Beatnik Questionaire

By Ray Watkins | Published: March 7, 2008

Where do you live: Squaresville or Beatnik Boro? Sunnyville or Crazyville?

Visit On the Road with the Beats to learn about the distinction between “Beat” and “Beatnik” and the origin of the term “beatnik.” Within the exhibition, you can see an original “Beatnik Questionnaire” sent from Gerard Malanga to Daisy Aldan, with Aldan’s answers, 1960, from Gerard Malanga Papers.

A young Gerard Malanga (b. 1943) sent the questionnaire to his mentor, poet and publisher Daisy Aldan, probably not long after she published the works of several Beat writers in her anthology A New Folder (1960). Malanga was soon to become an important member of Andy Warhol’s circle and was a cofounder of Interview magazine.

Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin

I found this link looking through the New York Times blog, PaperCuts. I used to work at the Ransom Center as a weekend security guard, in the early 1980s. My main job was to try to keep the kids from stepping on the feet of the blue George Segal sculpture. (It looked like this one, but blue.)

This entry was posted in Autobiographical, Online Places, Writing. Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.