The Chronicle of Higher Education has published my argument that Seymour Krim be added to reading lists, anthologies, and departments of Jewish literature and cultural studies.
What got me going on the Seymour Krim kick that led to Missing a Beat was his omission from every Beat anthology since the 1992 Portable Beat Reader. That led me to wonder why, since the man edited The Beats in 1960 and was included in The Beat Scene the same year. (His name is on the cover, fourth from the top.)
I finally decided the Beat editors had a case, because in our time of multicultural tripwires everyone is on alert for signs of ethnicity to be sensitive about, and Krim’s work is full of Jewish content. So the Beat collections apparently decided to tiptoe around him. Let the Jewish editors handle him.
The Jewish editors didn’t. But they should.
It’s like John Lennon once said when threatened with deportation from his adopted New York home. New York is full of criminals, degenerates, and crazy people. I fit right in, said Lennon.
Well, Jewish literature is replete with anger, resentments, longings for beauty, intellectualism, sex, nostalgia, madness, and heavyweight bouts of nonstop talk. Krim fits right in.
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