Not quite blue

After Jason Bauman prefaced his presentation with his credentials, which include work in the LGBT urban community, I was excited to hear what he would have to say about the beat generation -- as a modern man with legitimate experiences in today's New York City culture. Unfortunately, he relied on a sophomore-feeling powerpoint and excerpts from his subjects' works, which were placed in front of each, individual audience member. He simply directed my attention to the latter materials and read aloud what I was already reading; I will, however, admit that I hadn't up to this point known anything about Diana di Prima or Bob Kaufman. Although he introduced to me two important figures whose works are often missing from common knowledge of the generation/movement, it wasn't enough.

One man in the audience shared my frustration. Several times he felt the need to raise his hand to prove himself better versed in the subjects than was Jason. Unfortunately, as I learned from a few classmates afterward, he instead proved himself obnoxiously vain to his peers, the audience. And while I felt similarly about his interruptions (I don't think he actually asked questions for Jason to answer), I knew he also sensed the lacking of time-worthy subject matter. A part of me feels guilty for empathizing with this man; the rest is certain that I wasn't satisfied.

I had reasonably high expectations for the presentation to exhibit some of Bauman's personal interests and expertise, if such a word applies. Jason's presentation felt more like a sampling of the information the NYPL affords researchers -- samples which were drawn from the shallows of simple and common sense parameters: something Beat, and something new.