EDUPUNK: It was pure in my heart!

The moment above when a drunken, disassociated Jack Kerouac tells William F. Buckley that the Beat Movement was pure in his heart is a moment for me. I have written about it on the bava previously, and it strikes me as a moment of lucidity in what is an otherwise comical mess of an artist at once alienated from and consumed by his own creations. When Alan Levine provided me the opportunity to participate in the Mockumentary he made about EDUPUNK. As soon as he asked I knew I would be quoting Kerouac. I just can’t help it, I just love how he epitomizes the washed up spirit of a movement that has long since moved on or burnt out.

And Alan notes in his post, “Jim did the part of looking back it with a bit of bad taste for the way the spirit got mis-appropriated (was there acting or not?).” Fact is it’s a bit hard for me to mock EDUPUNK because while I always found it playful, it was never ironic for me. The creative joy of critiquing and refusing a system should not be underestimated. And when it doesn’t end at critique, but actually transcends the problematizing and tries to create an alternative—however illogical, unsustainable, and/or counter-productive—then at least we tried to build something. EDUPUNK started as a playful reaction, and I have certainly been guilty of taking it too seriously at times. But one thing is for sure, it was never cynical: it was pure in my heart.

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