Wednesday, October 5, 2022

A forgotten literary movement

In my dream, I was explaining to various friends and family members what was troubling me:

"This is driving me crazy. I remember that there was a literary movement in the early 20th century, and they had a short, simple name -- but I can't remember what it was, and I can't find any reference to it anywhere! It wasn't the Beatniks, although the two movements had a lot in common. This movement was earlier than the Beats, sort of a precursor I suppose, but they had a name just as simple and memorable as Beatniks. Something like Rat Pack, maybe? Not that, of course, but that sort of name. The strange thing is that I can't remember the name of a single figure from this movement, although it feels is if they're all on the tip of my tongue. When I try to think of their names, all I can come up with is Francis Scott Key, which obviously isn't even the right century. I can't name any of the novels, either, though I do vaguely remember one of the movies associated with the movement. It was called The something Kid -- like The Topeka Kid or something like that, or maybe just The Kid -- and I can remember what the picture on the DVD case looked like: black and white photo with a young boy standing there in oversized clothes and -- oh, I can't remember what those hats were called, either, but one of those hats, you know, like you'd wear in a Guy Ritchie movie. One of their themes was that kids grow up too fast, and their work was a bit sentimental sometimes, but there was also a certain element of tough-guy posturing. They foreshadowed film noir in certain ways, I think you'd say. Anyway, that DVD apparently no longer exists. I can't find any trace of it anywhere. . . ."

I gave this explanation to one person after another, and no one had any idea what I was talking about -- with the exception of one of my brothers, whose only suggestion was, "Wasn't there a group of writers around that time called the Schmucks?" I became convinced that this was some sort of Mandela Effect -- that this whole literary movement had been retroactively erased from history, leaving only a few fragmentary but insistent memories in the minds of a few people like myself.

Upon waking, I figured that I had been describing garbled memories of F. Scott Fitzgerald (full name Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald) and the 1921 Charlie Chaplin film The Kid -- but would anyone say that Fitzgerald and Chaplin were part of the same "literary movement"? And the movement of which Fitzgerald was a defining member was given the boring, nondescript label Modernism -- nowhere near as cool or memorable as Beatniks or Rat Pack. Or maybe Lost Generation was the name I was trying to remember? Anyway, a very strange dream.

5 comments:

John Goes said...

I thought of Dadaism, perhaps as a representative of modernism, but not sure how well that fits.

Ra1119bee said...


William,


IMO, trying to understand dreams using logic and/or trying to fit dreams into a certain category, especially a certain time in history is Futile, because there is no such thing as linear time as far as the Esoteric is concerned.

I believe our Soul holds ALL of our experiences and knowledge from many lifetimes, so
'the past' can be a day ago, or a century ago, and they're all connected.

The messages in our dreams, are 'spoken' through the Universal Language of symbolism, numerology and archetypes, which upon awakening the Ego tries to make logical sense of 'but the esoteric is anything but.

Maybe the Guy Ritchie Hat was the 'Key" of the dream, ( which I had to google Guy Ritchie movies as I didn't know who Guy Ritchie was ).

The symbolism of hats, especially those hats worn in the early 20th century with the wide brim, are symbolic of Saturn' Rings.
The Head being the Globe.

Another hat in Guy Ritchie's Five Eyes movie was either a flatcap or a Newsboy hat, which if the Newsboy hat was the style hat worn in your dream it would make sense as it has connection to a young boy/ Kid, i.e. a new boy/Newsboy.

I also thought it interesting that a Newsboy hat has ***eight*** panels, and of course
anything having to do with news or communications is Mercury Energy and is very very powerful (much like the number 8),
which may explain why the young boy(symbolic of you perhaps?) in your dream
was wearing oversized clothes.
Symbolic perhaps of : clothes that are bigger than the boy.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsboy_cap


Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

@Debbie

Yes, it was a newsboy cap, but in the dream I really couldn't remember what it was called and thought (in the dream) that it was like the cap worn by Jason Statham in Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels -- but apparently he doesn't wear a cap at all in that movie!

I agree that any odd little detail could be the "key" to the dream. The proposed movie title The Topeka Kid struck me as odd and possibly significant. Why Topeka? Looking it up, I see that the name means "a place to dig potatoes," that it is where the Pentecostal "speaking in tongues" movement started, and that a lawsuit against its Board of Education is what led to the Supreme Court ruling forcing the racial integration of public schools. Not sure what relevance any of that has.

The other "misremembered" details -- Beatniks, Rat Pack, Francis Scott Key, the Schmucks -- must also have some meaning.

If The Kid is a reference to the Chaplin film, then the "Rat Pack" might be the Grand Order of Water Rats, of which Chaplin was a member.

Ra1119bee said...



William,

I would say your Topeka connection (where the Pentecostal 'speaking in tongues' movement started) perhaps is symbolic to the NEWS/Boy and communication (Mercury).

Although the message was to and for you only, but if I had that dream,
I personally would interpret and associate the 1950's Beatnik and the Rat Pack as an archetype of the Risk Taker/ Rebel and/or Hero, especially someone whose 'tongues'
(language communication) are different from the common man.

ben said...

the karate kid?

Knowledge is baking powder, France is baking.

Last night (the night of April 17), I visited Engrish.com , a site I used to check fairly regularly but hadn't been to in, oh, years pro...