Jailhouse Chic

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Tue Jun 13 23:52:08 PDT 2000


On Tue Jun 13, Max Sawicky sawicky at epinet.org> said:


> hahahahaha.
>
> blue jeans/dungarees and bandanas and shit kickers as well as a shitload
> of other icons from the 60s were all about mimicing being working class.
>
>>>>>>>>
> No no. We weren't mimicking the w.c. That was the maoists. We were
> mimicking the Beats. The Beats were mimicking African- American jazz
> musicians. Except for guys like Perelman, who were mimicking the
> peasantry.

That's right in general, but wrong in particular. Black jazz musicians didn't wear jeans when they were playing, at least not back at the time of the Beats. When the Beats wore jeans (which wasn't a uniform with them) they were imitating working men and non-working hobos. When Hippies were doing it, they were imitating them, bikers and folk musicians, who got their styles from their popular front predecessors, who got them from working men and country farmers (and from blues and country musicians, who got them from the same place).

But when you were saying groovy and smoking pot, then you were imitating Beats who were imitating black jazz musicians.

Michael

__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com



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