>> So, now we have Allen Ginsberg's Howl. And I think, Amaris brought this fabulous edition, this City Lights edition. >> Mm-hmm. >> Isn't that great? >> Yup. >> I love that. Did you just. >> Near and dear to my heart. No, I've had it for a while. >> Did you just, you've had it for awhile but it's pristine. You're supposed to write in it. Oh, you wrote a little bit in it. >> [laugh] >> The this is, this is this is quite a poem, and you know, given the conformities we've been dealing with recently, this is a, this is a real breakthrough in the mid 50's. So, let's just look at some passages, let's do the best we can with it. There's so much we could say, and so much we won't get to say. But let's start right away with this fabulous, famous first line, I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked. Let me ask this question of you. How is it possible for the best minds of a generation, minds, best minds, best brains, best intelligences of a generation to pass through universities among the scholars of war expelled from the academies for crazy. What's the disjuncture here? What's wrong, Emily? >> The academy's supposed to be the sanctuary for the best minds of her generation, and. >> And yet? >> Here, they're expelled or not welcomed, they're destroyed. >> So why do you think they're not welcomed, Molly? >> Because their ideas are too radical, they don't fit in the academic box. >> Mm-hm. Any, anybody else? Anna? >> I think he's defining best minds in my generation differently than the academies would define best minds of a generation. >> How? How? Just give us a starter on this, how's he defining. >> Well, I mean, some people would define best minds of a generation is like philosopher, scholar type. Someone who. >> Mm-hm. >> You know, wants to sit in an office. >> Mm-hm. >> With leatherbound books, and read all day, and write papers but. >> Mm-hm. >> This is a different kind of best mind, this is the creative best mind. >> Why scholars of war? Anybody? Dave? Scholars of war. He's, that's clearly not a happy phrase. >> I think he's just referring to the old traditional power structure and these people you know, the teachers came out of World War [inaudible] and they're all in reaction to that and they taught. >> They are in reaction, not the teachers but the beats. >> Right, right. The teachers are a product of World War II. >> Right. Scholars of war, it's really it's really quite a specific reference in a way, a generational reference. It's not simply that these are scholars who fought in World War II, but that the universities, as they became mega-universities, universities like the University of California, Berkeley. Berkeley we call it, or Cal. The, this, this became a kind of mega university where there were, in fact, scholars in new, let's say, political science, regional science related disciplines that were actually doing the work of the government in the cold war, I think that's probably the reference here. And that to be affiliated with such university for someone like Ginsberg, it felt as if there were ethical compromises involved. Okay. So, expelled from the academies for crazy. Any final comment on this? Max? What, what, what's, he seems to be declaring something passionately. It's very intellectual, this poem, but it's not happening in the universities expelled. Let's just say one more about this expelled from the academies for crazy. >> It, it seems like we're, we're, we're wondering what the crazy is, like what is it's almost like it should go with for, for academies for publishing crazy and obscene odes. But rather, he just says crazy. >> Crazy becomes the noun. >> Goes back to just that like that, that madness that has completely destroyed them. >> Mm-hm. >> These best minds that just crazy. >> So, what, we'll have more to say about this madness but clearly it's not, it's not acceptable to think this way, to be this way, to exist this way in a university. Alright, so lets go to a second passage. This is a passage beginning with peyote solidities and somebody want to say anything about that phrase peyote solidities? The way it sounds. Ali, what's it sound like? Peyo, can you do a close reading of the sound? Peyote solidities? >> Peyote solidities. >> Mm-hm. >> Yeah, that's the phrase. >> I was just, I was just verbalizing. >> Okay, peyote solidities. >> Say that five times. >> [laugh] >> That would be difficult. >> Peyote solidities, peyote solidities. What's it sounds like? >> I mean, it's a, it's not quite a tongue, a tongue twister but it definitely has a rhythm to it. >> It's hard, we're not, we're, I, I don't, no slight against you. We, well, none of us, is really ready to talk about the sound of words as only the sound. We quickly go to semantics and when we're, when semantics is taken away from us, we don't, we don't quite know what to do but let's just get into this, okay? Peyote solidities, it's a kind of metrical rhyme. The words sound alike in their syllabic structures. This whole section here, this, this mini stanza is a sound poem, it's like babble-flow, as Kerouac calls it. And I would like to play it for you, a little passage from one of Ginsberg's performances and then we'll briefly talk about it. >> Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind. >> And I'll do the next, not as well as Ginsberg just did, but I'll do the next one. Who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo. Anybody want to pick anything and talk about the sound. Go ahead. Amaris, you first. >> When I felt there was such a high concentration of consonants, I stopped really thinking about the semantic meaning as [unknown] saying. >> Oh, fantastic. >> I mean, really, it doesn't take away from the enjoyment at all. In fact, it enhances the enjoyment just to feel that. >> Oh, nice. >> The tension of those syllables that you brought along on that ride. >> So, the, the type of phrasing and the soundings make you conscious of sound, and make you relax a little bit that you may not need to just do semantic sense making. Anna it's, so that was a kind of a general statement but still good. Can you do a little close reading of some of the phrases? >> Well, let's look at. >> Close, close sound reading. >> Sure. Let's look at battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance. >> There you go, what have you got there? >> That's unbelievable. We have like these B's. >> Mm-hm. >> Battered bleak, brain, and then. >> Battered, bleak, brain, brilliance. >> Battered and bleak sort of go together cuz there's the hard consonants in the middle there, with the T, T and then the K. >> Mm-hm. >> And then brain, all drain. There's like, amazing internal rhyme. >> Internal rhyme, mm-hm. >> And then, drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo. I mean, it just, it, it begs to be read in a very certain way. >> I don't typically do this in this course, but I just want to add like a footnote here. This, it sounds almost exactly like it comes from the soundings of Gerard Manley Hopkins, he was a poet not read very often but whose poem, The Windhover, uses the word bleak in the same kind of way. And I think also, brilliance, I'm not sure. It's, it's, and Gerard Manley Hopkins is a poet of wrought, carefully wrought poetry. So, this is going to challenge the Cliche, the stereotype, somewhat reinforced by our decision to wear black and Max's, to wear a beret. >> [laugh] >> Today, somewhat, somewhat, unfortunately, comprised by that silliness. It's in the style of beatnik, as opposed to beat, as in beatific or beat, beat down which is what Kerouac and others in Burroughs and others thought that beat should mean. Beatnik, meaning a kind of satirized version of it and the, you know, the, the kind of tour of the Greenwich Village or of neighborhoods in San Francisco. And how, what, so that cliche is the cliche of this typically semantic, counter-cultural, we stand for something different. We live a different style. How is that? How does this passage that we just talked about contradict that stereotype of the beats, of the beat writers? >> Well, if there is such, I mean, you're right. The language is, I mean, as, as nicely as it kinda flows off the tongue, it is wrought because you know, there, there are internal rhymes. There, there is a little bit of, of structure here. >> A. >> As much they could have. >> Little. >> Well, as, as much as it like, on the surface kind of resists that structure, like, it's there. >> It's there. It is carefully wrought. It just isn't spontaneous in the sense of written and, and not thought about the way it sounds. And, and I'll just say by way of concluding this little close reading that the next section which talks about talking, talking continuously, 70 hours. Batallion of platonic conversationalists yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering. It's as if, as if first you have to move through, you have to be expelled from the academy, then you have to completely get rid of semanticism, or almost completely. And you have to just completely immerse yourself in the sound of words in this visionary romanticism, and then come out the other end, and just talk. Just yacketayak, just talk. Just, just language coming out and that's really what we're seeing here. Alright. Our next passage is simply a line or two, depending on how you lineate it. Who studied Plotinus Poe St John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the universe instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas. I have two questions for you. One, what kind of curriculum is this? What kind of anthology is this? And two, Why, how does the word because work? Is it really cause and effect? First, the easy, slightly easier question. What kind of curriculum is this? Is this a curriculum you're going to get in a class at the University of Pennsylvania, Ali? >> I wish. >> [laugh] >> Actually, I think it's possible. Sort of. >> It's possible. >> If you. >> Certainly. >> If you. >> Because look at Amaris's shirt. >> [laugh] >> I mean, a university that could offer a black T-shirt that still established for, 1745. That word, established, in context with the black. I mean, it's, and it's branded and every, ayayay. Anyway, it must, this university must be okay. Anyway, Ali, go ahead. >> I think it's, it's certainly a mystical syllabus. >> It's a mystic, mystical. >> Spiritual. >> Any mysticism in there? >> Well, Kabbalah. >> Bop kabbalah, ... >> Bop kabbalah, yeah. Bop is jazz, right? >> St John of the cross. >> St John of the cross who is a saint, who is into certain mysticism and also a poet. Yeah. >>, So, Max, tell us about Bop kabbalah real quick. >> Well, bop is, is definitely a reference to Bebop, which was the, the jazz of the time. >> Characterized by. >> By lots of improvisation, atonality, sort of, exploratory music making. >> Right. Right. Spontaneous, spontaneity within a certain basic constraint, kind of an outline, yeah. >> Sure. >> And Bop kabbalah itself is a phrase, sounds. >> It sounds, it sounds like Bop. >> It sounds like Bop. Yeah, it's a pretty, it's a pretty great phrase. >> It's a wonderful phrase. >> Okay. So we're, so this is the alternative, this is the non-academic, this is your reading list if you want to be a beat, right? You, this is what you, and the, and he's saying, these are, and we, though the best minds of the, the generation were expelled from the academies, who have studied this stuff, implicitly you should do it, too. Okay. So, what was my second question? Why because? They study these things because the cosmos, the cosmos instinctively vibrated. Any idea? It's a tough question. Is there cause and effect? >> Maybe out of an intuitive sense of affinity to these, these poets who may not be affiliated with any institution. So what. >> Good you're getting there. >> Right. >> Just, just freewheel a little bit on this. Molly? >> If the cosmos is vibrating, vibrating at their feet then they're feeling something else. They're sensing something else in the world that's. >> And where? Is it New York or San Francisco? Is it Columbia University? >> It's Kansas. >> It's Kansas, it's the middle of the middle of the country. You know, it's this is, this is the, a kind of reference to their traveling university, you know? >> [inaudible]. >> With someone on speed driving the car, a jalopy, real fast across the country and back again and getting to Kansas and feeling the, the continentalism of, of, of America, really, that's kind of instructing them to try a different intellectual tradition. Go ahead, Ali ... >> Yeah. I think the fact that Kansas is specified kind of hints to, I mean, that's so specific and it's interesting to kind of, if you were thinking about this in strictly traditional cause and effect, in a cause and effect way, then, you know, the fact that it's only because this vibration happened in Kansas that they adopted this kind of alternate syllabus. I think that kind of hints to, or, or points towards kind of a multiplicity of, causes. >> That's really great. I, I've been reading this poem for a long time and I never thought of that. Let me see if I can, in a friendly way, translate and maybe add to what you've just said. If you read all these things, one of the things that's consistent in all, in this curriculum as a kind of issuing, issuing a cause and effect. A kind of, a kind of non-rationalism that in fact, creates this co, antic, comic, joking, cause and effect thing about, why is it that we read this? Because of this thing that doesn't make sense. Alright. So, let's do one, let's talk about one more passage close to this one and then we'll take a break and come back and, and, finish, in so far as we can finish it at all the first section of Howl. And this is this wonderful passage about, about the FBI who reappeared on the west coast. I love that, reappeared. They've been driving. They put their feet in Kansas, they listen to the vibration, they read all this weird stuff. And then, now fully reeducated and fresh, they arrive. They have reappear [laugh] in San Francisco. And now, they're investigating the FBI in beards and shorts with big pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incomprehensible leaflets. Burning cigarette holes in their arms protesting the nar, narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism, and distributing Supercommunist pamphlets, Supercommunist is capitalised, in Union Square, that's in New York, I think. I don't know if there's a Union Square in San Francisco, I think this is New York. Weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry, etc. Okay. So, what's going on here? Firstly, say anything about what's going on. >> Well. >> Go ahead, Emily and then Molly. >> Well, I just I think, one of my favorite parts of this poem was invest, that these people are investigating the FBI. They're investigating the investigators and. >> Right. >> It seems that what these people are doing here, these rejects were doing, is their the ones who are asking the serious questions. And that, maybe in order to ask those serious questions about what we're doing and how we're doing it, we have to be sort of looking, looking in as outsiders. We have to be like rejects of some kind. >> Good, nice. Molly? >> Yeah, it's almost like conspiracy theorist. >> [laugh] >> Type of thing with really asking. >> Oh, absolutely. Paranoia. Mm-hm. >> Yeah, yeah. Asking the questions that most people would rather not ask. And, and they're trying to make a political statement but it becomes a very sort of, incomprehensible multifaceted general dissatisfied political statement. >> Yeah. I mean, this is a counterculture that isn't reproducing the I'm right, no, I'm right, left, right political discourse that they inherited from the 20's, and 30's and 40's and was still going on in the 50's. This was a way of saying, standing completely aside from that. And then, presenting as another side, something that doesn't participate in the political discourse at all that makes no sense, something that is incomprehensible, right? And what else is incomprehensible here? You have this, what, what else is incomprehensible here? What else, what else is worth saying about this, what kind of protest against the cigarette companies do we have? It's not, it's not we abstain from cigarettes. We're going to burn ourselves, right? America, you made me, I am you. If you want me to be addicted to Time Magazine, I'm addicted to Time Magazine. If you want me smoke, I'll smoke all the way to messing round with my body, yeah. And then, you have the, the beards and shorts with big pacifist sexy eyes, eyes sexy in the dark skin. You have, you have the, kind of shy and yet still exuberant celebration of various kinds of differences. You have implicitly a Jewish difference or a dark-skinned difference and you have implicitly, a gay difference. And, that's also a way in which the FBI is going to be very, very confused. A final word on this, Los Alamos, Dave? >> That's where they had the Manhattan Project where they created the atomic bomb which I think also refers back to scholars of war. I think, this is just like Richard Feynman were scholars of Cal and helped create the bomb. >> Interesting. So, it's another way of protesting something that's obviously dominating culture in the 1950's, namely, fears of nuclear annihilation. So, you have this protest in Union Square. I mean, this may actually be the night, I don't know this, I'm not a scholar, speaking of scholars of Ginsberg. But, it may be that this is a reference to the 1955 protest, ten years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which surely involved Union Square as well as other places around the country in which, there was a kind of moment of silence. And so, you have this weeping and undressing, this kind of counter-cultural move. This abashment in the face of, you know, so it would seem like non-parallel. Weeping and undressing versus nuclear annihilation. But these, these people see a, a connection between them.
