Beat Generation
Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation" in 1948 to characterize a perceived underground, anti-conformist youth movement in New York. The name arose in a conversation with writer John Clellon Holmes. Kerouac allows that it was Huncke, a street hustler, who originally used the phrase "beat", in an earlier discussion with him. The adjective "beat" could colloquially mean "tired" or "beaten down" within the African-American community of the period and had developed out of the image "beat to his socks", but Kerouac appropriated the image and altered the meaning to include the connotations "upbeat", "beatific", and the musical association of being "on the beat", and "the Beat to keep" from the "Beat Generation" poem.
Beat Generation (play)
Since then excerpts have appeared in "Best Life Magazine" (July 2005), and the play has been published by OneWorld Classics. "Beat Generation" received its world premiere as part of the 2012 Jack Kerouac Literary Festival from October 10-14 in Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. The play will be presented in a staged reading format by Merrimack Repertory Theatre and the University of Massachusetts Lowell.