Tuesday, November 25, 2008
I Told Myself I Wouldn't Call My Project Proposal "A Modest Proposal" so it's Called This Instead
Probably the most widespread, deepest connecting influence I can think of to write about is not just the themes of the stories, but their foundations themselves. Specifically, the language and rhetoric stemming from the Beat generation. Although all the Beat writers and poets used different words for different reasons in different ways, they all knew that this is where their power and influence came from. For this reason, I'd like to write about two of the most powerful wordsmiths from the day: Alan Ginsberg and Bob Dylan. I hypothesize that both artists are or were dedicated to using their voices and rhetoric to analyze and critique their country, and using Dylan's voice to articulate (perhaps more clearly) Ginsberg's message. What I envision for my final project is a rewrite of either one or a selection of Ginsberg's poems done in the lyrical style of Bob Dylan. I contend that in using Dylan's style as a lens for the poetry, it would make for a stronger, more punctuated telling of the morality and message of the work.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Stumblemaster Oxen
I feel really strongly about Tripmaster Monkey, but the thing that evokes such strong emotions doesn't really fit into one of the topics; it's more like three of them. What I want to talk about is the references, and not really to analyze them contextually or extrapolate meaning from them, but about how their constant, unabated usage irritates me.
The book starts out a little like a novel, but then suddenly it devolves into what feels like a not-so-cleverly disguised series of lists. Kingston starts out listing locations around San Francisco, and as Stephanie's Google map illustrated there are a boatload of them. Then it goes on from there, mostly with pop-culture and specifically filmic references, not so much listed as punched down our throats. As far as I care there are two reasons to form and share exhaustive lists: to inform or to show off. When you're informing, either the list is comprised of commonly-known or well-explained things that server a purpose, whereas with showing off you just shotgun as many factoids as you can so people know you know a considerable amount of stuff. Now although some audiences, maybe even the intended ones, may find the references in Tripmaster Monkey to be common knowledge, they still serve very little (if any) point. One thing I'm sure of is this is a very, very character-driven novel. And it could be because I'm just bitter, but the greater portion of these references don't provide any meaningful insight into Wittman's character. When he speaks, especially to Nanci, it strikes me as insightful and telling of his personality (which I find excruciatingly unpleasant but at least consistent and meaningful to the overall narrative), but when Kingston creates countless kung fu similes, not only does it wear thin but it comes across almost as if that's the lens through which she evaluates her entire life (I threw my wadded up paper into the trash like Yojimbo tossed his shuriken through an evil ronin).
The most concrete example I can think of is right at the very beginning when we're going on Wittman's walking/busing tour of SF. One location, the Academy of Sciences, lends itself to explaining his character, but by and large it's just the narrator telling us "And then he went by here and here, and if there were a football game the stadium would be louder," and I have no idea what I'm supposed to be other than (as a non-native Californian) lost and frustrated.
There may well have been a compelling story under all this malarky, but Kingston hid it so well that I'm not interested in trying to find it.
The book starts out a little like a novel, but then suddenly it devolves into what feels like a not-so-cleverly disguised series of lists. Kingston starts out listing locations around San Francisco, and as Stephanie's Google map illustrated there are a boatload of them. Then it goes on from there, mostly with pop-culture and specifically filmic references, not so much listed as punched down our throats. As far as I care there are two reasons to form and share exhaustive lists: to inform or to show off. When you're informing, either the list is comprised of commonly-known or well-explained things that server a purpose, whereas with showing off you just shotgun as many factoids as you can so people know you know a considerable amount of stuff. Now although some audiences, maybe even the intended ones, may find the references in Tripmaster Monkey to be common knowledge, they still serve very little (if any) point. One thing I'm sure of is this is a very, very character-driven novel. And it could be because I'm just bitter, but the greater portion of these references don't provide any meaningful insight into Wittman's character. When he speaks, especially to Nanci, it strikes me as insightful and telling of his personality (which I find excruciatingly unpleasant but at least consistent and meaningful to the overall narrative), but when Kingston creates countless kung fu similes, not only does it wear thin but it comes across almost as if that's the lens through which she evaluates her entire life (I threw my wadded up paper into the trash like Yojimbo tossed his shuriken through an evil ronin).
The most concrete example I can think of is right at the very beginning when we're going on Wittman's walking/busing tour of SF. One location, the Academy of Sciences, lends itself to explaining his character, but by and large it's just the narrator telling us "And then he went by here and here, and if there were a football game the stadium would be louder," and I have no idea what I'm supposed to be other than (as a non-native Californian) lost and frustrated.
There may well have been a compelling story under all this malarky, but Kingston hid it so well that I'm not interested in trying to find it.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Alcatraz is TOTALLY an island
Richard Oakes (the Native American not the former guitarist for English pop sensation Suede) was, apparently, a fantastically charismatic Mohawk tribesman. He was the de facto "chief" and spokesman for the Indians Of All Tribes group that occupied Alcatraz two of the three times. It turns out though that he wasn't just an idealogue, but in the arguably symbolic occupation of the island was sort of a symbol himself.
Richard started out as an iron worker; a hard job that contributes to the American machine (particularly the industrial part) but that never quite gets the "big picture," like a 2D character in a 3D plane. He then enrolls in San Francisco State, attempting to improve his station in life through what one could call conformity. But he doesn't completely assimilate, and is drawn out to defend his customs and traditions. He tries to repel the white folks, but his overnight success is literally just that, and they're ousted the next day. Oakes kept fighting the land-snatchers, and finally a few years later made his last stand for the land that may or may not have rightfully been his. For over a year he and his followers managed to keep a handle on things, but outside forces and lack of technological and industrial know-how left them living in squalorous, decrepit, destitute conditions while the worst of white culture (in this case hippies, but I guess hippies can be analagous to alcoholism or lack of concept of ownership or something) perforated and infiltrated their bastion. Toward the end power struggles begin to boil; people think Oakes is a media hog, or too much say in the everyday goings-on, some said that the naturally combative nature of Indians pounded its way to the surface. Finally Oakes suffered great personal tragedy and left, his only parting gift to his former followers was a power vaccuum, but not the useful kind to help suck up dirt (they didn't have power on the island).
After the whole conglomeration of nations fell to the wayside, and everyone went back to living their own isolated lives under the influence of American culture (among other things), he was shot and killed. I couldn't find any biography that said who did it, or where or why it happened, but then the analogy gets all V-for-Vendetta-y: He was shot by his own people, who didn't have the foresight to protect their own interests. He was shot by a racist white guy, mad at all he'd done in the name of another culture. He could've been shot by a normal white guy; just an accidental victim in the push to dominate the area. Or maybe Oakes was shot by a mugger after the last little bit of what he had. But then maybe he just shot himself.
Richard started out as an iron worker; a hard job that contributes to the American machine (particularly the industrial part) but that never quite gets the "big picture," like a 2D character in a 3D plane. He then enrolls in San Francisco State, attempting to improve his station in life through what one could call conformity. But he doesn't completely assimilate, and is drawn out to defend his customs and traditions. He tries to repel the white folks, but his overnight success is literally just that, and they're ousted the next day. Oakes kept fighting the land-snatchers, and finally a few years later made his last stand for the land that may or may not have rightfully been his. For over a year he and his followers managed to keep a handle on things, but outside forces and lack of technological and industrial know-how left them living in squalorous, decrepit, destitute conditions while the worst of white culture (in this case hippies, but I guess hippies can be analagous to alcoholism or lack of concept of ownership or something) perforated and infiltrated their bastion. Toward the end power struggles begin to boil; people think Oakes is a media hog, or too much say in the everyday goings-on, some said that the naturally combative nature of Indians pounded its way to the surface. Finally Oakes suffered great personal tragedy and left, his only parting gift to his former followers was a power vaccuum, but not the useful kind to help suck up dirt (they didn't have power on the island).
After the whole conglomeration of nations fell to the wayside, and everyone went back to living their own isolated lives under the influence of American culture (among other things), he was shot and killed. I couldn't find any biography that said who did it, or where or why it happened, but then the analogy gets all V-for-Vendetta-y: He was shot by his own people, who didn't have the foresight to protect their own interests. He was shot by a racist white guy, mad at all he'd done in the name of another culture. He could've been shot by a normal white guy; just an accidental victim in the push to dominate the area. Or maybe Oakes was shot by a mugger after the last little bit of what he had. But then maybe he just shot himself.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
So I Says "Filler? I Barely Even Know Her!"
The Fillmore is a real cool place over by Japantown, and I hadn't ever been there till recently (what with spending 9/10 of my life in parts less cultured). According to really legitimate, highly academic sources that definitely aren't Wikipedia, a famous concert performer I've never heard of called Bill Graham was instrumental in making it famous, even though from 1968 to the 1980s he diverted lots of traffic to some new theater then flipped around and started promoting things at the original Fillmore again, then it had to close down in '89 due to earthquake damage. Five years later, it reopened, and sometime in the 14 years between then and now, soulless promotional conglomerate Live Nation picked up the venue.
Like I said before I'm not a Bay Area or even California native, so the only unofficial history I'm really familiar with is firsthand experience. I had my first concert experience there just last week, and boy howdy was I impressed. I saw Pendulum, who is my favorite not-quite-drum and bass group, and they rocked just as hard as they know how. Easily the coolest part was the getting seven high-fives over the course of the night from the frontman, Paul Harding. My throat has never been as sore as it was for the next three days, but man alive was it worth it. I can only imagine the other types of stories people must have there, and I'd like to post more later with more collected stories. Or I could have you all do it!
THE QUESTION: What stories do you all have about Fillmore experiences?
Like I said before I'm not a Bay Area or even California native, so the only unofficial history I'm really familiar with is firsthand experience. I had my first concert experience there just last week, and boy howdy was I impressed. I saw Pendulum, who is my favorite not-quite-drum and bass group, and they rocked just as hard as they know how. Easily the coolest part was the getting seven high-fives over the course of the night from the frontman, Paul Harding. My throat has never been as sore as it was for the next three days, but man alive was it worth it. I can only imagine the other types of stories people must have there, and I'd like to post more later with more collected stories. Or I could have you all do it!
THE QUESTION: What stories do you all have about Fillmore experiences?
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Brautigan Begin Again
"The Autopsy of Trout Fishing in America" is probably one of the most bizarre things I have ever read, so let's go on an exciting adventure of self-discovery and close reading and try to figure out what in the hell.
Right away he's talking about how the autopsy of his novel is like what Lord Byron's autopsy would've been, so first thing I had to do was figure out who Lord Byron was. Turns out he was real famous and his life was super well-documented, and I didn't really have the patience to read the entire Wikipedia page but I did garner that he was some sort of romantic revolutionary. Also he wrote Don Juan, a piece I have a cursory knowledge of. So there's that! But then it talks about if he had never seen the shores of Idaho again, which I don't really get becaue Idaho wasn't incorporated as a state until almost 70 years after this Byron dude had shuffled off this mortal coil. Now I don't know much about Idaho except that it's awful and like four people live there, so I have nary a clue as to where the Byron-Idaho parallel comes from. Brautigan also makes a point of listing off real specific bodies of water, which may or may not exist, and that could mean something too. To the best of my knowledge though, Lord Byron didn't have any particular inclination toward hot springs, creeks or ducks, so I'm left thinking that it's just kind of Brautigan's style to bandy about names for the sake of completion.
But what the heck does all that mean in the grand scheme of the chapter? Well it's definitely not the cause of death, the first part of the autopsy proper. Trout Fishing died of sudden asphyxiation, Byron died of a cold. The suffocation bit could have any number of meanings, but with Brautigan being a post-beat sort of fellow the first meaning that jumps to mind is society throttling his creativity, killing off his work. But I also read on the brautigan.net website that one of his friends said he used trout fishing as a metaphor for living in the moment or doing things immediately and impulsively or something along those lines. Thinking in that vein, it could mean that we all suddenly (for some reason) have to structure our lives so we lost all that impulsiveness.
Both those sentiments could well be read into the next portion, where it describes the utter solidity of the skull of the "victim." It pretty much sounds like he's robustly saying "it was thick-skulled," but with like six times as many words. If that is, in fact, what he had in mind, then he could be talking about the single-minded pursuit of impulsiveness, or the unassailable steadfastness of societal norms, man.
Then he quips about the kidneys being large but healthy, and the bladder being small. I guess that just means Trout Fishing peed itself just before it died? Either that or it had to go to the bathroom all the time. Brautigan either likes obfuscated potty humor or this part is completely lost on me.
The date of death is May 2nd of 1824, the same year of Byron's death but a little less than a month later. I have a feeling the death year isn't all that it has in common with the lord, but boy howdy is it hard to draw any other real comparisons. Then he says the body's with lots of booze and he mentions Idaho again.
I have a feeling that I get the tip of the poem, but lots of it is definitely still lost on me. MY QUESTION TO YOU IS what the heck do Idaho, trout fishing, and a dead Greecian hero guy have in common? Give up?? Me too.
Right away he's talking about how the autopsy of his novel is like what Lord Byron's autopsy would've been, so first thing I had to do was figure out who Lord Byron was. Turns out he was real famous and his life was super well-documented, and I didn't really have the patience to read the entire Wikipedia page but I did garner that he was some sort of romantic revolutionary. Also he wrote Don Juan, a piece I have a cursory knowledge of. So there's that! But then it talks about if he had never seen the shores of Idaho again, which I don't really get becaue Idaho wasn't incorporated as a state until almost 70 years after this Byron dude had shuffled off this mortal coil. Now I don't know much about Idaho except that it's awful and like four people live there, so I have nary a clue as to where the Byron-Idaho parallel comes from. Brautigan also makes a point of listing off real specific bodies of water, which may or may not exist, and that could mean something too. To the best of my knowledge though, Lord Byron didn't have any particular inclination toward hot springs, creeks or ducks, so I'm left thinking that it's just kind of Brautigan's style to bandy about names for the sake of completion.
But what the heck does all that mean in the grand scheme of the chapter? Well it's definitely not the cause of death, the first part of the autopsy proper. Trout Fishing died of sudden asphyxiation, Byron died of a cold. The suffocation bit could have any number of meanings, but with Brautigan being a post-beat sort of fellow the first meaning that jumps to mind is society throttling his creativity, killing off his work. But I also read on the brautigan.net website that one of his friends said he used trout fishing as a metaphor for living in the moment or doing things immediately and impulsively or something along those lines. Thinking in that vein, it could mean that we all suddenly (for some reason) have to structure our lives so we lost all that impulsiveness.
Both those sentiments could well be read into the next portion, where it describes the utter solidity of the skull of the "victim." It pretty much sounds like he's robustly saying "it was thick-skulled," but with like six times as many words. If that is, in fact, what he had in mind, then he could be talking about the single-minded pursuit of impulsiveness, or the unassailable steadfastness of societal norms, man.
Then he quips about the kidneys being large but healthy, and the bladder being small. I guess that just means Trout Fishing peed itself just before it died? Either that or it had to go to the bathroom all the time. Brautigan either likes obfuscated potty humor or this part is completely lost on me.
The date of death is May 2nd of 1824, the same year of Byron's death but a little less than a month later. I have a feeling the death year isn't all that it has in common with the lord, but boy howdy is it hard to draw any other real comparisons. Then he says the body's with lots of booze and he mentions Idaho again.
I have a feeling that I get the tip of the poem, but lots of it is definitely still lost on me. MY QUESTION TO YOU IS what the heck do Idaho, trout fishing, and a dead Greecian hero guy have in common? Give up?? Me too.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
DEY TOOK OUR JERBS
Is it just me or is Ginsberg sort of a horrible racist? I've read a few mini-biographies about him, and racial bias is never really mentioned and his death wasn't at the hands of the NAACP, so maybe it wasn't as big a deal as I think it is. But throughout "Howl," talk of "chinamen" and "indians" (the lower-case seems especially demeaning) or "negroes" just seems to have an awful lot of negative connotation. To be fair, I'm about as far from a poetry fan, let alone expert or authority, as a person can get so this may all be flying way over my head. It could be that there's some well-known sarcastic element that frames all this apparent prejudice, in the same vein that there are certain musical and melodic phrases that I couldn't recognize, but the terms seems to be thrown out casually. I hesitate to say "flippantly" because if there's one thing I do know about poetry, it's that every word in the good stuff means something, however I can't shake the impression I get from his writing style that this is just part of his personality. It's not just his written words either, it's the way he speaks them.
When we listened to Ginsberg's live reading of Howl today in class, his emphatic, Gene Wilder-esque monotone seemed to convey the same meaning that the famous comedic actor bestowed on his best-yelled parts; that he was raising his voice to his audience because that's how he shows sincerity. It would be a different story if Ginsberg had scoffed or jeeringly said the words, but instead he blew right through them as easily as if he were stating prepositions.
The only other possible reason I can think of is this: I definitely get that one of the main tenants of beatitude (which was carried over to the hippies) is the idea of "sticking it to the man;" boldly stating you smoke pot whenever the chance arises seems, especially considering the time context, to be a pretty strong "fuck you" to the powers that be. This is all by the way of saying that Ginsberg could easily just be trying to mock political correctness. Of course I'm not sure that the whole PC concept was around "back in the day," but in my (probably relentlessly stuck-up) mind is the only justification for bandying about words that large contingents of people would almost certainly find offensive.
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