Tales of Beatnik Glory

by Ed Sanders

Ed Sanders’s mock-heroic (and heroic) odyssey follows poet, filmmaker, and activist Sam Thomas, editor of Dope, Fucking, and Social Change, and a variegated cast of castoffs, dropouts, peaceniks, freakniks, and mendicant filthniks, from Kansas through the beatnik and hippie countercultures of New York City’s Lower East Side and Greenwich Village. From the Freedom Rides and confrontations with the Alabama Klan to the “hate-dappled” Summer of Love, Tales of Beatnik Glory is the epic of America in the sixties, in a language of droll invention and stoned mythopoesis, from a man who once dared to exorcise the Pentagon. This revised edition adds two new volumes and includes twenty-five never-before-published stories

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Short Stories, Literature, Poetry, Music, Philosophy

784 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 1974

About the author

Ed Sanders is an American poet, singer, social activist, environmentalist, author and publisher. He has been called a bridge between the Beat and Hippie generations.

Sanders was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He dropped out of Missouri University in 1958 and hitchhiked to New York City’s Greenwich Village. He wrote his first major poem, "Poem from Jail," on toilet paper in his cell after being jailed for protesting against nuclear proliferation in 1961.

In 1962, he founded the avant-garde journal, Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts. Sanders opened the Peace Eye Bookstore (147 Avenue A in what was then the Lower East Side), which became a gathering place for bohemians and radicals.

Sanders graduated from New York University in 1964, with a degree in Classics. In 1965, he founded The Fugs with Tuli Kupferberg. The band broke up in 1969 and reformed in 1984.

In 1971, Sanders wrote The Family, a profile of the events leading up to the Tate-LaBianca murders. He obtained access to the Manson Family by posing as a "Satanic guru-maniac and dope-trapped psychopath."

As of 2006, Sanders lives in Woodstock, New York where he publishes the Woodstock Journal with his wife of over 36 years, the writer and painter Miriam R. Sanders. He also invents musical instruments including the Talking Tie, the microtonal Microlyre and the Lisa Lyre, a musical contraption involving light-activated switches and a reproduction of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very good because it gets beyond the Kerouac-Burroughs-Ginsberg triumvirate and instead recounts tales of regular, non-famous, beatnik bohemians in New York's Lower East Side. Very down to earth, real, and funny. It's actually become one of my favorite books because of Sander's skill at recounting the tales, his heart, his moral compass, and the genuineness of the people he describes.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are interested at all in the Beat era or the Sixties psychedelic and protest movements you have to buy this book and read it.

It is by Ed Sanders, long time resident of first Greenwich and then the East Village of NYC from the late 50's on. Ed published several selfmade 'zines in the late 50's and early 60's, then switched to being an avant garde filmmaker circa 1963-66, and then became a writer of verse and prose. He formed the folk rock/weirdness group the Fugs who performed throughout the Sixties. His first success in book form was probably "The Family" which chronicled the misadventures of the Manson Family which appeared in 1973. Vol. One of "Tales of Beatnik Glory" which dealt with the years 1957-62 was published in 1975. Now all four volumes of the "Tales of Beatnik Glory" are available in one tome.

I finally quit reading this book about halfway through though originally I was quite excited by it. As time moved on and the adventures of the inner circle of beatnik/hippie protagonists played out I, though sympathetic to them and their situation vis a vis the "mainstream" culture, found the characters increasingly tedious and tiresome. Their "radicalism" as the 60's progressed became, to me at least, obviously less "countercultural" and more "mainstream" as the youth movement of the period grew more popular. It's hard to imagine a more self-congratulatory group or one, going by Sander's handling of their narrative, a group less self-critical.

I feel that I am on their side philosophically, but I am disappointed at their lack, especially over time and given perspective, of self-examination and scrutiny. They almost remind me of the mindless supporters of G.W. Bush and the "War on Terror" though less destructive.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun anti-establishment stories that are heavy on punchline and low on substance. A good read but not much of a lasting impression.

[Shadoshard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Divided into palatable pieces, this anthology gives an unique and accurate look into the period and the culture that makes it accessible and lyrical without cheapening the experience. The stories ranged from droll to madcap and I enjoyed the perspective. It almost made me regret being born too late. I've been to a few clubs that have tried to emulate the time and places but they didn't quite manage the feeling as well as this book did. I highly recommend it as a slice of high Americana.

[Gerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great first hand account of the 60's on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

[Austin Gustin-Helms · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tales of Beatnik Glory is a psychedelic romp through New York’s Lower East Side in the 1960s and beyond. Inspired by the life of author Ed Sanders and written across four volumes over 30 years, it’s a vibrant, chaotic, and tender portrait of a countercultural generation. Recurring characters weave in and out—poets, radicals, mystics, and musicians—all revolutionaries in their own ways. Protests, drugs, sex, music, and sacrifice comingle in stories that are by turns hilarious, heartbreaking, and surreal.

There’s no single plot, just a messy, affectionate collage of lives lived at full volume. Sanders captures both the absurdity and the sincerity of the era, with a wink and a wild howl.

[Suzan Flanagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read more than a few Beat reminiscents, some I like more than others. But the story of The Cube of the Potato Soaring Through the Vastness is unequalled in my experience.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG - reconstituting the beatnik life

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[J.S. Bratton · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Farkh, fulking haus!"

[Massi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un po' una delusione da fan della beat generation. Alcuni racconti noiosi, so che dovevano far ridere ma forse è passato troppo tempo. Altri hanno resistito meglio.

[East Bay J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tales Of Beatnik Glory is a collection of stories more or less about the Beatniks of Greenwich Village. Characters come and go throughout, which communicates a sense of the community that seems to have existed at the time. And the rivalry. And the insanity. There’s a healthy amount of social commentary in the inimitable Ed Sanders style. I like Sanders' writing. For one thing, he’s subtly funny. Like, “At first the walkers were tempted to serve as janitors on the roads of degeneration – stuffing debris into bags – but it was futile; who had the spaceships needed to clear the American ways?” His writing is engaging, loose and economical.

I noticed fellow Fugs conspirator, Tuli Kupferpberg, is mentioned on page 189, which left me wondering how many of the characters in this story are “real.” I’m sure they’re all based on someone Sanders came across at one time or another.

Alternately hilarious and horrifying, Tales Of Beatnik Glory is an interesting introduction to the dynamics of the Beatnik scene, East Coast Style. Sanders’ satire takes the cake. Probably amphetamines, too.

[doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved beatnik glory. I know it's standard fare to focus on the indulgent nature of the beatniks, but this book seemed to have a nice middle ground, discussing the protest movement, sex, music, and drugs really only being a peripheral until halfway or so through the book. there are a few stories which focus wholly on the experience of whatever mescaline Sam took that day, but largely it was just a neat window into a New York I can only imagine: where people can enjoy life and not kill themselves trying to exist.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up, feeling a little pretentious, at half-price books, hoping for an interesting plane book for my upcoming vacation. When I got sick it became my "I have to stay at home for 5 days" book. Great for passing time, a book of short stories about lots of topics all centering around the beatnik culture. Interesting and entertaining!!

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strangely uninvolving.

[Ed Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

read it years ago. Enjoyable

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good. Gives an on the ground perspective of New York in the early 60s, as well as in the South during Freedom Summer.

[Karen]

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