=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:52:48 +0000
Reply-To: Brian M Kirchhoff
<howl420@JUNO.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Brian M Kirchhoff <howl420@JUNO.COM>
Subject: Re: Joy and Despair
Comments:
To: dv8@MAIL.NETSHOP.NET
On Fri,
25 Jul 1997 13:03:18 -0700 James William Marshall
<dv8@MAIL.NETSHOP.NET>
writes:
>
Sherri,
> I think that indifference and / or confusion
are words which encompass
the
>
simultaneous feeling of joy and despair.
i think
you are missing the essence of the duality that buddhism (and
consequently
kerouac) attempt to address. this may
be the source of
confusion. i think the simultaneous occurrence of joy
and despair is not
only
possible, but an understanding of it is necessary to understand
kerouac's
purpose. i don't think this duality can
be written off as
"confusion". To do so sells buddhism and kerouac short.
>
And the experience of emotions is a little different than the existence
of time
and >matter. A metaphysician would
argue that there is no such
thing
as the present >since it's an ever fleeting instant; the past is
memory
(subjective) and the future is
>speculative.
so
what. all that gives us is a
neo-cartesian philosophy which strives
to
disprove the existence of anything.
this gets us nowhere.
> A
logician would probably say that you run into problems when you
combine
the >propositions "all thing exist(s) simultaneously" and
"things
are there....... but >they're NOT." Do things
exist,
however
small, or is it all illusory, or perhaps a >healthy combination.
As for
a "constant nature of this physical life", I'd have to say
>(cliched)
that change is the only one.
you are
taking the beautiful simplicity of buddhism and beating it down
with
the hammer of logic. i admit that if
you logically look at
buddhism,
you will find every imaginable form of inconsistency. it is
not
something that tries to or wants to exist in a domain of logic. it
subverts
logic. and it is logic. and it rejects logic.
logic
would also have some problems with the sound of one hand clapping.
i would
suggest trying to ignore these "logical tests" when trying to
understand
buddhism. it is sure to create more
problems than solve them.
> And why the emphasis on duality? Why not polyality? If you're going
to
>argue
for both sides of the coin, why not argue for the edges too?
>
> James M.
because
understanding that there is simultaneously good and evil (to take
a trite
example) in every yin and yang is central to understanding not
only
buddhism, but eastern societies as
well. i think buddhism _deals_
with
the edges of the coin too. it's all
about everything being
everything
simultaneously (i believe that's how someone recently put
it.). that is all of the coin as far as i can
tell. however, i don't
want to
admit that buddhism _argues_ at all.
it's purpose is
enlightenment,
not debate or even discourse. looking
at it through the
glasses
of western ethnocentrism is never going to give a clear picture
of
buddhism, hinduism, china, japan, india, etc.
just my
opinion,
-brian
kirchhoff
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 18:44:30 -0400
Reply-To: Chimera@WEBTV.NET
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Eric Blanco <Chimera@WEBTV.NET>
Subject: Introduction
Content-Type:
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MIME-Version:
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Hello, Everyone:
I've been lurking for a bit, and
have
enjoyed your postings very much.
This is
my first post to the list, and It's
with
some nervousness that I'd like to
ask if
it would be possible to steer me
in the
right direction in terms of beat reading material.
I'm aware that that request must
be made
often, and with all respect to the
list,
I've no wish to disturb any current threads, so if possible, I'd
appreciate
any
members
e-mailing me privately with their
suggestions.
Very brief bio:
I'm 32,
born 6/3/65 from Bronx, N.Y. I live
with my
girlfriend, Nancy (28) and our son, Adam, who will be 4 August
29th. I
work
for the U.S. postal service as a mail
handler.
I enjoy reading and writing poetry, as well as all types of
fantasy
literature and rock and jazz music.
I wish you all a wonderful
weekend.
Take care and have fun (in
whatever
order you like).
My best,
Eric
Blanco
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 19:47:05 -0400
Reply-To: Chimera@WEBTV.NET
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Eric Blanco <Chimera@WEBTV.NET>
Subject: Untitled Poem Written 4/14/91
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MIME-Version:
1.0 (WebTV)
The
kids invade the wrong neigborhood
Packs
like young wolves
They
move with deathly grace
Stop-motion
rhythm
In the
eyes of the smoke numbed
Shattered
store windows
A nile
of broken glass and abandoned cars
One
lone girl,who,taking a short cut home
Will
never make it there
An
abandoned building
A
shooting gallery filled with dying targets
The
kids find sex and mystic transport
In the
arms of sweet addiction
Friends
sleep beneath a sea of grass
Barely
remembered but revered
Chimera '91
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:53:29 -0700
Reply-To: James William Marshall
<dv8@MAIL.NETSHOP.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: James William Marshall
<dv8@MAIL.NETSHOP.NET>
Subject: Buddhism & Me
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First
off, I want to state that I don't know all that much about Buddhism
and in
no way meant to denigrate a religion or its adherents. In responding
to
Sherri's post, I only meant to address what I saw as a fruitless ground:
attempting
to mix logic and science with a religious way of viewing the self
and the
world. The arguments presented in my
last post were simply
arguments;
I used phrases like "a metaphysician would argue" and "a logician
would
probably say" hoping that people wouldn't jump to assumptions about my
spiritual
beliefs or personal philosoph(y)ies.
I still don't understand how someone can
experience two diametrically
opposed
emotions simultaneously (I can imagine how one might go back and
forth
between the feelings quite quickly), but I'm willing to take your word
that
it's possible. Perhaps as I learn more
about Buddhism, which is a goal
of
mine, I will come to understand. I
apologize to anyone whom I may have
offended. If anyone could give me some specific
examples of how the Beats
used
this joy / despair simultaneous duality, I might be able to comprehend
this
thread a little better. (Oh, and now
that I've had some time to think
about
it, I believe that I may have experienced this duality but it was when
my mind
had been chemically altered and I don't know if that really
counts...
time being a little skewed and all).
James
M.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 23:09:55 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Buddhism & Me
Confusious
Say:
They
have all answered correctly; that is, each in their own nature.
I say:
Take up
the slack, Jack.
Don't
mean to be coy
C.
Plymell
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 00:07:45 -0400
Reply-To: Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>
Subject: Hunter S. Thompson/NY Times (fwd)
MIME-Version:
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----------
Forwarded message ----------
Date:
Fri, 25 Jul 1997 18:13:08 -0400
From:
Ron P Whitehead
To:
BOHEMIAN
Subject:
Hunter S. Thompson/NY Times
LETTERS
OF THE YOUNG AUTHOR (He Saved Them All)
Books
of the Times
THE NEW
YORK TIMES
THE
LIVING ARTS section
Friday,
July 25, 1997
by
Richard Bernstein
One thing that this collection of letters
makes clear at the outset is
that
Hunter S. Thompson, he of the "Fear and Loathing" books, for whom
the
phrase "gonzo journalist" was invented, has always burned to carve
his
initials onto the collective awareness. What other kind of person
would,
beginning in his teen years, make carbon copies of every letter he
wrote -
to his mother, his Army friends and commanding officers, his
girlfriends,
his various agents and editors - specifically in the hope
that
they would be published?
Mr. Thompson, by dint of hard work and
enormous talent, has gotten his
wish.
Edited by Douglas Brinkley and adorned with a sparkling essay by
the
novelist William J. Kennedy, "The Proud Highway" takes Mr. Thompson's
caustic,
furious, funny, look-at-me correspondence through 1967, when the
author,
having arrived on the scene with his book "Hell's Angels," was
30. It
is noteworthy that although just one in seven of the relevant
cache
of letters was included, this book, labeled "The Fear and Loathing
Letters,
Volume I," weighs in at just under 700 pages - and there are
still
30 more years to go. Even some of the photographs of Mr. Thompson
were
taken by the author himself, self-portraits of the writer at work
and at
play. Manifestly, this is a man who, while anti-snobbish to a
fault,
abusively contemptuous of self-promotion and pretension, had a
powerful
need to make a record of himself and to make that record public.
Fortunately, the maverick vibrancy and
originality of the record's
creator
fully redeems what might otherwise have been an act of
egomaniacal
temerity. The Hunter S. Thompson that emerges in this
collection
of his letters, complemented by fragments of his other
writings,
is very much the unrestrained, strenuously nonconformist, Lone
Ranger
journalist who achieved cult status long ago.
One thinks of Mr. Thompson a bit as one
thinks of the hero of George
Macdonald
Fraser's fictional Flashman books, Flashman rampaging like Don
Quixote
through the major events of the 19th century, making them his
own.
Mr. Hunter rampaged through the 60's and 70's of this century, not
reporting
on them in any conventional sense but using them as raw
material
for the text that was his own life.
Taken together, as Mr. Brinkley correctly
points out in his editor's
note,
the Thompson correspondence is "an informal and offbeat history of
two
decades in American life," the two decades in question having
produced
the counterculture that Mr. Thompson both chronicled and helped
produce.
The overriding sensibility, inherited from H. L. Mencken,
consists
of an eloquent, hyperbolic impatience with the supposed
mediocrity
of American life, its Rotarian culture, its complacency and
its
pieties.
"Young people of America, awake from
your slumber of indolence and
harken
the call of the future!" the 18-year-old Mr. Thompson wrote in the
first
piece reproduced in this book, taken from the yearbook of the
Louisville
Male High School in Kentucky. "I'm beginning to think you're a
phony,
Graham," Mr. Hunter writes eight years later in 1963, the Graham
in
question being Philip L. Graham, president of the Washington Post
Company.
Mr. Hunter, a freelancer writing articles from South America,
was
moved to a rage by an article in Newsweek, owned by The Washington
Post,
that was critical of The National Observer, which was publishing
his
work.
This, evidently, was a guy who took no
guff, whose Ayn Rand-influenced
determination
to do things his way required not only that he make no
compromises
but that he be seen as making none. Graham invited Mr. Hunter
to
"write me a somewhat less breathless letter, in which you tell me
about
yourself," and Mr. Thompson did so. He compliments his
correspondent
on the "cavalier tone that in some circles would pass for a
very
high kind of elan" but warns him against interpreting his letter as
"a
devious means of applying for a job on the assembly line at Newsweek,
or
covering speeches for The Washington Post. I sign what I write, and I
mean to
keep on signing it."
By 1967, Mr. Thompson, who has risen in the
world, is blasting others
for
nincompoopery and knavishness. "I have every honest and serious
intention
of wreaking a thoroughly personal and honest vengeance on Scott
Meredith
himself, in the form of cracking his teeth with a knotty stick
and
rupturing every other bone and organ I can make contact with in the
short
time I expect will be allotted to me," he writes in a letter to his
editor
at Random House, speaking of the literary agent whom he has just,
in any
case, dismissed. "I am probably worse than you think, as a person,
but
what the hell?" he wrote to Meredith. "When I get hungry for personal
judgment
on myself, I'll call for a priest."
Mr. Thompson is not always making symbolic
threats. This volume shows
him as
a loyal and clever
(An undated
self-portrait of Hunter S. Thompson in his youth.)
friend
devoted to sporting, high-spirited repartee. It shows him also as
a
stingingly good stylist as well as a hard-drinking, gun-toting
adventurer
who never loses his sense of humor even when he is being
bitten
by South American beetles or stomped on by members of an American
motorcycle
gang. The letters and other fragments in this collection are
invested
with the same rugged, outspoken individualism as his more public
writings,
which make them just as difficult to put down.
What makes them ever more irresistible is
that they lend substance to
the
legend of his life as an ultimate countercultural romance. If books
like
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" conveyed the image of a handsome
young
man riding his motorcycle at 100 miles an hour on the defiant
highway
of the untrammeled life, this collection of his private
statements
will show that the image was true. "The most important thing a
writer
can have," he wrote to a friend when he was 21, is "the ability to
live
with constant loneliness and a strong sense of revulsion for the
banalities
of everyday socializing." Evidently, he meant what he said.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 00:52:13 -0400
Reply-To: Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>
Subject: Re: Hunter S. Thompson/NY Times (fwd)
In-Reply-To:
<Pine.LNX.3.95.970726000701.8789A-100000@devel.nacs.net>
MIME-Version:
1.0
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In Jul
1997, The New York Times printed:
> Mr. Thompson, by dint of hard work and
enormous talent, has gotten his
>
wish. Edited by Douglas Brinkley and adorned with a sparkling essay by
>
the novelist William J. Kennedy, "The Proud Highway" takes Mr.
Thompson's
>
caustic, furious, funny, look-at-me correspondence through 1967, when the
>
author, having arrived on the scene with his book "Hell's Angels,"
was
>
30.
Wow,
was he already a whole 30 years old when _Hell's Angels_ came out? I
was
under some kind of impression all these years that his first book came
out at
25, and he'd completed some sort of book-length manuscript and had
gotten
some kind of major break at 23. This means my understanding of HST is
going
to need some revision; as I understand it his life as a magazine
writer
was fairly obscure and somewhat destitute even, until he'd gotten that
Hell's
Angel assignment -- originally just an article -- and turned it into
the
worthy tome it is. So he spent his 20s without a book, eh? _None_ of
these
guys got a break. Arthur, I'm sure at least you'll have something to
say on
this matter (and with your usual manner of erudite completeness,
too).
Oh and got your message, looking forward to it. Seeya.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 17:28:30 -0600
Reply-To: "Derek A. Beaulieu"
<dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Derek A. Beaulieu"
<dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>
Organization:
Calgary Free-Net
Subject: Ram Dass Info. Source (fwd)
Comments:
cc: bohemian list <bohemian@maelstrom.stjohns.edu>
Mime-Version:
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ya'll
saw
this on rec.music.gdead and i thought it might interest some here.
yrs
derek
----------
Forwarded message ----------
Date:
Sat, 26 Jul 1997 10:11:10 -0600
From:
bobshome@pacbell.net
Subject:
Ram Dass Info. Source
Hi
Everyone & Namaste'
I'd like to THANK EVERYONE who has been
passing along the ongoing
"health
updates" and other topics concerning Ram Dass. He appears to be
recovering
at his own pace. Overcoming a massive
stroke can be slow at
times... Last Sunday (July 20th), I went to the Bay
Area Bandhara (Marin
County,
CA.) celebrating Guru Purnima (the
actual day itself, according
to the
Hindu calendar). This is a celebration
of ones' Guru or Teacher.
In this
case, Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji).
Jai Uttal lead the kirtan
and the
sanga was very uplifting; the food was Excellent!!! Marlene had
told me
that they (including Ram Dass), might come.
It was when I got
there
that I realized that this would've been 'cumbersome' for Ram Dass.
It was
at a cabin in the woods on a slight hill...not very easy for a
wheelchair... I found later that the same weekend that
some friends from
India
visited Ram Dass, which I'm sure lifted his spirits! At my site, I
do my
best to get out as much information as I can get my hands on. I
also
have an e-mail list which I send out the most recent "health
updates". If you'd like to be on this list, please
e-mail me and let me
know
"why" you're e-mailing because I receive much e-mail. The e-mail
list is
Bcc (Blind carbon copy). No one's
address is displayed to
others. A request from some when the list got pretty
large. IT HAS BEEN
VERY
SWEET OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO I'VE SEEN POSTINGS FROM, REGARDING HEALTH
UPDATES
ON NEWSGROUPS!!! It has been my sole
intention to pass
information
to all that wish it and am VERY HAPPY that others' are doing
the
same.
The URL for my site, which includes the
current update (at this time,
approx.
once a month), past health updates, a bulletin board (for Ram
Dass to
come to later and read all of the posts~~his vision in his right
eye HAS
been affected~~but the Teacher who wrote, "How Can I Help?" now
has
plenty of assistance....a karmic thing :^)
Also, a Satsang Page that
has
peoples' boigraphies and the option of e-mailing them if you feel you
have
something in common with them; Information on the band, Jai Uttal
and the
Pagan Love Orchestra and many other related topics. Jai Uttal
spent
time in India with Maharaji and was given the name of "Jai Gopal",
which
means, "Baby Krishna". Jai's
band is jazz fussion with a strong
emphasis
on Kirtan. A Must Hear! You wouldn't be disappointed!!!
AGAIN, thanking all of you for spreading the
information of Ram Dass'
ongoing
recovery and for those who have participated in the
Healing/Prayer
Circles, spending a few minutes (globally) in sending
healing
energy to Ram Dass. The least we can
give back to him after
these
many years of Giving of Himself.
URL
including addresses and phone numbers And All Of The Above:
http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Heights/1143/ramindex.html
Peace
and Much Love to You All!!!! Jai
Hanuman!
Namaste', Bob Watson
-------------------====
Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 15:43:39 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Joy and Despair
In a
message dated 97-07-26 05:46:29 EDT, you write:
<<
> And the experience of emotions is a little different than the existence
of time and >matter. >>
Damn. I
had them all packed up in the same box ready to send with a ribbon of
Hawkins
singualrity tied around them
C
Plymell
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 14:19:30 -0400
Reply-To: Mike Rice <mrice@CENTURYINTER.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Mike Rice <mrice@CENTURYINTER.NET>
Subject: Dharma Bum, not quite
Mime-Version:
1.0
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I just
read a fawning letter about that fraud
Hunter
Thompson. He is mostly a showboat
running
around
posing as a celebrity writer. Hells
Angels
is a
nice little book. The Fear and Loathing
and
that
gonzo shit is just posing. Its by a man
who
recognized
there was more to be gotten out of advertising
and
public relations than can be had by mere writing.
I read
the first Fear and Loathing, then looked at
the
second one and couldn't finish it.
That, the
rolling
stone work, the run for sheriff in some
Colorado
outback, are just the author seeking a
reputation
for outrageousness. He has never since
produced
a book as good as Hells Angels.
Mostly,
its been advertisements for himself on his
way
up. This latest mish-mash is the
ultimate product
of a
man who has been navel-gazing since he was a
teenager.
I saw
one of the least minds of his generation ground
under
the wheel of his own angry fixation.
Mike
Rice
mrice@centuryinter.net
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 20:13:13 -0500
Reply-To: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: Re: Dharma Bum, not quite
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
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Content-Transfer-Encoding:
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Mike
Rice wrote:
>
> I
just read a fawning letter about that fraud
>
Hunter Thompson. He is mostly a
showboat running
>
around posing as a celebrity writer.
Hells Angels
> is
a nice little book. The Fear and
Loathing and
>
that gonzo shit is just posing. Its by
a man who
>
recognized there was more to be gotten out of advertising
>
and public relations than can be had by mere writing.
>
> I
read the first Fear and Loathing, then looked at
>
the second one and couldn't finish it.
That, the
>
rolling stone work, the run for sheriff
in some
>
Colorado outback, are just the author seeking a
>
reputation for outrageousness. He has
never since
>
produced a book as good as Hells Angels.
>
>
Mostly, its been advertisements for himself on his
>
way up. This latest mish-mash is the
ultimate product
> of
a man who has been navel-gazing since he was a
>
teenager.
>
> I
saw one of the least minds of his generation ground
>
under the wheel of his own angry fixation.
>
>
Mike Rice
>
mrice@centuryinter.net
guess
you don't care for hunter too much.
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 13:52:02 +0200
Reply-To: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Subject: Gregorio Nunzio Corso.
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
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dear
beat-Ls,
the
book "Selected Poems 1947-1995" by Allen Ginsberg has been dedicated
by
ALLEN GINSBERG to GREGORIO NUNZIO CORSO.
-----
btw:
some days ago somebody wrote:
<<But
Thursday he was much weaker, he [Allen Ginsberg] could hobble from
bed to
chair only with difficulty. There was a phonecall from Italy, in the
middle
of it Allen begins to vomit, throws up right there on the phone!
"Funny,"
he says, "never done that before.">>
i must
thank the writer of a similar anecdote and notice his chord in the
comparisons
of the dying poet...
---
yrs
Rinaldo.
*
Luciano
Pavarotti defendant of don't know the musical notes he
told
that ENRICO CARUSO told that for be a good opera singer
you
need a good memory.
*
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 18:37:39 +0200
Reply-To: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Subject: (FWD)Another Short Interview with
William S. Burroughs
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
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>Return-Path:
<bofus@fcom.com>
>Date:
Fri, 25 Jul 1997 10:18:29 -0800
>From:
bofus? <bofus@fcom.com>
>To:
bofus@fcom.com
>Subject:
Another Short Interview with William S. Burroughs
>
>rwhitebone@juno.com
(Ron P Whitehead) wrote:
>>
>>
>> WILL OUR MAYOR GIVE BACK WILLIAM BURROUGHS'
>> CAR?
>>
>> Interview with William S. Burroughs (one of
>> many interviews, articles, letters, poems,
>> photographs, & audio to be included in
>> WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS: Calling The Toads, a
>> Published in Heaven Book to be released
>> late summer early fall by the literary
>> renaissance & Ring Tarigh)
>>
>> by Ron Whitehead and Peter Orr
>>
>> New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, whose police
>> department has included convicted murderers
>> Antoinette Frank and Len Davis, has been
>> invited to dedicate a plaque this summer
>> ('96) to mark 509 Wagner Street in Algiers
>> as the onetime home of William S. Burroughs.
>>
>> In the late 1940s, years before his
>> literary success, Burroughs moved here with
>> his wife after selling his farm in Texas. A
>> vague sentence in Barry Miles' rather
>> informal biography, EL HOMBRE INVISIBLE,
>> might lead some readers to believe that the
>> financial loss on Burroughs' first crop of
>> pot inspired him to move. "That's
>> inaccurate," Burroughs says. "I
was moving
>> anyway." Though he recalls doing
"quite a
>> bit" of writing during his brief stint
>> here, he would not embark on his first
>> novel, JUNKY, until a year after he left.
>>
>> Knowing Burroughs through his later work,
>> one would expect him to hang out in or near
>> the French Quarter, rather than rustic
>> Algiers. Instead his choice of neighborhood
>> reflected his lifestyle during that era: He
>> had a wife and newborn son.
>>
>> "It was a hell of a lot cheaper. The
real
>> estate there was cheap at that time.
>> Probably still is," he says. "I
got that
>> house for seven thousand-something." As
for
>> the rest of the city, he has few memories to
>> share. "I didn't get around too
much."
>>
>> Yet he got around enough to get busted.
>> Only the NOPD's failure to obey legal
>> procedure in searching Burroughs' house
>> kept him out of Angola. (Picture him
>> writing NAKED LUNCH in Dickens-style
>> installments for Wilbert Rideau's THE
>> ANGOLITE. While you're at it, picture the
>> warden rescinding Rideau's permission to
>> print anything, ever.) A second drug
>> offense in Louisiana would have sent him
>> away, so he packed up his family and left.
>> That was nearly 50 years ago.
>>
>> The author, who spoke to TRIBE after
>> recording JUNKY for audio release, did not
>> plan to attend the plaque ceremony, though
>> event organizers have discussed his
>> participating from Lawrence, Kansas, via
>> video linkup.
>>
>>
>>
>> Is this the first time that a place where
>> you lived or worked has been declared a
>> landmark?
>>
>> WSB: As far as I know, yes.
>>
>>
>>
>> Was any of the writing you produced there
>> ever published?
>>
>> WSB: I don't know about that. I'm not sure
>> to say where I wrote this or that, but I
>> certainly did some writing there. As far as
>> how much of it was subsequently published, I
>> have no idea which specific works were
>> written there, or partly written there.
>>
>>
>>
>> Traditionally, people across the South and
>> the Midwest see this city as either
>> romantic or depraved. What impression did
>> you have of New Orleans while you grew up
>> in St. Louis?
>>
>> WSB: No impression of it at all. Not that I
>> know of. No, I... [Thinks] No, I don't
>> recall any ideas about New Orleans at all.
>>
>>
>>
>> The New Orleans police arrested you for
>> having someone with pot in your car, but
>> they charged you with heroin possession.
>>
>> WSB: That's right. They found stuff in my
>> house. They never laid a finger on me, that
>> I recall. They did lead me to believe that
>> someone was a federal agent and he wasn't.
>> He was a city cop. And so there was an
>> illegal search. I didn't know it at the
>> time.
>>
>> When I was arrested, there was somebody
>> with me that I hardly knew. He was just
>> introduced to me. And he had one joint on
>> him. He'd thrown out some larger amount, I
>> think, but the little guy had another joint
>> and they caught it right away. Then the next
>> day they went and they took my car. I never
>> got it back, although I wasn't convicted.
>> See, they can confiscate your property even
>> though you're not convicted of anything.
>> That's really very sinister.
>>
>> There were three people [aside from
>> Burroughs, who was driving] in the car. Two
>> of them were well-known to the police - Joe
>> Ricks and somebody else. So they saw him in
>> the car, and he had another guy with him
>> that I didn't know, who had a joint with
>> him. So they stopped the car on the stength
>> of knowing the other people that were with
>> me. Then they found a joint on this guy.
>> And they gave us all hell.
>>
>>
>>
>> Where did the police arrest you?
>>
>> WSB: It was near Lee Circle. That's all I
>> know. They wouldn't have stopped us except
>> that they recognized these two people, who
>> had long records, long drug records. Not
>> the guy who had a joint on him - he was a
>> seaman, an acquaintance of these people.
>>
>> They confiscated my car on the strength of
>> someone I didn't know having something I
>> didn't know he had. They're getting much,
>> much, much worse in that respect:
>> confiscation with no conviction.
>>
>>
>>
>> To give you an idea of how much progress
>> this city has made, our district attorney
>> wants to start mandatory urine tests for
>> all students in New Orleans public high
>> schools.
>>
>> WSB: It's ridiculous, for God's sakes. I
>> think it's terrible. The whole thing, the
>> whole War On Drugs, seems to me to be a
>> shallow pretense to increase police power
>> and personnel, and confiscation.
>>
>>
>>
>> It also limits black political power. More
>> than half of inner-city black men come of
>> age with felony convictions now, due to
>> cocaine or weapons arrests. Felons can't
>> vot.
>>
>> WSB: Exactly. I hadn't thought of that, but
>> it's very true. I don't see the difference
>> between crack and cocaine, myself. They
>> talk about cocaine addicts, and I never
>> encountered such a thing. Heroin addicts
>> and morphine addicts, to be sure, but never
>> a cocaine addict.
>>
>>
>>
>> By strict definition, cocaine isn't
>> addictive.
>>
>> WSB: No, it isn't, as I can see. I used to
>> shoot, forty or fifty years ago, [pauses to
>> recall the name] speedballs, which were a
>> mixture of cocaine and morphine or heroin.
>> Cocaine alone, I don't like; it makes me
>> edgy. I don't like anything that makes my
>> hand shake, or cuts my appetite.
>>
>>
>>
>> There's a lot of cocaine down here.
>>
>> WSB: Lot of it everywhere.
>>
>>
>>
>> In recent years you've spoken openly about
>> your interest in magic. Is writing a form
>> of magic?
>>
>> WSB: Well, it has a certain relationship,
>> yes. It's evocative magic. It attempts to
>> evoke certain feelings in the reader. In
>> that sense, it's evocative magic. Thing is,
>> some writing has magic in it and some don't
>> [laughs]. Like, Fitzgerald has magic, and
>> Somerset Maugham just doesn't. I'm using
>> the term rather loosely.
>>
>>
>>
>> But isn't any technology magical, at least
>> at first? The advent of writing changed the
>> world more than anything else has since.
>>
>> WSB: Well...in the sense that it makes
>> something happen, yes, it's magic. But it's
>> still a loose use of the term. Because,
>> uh...well, for example, Alesiter Crowley
>> may have been a good black magician, but he
>> wasn't a very good writer. I can't read it
>> straight through, anything by Aleister
>> Crowley.
>>
>> Here's an interesting thing about Crowley:
>> Someone wrote a book called THEY WENT
>> THATAWAY, about the way different people
>> had died. An interesting idea, because they
>> had just a short biography and then how a
>> person died. Poor Cole Porter had a
>> terrible time - he had his legs amputated
>> at the hip, and then he set his bed on fire
>> with a cigarette and died in the hospital.
>>
>> Now, this story got put out by the
>> Crowleyites that his doctor had refused to
>> renew his heroin prescription, and that
>> Crowley put a curse on him; the doctor died
>> the next day, and Crowley died the day
>> after. Now, that's the story. That story
>> was repeated in an edition of this book,
>> and when I tried to get the book again,
>> that story had been deleted. In fact, the
>> whole book had been somehow cashiered, and
>> there's another one, HOW'D THEY DIE?
>>
>>
>>
>> The first book disappeared?
>>
>> WSB: Yes, and then another one came out.
>> The first one was called THEY WENT
>> THATAWAY. It seems to have disappeared from
>> my own bookshelves, as well. Can't put my
>> hand on it.
>>
>>
>>
>> If I come across it, I'll forward it to you.
>>
>> WSB: By all means! This [newer] one has no
>> Aleister Crowley in it, so I don't know if
>> there's any truth to that story at all.
>>
>>
>>
>> Rock music doesn't interest you much.
>>
>> WSB: Not terribly, no. I listen to some of
>> it.
>>
>>
>>
>> And yet, starting with the Soft Machine in
>> 1967, a long list of rock musicians has
>> borrowed from your work.
>>
>> WSB: Oh, well, titles, yeah: Steely Dan,
>> the Soft Machine, the Insect Trust.
>>
>> I went to a performance by the Led Zeppelin
>> and wrote an article about it. That's quite
>> a while ago. Twenty years ago. I forget
>> where it was published; one of the
>> magazines. CRAWDADDY, that's it.
>>
>>
>>
>> I hear you've finally recorded JUNKY for
>> audiotape release.
>>
>> WSB: I finished recording it, yes. Well,
>> you know, we've got little follow-up places
>> to go, but it's basically finished. I'm not
>> sure when [it comes out]. It'll be on
>> Penguin Audio Books.
>>
>>
>>
>> Have you been back to New Orleans since you
>> left?
>>
>> WSB: Yes, I did a reading down there, but
>> that was quite a few years ago. At Loyola
>> University. It was quite a while ago, a
>> good ten years ago.
>>
>>
>>
>> It seems ironic that this should be the
>> first city to commemorate your former home.
>>
>> WSB: Yes, it does, really. I spent about a
>> year there - less than a year, actually.
>>
>>
>>
>> In 1947.
>>
>> WSB: About then, yeah.
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 10:34:52 -0400
Reply-To: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "R. Bentz Kirby" <bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Organization:
Law Office of R. Bentz Kirby
Subject: Post from the Hendrix, Hey-Joe Mail List
MIME-Version:
1.0
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This
post was found on the Hey-Joe Mail list.
The writer is commenting
on the
Experience Hendrix organization and their commercialization of
Hendrix
(selling coffee tables) and I thought some on this list might
find it
interesting:
BEGIN
CROSS-POST
Date:
Fri, 25 Jul 97 16:12:15 EST
From:
"Rich Rojas" <rrojas@accessbeyond.com>
Message-Id:
<9706258698.AA869872323@smtplink.abeyond.com>
Subject:
Literay Parallels to The Family
Hey
Joe,
I've
recently run across news items concerning the actions of the heirs
of
the
legacies of some well known authors that bear more than a casual
similarity
to a certain family that has been mentioned here on a few
occasions.
The first is the estate of Ernest Hemingway. It seems that
they
are
vigorously cracking down on any unauthorized use of Hemingway's
name.
They
are attempting to shut down the annual Ernest Hemingway look alike
contest
sponsored by a bar in Key West. It has become such a popular
event
that
more than 100 entrants participated in the last contest, but the
Hemingway
family has said no more. The family has also launched a series
of
Hemingway
inspired products. The most prominent one being an Ernest
Hemingway
shotgun. Yes, the same model used by Ernie to blow his brains
out!
This apparently is so tasteless that one of Hemingway's
granddaughters
has
publicly expressed her outrage at her family's antics. Please note
that
I'm not
making this up. This was covered in an article in the Washington
Post
about 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, I lost the article. Otherwise, I
would
quote from it directly.
The
other case involves Lawrence Durrell. A review of a new biography on
Durrell
mentioned that the author was not permitted by Durrell's heirs
to
quote
directly from any of his works or letters. Talk about having your
hands
tied! The review goes on to cite other examples of heirs behaving
badly:
"As
a result, Bowker has to resort to sometimes wooden paraphase, a
shame
in the
case of a glittering stylist like Durrell. This is one more
example
of a growing
problem in literay scholarship: the stranglehold some
estates
keep on
their inherited authors, allegedly "protecting" their interests
but
in
thruth hobbling scholarship for what appears to be private gain (as
in
the
case of Joyce's estate) or from simple obtuseness (as in Kerouac's,
until
recently). Apparently the Durrell estate is sponsoring the
"official"
biography,
and it had better be good."
-
-Steven Moore, Washington Post Book World, July 20, 1997
All in
All, "a frustratin' mess".
Rich
END
CROSS-POST
--
Bentz
bocelts@scsn.net
http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 17:06:53 -0400
Reply-To: SSASN@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Arthur Nusbaum <SSASN@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: What next?
David,
Patricia, et.al.:
The
momentum seems to be building for THE WESTERN LANDS as the next book to
be
tossed into the cauldron. It's
especially not easy to choose one work out
of the
many installments of the "one long work" by WSB or JK. If it were up
to me
I'd certainly choose something by WSB, but probably an early work, and
continue
discussing further books chronologically until we arrive at TWL. As
far as
JK, I happen to still be in the midst of reading the SELECTED LETTERS
VOL.1-1940-1956,
I've been slowly getting to it with very lengthy
interruptions
for over a year now, since it came out.
So for my purposes it
would
be convenient to discuss it while I'm reading it anyway, and that would
motivate
me to stop interrupting it and finish already.
If it
is to be TWL, there is a certain appropriateness- later this year, it
will be
the 10th anniversary of its first publication in December 1987, which
is when
I acquired and read it. It's been long
enough that I'm ripe for
another
reading. I do recall that at the time,
I considered it my second
favorite
of the late period that I believe distinctly began in 1981 with the
release
of CITIES OF THE RED NIGHT, which is my #1 favorite from this phase.
TWL is very, very good WSB, not the very best
although I'm uncomfortable
judging
works of art like this, it's a subjective business and the prophetic
unfolding
of history may very well mock determinations that were rushed to
this
early in the game. Anyway, there's one
thing I would urge anyone who
participates
in a TWL discussion to do if that is what ends up being
discussed
after VOC: Obtain the CD SEVEN SOULS by
the group Material. This
has
just been re-released, it originally came out in 1989 and went out of
print. The new edition has some new mixes, but then
the original 7 songs.
WSB himself is the narrator in place of a
singer for most of them, and all
of the
text he reads is from TWL. Not only are
the particular passages he
chooses
among the most memorable in the book, in my opinion, but the music is
great-
Arabic-influenced avant-garde rock music that serves as a perfect
backdrop
for the haunting & humorous readings.
Listening to this item would
be a
perfect warm-up and stimulate a desire to read the whole work. Trust
me, you
can't go wrong with this approach.
Speaking
of earlier works, I suggest that if we go forward with TWL, a good
work to
read concurrently would be THE YAGE LETTERS, with Allen Ginsberg.
This is an often overlooked gem, and is very,
very short, it would not be
burdensome
to read along with TWL. Some of the
passages in the letters
written
by WSB to AG during his 1953 adventures in search of Yage are I think
among
the greatest in his whole ouvre, absolutely quintessential WSB.
I await
the decision of the "committee" and look forward to what this group
will
make of whatever we read next.
Regards,
Arthur
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 21:48:12 -0400
Reply-To: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Organization:
Law Office of R. Bentz Kirby
Subject: Re: Joy and Despair
Comments:
To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7bit
Pamela
Beach Plymell wrote:
>
> In
a message dated 97-07-26 05:46:29 EDT, you write:
>
>
<< > And the experience of emotions is a little different than the
>
existence
> of time and >matter. >>
>
>
Damn. I had them all packed up in the same box ready to send with a
>
ribbon of
>
Hawkins singualrity tied around them
> C
Plymell
But,
the question is, since time and matter do not exist, does that make
the
experience of emotions actually a more valid experience. Light is a
wave
that acts like a particle or a particle that acts like a wave or
both. Time can be affected and appears to be, to
some extent, exist
because
we all agree it does and to keep everything from happening at
once. But, can the collective unconscious alter
time. Matter does not
exist
as we perceive it does. Solid is not
really solid. It is dense,
yes but
solid. But, we perceive these things
and agree on some level so
that we
have a shared experience. But, are
emotions of the same class.
Or,
maybe they are truly individual and something that we get to choose.
So,
maybe we can't choose to have time go fast when we are in the dental
chair
and to go slow while we are making love, but we can choose how we
feel? If so, maybe the experience of emotions is a
more valid
experience
than that of time and matter. I am not
sure that time and
matter
exist, really.
Anyway,
they certainly are not linear as we are taught to imagine time.
So,
maybe time and matter are the same as emotions. Maybe a thought
creates
a molecule of matter that is colored, or characterized by an
emotion,
and then it becomes matter.
For
instance, the day that the OJ Simpson criminal trial verdict was
announced,
there was a hurricane dying in the Gulf.
Immediately, the
hate
mongers on talk radio started in and righteous indignation and
anger
erupted en mass. Then the hurricane
suddenly gathered strength
and
smashed into the Gulf course. There was
a very short time lag. The
other
day, the hurricane limped on shore, and suddenly took off across
the
South spreading death and destruction.
It came on the heels of [you
feel in
anything you want here]???? My point is
that maybe we create
molecules
with our thoughts and emotions that are then discharged in the
world
of matter and time. So, maybe the
experience of them is the
same. Then again, maybe not.
Peace,
--
Bentz
bocelts@scsn.net
http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 19:46:54 -0600
Reply-To: "Derek A. Beaulieu"
<dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Derek A. Beaulieu"
<dabeauli@FREENET.CALGARY.AB.CA>
Organization:
Calgary Free-Net
Subject: Re: Dharma Bum, not quite
Comments:
To: Mike Rice <mrice@CENTURYINTER.NET>
In-Reply-To:
<1.5.4.16.19970726131724.28477fc2@mail.wi.centuryinter.net>
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
mike
i guess
yr not up to a debate considering thompson in a direct link to
beat
authors, or a discussing considering thompson as a modern twain?
whats
wrong with a little shameless self-promotion, when combined with
great
writing?
yrs
derek
ps. buy
the new "derek" brand breakfast cereal!!! - more sugar than you
could
possibly imagine and twice the spaghettiflavour than the leading
brand!!!(there
- see THAT'S shameless self-promotion combined with some lousy
writing.
haha ;^))
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 20:46:50 -0500
Reply-To: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: Re: Joy and Despair
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7bit
R.
Bentz Kirby wrote:
>
>
Pamela Beach Plymell wrote:
>
>
>
> In a message dated 97-07-26 05:46:29 EDT, you write:
>
>
>
> << > And the experience of emotions is a little different than
the
>
> existence
>
> of time and >matter. >>
>
>
>
> Damn. I had them all packed up in the same box ready to send with a
>
> ribbon of
>
> Hawkins singualrity tied around them
>
> C Plymell
>
>
But, the question is, since time and matter do not exist, does that make
>
the experience of emotions actually a more valid experience. Light is a
>
wave that acts like a particle or a particle that acts like a wave or
>
both. Time can be affected and appears
to be, to some extent, exist
>
because we all agree it does and to keep everything from happening at
>
once. But, can the collective
unconscious alter time. Matter does not
>
exist as we perceive it does. Solid is
not really solid. It is dense,
>
yes but solid. But, we perceive these
things and agree on some level so
>
that we have a shared experience. But,
are emotions of the same class.
>
Or, maybe they are truly individual and something that we get to choose.
>
So, maybe we can't choose to have time go fast when we are in the dental
>
chair and to go slow while we are making love, but we can choose how we
>
feel? If so, maybe the experience of
emotions is a more valid
>
experience than that of time and matter.
I am not sure that time and
>
matter exist, really.
>
>
Anyway, they certainly are not linear as we are taught to imagine time.
>
So, maybe time and matter are the same as emotions. Maybe a thought
>
creates a molecule of matter that is colored, or characterized by an
>
emotion, and then it becomes matter.
>
>
For instance, the day that the OJ Simpson criminal trial verdict was
>
announced, there was a hurricane dying in the Gulf. Immediately, the
>
hate mongers on talk radio started in and righteous indignation and
>
anger erupted en mass. Then the
hurricane suddenly gathered strength
>
and smashed into the Gulf course. There
was a very short time lag. The
>
other day, the hurricane limped on shore, and suddenly took off across
>
the South spreading death and destruction.
It came on the heels of [you
>
feel in anything you want here]???? My
point is that maybe we create
>
molecules with our thoughts and emotions that are then discharged in the
>
world of matter and time. So, maybe the
experience of them is the
>
same. Then again, maybe not.
>
>
Peace,
> --
>
Bentz
>
bocelts@scsn.net
>
>
http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
or vice
versa
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 22:10:17 -0400
Reply-To: Ddrooy@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Diane De Rooy <Ddrooy@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Post from the Hendrix, Hey-Joe Mail
List
In a
message dated 97-07-26 21:38:36 EDT, you write:
<<
I'm not making this up. This was covered in an article in the Washington
Post about 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, I lost
the article. Otherwise, I
would quote from it directly.
>>
Devil's
Advocate position here:
Anyone
can post anything to anywhere without being factual. I say, "Cite your
source."
ddr
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 00:11:20 -0500
Reply-To: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: Re: Joy and Despair-Slight Return
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7bit
As to
who drives the storms ...
hmmmmmm.m.m.mm
that
would take some time perhaps it is a thread.
it
begins with a vortex
in the
beginning was a vortex
and the
vortex was good.
the
vortex sends out storms
and the
storms are good.
and
some say that the storms do damage
and i
say that storms are supposed to damage and
storms
from the vortex are very good and doing what they're supposed to
do
which is doing damage ...
so it
begins with a vortex
i was
wrong
there
is
definitely
NO
THREAD
that
will
INVOLVE
any
Thinking
Thoughts
along
this stream
of
typing
Committee Recommends Deletion!
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 00:28:12 -0500
Reply-To: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: [Fwd: Re: Joy and Despair-Slight Return]
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techno-moron
proves himself once again!!!!
dbr
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Date:
Sun, 27 Jul 1997 00:25:24 -0500
From:
RACE --- <race@midusa.net>
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To:
"R. Bentz Kirby" <bocelts@scsn.net>
Subject:
Re: Joy and Despair-Slight Return
References:
<970726154338_526737346@emout01.mail.aol.com>
<33DAA8DC.8FF5435E@scsn.net> <33DAA88A.5267@midusa.net>
<33DAD6E6.32BB1774@scsn.net>
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in the
beginning was the vortex . . .
and
then
Charley's
box
and
Charley didn't know better and put things in this box that weren't
supposed
to be put together like gravity and anti-gravity along with
matter
and anti-matter
and
Charley mailed his box to
Sicily
and it killed Vito Corleone's father
and
anger was born. . . .
or
maybe that was in a movie
i
sometimes get movies and reality mixed up. . .
later
charley realized that he'd put one of his shoes in the box and so
with
only one shoe he stared at the shoe until a book popped out of his
head.
it
popped out of his head through the vortex onto paper and into a book
that is
into bookstores and the answer
i'm certain
to the
question
whatever the question
was
(i've
forgotten)
can be found
in the book about the
shoe
that
was
left
out
of
the box
that
left
Charley's head
not to
Sicily
but
to the vortex
which was there in the
beginning
so. . .
in the begining was Charley's
shoe....
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
--------------2C6B53DB7B7A--
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 07:40:58 -0400
Reply-To: Marie Countryman
<country@SOVER.NET>
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From: Marie Countryman <country@SOVER.NET>
Subject: on not writing
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<970726170652_342132150@emout07.mail.aol.com>
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thought
i'd just drop in from my bizarro parallel universe and say hello.
i have
not been writing
i have
been painting
i have
not thought of words,
but
rather of
colors,
shapes, blending, edging,
worlds
building on the page
is it
sleep
is it
dreaming
who is
doing the painting?
landscapes
of the mind
appear
regularly as if
plucked
out of thin air.
no
memory
beyond the intent to paint
dreams
of eternal landscape
of my mind
building
word less poems
not
asleep
nor waking.
mc
ps: i
found out that alizaream (sp?) crimson actually exists in water
colors,
now i've got that damned donovan tune in my head and it won't
leave!
(wear yr love like heaven....)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 11:34:28 -0400
Reply-To: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
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From: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Organization:
Law Office of R. Bentz Kirby
Subject: Re: on not writing
Comments:
To: Marie Countryman <country@SOVER.NET>
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Marie
Countryman wrote:
>
>
thought i'd just drop in from my bizarro parallel universe and say
>
hello.
>
> i
have not been writing
> i
have been painting
> i
have not thought of words,
>
but rather of
>
colors, shapes, blending, edging,
>
worlds building on the page
> is
it sleep
> is
it dreaming
>
who is doing the painting?
>
landscapes of the mind
>
appear regularly as if
> plucked
out of thin air.
> no
memory
> beyond the intent to paint
>
dreams of eternal landscape
> of my mind
>
building word less poems
>
not asleep
> nor waking.
> mc
>
>
ps: i found out that alizaream (sp?) crimson actually exists in water
>
colors, now i've got that damned donovan tune in my head and it won't
>
leave! (wear yr love like heaven....)
But MC,
at least you have the song playing, and not the COMMERCIAL for
perfume. I mean I would not want to PLANT that idea
in your HEAD, but
be
thankful for small things.
Wear
your love like heaven, Wear your love like heaven,
Was
that Heaven Scents? Or another cologne?
--
Bentz
bocelts@scsn.net
http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 13:53:49 -0400
Reply-To: Chimera@WEBTV.NET
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From: Eric Blanco <Chimera@WEBTV.NET>
Subject: Poem/Thrall
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Dionysus
rising
You'd
be proud
The
first step towards innocence
Is to
earn your original sin
Understanding
violation
Naive
and mild
The
child endured its rape
Like
drowning with your eyes open
You
don't see things quite the same
The
child began to draw odd pictures
Of a
truth no one believed
And a
door was shut against
Anyone
it would ever know
Rebellion
took root
And its
attitude grew
Forced
to write down its fantasies
Because
there was no more room
In its
head
It got
lost in black and white lies
Worshiped
the songs of painted heroes
Lost in
verse and books
And a
personality like a fractured mirror
Its latest
photo is best
A
shadow stretching towards...?
In the
company of friends
Chimera
'91
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 17:13:28 -0400
Reply-To: SSASN@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: Arthur Nusbaum <SSASN@AOL.COM>
Subject: Joy & despair dualities
Diane:
Your
post of 97-07-24 00:58:41 beginning "I am still pondering this
all-emcompassing
darkness and despair", set off a thought process that has
dug
deeper into and expanded on my original point.
There is a line of
Talmudic
commentary which basically states that everything is defined by its
opposite
& contrast is therefore essential, or everything "would be
meaningless",
as you stated. This is indeed a fact
"of general validity" as
WSB
would say, a truth that operates in all our lives all the time. The
heart
of your post, which generated a lot of discussion on the List, is what
I want
to address:
"I
want to understand why Kerouac could not ever find what he was looking
for, at
least to the point of seeing joy and despair as dualities that both
exist
in the moment, and really, the meaning of human life is in the moments.
How could anyone who at times writes with
such gushyness about the joys of
being
alive, be stuck so on finality and loss and death?"
There
has been some debate here about whether joy & despair can be
simultaneous
or only follow/precede each other. As I
see it, they can exist
concurrently
in that the one contains the seeds or backdrop of the other, and
is
stronger because of the realization of the other, as in the Talmudic
approach
as I understand it (I've only dabbled at the tip of a very big
iceberg
that people have devoted their entire lives to). An example would be
the
astronauts' observations of Earth from the distance of space, leading to
published
ponderings on the relative sub-microscopicness of what seems like
all
their is when you're on its surface, the ultimate forest-for-the-trees
experience
so far in human history. The site of
our planet in its context
can
lead either to a despairing revelation of our ultimate insignificance, or
a
deeper respect for the preciousness of it and its inhabitants as being so
rare,
if not unique altogether, in the vast cosmos.
The belief that "the
meaning
of human life is in the moments", with which my experience agrees,
can
among other things come from the realization that those moments are
finite,
within lives that are brief tiny sparkles in the infinite darkness.
What am I getting at here? Why can't an appreciation of the joy of the
moment,
or at least an acceptance of duality, win out with JK in his life and
work? I would venture to say that although there
is joy around the corner
from
despair & vice versa, ultimately and literally as far as we can
empirically
determine, "finality and loss and death" always get the last
word. The bouncing back and forth stops sooner or
later, there's dark at the
end of
all our tunnels and for JK this overwhelmed the comfort and peace we
perceive
him seeking in the back-and-forth process he chronicles. Just as he
comes
to the dead end that upset you at the end of VOC, it is an evocation of
the
darkness at the end of every road. Also
in his particular case, as James
Stauffer
pointed out, his religious and sexual conflicts exacerbated the
already
nearly unbearable burden (& joy) of his acute sensitivity to everyone
and
everything which writing, no matter how prolific and brilliant, could not
be an
ultimate answer to or relief from. To
go any further from here, we
must
get into the religious/philosophical cosmic
dept. Is there a life
force
that is eternal, which goes in and out of myriad vessels like our
bodies,
all the leaves in their cycles, etc., but ultimately is constant and
eternal? This can only be answered by faith beyond
what we know up to the
darkness,
within the space/time context that we live & think in.
I'll tell
you, I have reached some kind of brick wall here, unlike all the
posts
which have flowed so easily since I first came aboard, this one is a
throwback
to the uphill efforts of my pre-Beat-L attempts to articulate my
thoughts
onto the page/screen. It has been
laborious and taken up the time I
would
normally have used to dash off half a dozen posts. And, I feel as if I
have
little to nothing to show for it, that I haven't begun to do justice to
what I
thought had ripened in the mind and was ready for words. There must
be some
significance to this, perhaps JK's testament and the commentaries it
has
generated have lead me to some variation of the impasse he leaves himself
and the
reader at as VOC concludes.
I'll
conclude this infuriating failure with a quote from THE WESTERN LANDS,
also to
be found on one of the tunes in SEVEN SOULS, where WSB, as usual,
does
find just the right words to comment on the dual factors we've been
wrestling
with:
"You
have to be in Hell to see Heaven. Glimpses
from the Land of the Dead,
flashes
of serene timeless joy, a Joy as old as suffering and despair"
Frustratedly
if not despairingly,
Arthur
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 19:09:19 -0700
Reply-To: dumo13@EROLS.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: Chris Dumond <dumo13@EROLS.COM>
Subject: ATTENTION!
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Beats
and Beat-Lovers,
I have
looked around a little on the web and noticed that there's no real
congruity
to any of the beat sites. Of course,
Levi's site is pretty
thorough,
but have you ever wanted a simple way to navigate? I'm willing
to
start a Beat WebRing. I know some
people think that webrings suck. I
don't
know. The poetry one I'm on is pretty
decent. Anyway, I find it
next to
impossible to keep track of all the beat sites and this would be
a simple
and usefull way to do it. Does anyone
else think it would be a
good
idea?
Chris
D-U-M-O-N-D
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/2124/
PS last name: DUMOND not DRUMMOND or
whatever... it gets annoying after
the
sixth day of having your name mis-spelled in subjects...
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 18:24:59 -0500
Reply-To: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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Subject: webRing
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Chris
Dumond wrote:
>
I'm willing to start a Beat WebRing. I know some people think that
webrings
suck.
Never
heard of a WebRing nor why webrings suck.
do have this vision of
a cyber
circle jerk - but i imagine it is not anything like that.
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 19:50:01 -0500
Reply-To: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: Re: Joy & despair dualities
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Arthur
Nusbaum wrote:
>
>
I'll tell you, I have reached some kind of brick wall here, unlike all the
posts which have flowed so easily since I first
came aboard, this one is a
throwback to the uphill efforts of my
pre-Beat-L attempts to articulate my
thoughts onto the page/screen. It has been laborious and taken up the time
I
would normally have used to dash off half a
dozen posts. And, I feel as if I
have little to nothing to show for it, that I
haven't begun to do justice to
what I thought had ripened in the mind and
was ready for words. There must be
some significance to this, perhaps JK's
testament and the commentaries it has
generated have lead me to some variation of
the impasse he leaves himself and
the reader at as VOC concludes.
>
>
I'll conclude this infuriating failure with a quote from THE WESTERN LANDS,
>
also to be found on one of the tunes in SEVEN SOULS, where WSB, as usual,
>
does find just the right words to comment on the dual factors we've been
>
wrestling with:
>
>
"You have to be in Hell to see Heaven.
Glimpses from the Land of the Dead,
>
flashes of serene timeless joy, a Joy as old as suffering and despair"
>
>
Frustratedly if not despairingly,
>
>
Arthur
Arthur,
i
thought this gem demonstrated the power with which synapses can fire
at
something so hard and still end up rolling the rock up the hill like
sisyphus. i was following your words closely, engaged
in your voice,
and hit
the paragraph where you confess the difficulty with which the
words
were coming and i said to myself: Ah!
This paragraph is IT. The
joy and
despair are both in it roaming between the letters in the
words.
and
then willie the rat provides a magical closure to a magical journey.
one
must imagine Kerouac happy.
on
another note, i think that the Talmudic notion you suggest (which
i've
understood in many different contexts but this one is new to me) is
useful
but ironically also a dualistic trap in itself. The emotions are
more
than a coin with one side and another.
The panaroma of Affections
from
Joy to Despair and perhaps beyond each is infinitely sided.
I still believe that the last third of Steppenwolf
- if examined with
these
questions involved - is perhaps the greatest place to examine
answers. And yet, even after we're aware of the
mirrored soul, we are
still
here within the containers of space and time in a finite life that
touches
the infinite at every turn.
And so
even after the epiphany of Burroughs or Hesse or the kicks, joy,
darkness
trinity of Kerouac's we each still face the hill -- up or down
-- with
our respective stones to push. And the
key - to me - in Camus'
conclusion
to the retelling of the Myth of Sisyphus is in the word
"Imagination". We must imagine Sisyphus happy. Imagination is the tool
in the
human universe that can step beyond the dualities that trap and
enslave
most of us, most of the time as we wander through what we call
life.
America
- emblem of optimism and depression.
Before we move with Jack
to the
disappointing view of the emblem we might recall that many of the
kicks
and joys are part of America too. The
spirit of America seems
hatched
in a climate of happiness in the joy/despair dichotomy. I
imagine
that just about anywhere in this country one can move within the
same
town or village or city or suburb and see portraits of both the
joys
and the despairs and in the living through these the characters in
these
imaginary scenes in my mind portray an other angle on the myth of
America
-- able to laugh at the Horatio myth and yet dream about it at
the
same time.
If this
did or didn't make sense to anyone, i think that i should once
again
remind that i live now in a part of the world in which Eisenhower
is
still considered President and the pledge of allegiance is still
thought
of as a pretty poem.
grins,
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 18:05:00 -0700
Reply-To: "Timothy K. Gallaher"
<gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Timothy K. Gallaher"
<gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>
Subject: Re: ATTENTION!
Comments:
To: dumo13@EROLS.COM
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What's
a web ring?
At
07:09 PM 7/27/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Beats
and Beat-Lovers,
>
>I
have looked around a little on the web and noticed that there's no real
>congruity
to any of the beat sites. Of course,
Levi's site is pretty
>thorough,
but have you ever wanted a simple way to navigate? I'm willing
>to
start a Beat WebRing. I know some
people think that webrings suck. I
>don't
know. The poetry one I'm on is pretty
decent. Anyway, I find it
>next
to impossible to keep track of all the beat sites and this would be
>a
simple and usefull way to do it. Does
anyone else think it would be a
>good
idea?
>
>Chris
D-U-M-O-N-D
>http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/2124/
>
>
>PS last name: DUMOND not DRUMMOND or
whatever... it gets annoying after
>the
sixth day of having your name mis-spelled in subjects...
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 22:40:31 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Joy & despair dualities
In a
message dated 97-07-27 20:57:21 EDT, you write:
<<
i thought this gem demonstrated the power with which synapses can fire >>
More
like the re-uptake pump since Burroughs.
Charles
Plymell
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 10:45:05 -0700
Reply-To: Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>
Subject: Re: Joy & despair dualities
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>
Arthur Nusbaum wrote:
>
What am I getting at here? Why can't an
appreciation of the joy of >
>
the
>
moment, or at least an acceptance of duality, win out with JK in his
>
life and
>
work? I would venture to say that
although there is joy around the
>
corner
>
from despair & vice versa, ultimately and literally as far as we can
>
empirically determine, "finality and loss and death" always get the
>
last
>
word. The bouncing back and forth stops
sooner or later, there's dark
> at
the
>
end of all our tunnels and for JK this overwhelmed the comfort and
>
peace we
>
perceive him seeking in the back-and-forth process he chronicles. Just
> as
he
>
comes to the dead end that upset you at the end of VOC, it is an
>
evocation of
>
the darkness at the end of every road.
>
Also in his particular case, as James
>
Stauffer pointed out, his religious and sexual conflicts exacerbated
>
the
>
already nearly unbearable burden (& joy) of his acute sensitivity to
>
everyone
>
and everything which writing, no matter how prolific and brilliant,
>
could not
> be
an ultimate answer to or relief from.
To go any further from here,
> we
>
must get into the religious/philosophical cosmic dept. Is there a
>
life
>
force that is eternal, which goes in and out of myriad vessels like our
>
bodies, all the leaves in their cycles, etc., but ultimately is
>
constant and
>
eternal? This can only be answered by
faith beyond what we know up to
>
the
>
darkness, within the space/time context that we live & think in.
>
>
I'll tell you, I have reached some kind of brick wall here...
Arthur,
Thanks
for the words that, inspite of the frustration, do serve to
further
illuminate our discussion. I, too, am
more than thoroughly
familiar
with this wall. I must read more by
Kerouac to understand more
clearly
how he bounced back and forth between dualities. I decided to
read
The Dharma Bums next, and but am already caught in the beginning by
what he
writes, "...but I warned him at once I didn't give a goddamn
about
the mythology and all the names and national flavors of Buddhism,
but was
just interested in the first of Sakyamuni's four noble truths,
All
life is suffering. And to an extent
interested in the third, The
suppression
of suffering can be achieved, which I didn't quite believe
was
possible then."
I am
still stopped intellectually by the thought that "finality, loss and
death
always get the last word."
Obviously all writers that have ever
existed
wrote because they had to express something about human life in
the
light of their own mortality. What
bothers me about the end of VOC
is not
that darkness is portrayed so fully or that all heros fail, but
the
sense that in his own life Kerouac embraced this sense of dispair
inspite
of his knowledge (which I think he shows in his writing) of joy
and the
human ability to grasp the infinite in finite moments. He writes
so
eloquently of epiphanies, times when he wrote that: yes, that's the
way
things are and still all is alright. I
cannot buy for even a minute
the
idea that "yes, I'm too sensitive, and thus I must drink to cover the
pain,
to close the holes of darkness that penetrate my very being," which
is the
theory that has often been put forward, even by others on this
list. The factor of human choice is perhaps what
confounds me in this
duality
discussion. Darkness is at the end of
every path, but one cannot
know
darkness without knowing light. One
cannot know the depth of
despair
without knowing the depth of joy. One
cannot acknowledge loss
without
grasping fullness. Kerouac's words are
full of epiphanies, but
in
spite of the knowledge he had, he chose
despair, and alcohol did not
I
think, give him comfort, but an easier way to slip into total despair.
Yet, this same man, in The Scriptures
of the Golden Eternity,
writes,
"There's the world in the daylight.
If it was completely dark
you
wouldn't see it but it would still be there.
If you close your eyes
you
really see what it's like: mysterious particle-swarming emptiness.
On the
moon big mosquitos of straw, know this in the kindness of their
hearts. Truly speaking, unrecognizably sweet it all
is. Don't worry
about
nothing....This world has no marks, signs or evidence of existence,
nor the
noises in it, like accident of wind or voices or heehawing
animals,
yet listen closely the eternal hush of silence goes on and on
throughout
all this, and has been going on, and will go on and on. This
is
because the world is nothing but a dream and is just thought of and
the
everlasting eternity pays no attention to it.
At night under the
moon,
or in a quiet room, hush now, the secret music of the Unborn goes
on and
on, beyond conception, awake beyond existence.
Properly speaking,
awake
is not really awake because the golden eternity never went to
sleep:
you can tell by the constant sound of Silence which cuts through
the
world like a magic diamond through the trick of your not realizing
that
your mind caused the world."
Your
quote from WSB certainly opens up the strength of the dualities we
have
been speaking of. I read the intro to
Queer finally and understand
his
necessity to write, as it were, his way out of despair. It seems
like
his wife's death by his own hand gave impetus to what he saw in the
rest of
his life. Darkness and light are
hand-in-hand. I'm still not
sure
where this duality takes us in terms of Kerouac.
DC
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:06:33 -0700
Reply-To: stauffer@pacbell.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: James Stauffer
<stauffer@PACBELL.NET>
Subject: Re: Dharma Bum, not quite
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Mike,
Glad
you said that and I didn't have to. And
know he's got a microbrew
out. Hot damn.
James
Stauffer
Mike
Rice wrote:
>
> I
just read a fawning letter about that fraud
>
Hunter Thompson. He is mostly a
showboat running
>
around posing as a celebrity writer.
Hells Angels
> is
a nice little book. The Fear and
Loathing and
>
that gonzo shit is just posing. Its by
a man who
>
recognized there was more to be gotten out of advertising
>
and public relations than can be had by mere writing.
>
> I
read the first Fear and Loathing, then looked at
>
the second one and couldn't finish it.
That, the
>
rolling stone work, the run for sheriff
in some
>
Colorado outback, are just the author seeking a
>
reputation for outrageousness. He has
never since
>
produced a book as good as Hells Angels.
>
>
Mostly, its been advertisements for himself on his
>
way up. This latest mish-mash is the
ultimate product
> of
a man who has been navel-gazing since he was a
>
teenager.
>
> I
saw one of the least minds of his generation ground
>
under the wheel of his own angry fixation.
>
>
Mike Rice
>
mrice@centuryinter.net
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 11:17:02 -0700
Reply-To: Diane Carter <dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Diane Carter
<dcarter@TOGETHER.NET>
Subject: Re: Joy & despair dualities
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>
RACE wrote:
>
And so even after the epiphany of Burroughs or Hesse or the kicks, joy,
>
darkness trinity of Kerouac's we each still face the hill -- up or down
> --
with our respective stones to push. And
the key - to me - in Camus'
> conclusion
to the retelling of the Myth of Sisyphus is in the word
>
"Imagination". We must
imagine Sisyphus happy. Imagination is
the
>
tool
> in
the human universe that can step beyond the dualities that trap and
>
enslave most of us, most of the time as we wander through what we call
>
life.
>
>
America - emblem of optimism and depression.
Before we move with Jack
> to
the disappointing view of the emblem we might recall that many of
>
the
>
kicks and joys are part of America too.
The spirit of America seems
>
hatched in a climate of happiness in the joy/despair dichotomy. I
>
imagine that just about anywhere in this country one can move within
>
the
>
same town or village or city or suburb and see portraits of both the
>
joys and the despairs and in the living through these the characters in
>
these imaginary scenes in my mind portray an other angle on the myth of
>
America -- able to laugh at the Horatio myth and yet dream about it at
>
the same time.
>
> If
this did or didn't make sense to anyone, i think that i should once
>
again remind that i live now in a part of the world in which Eisenhower
> is
still considered President and the pledge of allegiance is still
>
thought of as a pretty poem.
>
David,
"One
must imagine Kerouac happy."
While I
thoroughly understand the context of your thought, I must
question,
in the light of IT why Kerouac could not imagine Kerouac happy.
And
bringing into this the power of the artist, the power of Imagination,
why
write of the power of the infinite, the power of eternity, only in
your
own living, to grasp the darkness of the finite, the darkness of the
temporal
world. Why not use the imagination to
see the flowing of
eternity,
or whatever you want to call it, while in the container of
space
and time. We are all pushing our
respective rocks up the hill, so
why not
imagine it otherwise. Your words
prompted in my mind an
awakening
of the visionary qualities of William Blake, and the thought
that
the power to fully live lies within the imagination. And the
connection
from there that I make to Ginsberg who saw the work of the
poet as
one of easing the pain of living. How
did the American dream
fail
Cody? How did it fail Kerouac? The Americans he saw as on a
dead-end
road to darkness were still grasping for the dream, grasping in
their
own way through whatever suffering in their lives, struggling to
survive. Kerouac, at some point in his life, decided
to stop
struggling,
to stop dreaming. The power of the imagination and the power
"to
dream" are linked, and perhaps are key to the great myth of America,
the
great myth of life.
DC
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 01:19:27 +0000
Reply-To: randyr@southeast.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Comments: Authenticated sender is
<randyr@pop.jaxnet.com>
From: randy royal
<randyr@SOUTHEAST.NET>
Subject: Re: ATTENTION!
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a web
ring is where at the bottom of the web page there's a linkto a
site
with similar subjects. it basically tries to save you time on
searching
for other enjoyable sites. some are large; some are not. i
personally
think if we had enough members to the "ring" it would be a
very
good idea. cya~randy
"...The
robots are useless if not versatile."- Alduos Huxley
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 01:24:05 +0000
Reply-To: randyr@southeast.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Comments: Authenticated sender is
<randyr@pop.jaxnet.com>
From: randy royal <randyr@SOUTHEAST.NET>
Subject: Re: Dharma Bum, not quite
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it's
writers like hunter and anne rice that piss me off, their
writing
is crap, but they are just so damn prolific! and then they go
around
selling themselves out evenmore. makes me wish more would just
shut
the hell up like salinger or something
~randy
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 01:36:14 -0400
Reply-To: Tread37@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Jenn Fedor <Tread37@AOL.COM>
Subject: phil ochs?
hey, i
have a quick question for you all:
now, i
know that bob dylan is definitely considered a beat for obvious
reasons,
but does anyone know if phil ochs would also be considered a beat?
please let me know, if you can!
by the
way, the mail i was getting when i first joined the list was so
overwhelming
that i almost got off the list, but everytime i was about to
make
the call, i couldn't tear myself away!
you guys are just too damn
interesting! anyway, thanks for enhancing my on-line
experience!
curiously
and appreciatively yours,
jenn
"free
your toes" -Carly
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 22:47:13 -0700
Reply-To: "Steve Smith a.k.a. Whiskey
Wordsmith" <psu06729@ODIN.CC.PDX.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Steve Smith a.k.a. Whiskey
Wordsmith" <psu06729@ODIN.CC.PDX.EDU>
Subject: Re: Dharma Bum, not quite
Comments:
To: James Stauffer <stauffer@pacbell.net>
In-Reply-To: <33DC0CB9.3BCD@pacbell.net>
MIME-Version:
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On Sun,
27 Jul 1997, James Stauffer wrote:
>
Mike,
>
>
Glad you said that and I didn't have to.
And know he's got a microbrew
>
out. Hot damn.
>
James Stauffer
Ah, to
leap up on the poison and lame horse and prove
oneself
a poor reader, thinker, historian, and critic.
Microbrew?
Fuck that. Read Dr. Thompson and know one of your betters.
Some of
us were in many of the same places (take that as y'all will) that
the Dr.
talks about, and he talks about 'em true and well. He is one of the
finest
journalists America has had to offer in the last 25 years--and
probably
longer, more probably 30. Just hunker
down in
them
ersatz coffee joints and dribble out of your blank eyes...and try to
hear
through them never-never ear and brain plugs.
Reputation?
He's earned the best kind. Writer. Period.
Hunter
Thompson--
and the
bastard can WRITE. And SEE. Look at his Nixon riffs long before
the
crippled mainstream press knew shit from shinola.
Reputation?
Hoopla? Yes.
Writer?
Most of all. Never forget that part.
best,
steve
>
>
Mike Rice wrote:
>
>
>
> I just read a fawning letter about that fraud
>
> Hunter Thompson. He is mostly a
showboat running
>
> around posing as a celebrity writer.
Hells Angels
>
> is a nice little book. The Fear
and Loathing and
>
> that gonzo shit is just posing.
Its by a man who
>
> recognized there was more to be gotten out of advertising
>
> and public relations than can be had by mere writing.
>
>
>
> I read the first Fear and Loathing, then looked at
>
> the second one and couldn't finish it.
That, the
>
> rolling stone work, the run for
sheriff in some
>
> Colorado outback, are just the author seeking a
>
> reputation for outrageousness. He
has never since
>
> produced a book as good as Hells Angels.
>
>
>
> Mostly, its been advertisements for himself on his
>
> way up. This latest mish-mash is
the ultimate product
>
> of a man who has been navel-gazing since he was a
>
> teenager.
>
>
>
> I saw one of the least minds of his generation ground
>
> under the wheel of his own angry fixation.
>
>
>
> Mike Rice
>
> mrice@centuryinter.net
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 00:58:27 -0700
Reply-To: runner611 <babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: runner611
<babu@ELECTRICITI.COM>
Subject: Re: fishing & Me
Comments:
To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
In-Reply-To:
<970725230945_1792064510@emout14.mail.aol.com>
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
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At 8:09
PM -0700 7/25/97, Pamela Beach Plymell wrote:
>
Confusious Say:
>
They have all answered correctly; that is, each in their own nature.
>
> I
say:
>
Take up the slack, Jack.
>
>
Don't mean to be coy
> C.
Plymell
fishin
gypsum
yeah
that new york grate
that
yuh uh we can up
up ya
one one time
more
time, that's what we want
the air
waves
Douglas
http://www.electriciti.com/babu/
step
aside, and let the man go thru
----> let the man go thru
super
bon-bon (soul coughing)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 03:12:24 PDT
Reply-To: Gesi Rovario
<sammigirl1@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Gesi Rovario
<sammigirl1@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: webRing
Content-Type:
text/plain
>Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 18:24:59 -0500
>From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
>Subject: webRing
>To: BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
>
>Chris
Dumond wrote:
>>
> I'm willing to start a Beat WebRing. I know some people think that
>webrings
suck.
>
>
>Never
heard of a WebRing nor why webrings suck.
do have this vision of
>a
cyber circle jerk - but i imagine it is not anything like that.
>
>david
rhaesa
>salina,
Kansas
>
No, no,
no. That's another mailing list entirely <G>. A WebRing is a
collection
of similar sites that are linked together. So,if you've only
got one
URL, you can still get to all of them with a mouse-click.
Gesi
*I like
nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a
necessary
ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life
through
the wrong end of the telescope. Which is what I do
and
that enables you to laugh at life's realities.*
*Dr. Seuss*
______________________________________________________
Get
Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 08:21:53 -0400
Reply-To: "Hemenway . Mark"
<MHemenway@DRC.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Hemenway . Mark"
<MHemenway@DRC.COM>
Subject: Buddha on suffering
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Kerouac
was particularly influenced by the Diamond Sutra. I think
you'll
find Buddha taught that the physical world does not exist,
period,
and that all suffering (the second noble truth) is due to our
attachment
to this unreal existence and our ignorance and confusion in
insisting
on its reality.
The
Diamond Sutra and many other Buddhist texts are also on line at a
number
of sites. Jack's book Some of the Dharma should be out any day.
His
Scripture of the Golden Eternity was published by City Lights and
is
still around.
Mark
Hemenway
The
First Noble Truth is: <<All life is suffering.>>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:05:22 -0400
Reply-To: Alex Howard
<kh14586@ACS.APPSTATE.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Alex Howard
<kh14586@ACS.APPSTATE.EDU>
Subject: Re: ATTENTION!
In-Reply-To: <33DBFF4F.3C55@erols.com>
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
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On Sun,
27 Jul 1997, Chris Dumond wrote:
>
thorough, but have you ever wanted a simple way to navigate? I'm willing
> to
start a Beat WebRing. I know some
people think that webrings suck. I
Why the
hell not?...Count me in.
http://porter.appstate.edu/~kh14586/links/beats
------------------
Alex
Howard (704)264-8259 Appalachian State
University
kh14586@acs.appstate.edu P.O. Box 12149
http://www.acs.appstate.edu/~kh14586 Boone, NC 28608
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 11:21:43 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: HST
In a
message dated 97-07-28 01:55:45 EDT, you write:
<<
it's writers like hunter and anne rice that piss me off, their
writing is crap, >>
I've
never read either. Is HST in new journalism genre? Some friends from our
village
went down to the city to see him at a press dinner or someting. I'm
aware
of his titles. Can anyone tell me abt. him? I know that he visited
Lawrence
Kansas and earlier on the list someone sd he was shooting things on
the
Cowan show.
CP
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 11:35:16 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Dharma Bum, not quite
Comments:
To: stauffer@pacbell.net
In a
message dated 97-07-28 02:30:17 EDT, you write:
<<
. The Fear and Loathing and
> that gonzo shit is just posing. Its by a man who >>
Mike just
provided an insight to HST. Thanks. Promotion rarely presents a
good
product. "Posing" good word. We have the skateboarders to thank for
that? I
used to read articles in Thrasher mag.
C.
Plymell
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:09:37 -0400
Reply-To: MATT HANNAN <MATT.HANNAN@USOC.ORG>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: MATT HANNAN
<MATT.HANNAN@USOC.ORG>
Subject: Re[2]: Dharma Bum, not quite
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it's
writers like hunter and anne rice that piss me off, their
writing
is crap, but they are just so damn prolific! and then they go
around
selling themselves out evenmore. makes me wish more would just
shut
the hell up like salinger or something
~randy
***********************
I don't
know that I'd clump HST with Rice, but your point is well made. It's
the pop
fiction crap of Grisham, Steele, Rice, Higgins Clark (although she has
great
premises) that put me in my " I hate big publishing houses/overadvanced
authors"
mode.
One of
the advances from one of the "typists" (hello Truman C. in Heaven
(with
Jack on
his back)) above would publish 100 new authors. Support your local
Brautigan
library........
love
and lilies,
matt
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 11:55:33 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Hunter and Dick
Comments:
To: psu06729@odin.cc.pdx.edu
In a
message dated 97-07-28 02:53:58 EDT, you write:
<< Nixon riffs long before
the crippled mainstream press knew shit from
shinola. >>
If you
have any good quotes short enough to posts, I'd appreciated reading.
I'm in
a remote village and can't easily browse the bookstore. Not that it wd
help.
The local bookstore doesn't even have my own book in it, though it is
in
Borders, Barnes & Nobles, Hastings, etc.
Ah promotion is the key! Does
that
mean I'll have to get out of bed? (Not, rhetorically, a figure of
speech).
I did "know" Nixon, though. He and Dan Quayle present the
quintissential
American. I see them when I go to the BaHall of Fame in
Cooperstown.
Nowdays is not a matter of what the mainstream press knows, it a
matter
of how to get it past their bosses. It was so much simpler with the
Politburo.
cp
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 12:03:00 -0400
Reply-To: "Hipster Beat Poet."
<jdematte@TURBO.KEAN.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Hipster Beat Poet."
<jdematte@TURBO.KEAN.EDU>
Subject: Hunter and Jack
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
I read
an interesting story in one of the many Hunter S. Thompson
biographies
that i own which spoke about Hunter visiting a Kerouac
reading
in the 1950s. Apparently Thompson was irritated and started
to roll
empty beer bottles down the steps of the little theater
during
the poetry reading. According to Hunter, Jack was too trashed
to know
that anything was going on. Hey its just a story and personally
Thompson
is the reason why i'd give any respect to Rolling Stone
magazine
or any journalist in general. To me they are too pretentious
and
shallow. (I have this argument with my girlfriend all the time
because
she's a journalism major where as i am an english major)
jason
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 12:04:51 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: on up/one down
Comments:
To: babu@electriciti.com
In a
message dated 97-07-28 05:24:43 EDT, you write:
<<
yeah that new york grate
that yuh uh we can up
up ya one one time >>
I think
that is true of the New York City provincialism
But
Upstate, we're in Dork proventialism that is a bit of a mixture of old
Tory,
Coloniailism, and Third Reich. The intelleginsia here still take their
culture
from the New Yorker, or the NewMoralitySpeak Times. I feel like a
foriegner
whever I am.
C
Plymell
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 12:09:20 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: webRing
Comments:
To: sammigirl1@hotmail.com
In a
message dated 97-07-28 06:24:05 EDT, you write:
<<
*I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a
necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of
looking at life
through the wrong end of the telescope. Which
is what I do
and that enables you to laugh at life's
realities.*
>>
Thank
You Dr. Fuess
cp
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 12:15:57 -0400
Reply-To: Ddrooy@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Diane De Rooy <Ddrooy@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Hunter and Jack
In a
message dated 97-07-28 12:05:30 EDT, you write:
<< Hey its just a story and personally
Thompson is the reason why i'd give any
respect to Rolling Stone
magazine or any journalist in general.
>>
Hey
here's a novel idea....
Quit
respecting sucko journalism entirely.
God, I
miss the Sixties.
ddr
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 12:54:49 -0400
Reply-To: "Hipster Beat Poet."
<jdematte@TURBO.KEAN.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Hipster Beat Poet."
<jdematte@TURBO.KEAN.EDU>
Subject: Kerouac: the musical.
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
since
i'm new i don't know if anyone knows about this but a friend
of mine
went to an audition for a musical based on Kerouac's life.
All of
the major Beats are portrayed in this play and its showing
in NY
in small theaters. Do any of the NYC folks on this mailing
list
know about this?
jason.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:39:07 -0400
Reply-To: Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>
Subject: Re: Dharma Bum, not quite
Comments:
To: Pamela Beach Plymell <CVEditions@AOL.COM>
In-Reply-To:
<970728113321_-724656856@emout02.mail.aol.com>
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Mon,
28 Jul 1997, Pamela Beach Plymell wrote:
>
Promotion rarely presents a good product.
so
visions of cody, dr. sax etc.: rare exception or good beatnik marketing?
>
"Posing" good word. We have the skateboarders to thank for that? I
used to
>
read articles in Thrasher mag.
yeah
80s skatepunks in retalliation to glam rock, new wave pop & every other
hairspray
and fashion "look" of 80s "rockers." so it was they were
"posers"
(sometime
"poseurs") as opposed to hardcore punks, skaters, stoners &
others
who
were the real thing...
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:54:30 -0700
Reply-To: "Penn, Douglas, K"
<dkpenn@OEES.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Penn, Douglas, K"
<dkpenn@OEES.COM>
Subject: : and in bodies ((wetware_ by rudy rucker, p83
Comments:
cc: Victoria Paul <vpaul@gwdi.com>
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
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Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7bit
sequel
to _Software_
story
of humans and robots
1988
sci-fi, post gibson
pre-burning
man elegy
talking
about the One
cosmic
ray counters
dreck,
fuffs, meaties, rats, merge
asimovs,
petaflops, pinkboys
and
robots that adopt human systems
trains
of language like Edgar Allan Poe
and of
the Beats <<ahem>>:
==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-pg
83 from Rudy Rucker's _Wetware_
"Not
just yet," said Cobb. "I want
to mingle a bit. I really just come
here
for the business contacts, you know."
He hunkered down by the wall between two petaflops,
interrupting their
conversation,
not that he could follow what they were saying. They were
like
stoned out beatnik buddies, a Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady team,
both of
them with thick, partly transparent flickercladdings veined and
patterned
in fractal patterns of color. Each of
the cladding's
colorspots
were made up of an open network of smaller spots, which were
in turn
made of yet smaller threads and blotches--all the way down to
the limits
of visibility. One of the petaflops
patterns and body
outlines
were angular and hard-edged. He was
colored mostly
red-yellow-blue. The other petaflop was green-brown-black,
and his
surface
was so fractally bumpty that he looked like an infinitely warty
squid,
constantly sprouting tentacles which sprouted tentacles which
sprouted. Each of these fractal boppers had a dreak
cylinder plugged
into a
valve in the upper part of his body.
"Hi," said Cobb. "How's the dreak?"
**end transmission
----> o{--- [ babu@electriciti.com
(Alfred Korzybski) www.electriciti.com/babu/
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:08:04 -0700
Reply-To: Levi Asher <brooklyn@NETCOM.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Levi Asher
<brooklyn@NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: Kerouac: the musical.
Comments:
To: jdematte@TURBO.KEAN.EDU
In-Reply-To:
<Pine.OSF.3.91.970728125243.15756B-100000@turbo.kean.edu> from
"Hipster Beat Poet."
at Jul 28, 97 12:54:49 pm
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7bit
>
since i'm new i don't know if anyone knows about this but a friend
> of
mine went to an audition for a musical based on Kerouac's life.
>
All of the major Beats are portrayed in this play and its showing
> in
NY in small theaters. Do any of the NYC folks on this mailing
>
list know about this?
Yeah, I
saw it. It wasn't as bad as it could
have been,
but it
still wasn't good.
I
briefly reviewed it here a few months ago.
If
Attila Gyenis is still on the list, his review was
slightly
nicer than mine, maybe he can defend it.
------------------------------------------------------
| Levi
Asher = brooklyn@netcom.com
|
|
|
| Literary Kicks:
http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/ |
| (3 years old and still running) |
|
|
| "Coffeehouse: Writings from the
Web" |
| (a real book, like on paper) |
| also at http://coffeehousebook.com |
|
|
|
*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*
|
|
|
| "It was my dream that
screwed up" |
| -- Jack Kerouac |
------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 20:15:38 UT
Reply-To: Sherri <love_singing@MSN.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Sherri <love_singing@MSN.COM>
Subject: Re: Kerouac: the musical.
yes,
thanks, Jason... it's mentioned on a Kerouac website and, i think, one
other,
what it was escapes me.
ciao,
sherri
----------
From: BEAT-L: Beat Generation List on behalf of
Hipster Beat Poet.
Sent: Monday, July 28, 1997 9:54 AM
To: BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Kerouac: the musical.
since
i'm new i don't know if anyone knows about this but a friend
of mine
went to an audition for a musical based on Kerouac's life.
All of
the major Beats are portrayed in this play and its showing
in NY
in small theaters. Do any of the NYC folks on this mailing
list
know about this?
jason.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 15:56:49 -0600
Reply-To: jo grant <jgrant@BOOKZEN.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: jo grant <jgrant@BOOKZEN.COM>
Subject: Re: Writes crap? Not quite.
In-Reply-To:
<199707280520.BAA07752@mailhub.southeast.net>
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>it's
writers like hunter and anne rice that piss me off, their
>writing
is crap, but they are just so damn prolific! and then they go
>around
selling themselves out evenmore. makes me wish more would just
>shut
the hell up like salinger or something
>~randy
Randy,
Everyone
to their own opinion, but to say that Thompson writes crap and let
it go
at that is a unfair. So what if he demands his Coors and Wild Turkey
as part
of his bookings, and so what if he blows his own horn. His Hells
Angels
book and the political campaign stuff show a writer
who--regardless
of the hype--gets down and digs hard for his stories. If he
was the
biggest lightweight asshole in the world I'd be in his corner just
for his
stuff about Nixon and that crowd. He's entertaining to read and at
his
appearences he can provoke, challenge, and aggressively get-in-the-face
of
those wandering the corridors of power and wealth.
Thompson
also seems to be fearless. For example, he took an ass kicking to
end ass
kickings from members of the Hells Angels and walked/crawled away
uncowed.Rare
then and now. As a teen i rode with the likes of that bunch
and saw
enough barbaraic behavior to understand fear. I would no more have
put pen
to paper around that crowd than I'd
walk through South Boston on
St.
Patrick's Day cursing the Irish or show up for class at Boston
University
in an SS uniform.
Although
I haven't the most recent book (his correspondence) the book is
being
praised by reviewers who would normally dismiss him. Wish I had
saved
some of the reviews so I could be more specific.
j grant
BE ON THE WATCH
for
items stolen from the Keroauc Collection
O'Leary Library, U Mass, Lowell
http://www.bookzen.com/kerouac.theft.html
Academic
& Small Press Authors & publishers
display books free at
<http://www.bookzen.com>
375,913 visitors from 07-96 to 07-97
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 03:52:42 -0700
Reply-To: dumo13@EROLS.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Chris Dumond <dumo13@EROLS.COM>
Subject: what it is
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7bit
hi,
As I
was sending the post, I had a feeling that I was taking for granted
that
people know what web rings are, when actually not too many do.
Basically
a web ring is exactly what it says...
it is a circuit of
compiled
web sites related to a certain topic.
The sites are all linked
via a
complicated CGI program that I don't even pretend to understand.
It
allows me to maintain this ring of sites so that the information is
more
easily available. For instance, let's
say you went to Joe Smith's
Kerouac
page and it wasn't what you were looking for... you could look at
old
Joe's links (which 9 out of 10 don't) or you could fire up the old
search
engines... both sources are questionable... but Joe is connected
to the
Beat Webring! You are now assured that
all these sites that you
are
about to surf through have real beat generation content!!! To make
it
simpler for you, visit my page... I'm part of the poetry webring. The
links
are at the VERY bottom of the page and they're simple text... play
with it
and see what it's all about.
Chris
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/2124/index.html
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 23:47:43 +0200
Reply-To: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Subject: Caffettiera Napoletana...
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Caffettiera
Napoletana A. Passeggio (50 anni di esperienza)
found by Beppe Severgnini 1997 (c)
collected by William Ward
edited by Rinaldo Rasa
INTRUCTIONS
FOR THE USE
1) To fill before the inside part of the
coffee pot
of coffee-powder
(5 grams each person)
2) To screw in the filter on the inside-part
of the
coffee-pot.
3) To fill of water the superior-body till
the little hole.
4) Introduce the inside-part of the
coffee-pot in the superior-body
(already filled of water before).
5) Put the coffee-pot with the spout on the
supeior-body and
put it finally on the fire.
6) As soon as the water goes in ebullition,
you will see the
water coming out from coffee-pot, just
from the said little
hole. Now, keep out the coffee-pot
from the fire, upset it
and remain it for some minutes in
rest; in the meantime, the
water will filter and will transform
it in a very exquisite
coffee, and you can serve it too.
It is well known all over the world
that
NEAPOLITAN ORIGINAL COFFEE-POT "A
PASSEGGIO"
is the unique to do a very aromatic
coffee.
WOOOO-AHH-OHH!
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 19:06:40 -0400
Reply-To: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Organization:
Law Office of R. Bentz Kirby
Subject: Hunter Thompson
MIME-Version:
1.0
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text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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7bit
Like
him or not, the end of the book Fear and Loathing on the Campaign
Trail
is some of the best observation of the political process on
America. It is straight ahead writing. There may be a lot of bs out
there
too, but to simply dismiss him as writing crap is not on point,
IMHO.
--
Peace,
Bentz
bocelts@scsn.net
http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 19:10:06 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Hunter and Jack
Comments:
To: Ddrooy@aol.com
In a
message dated 97-07-28 14:33:18 EDT, you write:
<< Hey its just a story and personally
Thompson is the reason why i'd give any
respect to Rolling Stone
magazine or any journalist in general.
>>
Hey here's a novel idea....
Quit respecting sucko journalism entirely.
God, I miss the Sixties.
ddr
>>
Yeah,
That's a good point. Seems I could make it dozens of times a day.
cp
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 19:42:32 -0400
Reply-To: CVEditions@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Pamela Beach Plymell
<CVEditions@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: worth the trip
Comments:
To: Ddrooy@aol.com
Thanks,
D. I remember them all those Filmore posters and some of the events.
I
haven't heard from Wes Wilson in years. He sent me a special little
drawing-message
in the 70's. I wonder if he's still around? I talked to
S.Clay
Wilson on the phone today. He just turned 56. Drawing madly. Rent
check
due. Mad at the printers for wrecking his Beat-L drawing. (5 min.
diatribe)
cp
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 01:36:52 +0200
Reply-To: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Subject: Eric Mottram (1924-1995)
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
dear
beat-Ls,
Eric
Mottram (1924-1995) is a key figure of post-war literature and
teaching. After the work of Charles Olson and Robert
Duncan, Eric Mottram
produced
one of the most extensive and coherent bodies of work on late 20th
century
poetics. He published over 160 articles
and 20 critical works
including
a collection of essays on American culture, Blood on the Nash
Ambassador
and the first book-length study of William Burroughs' work, The
Algebra
of Need. He had two dozen collections
of poetry published from the
late
1960s onwards including Elegies, A Book of Herne and Selected Poems.
Mottram
was the first to teach Beat writing in Europe in the 1950s.
---
yrs
Rinaldo.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 20:14:11 -0400
Reply-To: Linda Highland <lrgh@WEBTV.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Linda Highland <lrgh@WEBTV.NET>
Subject: Hunter= Rice?
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7BIT
MIME-Version:
1.0 (WebTV)
I like
HST, but he's hardly my favorite writer, or even in the top 50.
But I
was very much confused by whoever criticized him for putting out
too
many books a la Ann Rice......hasn't there been maybe a dozen books+
in
thirty years, including collections of letters and stuff? Does this
really
qualify as just churning them out?
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 19:24:08 -0500
Reply-To: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: Re: Hunter= Rice?
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7bit
Linda
Highland wrote:
>
> I
like HST, but he's hardly my favorite writer, or even in the top 50.
>
But I was very much confused by whoever criticized him for putting out
>
too many books a la Ann Rice......hasn't there been maybe a dozen books+
> in
thirty years, including collections of letters and stuff? Does this
>
really qualify as just churning them out?
i'm
gonna come out of the closet and say that i actually enjoy falling
into
anne rice now and then. other pop
culture fiction too. and world
championship
wrestling every so often.
i can
see that many wouldn't care for this - but hope those complaining
about
such things don't put their noses so high in the air that they get
sunburned.
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 21:12:27 -0400
Reply-To: GYENIS@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Attila Gyenis <GYENIS@AOL.COM>
Subject: BUS WEST?
Anybody
going west from NY to San Fran next week, maybe on the dirty dog
(Grey
Hound). Let me know, maybe we can hook up.
later,
Attila
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 21:59:56 -0400
Reply-To: Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>
Subject: more on Hunter
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Well, I
ran across this web site today and I must say it made my evening. It
has
been a thouroughly shitty day dealing with thouroughly ignorant people,
but
here the sweet girl who put up her free unhip Geocities "home page"
at
<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3203/hstmp.htm>
just brightened
the
corners of the Stutz house with her reasoning on why a good little girl
like
her would pay attention to, much less read, Hunter Thompson: "...it is
his
brutal honesty that allows me to read him. He is too bright to look at
and too
important to ignore."
Okay,
so he bred a couple generations' worth of college boy posers, each
thinking
their own Saturday night bacchanalia was the one true Literature
and
each having at least one reference to _Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas_
somewhere
inside their 10-page magnum opus (and it makes you cringe at that
point
every time -- if you get that far). But this is no worse than those
fourth-rate,
arrogant neo-beatnik coffee shop schleps that Jack & Co.
inspire
to this day,
the ones whose
words fall on the page a l w a y s
like this
scattered
brilliance---
all
lower case
with
so
much
to
say
and no time to
listen.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 19:35:32 -0700
Reply-To:
James William Marshall
<dv8@MAIL.NETSHOP.NET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: James William Marshall
<dv8@MAIL.NETSHOP.NET>
Subject: Illusions & Confessions
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
"We
live in a world where the fear of illusion is real." -The Tea Party.
That's what I like about the illusory
quality of existence. Just by
mentioning
the word "existence" you display a degree of disbelief in the
Grand
Illusion. Life sucks. Your imagination sucks. Life's great. You
have a
great imagination. I'm trying to work
something out here. Apologies.
I think that Kerouac was all over
illusions. I believe that I'm
disagreeing
with Diane Carter when I write that I think Kerouac usually used
an
array of substances to approach the "joy" end of the spectrum. The
"despair"
side is quite easy to come across. Sure
you have to know light
before
you can know darkness or vice versa but only nothing's pure. (Am I
getting
the Buddhist thing right?) Anyway, to
hell with Saussure
for-now-maybe-ever.
Confessions: I'm almost always seriously depressed. I've experienced
some
happiness and contentment clear-headed.
My experiences with "joy" have
been limited: to mind-whacked simultaneous spontaneous
gut-wrenching
cheek-hurting
laughing sessions with some buddies just because everybody's
been
quiet for awhile, to the boys lined up and taking turns at the stove
with
taped-up knives (coughing, choking, spitting up lung), to tables
cluttered
with empty beer bottles and filled ashtrays, to that first smoke
after
the J, etc. But I don't do that sorta
thing anymore. Even trying to
stop
drinking. (again) Thing is, and I think I'm a little like
Kerouac in
this
way, peace (serenity, contentment, whatever) isn't what I really want
(right
now anyway). It's gotta be all or
nothing. Give me a 26 of rye and
a pack
of smokes and my guitar and a park with a creek running through it
and a
pretty girl walking in my direction.
That'd be a start. Wait. Was I
writing
about illusions?
Okay.
When life sucks, it's a bad illusion.
When life's great, you're blind.
Your little illusory buddy,
James M.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 23:15:32 -0400
Reply-To: "Diane M. Homza"
<ek242@cleveland.Freenet.Edu>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Diane M. Homza"
<ek242@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU>
Subject: Re: Hunter= Rice?
Reply
to message from race@MIDUSA.NET of Mon, 28 Jul
>
>Linda
Highland wrote:
>>
>>
I like HST, but he's hardly my favorite writer, or even in the top 50.
>>
But I was very much confused by whoever criticized him for putting out
>>
too many books a la Ann Rice......hasn't there been maybe a dozen books+
>>
in thirty years, including collections of letters and stuff? Does this
>>
really qualify as just churning them out?
>
>i'm
gonna come out of the closet and say that i actually enjoy falling
>into
anne rice now and then. other pop
culture fiction too. and world
>championship
wrestling every so often.
>
there's
not necessarily anything wrong with the pop stuff...but compared to
the
"great literature," how can Ann Rice consider herself an author? Maybe
she can
tell a good tale, but she merely puts words down on paper, she
doesn't
_write_. IMHO, of course.
Diane.
(H)
--
Life is
weird. Remember to brush your teeth.
--Heidi
A. Emhoff
ek242@cleveland.freenet.edu
Diane M. Homza
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 23:43:50 +0000
Reply-To: randyr@southeast.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Comments: Authenticated sender is <randyr@pop.jaxnet.com>
From: randy royal
<randyr@SOUTHEAST.NET>
Subject: apologies and confession
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-type:
text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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7BIT
hello
all just like to say i am sorry for misjudging hunter t. i just
don't
like pot boilers. but, some people do. hst isn't as bad as anne
rice.
idid enjoy reading interveiw with a vampire (the movie was
better)
although the follow-up, the vampire lestat, was crap. but not
all pop
culture is poorly done- look at silence of the lambs. it was
a
medicore book but a great movie. and if you want to know some real
crap,
check out that post which pissed every off. i lost myself in
hypocrysoy.
_randy
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 23:02:58 -0500
Reply-To: Patricia Elliott
<pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Patricia Elliott
<pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
Subject: Re: worth the trip
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7bit
Pamela
Beach Plymell wrote:
>
>
Thanks, D. I remember them all those Filmore posters and some of the events.
> I
haven't heard from Wes Wilson in years. He sent me a special little
>
drawing-message in the 70's. I wonder if he's still around? I talked to
>
S.Clay Wilson on the phone today. He just turned 56. Drawing madly. Rent
>
check due. Mad at the printers for wrecking his Beat-L drawing. (5 min.
>
diatribe)
> cp
patricia
wrote
i wore
my beat t shirt and the teen ager
helping me at the house ( who
is very
cool) noticed it and raved. but couldn't tell what it was, he
liked
that. well , i love it but i love
mysteries and opaque windows.
thanks
again jeff. the people who miss the bullseye are those that are
shooting.
p
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 04:12:28 UT
Reply-To: Sherri <love_singing@MSN.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Sherri <love_singing@MSN.COM>
Subject: Re: Hunter= Rice?
i have
to agree with David on this one. Rice
has put out a couple of
interesting
books, the rest are so much fodder. but
sometimes a cigar is just
a cigar
and you do it just for the hell of it.
god knows, in this life, we
all
need a little escapism. if nothing
else, it makes us appreciate, even
that
much more, the really great writers' works.
so now
you can all lambaste me, but i bet there are lots of you who sneak in
some
sort of mind candy in the form of tv/film, most of which i find far more
obnoxious
than a book that maybe isn't great literature, but at least has a
tiny
germ of art, new perspective or idea in it. (i don't consider the likes
of
Danielle Steele, and her ilk as under consideration by anyone here.)
randy's
post just came in as i was writing this -
movie wasn't anywhere close
to as
good as the book, imho.
ciao,
sherri
----------
From: BEAT-L: Beat Generation List on behalf of
RACE ---
Sent: Monday, July 28, 1997 5:24 PM
To: BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: Hunter= Rice?
Linda
Highland wrote:
>
> I
like HST, but he's hardly my favorite writer, or even in the top 50.
>
But I was very much confused by whoever criticized him for putting out
>
too many books a la Ann Rice......hasn't there been maybe a dozen books+
> in
thirty years, including collections of letters and stuff? Does this
>
really qualify as just churning them out?
i'm
gonna come out of the closet and say that i actually enjoy falling
into
anne rice now and then. other pop
culture fiction too. and world
championship
wrestling every so often.
i can
see that many wouldn't care for this - but hope those complaining
about
such things don't put their noses so high in the air that they get
sunburned.
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 23:36:54 -0500
Reply-To: Patricia Elliott
<pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Patricia Elliott
<pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
Subject: Re: Hunter= Rice?
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7bit
hst is
a loud obnoxious drunk and keen writer and journalist. i don't
like
him , don't want him around after 9 but he changed political press
and
rubbed amerikas nose in it til we could recognize what we were
smellin,
i confess to liking silly books but i
don't consider hst
silly,
rice
wrote a bunch of books and sold them as did many others. that only
means
to me that that delicious act of reading is'nt confined to only
serious
intercourse.
If one
only met him (hst) and didn't read him i could see the blow off
of his
work but like many talented artists ,
they don't have to be
pleasant
or charming or elegant, they only have to do it.
p
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:56:01 -0700
Reply-To: stauffer@pacbell.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: James Stauffer <stauffer@PACBELL.NET>
Subject: Re: Hunter= Rice?
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1.0
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David
and Sherri
You are
both absolutely right. Where would we
be without good genre
fiction. For me it's usually detective stuff. Or trash TV.
HST is
entirely different, not a "genre" writer unless "New
Journalism"
would
fall into that category. He asks to be
taken as a "serious"
writer
and invites being held to an entirely different standard.
James
Stauffer
Sherri
wrote:
>
> i
have to agree with David on this one.
Rice has put out a couple of
>
interesting books, the rest are so much fodder. but sometimes a cigar is just
> a
cigar and you do it just for the hell of it. . . .
David
wrote>
>
i'm gonna come out of the closet and say that i actually enjoy falling
>
into anne rice now and then. other pop
culture fiction too. and world
>
championship wrestling every so often.
>
> i
can see that many wouldn't care for this - but hope those complaining
>
about such things don't put their noses so high in the air that they get
>
sunburned.
>
>
david rhaesa
>
salina, Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 09:36:12 +0200
Reply-To: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Subject: Spaghetti Poem.
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1.0
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spaghetti spaghetti
al dente al dente!
al dente
al dente quality
blended from carefully
selected durum wheat
al dente al dente!
al dente
cookin'for
the recommended time
gives u
perfect enjoy!
---
yrs
Rinaldo.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 09:38:05 +0200
Reply-To: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Subject: Robert Creely (the painting illustrates
the poetry).
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1.0
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... by Robert Creely
Inside my head a common room
a common place, a common tune...
---
yrs
Rinaldo.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 10:07:12 -0400
Reply-To: SSASN@AOL.COM
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Arthur Nusbaum <SSASN@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: For Patricia Elliott: HST musings
Comments:
cc: DAVIDSROSEN@compuserve.com
Dear
Patricia:
You
wrote: "HST is a loud obnoxious
drunk and keen writer and
journalist...."
I have
met HST twice. The first time was in
Connecticut in the summer of
1981,
he was scheduled to give one of his "lectures" at a university, and a
friend
and I decided to take our chances and crash the event. This was not a
problem,
we sort of snuck in with a wink of the loose gatekeepers, I can't
recall
this part exactly. Just before entering
the lecture hall, HST burst
into
the lobby of the building with some others, who I think had set up his
appearance,
in tow. He was very tall and looked
exactly as I expected him
to,
only slightly less of a caricature than "Uncle Duke", complete with
cigarette
holder, Hawaiian shirt, etc. I sensed
that he was self-consciously
"on",
knowing that all his comments and behavior would get the attention of
his
fans. The "lecture" consisted
of HST fielding questions from the
audience,
there was no prepared speech as such.
Yes, he had a bottle of Wild
Turkey
at his side at a table on stage. He was
intelligible most of the
time,
but did not project his voice like a public speaker, it was a
conversational
style as if he were only talking one-on-one with the person
who
asked a particular question, and he often trailed off into near-mumbling
at the
end of statements. I recall that he was
generally very pessimistic,
he
really did give off a vibe of Fear and Loathing about the current and
future
state of the nation and world. This was
during the dawn of the Reagan
era,
and he did not like what he saw on the horizon. One fragment of his
talk
that comes to mind is when he stated that he believed that "things are
going
to get ugly", I think those are close to the exact words, in the near
future,
but then said something like "I hope I'm wrong, do you think I'm
wrong?"
in an almost plaintive way. After the
event concluded, we went to an
exit
from the auditorium where HST was expected to go through. Shortly after
we
claimed a good spot there, he exited, and I approached him as a small
crowd
buzzed around us. I had a then-new copy
of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS
VEGAS
with me, the copy from my college days was in a condition as if it had
been on
the journey with him that it chronicles.
I asked for his autograph,
he said
"I've got to piss", but then took the book and scrawled something on
it. The situation sort of coagulated after that,
with us hanging around
among a
small group near the entrance to the men's room. When he emerged, he
asked
no one in particular whether there was a bar in the vicinity. People
were
just standing there looking at him like a zoo exhibit. We left at that
point. To this day I wonder if we should have been
bolder and escorted him
to some
bar, we didn't know the town but could have improvised I'm sure.
Anyway, after we left and I had a chance to
look at what he had written on
the
inside front cover of the book, I saw that it read: "To Arthur from HST-
help I
must piss". It is one of the treasures
of my collection.
The
second time I encountered HST was during the NYU Beat Conference, in May
1994. He was scheduled to participate in one of
the panel discussions, and
arrived
somewhat late, with heads turning toward him as he walked up the
aisle. He took his place next to Ed Sanders, and
proceeded to light up a
pipeful. I have photos of this incident of HST living
up to his stereotype.
I found him insightful about the Beats, as
you may know he is personally
acquainted
with the key figures and crossed paths with them in NYC in his
youth
during the late '50s- early '60s. It
was like a reunion with
remeniscing,
he reminded Allen Ginsberg, who was in the audience but not on
the
panel for this discussion, of some misadventures they shared, he greeted
him
with "Allen- you're still alive?" to his amusement. My favorite part of
his
talk was when he told a story about a recent visit he made to WSB at his
home in
Lawrence. They were shooting together
in his backyard, the 2
all-time
premier gun fetishists, and even HST was a little nervous. He
warned
WSB that he might hit someone with the powerful gun he was shooting
with. "Don't worry, Hunter", said WSB,
"those are only Christians out
there". It got a good laugh, and even though you
can't always trust HST for
veracity
(as WSB told me about Kerouac), it was certainly in character. I
could
tell that HST greatly respected WSB for his one-of-a-kindness, coming
from
another incomparable specimen. That
evening at a dinner for
participants
of the Conference, I met and briefly talked with HST, along with
many
others such as the late Jan Kerouac and the 2 men, I forget their names,
who
travel around the country and put out MONK magazine, latter-day On the
Roaders. He misplaced his hat and I happened to see
it right behind him,
retrieved
it and handed it to him. He thanked me,
and I briefly spoke to him
amidst
the din, telling him how much of an impact his works had on myself and
many
friends. He humbly, almost shyly,
thanked me and we shook hands. I
should
note that my impression of him altogether during this second
encounter,
in the public and more intimate forums, was one of warmth and
humor,
as with WSB, his fierce and even menacing reputation belies a basic
humanity
that shows through despite all the fireworks.
My wife took some
great
photos of us together during the dinner.
There
has been a lot of posting about HST lately, set off by some very
negative
comments. Like certain other artists
(Salvador Dali comes to mind
in the
visual arts), HST is as much if not more famous for his antics as for
his
works, and the line between art and life is blurred almost beyond
recognition. But no amount of clowning or Gonzo behavior
can bury the
significance
of his best works, especially FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS and
FEAR
AND LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL '72.
He deserves a place in the
pantheon
of great and influential writers. My
own Honors English thesis at
the
University of Michigan (it's in there somewhere in a moldering bankers'
box)
was about his works. The very choice of
that topic generated a lot of
controversy
among the faculty as I recall.
There
is a very well-done cd performance of FALILV available, read by Harry
Dean
Stanton, Buck Henry and others. I
highly recommend it, it illuminates
the
humor, insight and sheer chaotic energy of that classic work. It's also,
like
the book, so funny that it hurt.
Regards,
Arthur