This Is Not a Dissertation: (Neo)Neo-Bohemian Connections Walter Gainor Moore Purdue University
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Purdue University Purdue e-Pubs Open Access Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1-1-2015 This Is Not A Dissertation: (Neo)Neo-Bohemian Connections Walter Gainor Moore Purdue University Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_dissertations Recommended Citation Moore, Walter Gainor, "This Is Not A Dissertation: (Neo)Neo-Bohemian Connections" (2015). Open Access Dissertations. 1421. https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_dissertations/1421 This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. Graduate School Form 30 Updated 1/15/2015 PURDUE UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL Thesis/Dissertation Acceptance This is to certify that the thesis/dissertation prepared By Walter Gainor Moore Entitled THIS IS NOT A DISSERTATION. (NEO)NEO-BOHEMIAN CONNECTIONS For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Is approved by the final examining committee: Lance A. Duerfahrd Chair Daniel Morris P. Ryan Schneider Rachel L. Einwohner To the best of my knowledge and as understood by the student in the Thesis/Dissertation Agreement, Publication Delay, and Certification Disclaimer (Graduate School Form 32), this thesis/dissertation adheres to the provisions of Purdue University’s “Policy of Integrity in Research” and the use of copyright material. Approved by Major Professor(s): Lance A. Duerfahrd Approved by: Aryvon Fouche 9/19/2015 Head of the Departmental Graduate Program Date THIS IS NOT A DISSERTATION. (NEO)NEO-BOHEMIAN CONNECTIONS A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Purdue University by Walter Moore In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2015 Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Lance, my advisor for this dissertation, for challenging me to do better; to work better—to be a stronger student. For always asking interesting, difficult questions that helped push me along. Your written comments on my chapters/sections were especially helpful. We had our battles during this process, but I am a better man for it. Much better. Thanks to Ryan, Dan, and Rachel for your kindness, your patience. As a committee for this dissertation, you have been supportive and understanding of my strange, unlikely attempts—all misses, failures, and modest successes in route in what I consider a twisted (call it) postmodern scholarly-like maze of confusion and occasional clarity. I am thankful to have had such open-minded people on board and behind me during this thresher and voyage of pain and beauty—of pleasure and drudgery in bittersweet Hoosier land. Thanks/thanks/thanks to Erica. For the love, the laughs amid the madnesses/crazies. We have survived Lafayette/Purdue together like (mostly) pacifist lion tamers. I am grateful for you, for you being there (body/mind), your smiles/hugs/casual-appropriate offerings, and for our mad future attempts/mishaps/celebrations in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. To us. Further, I would like to somewhat dedicate this dissertation to my best friend Hank who died in a car wreck outside of Denver on June 6, 2015. I write “somewhat” iii because college wasn’t exactly his bag, and the free-spirited good time-living Hank kept asking me when this damn thing would write itself, get finished so I could have a bit more time to get back to what Hank and I loved the most: walking our dogs in the Colorado mountains, riding motorcycles, taking road-trips to music venues west and south, smoking cigarettes and mumbling/grumbling on wayward porches. Mourning the death of a good friend does not present the best mind space for writing/editing a dissertation, but I will say this: I don’t exactly dedicate this dissertation to Hank, but I do dedicate its completion to him. He would have wanted that. Hank wanted me to move on with my life, get back to living my life how I prefer it. So, Hank, thank you for reminding me of how I should live my life. I miss you; unforgettable you are. Last/last/finally, I wrote this dissertation while mostly listening to the bands/musicians Lucero, the Drive-By Truckers, Jason Isbell, Patti Smith, Willie Nelson, and Townes Van Zandt. I suggest you read this manuscript while listening to this music. The music could well make better sense for this peculiar perhaps at times somewhat ridiculous reading experience. I also wrote the bulk of this dissertation while drinking cheap beer and coffee and smoking cigarettes, but I don’t recommend you all need to do all that. Thanks. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................viii ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................ix 1 INTRODUCTION/CHAPTER(S) OUTLINE .....................................................1 SECTION 1: THE TRANSITION FROM BOHEMIA TO NEO-BOHEMIA. THE TENT OF POSSIBILITIES .....................................................................................8 2 BOHEMIA AND COMPANY ............................................................................10 3 NEO-BOHEMIAN CONNECTIONS-AIMS, QUESTIONS, AND THESES ...............................................................................................................22 SECTION 2: THE GRIT IS IN THE PUDDING – PACKED, REPACKAGED AND BRANDED. ALLEN GINSBERG AND NEO-BOHEMIA: THE COMPLEXITIES OF AN EVOLVING MARTABLE POST-POET REBEL ...............39 4 IN THE BEGINNING THERE WERE COCKROACHES. ALLEN GINSBERG IN ALL-BUT-INNOCENT BOHEMIAN-BEAT SPHERE AND SPACE .......................................................................................................44 4.1 The Lower East Side ................................................................................46 4.2 Space ........................................................................................................51 4.3 Art-Making and Myth ..............................................................................64 4.4 Outsiders, the Alternative, and Controlled/Spontaneous Revelry ...........70 4.5 In Conclusion: Approaching Neo-Bohemia.............................................79 5 BOHEMIAN BEAT MORPHS INTO BOHEMIAN CELEBRITY ...................83 5.1 The Change ..............................................................................................86 v Page 5.2 The Lower East Side Has Produced All of the Strange Gum-Chewing Geniuses. The Celebrity-Bohemian Returns Home. Changing Mind, Changing Landscape .....................................................93 5.3 Ginsberg as Myth .....................................................................................114 5.4 Inclusion ...................................................................................................130 5.5 Sex, Drugs, and Punk Rock … a.k.a. Bohemian Pudding .......................140 6 NEO-BOHEMIAN AND LEGEND IN (LATER) LIFE AND SIMULACRA. HAS THE MAN BECOME (FULLY) GENTRIFIED? ............151 6.1 Back to the Lower East Side ....................................................................152 6.2 MTV .........................................................................................................157 6.3 GAP..........................................................................................................165 6.4 Self-Doubts ..............................................................................................173 6.5 Countercultural Agenda: Later Ginsberg Poems and Neo-Bohemia .......179 6.6 City Lights City: The Posthumous Ginsberg and the Contemporary Traces of Bohemia ...................................................................................185 6.7 Howl .........................................................................................................187 6.8 In Conclusion ...........................................................................................196 SECTION 3: NELSON ALGREN, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM, AND WICKER PARK: PRECURSOR AND PROTOTYPE OF THE NEO-BOHEMIAN HIPSTER .........................................................................................................................201 7 INSPIRATIONS – EARLY GENTRIFIERS OF WICKER PARK ....................204 7.1 The Bard of the Stumblebum Hosts a Party.............................................204 7.2 Grandfather’s Son ....................................................................................208 7.3 Photographic Inspiration ..........................................................................212 7.4 The Man With the Golden Arm Goes Underground and Aboveground: Algren’s Appeal to the Middle Class Bohemian Hipster. Algren’s Imagined Neighborhood..............................................230 8 VIDEO KILLS THE HIPSTER STAR................................................................256 8.1 Return to the Fray ....................................................................................276 vi Page SECTION 4: TULSA CONNECTIONS: SPEAKING OF GENTRIFICATION: THE DIRT AIN’T THE ONLY THING THAT’S READ ..............................................279 9 MODERN OUTSIDERS: THE REBEL IN A TULSA NEIGHBORHOOD .....292 9.1 Hinton’s Fantastical Parameters for a Culture Clash. Tulsa Neighborhood, Tulsa Teenagers ..............................................................293 9.2 Greasers as a Subculture. The Grit is in the Subcultural, Escapist Ethos. Modern and Postmodern Ramifications .......................................302