The Cool School (edited by Glenn O'Brien)

 

(Library of America, 2013) As the ringmaster of the greatest assemblage of freaks, geniuses, and superstars in public access television history, Glenn O'Brien knows cool, so having him assemble a collection of essays, excerpts, lyrics, jokes, and manifestos by the ultimate A-list of jazzbos, bats, comics, punks, painters, poets, and oddball outsiders was a slam dunk. I spent a year savoring this, reading Miles' impressions of Bird one day, Lenny Bruce's catalogue of drug use a week later, Henry Miller recollections of sabotaging a posh dinner party when the mood hit me, Joyce Johnson's bad boyfriend tales of Kerouac later on, and Del CLose's hipster dictionary when I got around to it. Sad to have finished this collection, as I feel way less cool without this on my nightstand.