Talk:Herb Caen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
This article is supported by the Arts and Entertainment work group.
Photo request It is requested that a picture or pictures of this person be included in this article to improve its quality.
This article is within the scope of the San Francisco Bay Area WikiProject, a collaborative effort to build a more detailed guide on Wikipedia's coverage of San Francisco and the Bay Area. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
Start This article has been rated as start-class on the quality scale.
High This article has been rated as high-importance on the importance scale.

Caen wrote several books about San Francisco and environs. Exceelent reading for anyone wanting a "human view" of the Bay Area and, since some of the books date back 40 and more years, provide a valuable look at an earlier era of humanity.

[edit] "beat"

I am pretty sure Jack Kerouac coined the term "beat" to describe the generation of the time, not Caen. Anyone concrete on this?

Yes, Kerouac did refer to the "Beat generation". Seems Caen the typical journo working for the corporate press was only out to redicule the new swinger music. On the question of the claim that Caen coined the word hippie, this too is factually incorrect. Evidentally, the word hipster, was coined in 1940 by Harry Gibson. Then in 1963 the British band The Swinging Blue Jeans released their hit song 'Hippy Hippy Shake'. This referring to the new beat music where the youth swung their hips, and the hipsters pants worn by the rebelling British youth.

This reference to Caen needs to be changed? Mombas 04:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

The article says he coined "beatnik" and "hippie", which are different from (though obviously related to) "beat" and "hippie". Lagringa 22:34, 20 September 2006 (UTC)