From Bughouse Square To the Beat Generation: Selected Ravings of Slim Brundage (Bughouse Square Series)

Cultural Writing. In 1960, Dorothy Kilgallen wrote, If you wish to see the so-called `beat generation' in action, drop in at the College of Complexes. A unique combination of tavern, university, and non-stop party, the College was for many years Chicago's premier outsider outpost. The writings collected here by the College's Founder and Janitor, Slim Brundage (1903-1990), chronicle the colorful history of what may well be the oldest continuous dissident workingclass intellectual community in the U.S. Hobo, Wobbly, Soapboxer, housepainter, humorist, and chief architect of the scandalous Beatnik Party during the 1960 elections, Brundage was very much a maker of the history he writes about. Slim ran a lively place-livelier than most. He's an ingenious sort of guy... good at talking and getting people to talk-Jack Conroy. Franklin Rosemont's introduction discusses the college's roots and outlines the Janitor's radical (and Dadaist) critique of traditional education.

Franklin Rosemont was born on October 2, 1943, in Chicago, Illinois. His father, Henry, was a labor activist, and mother, Sally, a jazz musician. He edited and wrote an introduction for What is Surrealism?: Selected Writings of Andre Breton, and edited Rebel Worker, Arsenal/Surrealist Subversion, THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DIL PICKLE and Juice Is Stranger Than Friction: Selected Writings of T-Bone Slim. With Penelope Rosemont and Paul Garon he edited THE FORECAST IS HOT!. His work has been deeply concerned with both the history of surrealism (writing a forward for Max Ernst and Alchemy: A Magician in Search of Myth) and of the radical labor movement in America, for instance, writing a biography of Joe Hill. He died on April 12, 2009, in Chicago.