Insomniac’s Skyline LA festival will include Carl Cox, Green Velvet and more
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Fans of house and techno don’t need to lose any sleep worrying about where they can go show off their sweet dance moves next because Los Angeles-based festival and concert producer Insomniac is bringing a bunch of DJs to downtown L.A. for a February dance party.
Tickets are on sale for Skyline LA, a two-day EDM event happening Feb. 26-27 at a yet-to-be-announced location featuring 20 artists performing across two stages.
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While they’ll be performing under the local skyline, the bill is led by well-known international DJs such as Italian native Anfisa Letyago, British-born house and techno record producer Carl Cox and fellow Brit Chris Lake, as well as Germany’s Loco Dice and Australian-born Sonny Fodera.
Insomniac will follow up Skyline LA with the Beyond Wonderland festival, which returns to San Bernardino March 25-26.
Here is the complete Skyline LA lineup:
Anfisa Letyago
Carl Cox
Chris Lake
Claptone
Cloonee
Debora de Luca
DJ Minx
Green Velvet
Heidi Lawden
HoneyLuv
Lauren Lane
Lee Foss
Loco Dice
Marco Carola
Maya Jane Coles
Ms. Mada
Noziu
Oza
Sonny Fodera
Things You Say
Skyline LA
When: 3-11 p.m. Feb.26-27
Where: Yet to be announced
Tickets: Weekend tickets for the 3-11 p.m. show start at $99. The event is for ages 21 and over.
COVID-19 protocols: Proof of a negative antigen test within the previous 24 hours of entering the event, a negative PCR test within the previous 48 hours of entering the event, or proof of full vaccination in order to attend are required.
Information: skylinela.frontgatetickets.com
Beyond the Berm: Yesterday’s Tomorrow Today at HoJo Anaheim
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Beyond the Berm: Yesterday’s Tomorrow Today at HoJo Anaheim
In 65-plus years of Disneyland history, there have been many attractions that have come and gone. And let’s be honest, some of them are more missed than others. Now, one of the more iconic hotels on Harbor Boulevard near the park is taking some inspiration from one of these attractions for a brand new suite experience.
In the annals of these remembered attractions, you’ll find the Adventure Thru Inner Space, the Main Train Through Nature’s Wonderland and so many others. One that is sure to bring a nostalgic smile to any Disneyland fan’s face though is Monsanto’s House of the Future.
Originally opened in 1957, the Monsanto House of the Future was a much needed addition to Tomorrowland at the new park. Guests would be able to head inside and see a full home built out of a new material that was destined to be the future of residential construction… plastic! Guests were able to go through the home, room by room, and see what 1957 grasped the future of living to be. After about a decade, the house closed its doors as it wasn’t so much a house of the future as the future was catching up to it. Today, the attraction is fondly remembered for its iconic look and appeal, especially as trends circle back to the same kind of aesthetic in modern, new ways. The attraction even inspired future exhibits and experiences, including House of the Future-style walk-throughs at Innoventions at Disneyland and EPCOT at Walt Disney World.
Now, in 2022, the House of the Future continues to inspire, though this time, beyond the berm (hey!) of Disneyland. The Howard Johnson Anaheim Hotel & Water Playground across Harbor Blvd. is introducing their newest suite experience this summer, based on the House of the Future. Appropriate, since the resort is within walking distance of the park (about 8 minutes or so), and (as the crow flies) is only a few hundred yards away from the original location of the House of the Future.
Known for their larger rooms that are roomy enough for a family of 5, the HoJo Anaheim is already a popular spot for Disneyland travelers. They already have a water playground, full of slides, water cannons, wading pools and hot tubs, as well as a newer garden pool that is more secluded and quiet, perfect for relaxing after the parks (or that other pool). All of this spread across 7 acres of grounds, offering a chance to pull back from the hustle and bustle of Disneyland and Harbor Blvd.
Now, with the addition of the new House of the Future suite, the resort has only become MORE appealing to families and Disney fans. While other rooms include touches and art from attractions next door, this new suite is floor-to-ceiling immersion into the retro-futuristic aesthetic.
The suite includes 2 large beds in a spacious room, with views overlooking one of the resort pools. A separate living area also provides couches and chairs with a big picture window. Too quiet? Play some tunes on the vinyl record player beneath the flat-screen television hung upon the wall harkening back to the original bubble-style TV featured in the attraction. Hungry? Sit at the dining table just past the entryway to the suite and grab a bite while still spending time with the family.
Plus, the resort designers went so far as to have special art created for the suite, including a recreation of a piece that once adorned the actual House of the Future at the park, masterfully replicated by artist Sam Carter.
Been wanting to talk about this for a while. I helped out @HoJoAnaheim with art in their brand new House of the Future suite!! In the original HotF there was a piece by I’m guessing is Mary Blair. I recreated it for this amazing suite. Pinching myself to hang art next to Shag! pic.twitter.com/zajVrB25nN — Sam Carter ☠️ (@Cartarsauce) January 22, 2022
Another piece the resort was excited to share was a piece done by the artist Shag, a southern California based illustrator, painter, and designer who has a very distinct style with vivid colors in his sharp renderings. Known to Disney fans for much of his work for the parks, including the Wonderground Gallery, HoJo Anaheim brought him over to do an exclusive piece for the new room. While Shag’s art is on display in the room, with there being only one House of the Future suite on the property, only those staying in the room will be able to see the piece right? Wrong! Conveniently enough, all guests will be able to purchase their own print of the rendering while at the HoJo Anaheim in the gift shop.
I’m sure at this point, you might be ready to head back to the retro future yourself. To kick off the opening of the new suite, you can enter for your chance to win a stay in the new suite at the official site here! The suite will be available for guests to book this summer.
To learn more about the original Monsanto House of the Future attraction at Disneyland Park, as well as later exhibits, be sure to check out Cole’s article here.
Twisted-Wonderland Turns Disney Villains Into Pretty Boys And Hunks
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Disney’s Twisted-Wonderland has already been out in Japan for two years. Yesterday, the gacha mobile anime academy game was finally released in English. I can best describe it as “What if Disney Japan gave its IP to the creator of the manga Black Butler and asked her to design an anime Hogwarts game?” The result is a deliciously gothic visual novel card battler for weebs who wish Halloween lasted 365 days per year.
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If you’ve ever played a mobile academy game like Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, the structure here is very similar. The game takes place at Night Raven College, a magic school where, as a new student, you attend classes, make friends, have heated rivalries with members of other houses, and occasionally have magical duels which play out as turn-based card matches (in which your classmates participate, rather than your character). Though only mages are typically admitted to the all-boys school, you play as a magic-less prefect who came to the academy by mistake. The headmaster eventually accepts you in the hopes that you can prevent the magically gifted students from accidentally burning the place down. There are main story chapters that make up the bulk of the narrative content, but most of your time will be spent in lessons and extracurricular minigames.
But let’s be honest: the art and how the characters look are a bigger draw than the gameplay itself. Thankfully, the character designs are sublime. Instead of incorporating existing Disney villains directly into the game like Kingdom Hearts, the designer used them as visual inspiration to create themed houses like Savanaclaw (based on the treacherous Scar from The Lion King) and Octavinelle (for The Little Mermaid’s Ursula). Students from Hades’ dorm have flaming blue hair, and the Queen of Hearts’ apprentices wear outfits that are inspired by poker card suits. At least half the cast of this all-boys’ school is wearing bright eyeshadow. None of them would look out of place in an Asian boy band.
I picked Diasomnia (Maleficent) because those surly teens seemed to be the most put together. However, your choice doesn’t actually affect character availability. It seems to be purely aesthetic, and everyone plays through the same main plot. Just like Hogwarts, each house is meant to exemplify certain traits–in this case, those of its figurehead. For example, Scar is seen as a persistent king who loved equality, and Ursula is seen as a benevolent wish-granter.
As I progressed through the story chapters, I started to brace myself for my chosen Diasomnia students to reveal themselves to be as troublesome as the rest of the cast. Just like the villains that their houses are based on, these kids are chaotic. The game’s lead artist and writer, Black Butler creator Yana Toboso, is known for designing wacky characters who frequently misbehave, and her influence can be clearly seen in the Disney villain-themed rules that these houses abide by. For example, the Queen of Hearts’ requires that white roses must be painted red. If you’ve ever looked at a man and thought “I can fix him,” then this is the gacha game for you.
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The gacha itself is mainly focused on pulling for outfit variants (such as the gym uniform), rather than characters. I personally don’t feel any compulsion to participate in the gacha beyond spending whatever free currency I acquire just by playing. Frequent gacha players will also be glad to know that the game has a built-in reroll system. This means that you can reroll the starter gacha as many times as you would like, and pick the one roll that you liked the most. In other gacha games, most hardcore players do this manually by deleting and redownloading the game or making a new account, which also means having to replay the tutorial. If that sounds like a huge annoyance, it is. While TW isn’t the first to implement a reroll system, I was glad to have an easier time controlling who I started out with.
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The combat is a relatively straightforward card battler where you pick cards with a type that’s advantageous against your opponent’s. If you’ve ever played the lawyer gacha Tears of Themis, the turn-based battles are the same here. Since there’s no major stat modifiers other than the inherent benefits of pairing certain students together, I don’t anticipate TW developing a complex combat meta. TW also has a rhythm game component where you advance the plot by completing “Twistunes.” The rhythm game aspect is more varied than the combat, but it’s still nothing revolutionary. You can also attend classes, but there’s not a true gameplay component to them. You mostly watch small character animations and listen to a few lines about studying. You spend energy to generate a random number of stars, which can be redeemed for EXP items, which in turn can be used to increase the combat abilities of your cards (which are outfit variants for the students).
You’re not going to find a community that does a lot of theorycrafting around combat, but that’s not the core appeal of Twisted-Wonderland. Though the game resembles a Hogwarts spin-off, there’s plenty of original worldbuilding to enjoy, and new main story content and events will frequently be released. The first chapter features the characters from Heartslabyul, a dorm based on the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. Future chapters will all feature a different villainous dorm. So if you want to meet your boys early, don’t make my mistake and choose the very last villain.
Free apps for Android & iOS: These Pro versions are currently free
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As we do twice a week, NextPit curated a list of mobile apps and games for Android and iOS that are usually paid but are free for a limited time only on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.
This list is updated weekly, with at least two weekly editions, on Tuesday and Friday. Between the publication and the time you view this article, some apps may have become paid again. Google Play Store’s limited-time deals on apps are fairly easy to predict, but it’s more complicated with App Store deals since Apple doesn’t specify how long the discount is valid.
Quick tip: Have you found an interesting app, but you can’t really use it at the moment? Install the app anyway, then delete it from your device. This way, the app will become part of your app library, and you can install it again for free when you need it. A good way not to miss out on a short-lived promotion.
Temporarily free Android apps on the Google Play Store
Free Android apps
- Manual Camera ($4.99) : Unlock extra features from your phone’s camera. Get more manual modes, set controls like ISO, exposure, focus, white balance, and shutter speed. The app also offers additional features for video recording, like slow motion, time-lapse, and more.
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Unlock extra features from your phone’s camera. Get more manual modes, set controls like ISO, exposure, focus, white balance, and shutter speed. The app also offers additional features for video recording, like slow motion, time-lapse, and more. POW - Cartoon Sound Effects ($0.99) : Looking to spice up your podcast recordings or your next TikTok hit? Try spicing them with this simple soundboard that offers silly cartoon sounds.
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Looking to spice up your podcast recordings or your next TikTok hit? Try spicing them with this simple soundboard that offers silly cartoon sounds. EZ Notes ($5.49) : Dictate notes to your smartphone and get them transcribed into text that can be organized and edited with colors, rich text, pictures, and more.
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Dictate notes to your smartphone and get them transcribed into text that can be organized and edited with colors, rich text, pictures, and more. Unit Converter ($7.49) : Convert units from more than 40 different categories, with added tools like a real-time currency converter (requires an internet connection), compass, level, date converter, and more.
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Convert units from more than 40 different categories, with added tools like a real-time currency converter (requires an internet connection), compass, level, date converter, and more. Egyptian Pyramids Virtual Reality ($1.99) : Grab that cheap smartphone VR headset to visit the Great Pyramids of Egypt in a completely new way: with a rollercoaster ride.
Free Android games
- Infinite Puzzle ($4.49) : Although I am not quite sure whether this puzzle game is truly infinite, you can check for yourself in this minimalistic about connecting all the lines displayed on the screen.
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Although I am not quite sure whether this puzzle game is truly infinite, you can check for yourself in this minimalistic about connecting all the lines displayed on the screen. Push ($0.99) : From the puzzles experts at Rainbow Train, Push is another challenging but soothing game that banishes points, counters, and most of the interface to make you learn your way through the stages.
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From the puzzles experts at Rainbow Train, Push is another challenging but soothing game that banishes points, counters, and most of the interface to make you learn your way through the stages. Galaxy Attack ($0.99) : Protect Earth from the alien invasion, and upgrade your ship to face hordes of challenges in this vertical shoot-em-up.
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Protect Earth from the alien invasion, and upgrade your ship to face hordes of challenges in this vertical shoot-em-up. 9th Dawn II 2 RPG ($3.49) : To promote the third installment on the series, the developer is giving away the second game, where you can explore towns, forests, and dungeons to collect loot, fight monsters to reclaim your land from the monster dragon.
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To promote the third installment on the series, the developer is giving away the second game, where you can explore towns, forests, and dungeons to collect loot, fight monsters to reclaim your land from the monster dragon. Peppa Pig: Happy Mrs. Chicken ($2.99) : Perfect for distracting little kids, this app includes different simple minigames which are geared towards preschoolers. Learn more about the game by clicking here.
Temporarily free iOS apps in the Apple App Store
Free iOS apps
- Juice Watch ($4.99) : This small widget improves the integration between your iPhone and the Apple Watch. The smartphone shows a notification when the watch is fully charged, while the Apple Watch gets a small widget showing the iPhone’s battery level.
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This small widget improves the integration between your iPhone and the Apple Watch. The smartphone shows a notification when the watch is fully charged, while the Apple Watch gets a small widget showing the iPhone’s battery level. Orderly ($0.99) : Bring order to your seemingly impossible to-do list. Organize tasks, sort through them chronologically, and sync lists between devices.
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Bring order to your seemingly impossible to-do list. Organize tasks, sort through them chronologically, and sync lists between devices. PDF Max Pro ($4.99) : Organize PDF files in both your iPhone and Mac computer, fill out forms and sign PDF documents.
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Organize PDF files in both your iPhone and Mac computer, fill out forms and sign PDF documents. Easy Spending Budget ($0.99) : Problems getting your salary to survive the entire month?.
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Problems getting your salary to survive the entire month?. Videdit ($0.99) : Do quick edits on your videos without having to use a computer. Make collages, add effects, crop and trim footage, add soundtracks, and much more.
Free iOS games
- Peppa Pig: Happy Mrs. Chicken ($2.99) : Perfect for distracting little kids, this app includes different simple minigames which are geared towards preschoolers.
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Perfect for distracting little kids, this app includes different simple minigames which are geared towards preschoolers. Jumpy Wheels ($1.99) : Test your reflexes and eye-hand coordination trying to avoid obstacles.
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Test your reflexes and eye-hand coordination trying to avoid obstacles. Kinecto ($1.99) : Clear the playfield on this puzzle game that tries to modernize the classic Tetris formula.
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Clear the playfield on this puzzle game that tries to modernize the classic Tetris formula. Alice Beyond Wonderland ($2.99) : Inspired by old-school point-and-click adventure games, solve the mystery about the disappearance of your friends from the kingdom by beating puzzles.
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Inspired by old-school point-and-click adventure games, solve the mystery about the disappearance of your friends from the kingdom by beating puzzles. Hugo Hup ($1.99) : Climb the waterfall by shooting the titular character up in the sky, just make sure it lands on the platforms.
What do you think of our selection this week? Did you find other interesting apps or games on the Google Play Store or Apple App Store? Don’t hesitate to share your good deals in the comments.
Elise Nada Cowen: The Underrated Melancholic Beat Poet
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Elise Nada Cowen was a poet of the Beat movement, an era in literature that explored the gritty and shadowed elements of the human experience such as sexuality, drug experimentation, and anti-war beliefs, subjects deemed taboo at the time. The legacy of the movement lingers in the stories of its male pioneers Allen Ginsberg (Howl), William Burroughs (Naked Lunch), and Jack Kerouac (On the Road). Even more spoken of than their writing were the men’s lives. They road-tripped across state lines fueled by psychedelics and pens; fell into the Wonderland-esque New York City nightlife of the ‘50s in the pursuit of experiencing life and its spectrum of emotions.
There is little information about Cowen beyond her tragic death and being the last woman Ginsberg dated before he “came out” as gay. Though men of the era, along with present historians, pushed the voices of women aside, Cowen’s poetry, which coincides with her life events, should be remembered alongside the movement’s men.
Born into a Jewish family in the New York City neighborhood, Washington Heights, Cowen’s childhood appeared to be the typical American story of a mother and father raising their only child. Underneath the surface, however, were issues. After inviting her friends to her home, Cowen, then 13, had an accident while trying to bake brownies. Her eyebrows and parts of her hair were burnt off and her father stopped calling her beautiful. This led to self-esteem issues combined with the common issues teenagers tend to go through during their adolescent years that lasted for the remainder of her life.
One of Cowen’s poems, believed to be her last before her death, was introspective and yet emotionally tarnished. It explored her tumultuous and personal relationship with self-love that differed from the typical masculinity-driven Beat poems:
While studying at Barnard, Cowen struggled with confidence, evident in her interactions with those around her. As fellow Beat member and author, Joyce Johnson wrote in her 1983 memoir Minor Characters: “I did not want to know Elise Cowen, who clearly was not collegiate and whom I could tell at a glance was even beyond the effort of trying.”
In a philosophy course, Cowen and several women students developed a crush on their young professor, Alex Greer. The difference—Cowen needed his love.
Cowen’s feelings grew past fascination and into an obsession in which her self-worth was wrapped into if Greer returned the feelings. He did not. Her presence alone could not grab his attention, Cowen turned to a new vice; one that would set forth a toxic dating pattern for relationships to come. She sought to please him through offering her services and became his assistant. Cowen performed tasks such as attending to his two-year-old son, cooking, and cleaning while he and his wife sorted through their tumultuous relationship and extramarital affairs.
Cowen later wrote a poem influenced by her Jewish upbringing and Jane Eyre’s character, Mr. Rochester. It was believed to chronicle her relationship with Greer and the hypnotic wave it brought over her to stay:
The thing about being hypnotized by someone is that it often stems from manipulation, especially with an age gap. Though it has been said that Cowen “seduced” Greer, the reality was the relationship was an abuse of Greer’s power as a professor, a position he used to take advantage of Cowen.
“Abusive relationships come from an empty place in your soul,” said Veronica Demarco, a Southern California marriage and family therapist said to Observer in response to Cowen’s relationship with her professor: Demarco noted how individuals often try to “recreate” their own dysfunctional family dynamics in new relationships, as Cowen appeared to do. Cowen’s father stopped calling her beautiful and she searched for a man who would. This made Cowen vulnerable to being used by others who could identify her pain. Since her family was unable to care for her, she turned to her professor. When he could not reciprocate, Cowen was led to the next, and possibly most notorious relationship of all: Allen Ginsberg.
In the spring of 1953, Cowen met Ginsberg at a party. The two set up a date and Cowen traveled downtown to meet him— a contrast to the etiquette of the time where men were expected to pick up their date.
While the men could get away with breaking from societal standards, the women were judged. By embarking to the date on her own, Cowen established herself as non-conforming to expectations, and yet became a target to those around who would describe her as desperate and needy. In reality, Cowen was revolutionary and shattered gendered boundaries on and off the page like her male counterparts of the Beat generation. The only difference – Cowen received no applause.
When Ginsberg led Cowen into the bar, he brought her into a Gatsby-esque world of literary icons, beautiful women, and powerful fixtures. And while historians see the date from the perspective of Ginsberg trying to cover up his sexuality, they lose sight of Cowen’s experience–the butterflies that came with her anticipation, the rush that followed being seen by someone as assured as Ginsberg. For Cowen, who had low self-esteem, being beside Ginsberg flooded her with the love and healing she craved. That night, the two slept together and dated for the next few months until Ginsberg traveled to San Francisco where he met Peter Orlovsky, who would become his long-time partner. Ginsberg moved into his future, yet Cowen stayed in Manhattan reminiscing about the connection she felt with Ginsberg. Once again, Cowen was alone.
A pivotal element of the Beat movement was the expression of sexual fluidity. As Ginsberg came to terms with his sexuality, Cowen started to date a woman. While many of the male Beat writers had gay and bisexual characters in their work, queer women were not shown. Cowen carved out her own niche of exploring female sexuality while honing in on how heteronormative workplace environments took a toll on one’s identity:
Regardless of her relationship status, Cowen still loved Ginsberg. As Johnson wrote, “…in loving Sheila (Elise’s girlfriend), Elise is loving Allen too, reaching him in some place in her mind, living his life—loving Sheila as Allen loves men.”
Relationship issues between Cowen and her girlfriend only worsened when the two couples — Cowen and her girlfriend and Ginsberg and Orlovsky — moved in together upon Ginsberg’s return to New York. During this time, Cowen typed up what would later be one of Ginsberg’s most famous poems, “Kaddish.”
Cowen did not mind assisting Ginsberg in any way she could, similarly to how she took care of Greer in college. Cowen lived for Ginsberg, though the feelings were not mutual. According to Johnson’s memoir, to Cowen, Ginsberg was her “intercessor… the holy figure who could intercede in her behalf.” Cowen could not love her girlfriend to the same degree and the two broke up.
Though Cowen’s idolization of Ginsberg put a strain on her mental health and identity, there had been signs of her mental health’s deterioration dating back from before their relationship.
Before dropping out of college, Cowen went missing for a week. She stopped contacting peers and attending work. When Johnson eventually came to check on Cowen, she found Cowen living in an unkempt apartment with bandaged wrists.
As Cowen’s mental health worsened, she was fired from her typist position at a news station. She knew the decision either stemmed from her obsessive drinking or her sexuality. She returned to the office to learn the reason for her termination and the police were called on her. After refusing to leave, she had her glasses broken, was punched in the stomach by an officer, and was arrested.
Around the time of her job dismissal, the Beat movement formed a strong niche in San Francisco. Cowen moved to the West Coast where she struggled to fit into the San Francisco culture and could not form strong relationships with those around. She experienced financial difficulties and later discovered she was pregnant. She received a hysterectomy.
After the procedure, Cowen returned to New York where she was admitted to a psychiatric institute for psychosis and hepatitis. When released, she fell into drug use and was later re-admitted to the hospital.
After Cowen’s release from the hospital, Skir noted a change within her in his essay, “A Brief Memoir of the Fifties”: “…she was mad, quite mad. Paranoid. She felt the City had machines trained on her, could hear all her thoughts and also that she could hear them, the New York City workers, foolish, bored, boring, mean-souled people.”
There were bitter themes of melancholy and depression within Cowen’s poems that expressed her views of her mental illness. While men writers of the Beat movement used themes of freedom whether through sexual exploration or travels, women were not given the same experience. As Cowen tried to comprehend where her struggles came from, the men never seemed to question their own sanity because mental illness had always been biased – a way to diminish the feelings of women, therefore a women’s issue. During an era where men were free to howl, women were told to remain silent; Cowen broke tradition and turned to writing to express the gaslighting inflicted upon women who did not behave as expected:
After her hospital stay, Cowen moved back in with her parents where they planned a family trip to Miami Beach. It is unclear what she brought with her back to her childhood home — years of neglect, untreated mental illness, drug abuse, grooming? Regardless of the mental baggage, Cowen would never make it to the trip.
On February 27 1962 Cowen died at 28 from injuries sustained after jumping from her family’s window in her childhood home. Cowen left behind notebooks filled with her poetry, most of which were never seen:
After her death, her neighbors destroyed most of her work believed to protect her family’s reputation from its taboo themes of sexuality and drug use. However, it remains unclear why her neighbors would suspect anyone would have access to Cowen’s notebooks outside her family; how would her neighbors know to look for Cowen’s poems if not having been instructed to do so by someone within the home? And at that point, one can suspect that Cowen’s work might have reflected more about her family life and its secrets than it did about her own personal life.
Fragments of Cowen’s poems were retrieved by Skir who helped publish her work in “City Lights Journal” which was later edited by Tony Trigilio and turned into the collection, “Elise Cowen: Poems and Fragments,” though it is no longer sold.
Cowen’s middle name “Nada” which translates in Spanish to mean “nothing” might be the most telling of Cowen’s treatment from the time of her birth—an existence of being treated like nothing. Constrained by gendered expectations, a lack of mental health services, and preyed upon by those in positions of power; ultimately, the men betrayed the sole purpose of the movement by not extending the Beat’s dynamic and revolutionary concepts to include women.
When famous Beat writer, Gregory Corso was asked during a 1994 panel at the Naropa Institute where the women of the Beat generation were today, he responded, as recorded by Stephen Scobie:
“There were women, they were there. I knew them. Their families put them in institutions. They were given electric shocks. In the ‘50s if you were male you could be a rebel, but if you were female your families had you locked up. There were cases, I knew them, someday someone will write about them.”
Cowen’s writing continues to be ignored for the trope of a woman who loses herself to madness—for the desire of a man. Vice even created a photo spread called “Last Words” with the theme of women writers who killed themselves. Vice used Cowen’s suicide— along with notable writers such as Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath — as art rather than using the work of art they created as a muse.
While Cowen’s work, like the other members of the Beatnik, tells a grand story, the greatest of her stories exists off the page: the life of an artist who loved whole-heartedly and possessed a level of intellectual and emotional depth not tended to by society. For the woman who constantly supported those around her yet did not receive the same treatment in her life, and even in death could not escape the misogynistic boundaries of the glass ceiling she was forced to watch, but never break through. A life of extreme highs and lows, and yet even in the eyes of the Beat meant nada when beside a man.