Beauty and the Beatniks

The new Vandals have conquered Rome, and I can say I was there. It was done in twenty minutes flat. A huge bunch of beatniks descended upon the Spanish Steps—that luminous structure of incomparable beauty—fought a token battle with embarrassed carabinieri, and sat down for good. It was, I swear, the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.

They came like a cloud of filthy locusts. Their ugliness—an ostentatious ugliness—was absolutely unreal. Those scrawny, contorted bears! Those demonstrative crusts on unwashed bare feet! Those twisted eyeglasses! And their girls! Long hair, undone; and all those poor creatures, pale and rigid, looking exactly like the carcasses of slaughtered pigs. My horror, I confess, was primarily esthetic. Beauty, I have always believed, is the only excuse, and the only compensation for the stupidity of the young. Ugliness is a privilege of the old. It is bearable only when it is etched by the long suffering of experience into tired faces. These youngsters who were storming the Spanish Steps carried their studied ugliness like a poisonous weapon. Which is exactly what it was. The beatniks, I am quite certain, use the make-up of ugliness to petrify the bystanders. And they certainly succeeded in Rome.

WS

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William S. Schlamm

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The new Vandals have conquered Rome, and I can say I was there. It was done in twenty minutes flat. A huge bunch of beatniks descended upon the Spanish Steps—that luminous structure of incomparable beauty—fought a token battle with embarrassed carabinieri, and sat down for good. It was, I swear, the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.

They came like a cloud of filthy locusts. Their ugliness—an ostentatious ugliness—was absolutely unreal. Those scrawny, contorted bears! Those demonstrative crusts on unwashed bare feet! Those twisted eyeglasses! And their girls! Long hair, undone; and all those poor creatures, pale and rigid, looking exactly like the carcasses of slaughtered pigs. My horror, I confess, was primarily esthetic. Beauty, I have always believed, is the only excuse, and the only compensation for the stupidity of the young. Ugliness is a privilege of the old. It is bearable only when it is etched by the long suffering of experience into tired faces. These youngsters who were storming the Spanish Steps carried their studied ugliness like a poisonous weapon. Which is exactly what it was. The beatniks, I am quite certain, use the make-up of ugliness to petrify the bystanders. And they certainly succeeded in Rome.