On The Road to The Beat Generation & Pasar Senen. A Graphic Record.

Novel karya Jack Kerouac. Dibeli tahun 2018

Karya Misbach Jusa Biran. dibeli tahun 2016

The day I went to my work studio, in one night at November, I saw the light of trafficjam from my blurry eye glasses. Traffic slowed and a girl with a riding hood to stopped beside me and then we are made a little conversation. 

“Would you sing a song for me?” She asked 

I surprised my self and mumbling “This is just my imagination..” 

“I know a person who can play music so well…especially Jazz!” I answered

“His name, Jack Kerouac”  

And the girl hurried to my side and puffff! .. she was gone..

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That was a monologue between me and my thought, at the time. The girl doesn’t exist. Neither the traffics. But Jack Kerouac is real! He is one of the prominent US writer at the 50s. He achieved widespread fame with his second novel “On The Road” at 1957. 

Kerouac is one of the representation of “Beat Generation” beside Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Neal Cassady. The term “beat”, based on situation context at the time, refers to describe the culture who rejected the standard values, such as, “materialism” and exploring the spiritualism. 

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How is about in Indonesia? 

One of the important documentary at 50’s is the book of “The Miracles at Pasar Senen”, written by Misbach Jusa Biran. At the time, young people who had dreams of becoming artists turned the market into a sacred place. 

This book contains 17 anecdotal writings about “artists” : real artists, people who claim to be artist to cover up their homelesness, even people who pretend to be artist, even the matters of work is not clear yet.

For the Jakarta’s at the 50’s context, the Senen “artists” had a survival mode energy more rather than bohemian lifestyle. It is just because Jakarta was a post-colonial emerging city after Indonesia’s independence proclamation in year ‘45. They had the courage to try anything, such as: performing a theatre without capital, making an exhibition, or establishing a new magazine. 

The red line between The Beat Generation in Jakarta and New York at 50’s, are related to the movement spirit, a bunch of people trying to exist as a contra narratives from standard values, the beauty of work and life process, the survival, the matters of idealism, and satire.

At the end, we can laugh at ourselves. 

Bandung, April 2023

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