and in several other works of literature by other writers. Biography Early years Cassady was born to Maude Jean (Scheuer) and Neal Marshall Cassady in Salt Lake City, Utah. His mother died when he was 10, and he was raised by his alcoholic father in Denver, Colorado. Cassady spent much of his youth either living on the streets of skid row, with his father, or in reform school. As a youth, Cassady was repeatedly involved in petty crime. He was arrested f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Gaddis
William Thomas Gaddis, Jr. (December 29, 1922 – December 16, 1998) was an American novelist. The first and longest of his five novels, ''The Recognitions'', was named one of TIME magazine's 100 best novels from 1923 to 2005 and two others, ''J R'' and ''A Frolic of His Own'', won the annual U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. National Book Foundation: Awards"National Book Award Winners: 1950–2009" Retrieved March 28, 2012. A collection of his essays was published posthumously as '' The Rush for Second Place'' (2002). ''The Letters of William Gaddis'' was published by Dalkey Archive Press in February 2013. A MacArthur Fellow, Gaddis is widely considered one of the first and most important American postmodern writers."William Gaddis: A Portfolio," ''Conjunctions'' 41 (2003), 373–415. Life and career Gaddis was born in New York City to William Thomas Gaddis, who worked "on Wall Street and in politics", and Edith (Charles) Gaddis, who worked her way up from being secr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allen Eager
Allen Eager (January 10, 1927 – April 13, 2003) was an American jazz tenor and alto saxophonist who also competed in auto racing and took part in LSD experiments. Early life Allen Eager was born in New York City on January 10, 1927. He grew up in the Bronx.Szwed, John (2002) ''So What: The Life of Miles Davis'' Random House -book According to Denise McCluggage, Eager could read aged 3, and learned to drive at the age of 9 with the help of his mother, after she caught him driving a garbage truck near the hotels that his parents owned in the Catskill Mountains.McCluggage, Denise (June 30, 2003) "A Flair for Music, Racing, Life" ''Autoweek'' (53: 26), p. 10. He took clarinet lessons with David Weber of the New York Philharmonic at the age of 13.Feather, Leonard and Gitler, Ira (1999) ''The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz'', p. 199. Oxford University Press. Early career in jazz Eager briefly played with Woody Herman at the age of 15. At the same age, he took heroin for the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gregory Corso
Gregory Nunzio Corso (March 26, 1930 – January 17, 2001) was an American poet and a key member of the Beat movement. He was the youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers (with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs). Early life Born Nunzio Corso at New York City's St. Vincent's Hospital, Corso later selected the name "Gregory" as a confirmation name.David S. Wills"The Life of Gregory Corso" ''Beatdom'', January 13, 2008. Within Little Italy and its community he was "Nunzio," while he dealt with others as "Gregory." He often would use "Nunzio" as short for "Annunziato," the announcing angel Gabriel, hence a poet. Corso identified with not only Gabriel but also Hermes, the divine messenger. Corso's mother, Michelina Corso (born Colonna), was born in Miglianico, Abruzzo, Italy, and immigrated to the United States at the age of nine, with her mother and four other sisters. At 16, she married Sam Corso, a first-generation Italian American, also tee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucien Carr
Lucien Carr (March 1, 1925 – January 28, 2005) was a key member of the original New York City circle of the Beat Generation in the 1940s; later he worked for many years as an editor for United Press International. Early life Carr was born in New York City; his parents, Marion Howland (née Gratz) and Russell Carr, were both offspring of socially prominent St. Louis families. His maternal grandfather was Benjamin Gratz, a St. Louis capitalist who was engaged in the rope making business and was descended from Michael Gratz, who was among the first Jewish settlers of Philadelphia and was prominent in Philadelphia's social life. After his parents separated in 1930, young Lucien and his mother moved back to St. Louis; Carr spent the rest of his childhood there. At the age of 12, Carr met David Kammerer (b. 1911), a man who would have a profound influence on the course of his life. Kammerer was a teacher of English and a physical education instructor at Washington University in St. Lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joan Vollmer
Joan Vollmer (February 4, 1923 – September 6, 1951) was an influential participant in the early Beat Generation circle. While a student at Barnard College, she became the roommate of Edie Parker (later married to Jack Kerouac). Their apartment became a gathering place for the Beats during the 1940s, where Vollmer was often at the center of marathon, all-night discussions. In 1946, she began a relationship with William S. Burroughs, later becoming his common-law wife. In 1951, Burroughs killed Vollmer. He claimed, and shortly thereafter denied, the killing was a drunken attempt at playing William Tell. Biography Joan Vollmer was born in Ossining, New York and raised in Loudonville, New York. She graduated from St. Agnes School in 1939 and attended Barnard College in New York City on a scholarship, also studying journalism at Colombia University. Vollmer met Edie Parker at the West End Bar and the two moved in together in the first of a series of apartments in New York's Upper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
