Rebecca Solnit's Hollow City is a coffee table book which describes the loss of San Francisco culture and identity to a young, corporate, urban, pop America. Solnit argues that the original occupants of San Francisco are being displaced and the prices of housing are being marked up as young corporate white people begin to infringe upon cultural districts. Parts of San Francisco, Hollow City argues, were originally designated for poor artists, and with this youthful consumerist takeover, the whole bohemian aspect of San Francisco is being lost. San Francisco's multicultural and diverse image is being lost to an internet generation. Those who are to blame are an upcoming class of capitalistic opportunists, Solnit claims. Starbucks and luxury condominiums are paving over the classic image and product of San Francisco. With the rising price of housing, the artistry of the city is being lost to gentrification.
In Maxine Hong Kingston's Tripmaster Monkey, a 60s San Francisco of multicultural revelry and adventure is on display. Our protagonist, Whittman Ah Sing, searches for his identity among this multi-ethnic city. In a case of double-consciousness, Whittman Ah Sing struggles to identify with the Chinese of San Francisco while identifying with the American of his country. He explores the places which are Chinese and the places which are American, but struggles to find a part of San Francisco that is not a stereotype.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
3) How is the world of MMA fixed into the San Francisco Contado?
In Imperial San Francisco, Gray Brechin describes the contado as the countryside, territory and surrounding cities of a dominant city. The contado filters resources back to its host city. Let us examine how San Francisco and the SF county's largest city, San Jose, have contained and exchanged information and wealth with the MMA phenomenon in America. To understand this, let's understand some of the history of MMA.
In the 1960s, Rorion Gracie moved to the Los Angeles area of California and began establishing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Southern California. In 1993, Rorion opened the floodgates to free exchange between martial arts in the US and the World with the creation of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. In the following years, this highly technical fighting sport would grow at an outstanding rate and facilitate the creation of gyms at the major crossroads in America where these techniques could be taught.
The largest city in the Bay Area, San Jose, became a player in the MMA world. It is currently a host to important gyms such as Frank Shamrock's Shamrock Martial Arts Academy and the venerable American Kickboxing Academy, which Sherdog.com rates as the fifth most dominant MMA gym in it's all-time ranking. Several of the aforementioned Gracie family also moved to the Bay area, setting up gyms. Cesar, Ralph and Carley Gracie have had noticeable effects on the Jiu Jitsu and MMA world while based out of the Bay Area.
However, it is another Gracie whose gym has made the largest impact on the MMA world out of San Francisco. Cesar Gracie's gym based out of Pleasant Hill in the East Bay hosts world renowned fighters Gilbert Melendez (14-2), Jake shields (21-4, the Elite XC welterweight champion, former Shooto champion), Nick Diaz (18-7), and Nate Diaz (10-2). From this point in the SF bay area, Cesar Gracie makes an impact upon grappling in MMA with his significant San Francisco area fighters.
San Jose also became a host to major MMA events when in 2007, Elite XC's event, Shamrock vs. Le was hosted there. The event showcased Frank Shamrock and Cung Le, two of San Jose's own, in a bout of extreme fisticuffs. But more importantly, San Jose has become host to it's own MMA promotion known as Strikeforce. Strikeforce's first event was held in March 2006. Since then they have had 14 more events with another planned for later this month. Strikeforce draws the world MMA community into the Bay's contado - their heavyweight champion is a Dutchman, Alistair Overeem. Strikeforce also contributes to the San Francisco area's fame, having drawn the largest paying entry crowd into it's first event, Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Gracie. The main fight for this event was a bout between the aforementioned Frank Shamrock and Cesar Gracie. The paying audience for this fight was 17,465. That number edges just above UFC68s paid attendance of 17,358, an event which took place in Columbus, Ohio.
Apart from the gyms and fighters who bring students, money, and fans into the San Francisco region, Fairtex LLC is an important combat-sport gear provider based out of San Francisco. Originally an enormously important company in its homeland, Thailand, Fairtex grew into an important producer of high-quality pads, gloves and other gear for Muay Thai practicioners and MMA fighters. It's Thai founder, Phillip Wong relocated his Fairtex gym to San Francisco in 1996 to spread the influence of Muay Thai Kickboxing to America. Today, many MMA fighters and some promotions are sponsored by the Fairtex brand. An enormous number of American MMA fighters cite Muay Thai as one of their primary styles partially thanks to the improvements made to the sport by Mr. Wong's efforts when he introduced improved Muay Thai safety gear to the American market.
Drawing large crowds and famous fighters into its midst and sending famous fighters to spread their styles into the MMA world, the San Francisco area contributes to and receives interest and capital from the MMA phenomenon. It lays claim to multiple top-ten ranked MMA fighters, to one of the most dominant MMA gyms, and one of the most important companies in MMA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Shields
Jake Shields is the Elite XC welterweight champion and on the verge of transitioning to another MMA organization. Fighting out of Cesar Gracie's academy, he is a significant force in the welterweight division in MMA today. MMAfighting.com ranks him as the 7th strongest fighter in the world in the welterweight division.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Melendez
Gilbert Melendez and his stablemate, Jake Shields are the most significant MMA fighter who fights out of San Francisco. He is internationally known and the subject of challenges issued by acclaimed Japanese fighter Shinya Aoki.
http://www.akakickbox.com/
American Kickboxing Academy is the most significant MMA gym within San Francisco's contado. Sherdog.com currently rates it as the 5th most dominant MMA gym in its all time rankings of fighter stables.
http://www.strikeforceusa.net/index2.html
Strikeforce is a significant MMA promotion that is growing strong out of San Jose. It keeps the money within the contado by favoring local fighters and bringing national and international fighters into the SF contado.
http://www.graciefighter.com/
Cesar Gracie's gym in Pleasant Hill, in the East Bay, has very influential grapplers in the sport of MMA today. Perhaps beginning to outshine American Kickboxing Academy's glory, this gym is making a significant impact on the MMA world out of San Francisco.
http://www.fairtex.com/history.php
Here is Fairtex LLC's own page on its history and how it moved from being an important company in Thailand's Muay Thai scene to an international promoter of improved standards in combat-sport safety gear based out of San Francisco.
In the 1960s, Rorion Gracie moved to the Los Angeles area of California and began establishing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Southern California. In 1993, Rorion opened the floodgates to free exchange between martial arts in the US and the World with the creation of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. In the following years, this highly technical fighting sport would grow at an outstanding rate and facilitate the creation of gyms at the major crossroads in America where these techniques could be taught.
The largest city in the Bay Area, San Jose, became a player in the MMA world. It is currently a host to important gyms such as Frank Shamrock's Shamrock Martial Arts Academy and the venerable American Kickboxing Academy, which Sherdog.com rates as the fifth most dominant MMA gym in it's all-time ranking. Several of the aforementioned Gracie family also moved to the Bay area, setting up gyms. Cesar, Ralph and Carley Gracie have had noticeable effects on the Jiu Jitsu and MMA world while based out of the Bay Area.
However, it is another Gracie whose gym has made the largest impact on the MMA world out of San Francisco. Cesar Gracie's gym based out of Pleasant Hill in the East Bay hosts world renowned fighters Gilbert Melendez (14-2), Jake shields (21-4, the Elite XC welterweight champion, former Shooto champion), Nick Diaz (18-7), and Nate Diaz (10-2). From this point in the SF bay area, Cesar Gracie makes an impact upon grappling in MMA with his significant San Francisco area fighters.
San Jose also became a host to major MMA events when in 2007, Elite XC's event, Shamrock vs. Le was hosted there. The event showcased Frank Shamrock and Cung Le, two of San Jose's own, in a bout of extreme fisticuffs. But more importantly, San Jose has become host to it's own MMA promotion known as Strikeforce. Strikeforce's first event was held in March 2006. Since then they have had 14 more events with another planned for later this month. Strikeforce draws the world MMA community into the Bay's contado - their heavyweight champion is a Dutchman, Alistair Overeem. Strikeforce also contributes to the San Francisco area's fame, having drawn the largest paying entry crowd into it's first event, Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Gracie. The main fight for this event was a bout between the aforementioned Frank Shamrock and Cesar Gracie. The paying audience for this fight was 17,465. That number edges just above UFC68s paid attendance of 17,358, an event which took place in Columbus, Ohio.
Apart from the gyms and fighters who bring students, money, and fans into the San Francisco region, Fairtex LLC is an important combat-sport gear provider based out of San Francisco. Originally an enormously important company in its homeland, Thailand, Fairtex grew into an important producer of high-quality pads, gloves and other gear for Muay Thai practicioners and MMA fighters. It's Thai founder, Phillip Wong relocated his Fairtex gym to San Francisco in 1996 to spread the influence of Muay Thai Kickboxing to America. Today, many MMA fighters and some promotions are sponsored by the Fairtex brand. An enormous number of American MMA fighters cite Muay Thai as one of their primary styles partially thanks to the improvements made to the sport by Mr. Wong's efforts when he introduced improved Muay Thai safety gear to the American market.
Drawing large crowds and famous fighters into its midst and sending famous fighters to spread their styles into the MMA world, the San Francisco area contributes to and receives interest and capital from the MMA phenomenon. It lays claim to multiple top-ten ranked MMA fighters, to one of the most dominant MMA gyms, and one of the most important companies in MMA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Shields
Jake Shields is the Elite XC welterweight champion and on the verge of transitioning to another MMA organization. Fighting out of Cesar Gracie's academy, he is a significant force in the welterweight division in MMA today. MMAfighting.com ranks him as the 7th strongest fighter in the world in the welterweight division.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Melendez
Gilbert Melendez and his stablemate, Jake Shields are the most significant MMA fighter who fights out of San Francisco. He is internationally known and the subject of challenges issued by acclaimed Japanese fighter Shinya Aoki.
http://www.akakickbox.com/
American Kickboxing Academy is the most significant MMA gym within San Francisco's contado. Sherdog.com currently rates it as the 5th most dominant MMA gym in its all time rankings of fighter stables.
http://www.strikeforceusa.net/index2.html
Strikeforce is a significant MMA promotion that is growing strong out of San Jose. It keeps the money within the contado by favoring local fighters and bringing national and international fighters into the SF contado.
http://www.graciefighter.com/
Cesar Gracie's gym in Pleasant Hill, in the East Bay, has very influential grapplers in the sport of MMA today. Perhaps beginning to outshine American Kickboxing Academy's glory, this gym is making a significant impact on the MMA world out of San Francisco.
http://www.fairtex.com/history.php
Here is Fairtex LLC's own page on its history and how it moved from being an important company in Thailand's Muay Thai scene to an international promoter of improved standards in combat-sport safety gear based out of San Francisco.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
SFLit Study Guide IDs
This is all continued off of Max's blog at downmobileur.blogspot.com/
I'm just working on filling it out and posting more so here is mine, I will try to continue to update this.
1) "Westward the course of empire takes its way ..."
• George Berkeley
Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The first four acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama of the day;
Time’s noblest offspring is the last.
The City of Berkeley was named after Bishop Berkeley who composed these lines in the late 17th century.
2) Gray Brechin's concept of "the contado"
Contado is an Italian word which refers to the territory commanded by a dominant city. The contado provides essential resources and labor to power the capital.
3) "A Walden Pond for Winos"/ Washington Square in SF
• Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America. p17
Walden Pond for Winos is a vignette about Brautigan’s relation to the hobos in Washington Square in SF, where they drink port wine and discuss making money off a flea circus.
4) Tony Bennet, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"
Tony Bennet released this song on a 1962 album of the same name. It is one of the two official anthems adopted by the city of SF. It is played after SF Giants home game victories.
We were shown Union Bank of California’s 2001 use of the song in a promo video where SF local hula dancers emote the words with hand gestures.
5) Moloch
Moloch is the name of a figure in the Old Testament which was worshiped by a tribe. Moloch was a god who required great sacrifices in a fiery manner. Allen Ginsberg employed Moloch in Howl, part 2. Moloch is used as a metaphor for the American city, thus aligning McCarthy-era America with the demon.
6) "I was certainly surprised to be named Poet Laureate of this far out city on the left side of the world"
7) "Such was life in the Colden Gate:/ Gold dusted all that we drank and ate, / And I was one of the children told, 'We all must eat our peck of gold.'"
(a peck is a 2-gallon volume of any dry substance)
A Peck of Gold
by Robert Lee Frost
Dust always blowing about the town,
Except when sea-fog laid it down,
And I was one of the children told
Some of the blowing dust was gold.
All the dust the wind blew high
Appeared like god in the sunset sky,
But I was one of the children told
Some of the dust was really gold.
Such was life in the Golden Gate:
Gold dusted all we drank and ate,
And I was one of the children told,
'We all must eat our peck of gold.'
We should look at the two central images in this poem, Dust and Gold. Dust is representative of the poor and lower class of San Francisco, with gold representative of dreams of the riches. We see the juxtaposition, poverty and wealth, dust and gold.
8) North Beach
9) "Coming Into the Watershed"
10) Citizen Kane / William Randolph Hearst
11) Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
This is a reservoir in Yosemite national park. 65mi northeast of Merced, this reservoir is formed by a concrete dam. It’s primary purpose is to supply drinking water to San Francisco.
12) Alcatraz Is Not an Island
13) "The Day They Busted the Grateful Dead"
• Brautigan's The Pill vs. The Springhill Mine Disaster p. 104:
The day they busted the Grateful Dead
rain stormed against San Francisco
like hot swampy scissors cutting Justice
into the evil clothes that alligators wear.
The day they busted the Grateful Dead
was like a flight of winged alligators
carefully measuring marble with black
rubber telescopes
The day they busted the Grateful Dead
turned like wet breath of alligators
blowing up balloons the size of the
Hall of Justice
• Brautigan operating in the prophetic mode, evoking images of injustice and the mechanism of the state imposing its will against one of the greatest symbols of 1960s counter culture, political freedom, etc.
14) Turtle Island
• Gary Snyder, p. 243: Concept of North America as "Turtle Island," de-familiarization of 18th century to present day understanding of USA
• Marks a return to the naturalist/native concept of the land and its creatures
• Criticizes the "discovery" discourse describing the colonization/founding/expansion of America and "frontier" mentality
• Deconstruction of modern concept of the community centered around urban and suburban spaces - return to the wild
• Introductory Note from Turtle Island (1969):
Turtle Island - the old/new name for the continent, based on many creation myths of the people who have been living here for millennia, and reapplied by some of them to "North America" in recent years. Also, an idea found world-wide, of the earth, or cosmos even, sustained by a great turtle or serpent-of-eternity.
A name: that we may see ourselves more accurately on this continent of watersheds and life-communities - plant zones, physiographic provinces, c ulture areas; following natural boundaries. The "U.S.A." and its states and counties are arbitrary and inaccurate impositions on what is really here.
The poems speak of place, and the energy-pathways that sustain life. Each living being is a swirl in the flow, a formal turbulence, a "song." The land, the planet itself, is also a living being - at another pace. Anglos, Black people, Chicanos, and others beached up on these shores all share such view at the deepest levels of their old cultural traditions - African, Asian, or European. Hark again to those roots, to see our ancient solidarity, and then to the work of being together on Turtle Island.
15) beatitude/ The Beats
• Tied to St. Francis, love of all things; fostering the unity of people, animals and the environment that we share
• In Beat context, has to do with getting out of an individualist mindset and exploring the universal connectivity of life, living
• Could have to do with the contrast between beatitude (love of life) and downbeat, which can be seen as (one of) the human struggle(s)
16) "...our beautiful but lethal Golden Gate Bridge"
• "Reclaiming San Francisco" p. 121 - Suicide in the City by Ann Garrison. Discusses the Golden Gate Bridge's symbolic appeal as a mechanism for suicide, citing the city's large population of at-risk groups (elderly people, unmarried people, Caucasians and Asians, substance abusers, upper and upper-middle classes and terminally ill) as a possible reason for SF's status as a suicide capital.
• Specific appeal for the bridge attracting these cases could have to do with its symbolic location as mouthpiece to the Pacific, end of the Western frontier, etc.
17) City Lights Bookstore in North Beach, SF
• Bookstore popularized by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, first paperback bookstore in country and backing publisher (City Lights Foundation) for much of the Beat literature
18) "Franciscan" San Francisco
• Referenced in Brechin preface, p. xxxii - most noted as the contrast between St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals and the environment, and Brechin's image of Poe's Maelstrom which sucks in animals and resources from the surrounding waters.
• Highlights the city's idealistic foundation and the ways it now poses an urban dichotomy
• from You Are Here (You Think), p. 138 - "... noting the resemblance of this ultra-urban site to natural landscapes of canyons and gullies replete with migrating falcons." ... make your own connections
19) The concept and role of "metatourists" in "You Are Here (You Think): A San Francisco Bus Tour"
20) legacies of the Beat Generation as portrayed by Nancy J. Peters
21) Bayard Taylor
22) "angelheaded hipsters"
The third line of Alan Ginsberg’s Howl uses the words “angelheaded hipsters”:
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz…”
23) Timothy W. Drescher's concept of "street subversion"
• Reclaiming SF, p231
• “the political geography of murals and graffiti”
24) "[ ] created a spontaneous bop prosody and original classic literature. Several phrases and the title of Howl are taken from him."
Jack Kerouac, as featured in the dedications of Alan Ginsberg’s poem, Howl.
25) "Subterranean Homesick Blues"
This is a video by Bob Dylan shown in class in which Dylan holds up cards for the emphasized words in the songs. It is taken from D. A. Pennebaker's film, Dont Look Back (a documentary on Bob Dylan's tour of England in 1965)
I'm just working on filling it out and posting more so here is mine, I will try to continue to update this.
1) "Westward the course of empire takes its way ..."
• George Berkeley
Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The first four acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama of the day;
Time’s noblest offspring is the last.
The City of Berkeley was named after Bishop Berkeley who composed these lines in the late 17th century.
2) Gray Brechin's concept of "the contado"
Contado is an Italian word which refers to the territory commanded by a dominant city. The contado provides essential resources and labor to power the capital.
3) "A Walden Pond for Winos"/ Washington Square in SF
• Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America. p17
Walden Pond for Winos is a vignette about Brautigan’s relation to the hobos in Washington Square in SF, where they drink port wine and discuss making money off a flea circus.
4) Tony Bennet, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"
Tony Bennet released this song on a 1962 album of the same name. It is one of the two official anthems adopted by the city of SF. It is played after SF Giants home game victories.
We were shown Union Bank of California’s 2001 use of the song in a promo video where SF local hula dancers emote the words with hand gestures.
5) Moloch
Moloch is the name of a figure in the Old Testament which was worshiped by a tribe. Moloch was a god who required great sacrifices in a fiery manner. Allen Ginsberg employed Moloch in Howl, part 2. Moloch is used as a metaphor for the American city, thus aligning McCarthy-era America with the demon.
6) "I was certainly surprised to be named Poet Laureate of this far out city on the left side of the world"
7) "Such was life in the Colden Gate:/ Gold dusted all that we drank and ate, / And I was one of the children told, 'We all must eat our peck of gold.'"
(a peck is a 2-gallon volume of any dry substance)
A Peck of Gold
by Robert Lee Frost
Dust always blowing about the town,
Except when sea-fog laid it down,
And I was one of the children told
Some of the blowing dust was gold.
All the dust the wind blew high
Appeared like god in the sunset sky,
But I was one of the children told
Some of the dust was really gold.
Such was life in the Golden Gate:
Gold dusted all we drank and ate,
And I was one of the children told,
'We all must eat our peck of gold.'
We should look at the two central images in this poem, Dust and Gold. Dust is representative of the poor and lower class of San Francisco, with gold representative of dreams of the riches. We see the juxtaposition, poverty and wealth, dust and gold.
8) North Beach
9) "Coming Into the Watershed"
10) Citizen Kane / William Randolph Hearst
11) Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
This is a reservoir in Yosemite national park. 65mi northeast of Merced, this reservoir is formed by a concrete dam. It’s primary purpose is to supply drinking water to San Francisco.
12) Alcatraz Is Not an Island
13) "The Day They Busted the Grateful Dead"
• Brautigan's The Pill vs. The Springhill Mine Disaster p. 104:
The day they busted the Grateful Dead
rain stormed against San Francisco
like hot swampy scissors cutting Justice
into the evil clothes that alligators wear.
The day they busted the Grateful Dead
was like a flight of winged alligators
carefully measuring marble with black
rubber telescopes
The day they busted the Grateful Dead
turned like wet breath of alligators
blowing up balloons the size of the
Hall of Justice
• Brautigan operating in the prophetic mode, evoking images of injustice and the mechanism of the state imposing its will against one of the greatest symbols of 1960s counter culture, political freedom, etc.
14) Turtle Island
• Gary Snyder, p. 243: Concept of North America as "Turtle Island," de-familiarization of 18th century to present day understanding of USA
• Marks a return to the naturalist/native concept of the land and its creatures
• Criticizes the "discovery" discourse describing the colonization/founding/expansion of America and "frontier" mentality
• Deconstruction of modern concept of the community centered around urban and suburban spaces - return to the wild
• Introductory Note from Turtle Island (1969):
Turtle Island - the old/new name for the continent, based on many creation myths of the people who have been living here for millennia, and reapplied by some of them to "North America" in recent years. Also, an idea found world-wide, of the earth, or cosmos even, sustained by a great turtle or serpent-of-eternity.
A name: that we may see ourselves more accurately on this continent of watersheds and life-communities - plant zones, physiographic provinces, c ulture areas; following natural boundaries. The "U.S.A." and its states and counties are arbitrary and inaccurate impositions on what is really here.
The poems speak of place, and the energy-pathways that sustain life. Each living being is a swirl in the flow, a formal turbulence, a "song." The land, the planet itself, is also a living being - at another pace. Anglos, Black people, Chicanos, and others beached up on these shores all share such view at the deepest levels of their old cultural traditions - African, Asian, or European. Hark again to those roots, to see our ancient solidarity, and then to the work of being together on Turtle Island.
15) beatitude/ The Beats
• Tied to St. Francis, love of all things; fostering the unity of people, animals and the environment that we share
• In Beat context, has to do with getting out of an individualist mindset and exploring the universal connectivity of life, living
• Could have to do with the contrast between beatitude (love of life) and downbeat, which can be seen as (one of) the human struggle(s)
16) "...our beautiful but lethal Golden Gate Bridge"
• "Reclaiming San Francisco" p. 121 - Suicide in the City by Ann Garrison. Discusses the Golden Gate Bridge's symbolic appeal as a mechanism for suicide, citing the city's large population of at-risk groups (elderly people, unmarried people, Caucasians and Asians, substance abusers, upper and upper-middle classes and terminally ill) as a possible reason for SF's status as a suicide capital.
• Specific appeal for the bridge attracting these cases could have to do with its symbolic location as mouthpiece to the Pacific, end of the Western frontier, etc.
17) City Lights Bookstore in North Beach, SF
• Bookstore popularized by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, first paperback bookstore in country and backing publisher (City Lights Foundation) for much of the Beat literature
18) "Franciscan" San Francisco
• Referenced in Brechin preface, p. xxxii - most noted as the contrast between St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals and the environment, and Brechin's image of Poe's Maelstrom which sucks in animals and resources from the surrounding waters.
• Highlights the city's idealistic foundation and the ways it now poses an urban dichotomy
• from You Are Here (You Think), p. 138 - "... noting the resemblance of this ultra-urban site to natural landscapes of canyons and gullies replete with migrating falcons." ... make your own connections
19) The concept and role of "metatourists" in "You Are Here (You Think): A San Francisco Bus Tour"
20) legacies of the Beat Generation as portrayed by Nancy J. Peters
21) Bayard Taylor
22) "angelheaded hipsters"
The third line of Alan Ginsberg’s Howl uses the words “angelheaded hipsters”:
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz…”
23) Timothy W. Drescher's concept of "street subversion"
• Reclaiming SF, p231
• “the political geography of murals and graffiti”
24) "[ ] created a spontaneous bop prosody and original classic literature. Several phrases and the title of Howl are taken from him."
Jack Kerouac, as featured in the dedications of Alan Ginsberg’s poem, Howl.
25) "Subterranean Homesick Blues"
This is a video by Bob Dylan shown in class in which Dylan holds up cards for the emphasized words in the songs. It is taken from D. A. Pennebaker's film, Dont Look Back (a documentary on Bob Dylan's tour of England in 1965)
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Zen for Beginners
You touch a doorknob and it is sticky
You touch a chair and it is sticky
You touch a desk and it is sticky
You touch a pen and it is sticky
You touch a cup and it is sticky
It is not these things which are sticky
But you who are sticky
You touch a chair and it is sticky
You touch a desk and it is sticky
You touch a pen and it is sticky
You touch a cup and it is sticky
It is not these things which are sticky
But you who are sticky
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Two Short Poems
"Sir, have you been drinking tonight?"
--------------------Yes, how nice of you to ask.
Dead Baby Jokes
--------------------Does not "break the ice"
--------------------Yes, how nice of you to ask.
Dead Baby Jokes
--------------------Does not "break the ice"
The Musings of someone completely out of their mind
Her name is Hilary
She is tall and gaunt
But she has a small ribcage
a distinctly feminine feature
It makes her B-cup breasts
look good on her slim frame
And she's got a big butt for a skinny girl
And good legs
I had struck up a conversation
a week before
Now she sees me
as the room fills up
She sits in a vacant seat
rows ahead of me
I dream of
throwing a book at her head
She is tall and gaunt
But she has a small ribcage
a distinctly feminine feature
It makes her B-cup breasts
look good on her slim frame
And she's got a big butt for a skinny girl
And good legs
I had struck up a conversation
a week before
Now she sees me
as the room fills up
She sits in a vacant seat
rows ahead of me
I dream of
throwing a book at her head
Outside
Sitting outside,
the flies don't buzz your ears.
The outside flies accept
that their parents did the best they could
to raise them
with what they had.
Not like the psychologically frustrated flies
who buzz your eyes and nose
in sticky and uncomfortable
hot classrooms.
Those tiny black bastards,
with angst from their repressed desires,
take the rage out on you!
Fly in low, buzzing
right inside the ear canal
so the sound magnifies
like a Metallica amp turning on suddenly
next to your ear
and recoil like an idiot
like all those times you walked into spider webs
Not even the best fly psychologist
could change these neurotic fuckers.
Impossible to relieve their stress!
they also
sick of
being in this
fucking room.
the flies don't buzz your ears.
The outside flies accept
that their parents did the best they could
to raise them
with what they had.
Not like the psychologically frustrated flies
who buzz your eyes and nose
in sticky and uncomfortable
hot classrooms.
Those tiny black bastards,
with angst from their repressed desires,
take the rage out on you!
Fly in low, buzzing
right inside the ear canal
so the sound magnifies
like a Metallica amp turning on suddenly
next to your ear
and recoil like an idiot
like all those times you walked into spider webs
Not even the best fly psychologist
could change these neurotic fuckers.
Impossible to relieve their stress!
they also
sick of
being in this
fucking room.
Monday, October 20, 2008
2) Brautigan's Search for the American Dream
In the Summer of 1961, Brautigan set off with his wife Virginia and his Daughter, Ianthe, in their Plymouth Station Wagon. The Wagon was armed with lanterns and stoves, sleeping bags, a card table, a 7' bamboo fishing rod, and a portable typewriter. It probably looked like this:
In 1967, Trout Fishing in America was published, the result of the trip in the well-armed Plymouth that occured six years earlier throughout the expanse of Idaho's Stanley Basin. Brautigan had eventually traded away that 7' bamboo fishing rod and later still, that rod was sold on eBay. The people who were looking to buy it saw this:
(I can't properly footnote in the blog, so let me say here that the previous information was gathered from this page: http://www.brautigan.net/trout.html)
Trout Fishing in America, itself, is a black joke that someone is the brunt of. You might not know it, but Trout Fishing in America could have other people laughing at you!
The Mayor of the Twentieth Century wears a costume of Trout Fishing in America in order to hide himself while he murdered. Trout Fishing in America Shorty is a crippled wino rolling around in a wheelchair. "Shorty, ha! You would be short too if you didn't have any shins!" he seems to say. Trout Fishing in America himself is a middle aged, average American, who is a blue collar worker and an avid fisherman. Trout Fishing in America is what the sixth graders write on the backs of the first graders. Trout Fishing in America is a concept for a ballet to be performed in Los Angeles based upon the movements of carnivorous plants.
Trout Fishing in America is embodied as many people, both alive and dead. It is a rich gourmet with Maria Callas for a girlfriend. It appeared to be dead from asphyxiation to the medical examiner, who dissected its skull and sent it to be put in a cask of spirits. Trout Fishing in America leaves short commentary at the end of some vignettes. He also exists as someone who has been around since Lewis and Clark and been there to experience it, well, almost all of the American Experience, excepting a particular Deanna Durbin movie.
This is what Deanna Durbin looks like, and according to Trout Fishing in America, not what the Missouri River looks like:
Just to get an idea of what Trout Fishing in America is, these are some of the things which it embodies. Yet Trout Fishing in America is meant to be surreal and elusive, like the experience of Alonso Hagen in "Trout Fishing on the Street of Eternity," who never does catch a trout despite his numerous attempts to over a span of years. (see p.80-85)
Perhaps it is best to describe Brautigan's work here as another quest to find what Hunter S. Thompson tried to describe as the Heart of the American Dream. Both Thompson and Brautigan seem to divide the time of their search between the road, hotels, the great outdoors and wilderness, the inner city, and the social experiences with average Americans. The question that comes naturally from their experiments is: did they find the American Dream? I think the answer has to be unequivocally no, neither found the American Dream, but they put forward poetically graceful concepts about what the American Dream is. For Brautigan, the concept of the American Dream can be boiled down into four words, "Trout Fishing in America." It's accessible to every American, whether in rags or riches, and it comes from the grace of the American land in both the mind of the innermost quarters of the cities and the hearts of the lush, untamed wild.
In 1967, Trout Fishing in America was published, the result of the trip in the well-armed Plymouth that occured six years earlier throughout the expanse of Idaho's Stanley Basin. Brautigan had eventually traded away that 7' bamboo fishing rod and later still, that rod was sold on eBay. The people who were looking to buy it saw this:
(I can't properly footnote in the blog, so let me say here that the previous information was gathered from this page: http://www.brautigan.net/trout.html)
Trout Fishing in America, itself, is a black joke that someone is the brunt of. You might not know it, but Trout Fishing in America could have other people laughing at you!
The Mayor of the Twentieth Century wears a costume of Trout Fishing in America in order to hide himself while he murdered. Trout Fishing in America Shorty is a crippled wino rolling around in a wheelchair. "Shorty, ha! You would be short too if you didn't have any shins!" he seems to say. Trout Fishing in America himself is a middle aged, average American, who is a blue collar worker and an avid fisherman. Trout Fishing in America is what the sixth graders write on the backs of the first graders. Trout Fishing in America is a concept for a ballet to be performed in Los Angeles based upon the movements of carnivorous plants.
Trout Fishing in America is embodied as many people, both alive and dead. It is a rich gourmet with Maria Callas for a girlfriend. It appeared to be dead from asphyxiation to the medical examiner, who dissected its skull and sent it to be put in a cask of spirits. Trout Fishing in America leaves short commentary at the end of some vignettes. He also exists as someone who has been around since Lewis and Clark and been there to experience it, well, almost all of the American Experience, excepting a particular Deanna Durbin movie.
This is what Deanna Durbin looks like, and according to Trout Fishing in America, not what the Missouri River looks like:
Just to get an idea of what Trout Fishing in America is, these are some of the things which it embodies. Yet Trout Fishing in America is meant to be surreal and elusive, like the experience of Alonso Hagen in "Trout Fishing on the Street of Eternity," who never does catch a trout despite his numerous attempts to over a span of years. (see p.80-85)
Perhaps it is best to describe Brautigan's work here as another quest to find what Hunter S. Thompson tried to describe as the Heart of the American Dream. Both Thompson and Brautigan seem to divide the time of their search between the road, hotels, the great outdoors and wilderness, the inner city, and the social experiences with average Americans. The question that comes naturally from their experiments is: did they find the American Dream? I think the answer has to be unequivocally no, neither found the American Dream, but they put forward poetically graceful concepts about what the American Dream is. For Brautigan, the concept of the American Dream can be boiled down into four words, "Trout Fishing in America." It's accessible to every American, whether in rags or riches, and it comes from the grace of the American land in both the mind of the innermost quarters of the cities and the hearts of the lush, untamed wild.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
1) Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Our "San Francisco Poems" by Fernlinghetti is a short anthology of his works. After the introductory pages where we establish Fernlinghetti as San Francisco's Poet Laureate, we are confronted by Ferlinghetti in his 'Challenges to Young Poets.' His strongest criticisms of poetry are reflected on p30, where he says:
"Cultivate dissidence and critical thinking.
"First thought, best thought" may not make
for the greatest poetry. First thought may be
worst thought.
What's on your mind? What do you have in
mind? Open your mouth and stop mumbling.
Don't be so open-minded that your brains fall
out.
Question everything and everyone. Be sub-
versive, constantly questioning reality and
the status quo.
Be a poet, not a huckster. Don't cater, don't
pander, especially not to possible audiences,
readers, editors, or publishers."
This is a powerful challenge! He demands poets be counter-culture, dissenters of the popular, and independent of support. This is like the classic teenage ideal where the teenage poet believes he can change the world without ever being popular or selling-out. It's the anti sell-out idea. Don't sell out to main-stream ideas, don't sell out to business.
While "San Francisco Poems" is merely an anthology of his poems, I don't feel he's met his own challenge in most of his own poetry. Most of it is sensory and sentimental - describing things he believes are beautiful and interesting. Most of it is shallow in it's prettiness.
Like, right after the 'Challenge to Young Poets' when he has 'A North Beach Scene.' This and many of his poems are rather Frost-like in that they are quaint and touchy-feely but they have no edge.
The next two poems have some subversive elements in them. He gives them a bit more edge, but not all the way as to be the kind of extreme edge that he calls for in his "Challenge."
He makes a clever juxtaposition in 'They Were Putting Up a Statue..." where he contrasts the classic image of St. Francis in nature with birds joining him on his head and outstretched arms with the city scene where they raise a statue of the Saint in a totally birdless square. Then, with the idea that this San Francisco is rather un-Francis-like, we have a unique touch of San Francisco city culture at the end of the poem where he vaguely mentions that perhaps a nude blond girl with a birds nest is walking among people watching the statue-raising. Is this something that really happened/happens? Is this girl real or is she what he envisions should be there during this statue-raising? The idea of this naked virgin with a bird's nest is a rather pagan image to have around St. Francis, but maybe St. Francis' nature-worship is a rather pagan concept.
With 'Dog' he gets existential, observing the world through the eyes of a dog who is cognizant of San Francisco's political atmosphere. That sounds odd, but he makes it pretty enough so that it's very pallateable. The dog's commentary becomes edgy when he disregards the power of the cops. The dog sees cops as another animal, a predator, tougher to eat and stringier than easy prey, such as a tender cow. Ferlinghetti parallels the dog with the young man, who sees the world as though he is uncorrupted, as though he sees it in a more true and unjaded way. The dog is "touching and tasting and testing everything / investigating everything / without benefit of perjury / a real realist." It's his ideal that he expects from young poets. But, he jabs at this teenage, youthful "purity of mind" in his last image where he metaphorically displays the dog as a product of his cultutre. The dog was an observer in most of the poem and then, he becomes the image of the big-label. The proverbial sell-out.
"Cultivate dissidence and critical thinking.
"First thought, best thought" may not make
for the greatest poetry. First thought may be
worst thought.
What's on your mind? What do you have in
mind? Open your mouth and stop mumbling.
Don't be so open-minded that your brains fall
out.
Question everything and everyone. Be sub-
versive, constantly questioning reality and
the status quo.
Be a poet, not a huckster. Don't cater, don't
pander, especially not to possible audiences,
readers, editors, or publishers."
This is a powerful challenge! He demands poets be counter-culture, dissenters of the popular, and independent of support. This is like the classic teenage ideal where the teenage poet believes he can change the world without ever being popular or selling-out. It's the anti sell-out idea. Don't sell out to main-stream ideas, don't sell out to business.
While "San Francisco Poems" is merely an anthology of his poems, I don't feel he's met his own challenge in most of his own poetry. Most of it is sensory and sentimental - describing things he believes are beautiful and interesting. Most of it is shallow in it's prettiness.
Like, right after the 'Challenge to Young Poets' when he has 'A North Beach Scene.' This and many of his poems are rather Frost-like in that they are quaint and touchy-feely but they have no edge.
The next two poems have some subversive elements in them. He gives them a bit more edge, but not all the way as to be the kind of extreme edge that he calls for in his "Challenge."
He makes a clever juxtaposition in 'They Were Putting Up a Statue..." where he contrasts the classic image of St. Francis in nature with birds joining him on his head and outstretched arms with the city scene where they raise a statue of the Saint in a totally birdless square. Then, with the idea that this San Francisco is rather un-Francis-like, we have a unique touch of San Francisco city culture at the end of the poem where he vaguely mentions that perhaps a nude blond girl with a birds nest is walking among people watching the statue-raising. Is this something that really happened/happens? Is this girl real or is she what he envisions should be there during this statue-raising? The idea of this naked virgin with a bird's nest is a rather pagan image to have around St. Francis, but maybe St. Francis' nature-worship is a rather pagan concept.
With 'Dog' he gets existential, observing the world through the eyes of a dog who is cognizant of San Francisco's political atmosphere. That sounds odd, but he makes it pretty enough so that it's very pallateable. The dog's commentary becomes edgy when he disregards the power of the cops. The dog sees cops as another animal, a predator, tougher to eat and stringier than easy prey, such as a tender cow. Ferlinghetti parallels the dog with the young man, who sees the world as though he is uncorrupted, as though he sees it in a more true and unjaded way. The dog is "touching and tasting and testing everything / investigating everything / without benefit of perjury / a real realist." It's his ideal that he expects from young poets. But, he jabs at this teenage, youthful "purity of mind" in his last image where he metaphorically displays the dog as a product of his cultutre. The dog was an observer in most of the poem and then, he becomes the image of the big-label. The proverbial sell-out.
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