hula hoops

The name "hula hoop" came from the Hawaiian dance its users seemed to imitate.
Wham-O (the original manufacturers) sold 25 million hula hoops in two months. Almost 100 million international orders followed. They were manufacturing 20,000 hoops a day at the peak of popularity.

Not all nations thought this was such a spiffy idea. Japan banned the hoops thinking they might promote improprieties. The Soviet Union said the hula hoop was an example of the "emptiness of American culture." Well, okay, maybe they had a point there.

grease

A musical about teens in love in the 50's! It's California, 1959 and greaser Danny Zuko (John Travolta) and Australian Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John) are in love. They spend time at the beach, but when they go back to school, what either of them doesn't know is that they both now attend Rydell High. Danny's the leader of the T-Birds, a group of black-jacket greasers while Sandy hangs with the Pink Ladies, a group of pink-wearing girls led by Rizzo. When they clash at Rydell's first pep rally, Danny isn't the same Danny at the beach. They try to be like each other so they can be together.  

It was successful both critically and at the box office; its soundtrack album ended 1978 as the second-best selling album of the year in the United States.

the 50's

Find info about the 50's and the 60's here. Fashion, cars, music, slang, fads,...

Kony 2012

i think it's important for everyone to see this video

"who are we to end a war? who are we not to?"

howl

Ginsberg celebrates his fellow "angel-headed hipsters" and excoriates what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States. It is one of the classic poems of the Beat Generation.

You can read the poem here.

(translation into Portuguese here)


I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.

howl

beat generation

Beat Generation

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