Subterranean Homesick Blues is probably just Professor Wilson wanting us to allude to Bob Dylan's "Beat" phase where he was kickin it with Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg and pretending to be a poet. I don't know if you already know that and are looking for more, but I can't really remember much else being said about it. The vague references to anti-government and drug use in the song are also kind of beat-y.
Subterranean Homesick Blues is probably just Professor Wilson wanting us to allude to Bob Dylan's "Beat" phase where he was kickin it with Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg and pretending to be a poet. I don't know if you already know that and are looking for more, but I can't really remember much else being said about it. The vague references to anti-government and drug use in the song are also kind of beat-y.
Yeah, I remembered that much, but I didn't really get anything deeper, and it seems as if we're expected to say more than just origins and author/artist. I wasn't sure how to relate it to the content of the course. Thanks for the help, though!
Just an added thought to the question (more info can't hurt); I think as far as the song's relevance to SF, one could notice the incorporation of music into the beat movement. The cross over into other media (rather than just poetry) reflects how pervasive and important the aforesaid commentary within the song was really becoming around this time. It foreshadowed similar movements that would follow as well.
For #13-bob weir and rob mckernan were arrested on narcotics charges in San Francisco in the 60s. They were living near Haight street in the city- so that's the only thing that really relates to san francisco. Other than that i guess you could talk about san francisco's free spiritedness and how richard brautigan embodies this in his poem? or something....
A good way to become more specific is to look at the syllabus again--check out the heading for that week and then think about why all of the readings for that week were put together in the same week.
i.e. How doe Dylan relate to Braughtgin and the tour bus project, or murals?
Hey, I hope everyone is looking at this periodically for ideas like I am. Hopefully this starts a chain that will help us all out. What I hope we do is just down a few lines for each topic from the notes we have and have a class collaboration. I got most of them down but my head is starting to hurt so I'm asking for some help. Add whatever you want (hopefully it's helpful). If we all do this it will be so much easier to study, so please help out. I also hope to do this with the other topics. Well, here goes nothing.
Section B: Identifications
1. “Westward the course of empire takes its way…” -Gray Brechin -Imperial San Francisco -manifest destiny compared to an empire -imperialism, westward expansion -SF= queen city -overturning the open minded free loving image -painting of men on horseback leading families to a golden horizon - For Brechin, San Francisco is the culmination of that journey, the exercise of power over territory that is the ultimate expression of Manifest Destiny.
2. Gray Brechin’s concept of “the contado” -Gray Brechin -Imperial San Francisco
3. “A Walden Pond for Winos” / Washington Square in SF -Richard Brautigan -Trout Fishing in America -three beats drinking port in a park across the street from a church -this park is the picture on the cover of the book -discussed how their future was either a flea circus or an insane asylum (better at asylum) -represents the beat way of the world and how the main stream culture looks down upon them (business girls calling them ‘winos’, but really they are doing nothing to offend anyone
4. Tony Bennet, “I Left my Heart in SF” -1954 -sings of how it’s the best city in the world -lovelier than Paris and has more glory than Rome but it’s not as busy as Manhattan -no matter where he goes his heart, his home, will always be SF
5. Moloch -Allen Ginsberg -Howl - a deity whose worship was marked by the propitiatory sacrifice of children by their own parent - Ginsberg intends that the characters he portrays in Part I be understood to have been sacrificed to this idol - Part II is a rant about the state of industrial civilization, characterized in the poem as 'Moloch,' and how it’s devouring the angelheaded hipsters
6. “I was certainly surprised to be named Poet Laureate of the far-out city on the left side of the world.” -Lawrence Ferlinghetti -Inaugural Address from San Francisco Poems -not a Beat, hard worker -far-out is a play on words for the time -left side is both political and imperial -Poet Laureate is opposite of Beat, which is San Francisco
7. “Such was life in the Golden 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.’” -Robert Frost -it’s all about imperialism and the pursuit of wealth and land -gold dusted all we drank and ate = it influenced even our basic needs -dust = poverty, gold = wealth -dust only appeared to be gold when against the sky, none actually was -written from a child’s perspective
8. North Beach -Gary Snyder -“North Beach” A Place in Space -one of if not the only place in America where all ethnicities gets along -people walk there and have a sense of community -Lawrence Ferlinghetti -“A North Beach Scene” San Francisco Poems -a place where many cultures can be heard -center for free thought and the bohemian way -Ferlinghetti feels like it’s losing this -his poem has multiple references to white; “white washed sins, gold hair; white shrouds” -there are chaulkess homes (without filling), voiceless laughter and choiceless gesture
9. “Coming Into the Watershed” -Gary Snyder -A Place in Space -beginning theme seems to be that SF could be anywhere (northern winds, southern point for puffins…) -nature doesn’t follow our imagined constraints, it has its own -the only thing that will last in the world of nature is the watershed, and even that changes
10. Citizen Kane / William Randolph Hearst
11. Hetch Hetchy Reservoir -Gray Brechin -Imperial San Francisco -1906, earthquake and fire destroyed SF -afterwards, society called for a dam at H.H. to bring them water -government, due to voting, is leading the public to believe the water will be free to stop the hysteria -confrontation between progressives and preservationists -any dissent to the popular dam was social suicide, but no one knew what was really happening -dammed Yosemite National Park for water and raised land values -opposite of the Beat culture
12. Alcatraz is not an Island -In November 1969 a small group of Native American students and urban Indians began the occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco. Eventually joined by thousands of Native Americans, they reclaimed “Indian land” for the first time since the 1880s, forever hanging the way Native Americans viewed themselves, their culture, and their sovereign rights. -SF is the city willing to see change and doesn’t hesitate when approached with an idea that is contrary to popular belief
13. “The Day They Busted the Grateful Dead” -Richard Brautigan -The Pill versus the Spring Mine Disaster -rain stormed against SF = even nature herself was angry with the city for busting these icons for drugs -alligator = reference to a song of theirs - people in society that he will not let have power over him
14. Turtle Island -Gary Snyder -A Place in Space -a futuristic name for the United States -no longer divided by invisible lines assigned by the government, but instead by natural beings such as rivers and mountains -I picture it like the shell on a turtles back, the land on which we live, is broken into sections naturally, not forced
15. beatitude / the Beats
16. “…our beautiful but lethal Golden Gate Bridge” -Ann Garrison -Reclaiming San Francisco “Suicide in the City” -Suicide is only one of many dramas acted out on the bridge; the city’s landmark structure has long been a stage for street theatre (protestors against war, research, destruction of nature) -the gate is bet known suicide site, and SF has been accused of taking a perverse pride in its reputation -SF has become known as the country’s suicide capital -support personal choice and officers should not intervene (in suicides) -multiple suicide barriers have been brought to attention, but denied by popular demand -repeated decisions against erecting a suicide barrier have been consistent with SF’s longstanding preoccupation with personal freedom -“What are we known for more than our tolerance and determination to pursue our own paths, except, perhaps, for our beautiful but lethal Golden Gate Bridge?”
17. City Lights Bookstore in North Beach, SF -started by Lawrence Ferlinghetti -first to publish Howl by Allen Ginsberg -basically ground zero for Beat Generation
18. “Franciscan” San Francisco
19. The concept and role of “metatourists” in “You Are Here (You Think): A San Francisco Bus Tour” -Reclaiming San Francisco -Bernie, Dean, and Juliet -tourism in SF is a string of sights and attractions (Bridge, Wharf, Park) with empty spaces between them -their tour filled in those spaces with things that aren’t officially designated as worthy tourist spots -“If anything could make the old sites new, it is the possibility of reconnecting them to individual experience – personal and social discoveries through real interactions with places as they are now – as we are now. The tourists would become the tour.”
20. legacies of the Beat Generation as portrayed by Nancy J. Peters -Reclaiming San Francisco -Nancy J. Peters -In those days San Francisco was a rapacious (greedy) society that offered boundless opportunities for the savage exploitation of man and nature. -There are two elements, at least, that are essential to Bohemianism. The first is devotion or addiction to one of the Seven Arts, the other is poverty -After WWII, the mass media celebrated common sense, social adjustment, conformity, churchgoing, and togetherness. The good life was defined by a house in suburbia, a new car, and synthetic products. -San Francisco was unique for the open and friendly relations between blacks and wites who had gone underground -the beat poet was excoriated as juvenile delinquent, drug addict, and sexual outlaw -Life magazine: ‘bums, hostile little efemales and part-time bohemians are foisted into polite society by a few neurotic and drugged poets…[they are] talkers, loafers, passive little con men, lonely eccentrics, mom-haters, cop-haters, exhibitionists with abused smiles and second mortgages on a bongo drum – writers who cannot write, painters who cannot paint, dancers with unfortunate malfunction of the fetlocks.’ -J. Edgar Hoover warned America the three greatest enemies are Communists, Eggheads, and Beatniks -Counterculture offers an irresistible narrative opportunity, with a colorful cast of characters and the seductive themes of transgression, exile, and utopia -eventually covered by press and became a tourist attraction -brief period of close collaboration of beat writers and artists was over by 1956
21. Bayard Taylor
22. “angelheaded hipsters” -Allen Ginsberg -Howl
23. Timothy W. Drescher’s concept of “street subversion”
24. “[ ] creating a spontaneous bop prosody and original classic literature. Several phrase and the title Howl are taken from him.”
Overall this is looking really great. For the id's that you've got skimpier answers on, ex. Tony Bennet, Howl try to frame your "significance" answer in terms of contrast.
Who is allied with the Tony Bennet vision of San Francisco, and how does that get overturned?
That's where you'll get the pithy expansion out into significance.
Great list Superman! Here's what I have to add. It doesn't complete the list, so it would be great if people will continue to look into those that are still lacking.
1."Westward the Course of Empire"
Line is originally from the poem "On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning" by Bishop George Berkeley, for whom Berkeley was named. Berkeley is a conceptual extension of SF, and it was named for the man who wrote the motto for expansionism - testifies to how ingrained Manifest Destiny is in SF's history.
Also, the painting that shares this title is by Emanuel Leutze.
2. "Contado"
The word "contado" is Italian. Brechin compares SF to Rome because of its extensive contado.
3. "Walden Pond"/Wash. Park
By calling Washington Park the "Walden Pond" of SF, he implies that it is an isolated safe haven for artists and dreamers.
4. Tony Bennet
In 1965, this was made the official theme song of SF in an attempt to preserve this harmless, mythical image of the city. It is undermined by most of the Beats, who recognize the underbelly of SF society and see that it isn't all wonderful. Also, writers like Brechin and Snyder attack the ways the city harms California.
5. Moloch
This section of "Howl" comments on the materialism of cities (not necessarily just SF). Professor Wilson suggested that this is an exorcism in a way, leading the Paradise of the "Footnote."
6. "Far-out city on the left side of the world"
This helps undermine the materialistic, imperialist image sometimes associated with SF. The city is embracing less conventional, more socially conscious poets who step outside of the city and look at its faults as well as its virtues.
10. Citizen Kane/Hearst
The story of Kane is very similar to that of Hearst. By setting it in FL and changing the name, the filmmakers were able to comment on the situation without fear of consequences.
11. Hetch Hetchy
Completed in 1934 SF draws 85% of its water from it. This was an enormous and blatantly selfish expansion the SF contado.
12. Alcatraz is not an Island
The Native Americans only knew how to fight the takeover of their land and culture with an expression of aggressive imperialism, which is how they were wronged in the first place. I'm not sure how this is significant, though.
14. Turtle Island
This is the name for the entire North American continent, not just the US. It erases all political borders, including international ones.
15. beatitude/The Beats
The term "Beat" was coined by Jack Kerouac. Many originally thought it meant "beat down," but he expanded it to mean "beatitude," or kindness, loving of all life, sincere, practicing endurance, etc...like St. Francis.
21. Bayard Taylor
-Gray Brechin's Imperial SF (p. 49) This was the poet who argued that the rape of CA was a good thing because it produced great men and a great, rich society. He originally thought CA was a waste of time, but after returning after much progress was made, he changed his mind and advocated for more development. He prophesied that CA would be like Greece and that her future generations would more than restore the damage done by those who conquered her.
22. "angelheaded hipsters"
Just look at our blog history on this subject.
23. "Street subversion"
Found in Reclaiming SF. Organized neighborhood murals are a way of speaking out against government, authority, intolerance, etc. People with a common goal organize and creatively express their opinions. It's a constructive way of recording history and voicing injustice.
Hey sadie: from my understanding, I think Wilson wants us to know is that "Subterranean Homesick Blues" shows Dylan's involvement with Beats even though he wasn't necessarily a member. I also remember im saying that the title of the song could possibly be related to a novel by Kerouac called The Subterraneans, which was about the Beats. But even before Kerouac's novel was a book by Fyodor Dostoevsky called Notes From The Underground which was popular with Beats like Ginsberg.
a few additional embellishments/IDs which I thought would be helpful:
2) GRay Brechin's concept of the "contado": the idea from Imperial SF of SF being a "Queen City of the Pacific" dominating not just over nearby geographic areas, but the entire Pacific Rim according to Brechin through the Spanish-American War in the Philippines with military bases located in various locations around SF (East Bay area); seen explicitly through the vast aqueduct set-up which allows SF to dominate and control natural resources from the Sierra Nevadas (Hetch Hetchy and Mokelumne Aqueducts; see pg. 112, map 3)
3) - ALSO, don't forget Brautigan's commentary regarding the cover of TFinA: Ben Franklin representing the American Dream that any man can make it (and "Was it Kafka...who said, 'I like Americans because they are healthy and optimistic"), while hungry people "gather in the park across the street from the church"; contrasting what we often choose not to see in America with images which we all too often glorify
9) "Coming into the Watershed": seems to me to be Snyder's reply to Brechin with regards to SF's domineering contado and influence, while suggesting our human-made boundaries to enhanced by understanding natural "contados" for example the ideas of watershed or bioregion
14) Turtle Island: "the old-new name" for the North American continent (243); "rediscovery" of Turtle Island coincides with Snyder's idea of "reinhabitation" and really knowing, valuing, and living off of your "place in space"; suggests mutual respect and engagement (a oneness) between humans and nature -relates back to various Native American cultures' creation stories
17) City Lights Bookstore: Snyder regarding the beats, "It published its poems in its own little magazines, and didn't even bother to submit works to the large established highbrow journals that had held the monopoly on avant-garde writing for so long" (9); City Lights gave the Beats the freedom to stray from mainstream literature tropes and monopolies
You may be going one step beyond the lecture in thinking about the action there as an imperialist counter-takeover.
The way it was positioned in the series of lectures that action seemed to me to be an opening out or first ray of hope after those pretty gloomy Brechin readings.
Remember right after that we got Gary Snyder and all of those crazy art projects.
I'd say, keep the comment that you've already made but in finding the significance contrast the island action a little bit backwards (and then forwards) with Brechin and Snyder.
Good work too on Dylan. But what was that 'far out' subterranesan homesickness contrasting with?
What was life like before Dylan? A quick comparison of Dylan and Bennet might help. Or you could look at the essay in the Peters book.
I feel like something's still missing in the discussions of the significance and it's probably because you are not quite seeing what Dylan and the beats are reacting against...
1. "Westward the course of empire..." -This passage and others like it creates an East-West binary that effectively denigrates the orient. The idea that history starts in the east and moves west served to justify San Francisco's control of the Pacific as well as racism.
4. "I left my heart..." "Mythical" is an appropriate way to describe the picture of San Francisco that Bennett creates in the song. It relates San Francisco to Rome and implies that Bennett's visions of the city conforms to Brechin's imperial city.
6. "I was certainly surprised..." -That Ferlinghetti used "left" and not "west" signifies a movement away from the romanticized expansion west and the imperial connotations that come with it. As if Ferlinghetti believes that SF can transcend its past. This is very imaginative, but, after all, Ferlinghetti discarded Williams dictum "No ideas but in things" (29).
10.Citizen Kane/Hearst Brechin mentions the mystery and curiosity that surrounded what he calls "the Hearst enigma" (214). Citizen Kane can be considered Welles' interest and desire to understand the infamous newsman. At the end of the movie we learn that all Kane ever wanted was to be loved.
12. "Alcatraz is not an inland" -The title suggests rethinking the way we look at geophysical space, inherited as it is from capitalistic notions of property, borders, and limits (to our imaginations). See Snyder and also Ferlinghetti's "Great American Waterfront Poem".
14. "Beat/beatitude" -Beatitude: "the perfect happiness and inner peace enjoyed by the soul in heaven" -This idea of transcending the real and structural by falling out of the mainstream, living among "the teeth and excrement of this life," is paradoxical (Intro to Howl). -Ginsberg: "angel headed hipsters... in the machinery of night" -Beat is to Beatitude as Brechin's imperial SF is to Ferlinghetti's "far-out city." That is to say, this is about re-imagining reality, not material/technological advancing, but using imagination and creativity to move out of this world, to "see" with the eyes of angels.
18. "Franciscan" San Francisco -The San Francisco that Ferlinghetti evokes, a pre-imperial San Francisco named after St. Francis de Assisi. -represents the beatific, or saintly, vision of SF, as opposed to the industrial, imperial and car-wrecked.
24. "...creating a spontaneous beat prosody..." -Ginsberg dedicating Howl to his friend Jack Keroauc, calling him the "New Buddha of American prose". -Enlightenment
Here is some more help with the IDs from Brechin that may help provide further understanding of the terms/ideas:
2) contado:
“For [the Italians], the civilized world was a duality made of the city and its contado -- that is, the territory that the city could militarily dominate and thus draw upon. The contado provided the city with its food, resources, labor, conscripts, and much of its taxes, while its people (the contadini) received a marketplace and a degree of protection in return” (xxxi).
“The contado contains other cities and villages that owe tribute to the dominant city. Providing the essential resources and labor that power the capital, the contado is the outer ring of the urban whirlpool, but very much of it” (xxxiii).
“For an imperial city such as ancient Rome or modern Washington -- which San Francisco sought to become -- the contado is national, continental, or even planetary” (xxxiv
10) Citizen Kane/William Randolph Hearst:
“…Hearst’s memory is increasingly invested in his favorite palace. When he is remembered at all, it is as a publisher, a connoisseur of fine arts, and the patron of architect Julia Morgan. Only Orson Welles’s masterpiece, Citizen Kane, continues to significantly trouble that reputation with its unflattering depiction of press lord Foster Kane” (239)
2) Rob described contado as: "the idea of SF's vast urban periphery providing material resources as well as huge labor needs and inputs to build up the wealth and splendor of the "imperial city" a la Rome or Constantinople.
15) Beattitude
Where the term "beat" comes from; started by Jack Kerourac and means utmost bliss
17) City Lights
You might want to note that it was started in 1953.
2. Gray Brechin’s concept of “the contado” -Gray Brechin’s Imperial San Francisco. The Italian word “contado” has no exact English equivalent, though it can be taken to mean “countryside” or “territory,” which is significant in terms of SF’s aspirations for oceanic and continental domination. A “contado” contains other cities and villages that owe tribute to the dominant city while also providing essential resources/labor that power the capital. As SF grew in strength, it sought to become as powerful as imperial Rome, a national, or even global form of the “contado”. SF’s immediate contado encompassed norcal and NV.
3. “A Walden Pond for Winos” / Washington Square in SF -Poem by Richard Brautigan taken from The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster (1968) -depicts brilliant, microscopic street artists that drink port wine all day. With limited options they discuss two possible futures: constructing a vivid flea circus, or being placed in an insane aslym. The insane asylum wins. Though this is a bleaker poem about CA, there is a certain dignity and grace in the winos’ silence. -Importance: debunks American idealists like Ben Franklin, who claimed that working fifteen hours a day will surely bring you success.
5. Moloch -Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems (1956) -In the second part of Howl, “Moloch,” the god of war/death, is used by Ginsberg as a manner of keeping the beat of his poem, much like the word “who” in part one. Ginsberg is comparable to Jeremiah in the city, especially in his denouncement of the idolatry of capitalism and industrialism. This portion also strongly alludes to purgatory – a fiery inferno/hell. In the “footnote to Howl,” everyone and everything is redeemed (“The world is holy! The soul is holy! Everyday is holy!” as though Ginsberg is attempting to undo the imperialist project by sanctifying all of creation.
8. North Beach -artistic haven – one of few areas, if not only area, in America where all ethnicities could get along and have sense of unity/camaraderie. Center for free thought and bohemian lifestyle. Lawrence Ferlinghetti feels as though it’s losing this quality, reflected in “A North Beach Scene” -Nancy J. Peters, “The Beat Generation and SF’s Culture of Dissent” (Reclaiming SF) -she writes that press coverage brought people to North Beach who tried to be beats/hipsters, but ultimately, served to merely commodify the beats (not something beats wanted clearly).
-On the midterm, will the preferred length of our answers to Part C be specified? (Or are we just supposed to write as much as is necessary to address the topic?)
I would like to remind some people that the word 'beatitude' was not invented by Kerouac or anyone else from the Beat generation. It is an actual English word that was derived a long time ago from the Latin word 'beatus,' meaning 'happy.'
The fact that 'beatitude' is very similar in its spelling structure to the word 'attitude' and reflects a certain frame of mind or 'attitude' towards life is simply a coincidence, and a good way to remember its definition... (which is 'supreme blessedness or happiness.') it is NOT spelled 'beattitude,' and it was NOT invented by the Beats.
If you want to explain how the word relates to the Beat poets, you could potentially say that Kerouac shortened the word 'beatific' or 'beatitude' to 'beat' (which has a LOT of verbal definitions, namely musical) and applied it to a unique frame of mind that he recognized in the artists and poets of his generation...
Good clarification Lilja. There is also the religious connotation to the term "beatitude", in which one is meant to practice the art of "possessing an inward contentedness and joy that is not affected by physical circumstances". I think this helps to understand the term Beat in regards to the dichotomy which exists between having beatitude while still being beat/beat down.
I don't think Snyder is implying that it North Beach is a place where everyone gets along, I think what he is really implying is that their is so much more natural history to North Beach than people understand. Most people would think of North Beach as it is at present as well as the various aspects of the beat generation that are associated with it, but Snyder is actually trying to unearth this sort of rich history of cultures that is by all means perhaps more important than anything that happened at North Beach in the 20th century. It's part of Snyder's whole "world within a world" ideology. In my humble opinion.
Moloch is both a "vastness" in which Ginsberg is spatially situated (Moloch as "the incomprehensible prison", "soulless jailhouse", "robot apartments", "invisible suburbs", whose ear is a "smoking tomb", etc.) and an internal force that influences him. ie: "Mental Moloch", "who entered my soul", "whose name is the Mind"
The materialism and industrial culture that Ginsberg criticizes is both a geographic and existential place we occupy as well as a state of mind. I just thought this kind of duality was an interesting part of the poem.
28 comments:
Can someone please share their interpretations of:
#13 "The Day They Busted the Grateful Dead" - just how it ties to SF
#25 "Subterranean Homesick Blues"
Thanks!
Subterranean Homesick Blues is probably just Professor Wilson wanting us to allude to Bob Dylan's "Beat" phase where he was kickin it with Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg and pretending to be a poet. I don't know if you already know that and are looking for more, but I can't really remember much else being said about it. The vague references to anti-government and drug use in the song are also kind of beat-y.
Subterranean Homesick Blues is probably just Professor Wilson wanting us to allude to Bob Dylan's "Beat" phase where he was kickin it with Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg and pretending to be a poet. I don't know if you already know that and are looking for more, but I can't really remember much else being said about it. The vague references to anti-government and drug use in the song are also kind of beat-y.
Yeah, I remembered that much, but I didn't really get anything deeper, and it seems as if we're expected to say more than just origins and author/artist. I wasn't sure how to relate it to the content of the course. Thanks for the help, though!
Just an added thought to the question (more info can't hurt); I think as far as the song's relevance to SF, one could notice the incorporation of music into the beat movement. The cross over into other media (rather than just poetry) reflects how pervasive and important the aforesaid commentary within the song was really becoming around this time. It foreshadowed similar movements that would follow as well.
For #13-bob weir and rob mckernan were arrested on narcotics charges in San Francisco in the 60s. They were living near Haight street in the city- so that's the only thing that really relates to san francisco. Other than that i guess you could talk about san francisco's free spiritedness and how richard brautigan embodies this in his poem? or something....
A good way to become more specific is to look at the syllabus again--check out the heading for that week and then think about why all of the readings for that week were put together in the same week.
i.e. How doe Dylan relate to Braughtgin and the tour bus project, or murals?
Who is Bayard Taylor
Hey, I hope everyone is looking at this periodically for ideas like I am. Hopefully this starts a chain that will help us all out. What I hope we do is just down a few lines for each topic from the notes we have and have a class collaboration. I got most of them down but my head is starting to hurt so I'm asking for some help. Add whatever you want (hopefully it's helpful). If we all do this it will be so much easier to study, so please help out. I also hope to do this with the other topics. Well, here goes nothing.
Section B: Identifications
1. “Westward the course of empire takes its way…”
-Gray Brechin
-Imperial San Francisco
-manifest destiny compared to an empire
-imperialism, westward expansion
-SF= queen city
-overturning the open minded free loving image
-painting of men on horseback leading families to a golden horizon
- For Brechin, San Francisco is the culmination of that journey, the exercise of power over territory that is the ultimate expression of Manifest Destiny.
2. Gray Brechin’s concept of “the contado”
-Gray Brechin
-Imperial San Francisco
3. “A Walden Pond for Winos” / Washington Square in SF
-Richard Brautigan
-Trout Fishing in America
-three beats drinking port in a park across the street from a church
-this park is the picture on the cover of the book
-discussed how their future was either a flea circus or an insane asylum (better at asylum)
-represents the beat way of the world and how the main stream culture looks down upon them (business girls calling them ‘winos’, but really they are doing nothing to offend anyone
4. Tony Bennet, “I Left my Heart in SF”
-1954
-sings of how it’s the best city in the world
-lovelier than Paris and has more glory than Rome but it’s not as busy as Manhattan
-no matter where he goes his heart, his home, will always be SF
5. Moloch
-Allen Ginsberg
-Howl
- a deity whose worship was marked by the propitiatory sacrifice of children by their own parent
- Ginsberg intends that the characters he portrays in Part I be understood to have been sacrificed to this idol
- Part II is a rant about the state of industrial civilization, characterized in the poem as 'Moloch,' and how it’s devouring the angelheaded hipsters
6. “I was certainly surprised to be named Poet Laureate of the far-out city on the left side of the world.”
-Lawrence Ferlinghetti
-Inaugural Address from San Francisco Poems
-not a Beat, hard worker
-far-out is a play on words for the time
-left side is both political and imperial
-Poet Laureate is opposite of Beat, which is San Francisco
7. “Such was life in the Golden 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.’”
-Robert Frost
-it’s all about imperialism and the pursuit of wealth and land
-gold dusted all we drank and ate = it influenced even our basic needs
-dust = poverty, gold = wealth
-dust only appeared to be gold when against the sky, none actually was
-written from a child’s perspective
8. North Beach
-Gary Snyder
-“North Beach” A Place in Space
-one of if not the only place in America where all ethnicities gets along
-people walk there and have a sense of community
-Lawrence Ferlinghetti
-“A North Beach Scene” San Francisco Poems
-a place where many cultures can be heard
-center for free thought and the bohemian way
-Ferlinghetti feels like it’s losing this
-his poem has multiple references to white; “white washed sins, gold hair; white shrouds”
-there are chaulkess homes (without filling), voiceless laughter and choiceless gesture
9. “Coming Into the Watershed”
-Gary Snyder
-A Place in Space
-beginning theme seems to be that SF could be anywhere (northern winds, southern point for puffins…)
-nature doesn’t follow our imagined constraints, it has its own
-the only thing that will last in the world of nature is the watershed, and even that changes
10. Citizen Kane / William Randolph Hearst
11. Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
-Gray Brechin
-Imperial San Francisco
-1906, earthquake and fire destroyed SF
-afterwards, society called for a dam at H.H. to bring them water
-government, due to voting, is leading the public to believe the water will be free to stop the hysteria
-confrontation between progressives and preservationists
-any dissent to the popular dam was social suicide, but no one knew what was really happening
-dammed Yosemite National Park for water and raised land values
-opposite of the Beat culture
12. Alcatraz is not an Island
-In November 1969 a small group of Native American students and urban Indians began the occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco. Eventually joined by thousands of Native Americans, they reclaimed “Indian land” for the first time since the 1880s, forever hanging the way Native Americans viewed themselves, their culture, and their sovereign rights.
-SF is the city willing to see change and doesn’t hesitate when approached with an idea that is contrary to popular belief
13. “The Day They Busted the Grateful Dead”
-Richard Brautigan
-The Pill versus the Spring Mine Disaster
-rain stormed against SF = even nature herself was angry with the city for busting these icons for drugs
-alligator = reference to a song of theirs
- people in society that he will not let have power over him
14. Turtle Island
-Gary Snyder
-A Place in Space
-a futuristic name for the United States
-no longer divided by invisible lines assigned by the government, but instead by natural beings such as rivers and mountains
-I picture it like the shell on a turtles back, the land on which we live, is broken into sections naturally, not forced
15. beatitude / the Beats
16. “…our beautiful but lethal Golden Gate Bridge”
-Ann Garrison
-Reclaiming San Francisco “Suicide in the City”
-Suicide is only one of many dramas acted out on the bridge; the city’s landmark structure has long been a stage for street theatre (protestors against war, research, destruction of nature)
-the gate is bet known suicide site, and SF has been accused of taking a perverse pride in its reputation
-SF has become known as the country’s suicide capital
-support personal choice and officers should not intervene (in suicides)
-multiple suicide barriers have been brought to attention, but denied by popular demand
-repeated decisions against erecting a suicide barrier have been consistent with SF’s longstanding preoccupation with personal freedom
-“What are we known for more than our tolerance and determination to pursue our own paths, except, perhaps, for our beautiful but lethal Golden Gate Bridge?”
17. City Lights Bookstore in North Beach, SF
-started by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
-first to publish Howl by Allen Ginsberg
-basically ground zero for Beat Generation
18. “Franciscan” San Francisco
19. The concept and role of “metatourists” in “You Are Here (You Think): A San Francisco Bus Tour”
-Reclaiming San Francisco
-Bernie, Dean, and Juliet
-tourism in SF is a string of sights and attractions (Bridge, Wharf, Park) with empty spaces between them
-their tour filled in those spaces with things that aren’t officially designated as worthy tourist spots
-“If anything could make the old sites new, it is the possibility of reconnecting them to individual experience – personal and social discoveries through real interactions with places as they are now – as we are now. The tourists would become the tour.”
20. legacies of the Beat Generation as portrayed by Nancy J. Peters
-Reclaiming San Francisco
-Nancy J. Peters
-In those days San Francisco was a rapacious (greedy) society that offered boundless opportunities for the savage exploitation of man and nature.
-There are two elements, at least, that are essential to Bohemianism. The first is devotion or addiction to one of the Seven Arts, the other is poverty
-After WWII, the mass media celebrated common sense, social adjustment, conformity, churchgoing, and togetherness. The good life was defined by a house in suburbia, a new car, and synthetic products.
-San Francisco was unique for the open and friendly relations between blacks and wites who had gone underground
-the beat poet was excoriated as juvenile delinquent, drug addict, and sexual outlaw
-Life magazine: ‘bums, hostile little efemales and part-time bohemians are foisted into polite society by a few neurotic and drugged poets…[they are] talkers, loafers, passive little con men, lonely eccentrics, mom-haters, cop-haters, exhibitionists with abused smiles and second mortgages on a bongo drum – writers who cannot write, painters who cannot paint, dancers with unfortunate malfunction of the fetlocks.’
-J. Edgar Hoover warned America the three greatest enemies are Communists, Eggheads, and Beatniks
-Counterculture offers an irresistible narrative opportunity, with a colorful cast of characters and the seductive themes of transgression, exile, and utopia
-eventually covered by press and became a tourist attraction
-brief period of close collaboration of beat writers and artists was over by 1956
21. Bayard Taylor
22. “angelheaded hipsters”
-Allen Ginsberg
-Howl
23. Timothy W. Drescher’s concept of “street subversion”
24. “[ ] creating a spontaneous bop prosody and original classic literature. Several phrase and the title Howl are taken from him.”
25. “Subterranean Homesick Blues”
Hey Superman,
Overall this is looking really great. For the id's that you've got skimpier answers on, ex. Tony Bennet, Howl try to frame your "significance" answer in terms of contrast.
Who is allied with the Tony Bennet vision of San Francisco, and how does that get overturned?
That's where you'll get the pithy expansion out into significance.
Great list Superman! Here's what I have to add. It doesn't complete the list, so it would be great if people will continue to look into those that are still lacking.
1."Westward the Course of Empire"
Line is originally from the poem "On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning" by Bishop George Berkeley, for whom Berkeley was named. Berkeley is a conceptual extension of SF, and it was named for the man who wrote the motto for expansionism - testifies to how ingrained Manifest Destiny is in SF's history.
Also, the painting that shares this title is by Emanuel Leutze.
2. "Contado"
The word "contado" is Italian. Brechin compares SF to Rome because of its extensive contado.
3. "Walden Pond"/Wash. Park
By calling Washington Park the "Walden Pond" of SF, he implies that it is an isolated safe haven for artists and dreamers.
4. Tony Bennet
In 1965, this was made the official theme song of SF in an attempt to preserve this harmless, mythical image of the city. It is undermined by most of the Beats, who recognize the underbelly of SF society and see that it isn't all wonderful. Also, writers like Brechin and Snyder attack the ways the city harms California.
5. Moloch
This section of "Howl" comments on the materialism of cities (not necessarily just SF). Professor Wilson suggested that this is an exorcism in a way, leading the Paradise of the "Footnote."
6. "Far-out city on the left side of the world"
This helps undermine the materialistic, imperialist image sometimes associated with SF. The city is embracing less conventional, more socially conscious poets who step outside of the city and look at its faults as well as its virtues.
10. Citizen Kane/Hearst
The story of Kane is very similar to that of Hearst. By setting it in FL and changing the name, the filmmakers were able to comment on the situation without fear of consequences.
11. Hetch Hetchy
Completed in 1934 SF draws 85% of its water from it. This was an enormous and blatantly selfish expansion the SF contado.
12. Alcatraz is not an Island
The Native Americans only knew how to fight the takeover of their land and culture with an expression of aggressive imperialism, which is how they were wronged in the first place. I'm not sure how this is significant, though.
14. Turtle Island
This is the name for the entire North American continent, not just the US. It erases all political borders, including international ones.
15. beatitude/The Beats
The term "Beat" was coined by Jack Kerouac. Many originally thought it meant "beat down," but he expanded it to mean "beatitude," or kindness, loving of all life, sincere, practicing endurance, etc...like St. Francis.
21. Bayard Taylor
-Gray Brechin's Imperial SF (p. 49)
This was the poet who argued that the rape of CA was a good thing because it produced great men and a great, rich society. He originally thought CA was a waste of time, but after returning after much progress was made, he changed his mind and advocated for more development. He prophesied that CA would be like Greece and that her future generations would more than restore the damage done by those who conquered her.
22. "angelheaded hipsters"
Just look at our blog history on this subject.
23. "Street subversion"
Found in Reclaiming SF.
Organized neighborhood murals are a way of speaking out against government, authority, intolerance, etc. People with a common goal organize and creatively express their opinions. It's a constructive way of recording history and voicing injustice.
Hey sadie:
from my understanding, I think Wilson wants us to know is that
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" shows Dylan's involvement with Beats even though he wasn't necessarily a member. I also remember im saying that the title of the song could possibly be related to a novel by Kerouac called The Subterraneans, which was about the Beats. But even before Kerouac's novel was a book by Fyodor Dostoevsky called Notes From The Underground which was popular with Beats like Ginsberg.
a few additional embellishments/IDs which I thought would be helpful:
2) GRay Brechin's concept of the "contado": the idea from Imperial SF of SF being a "Queen City of the Pacific" dominating not just over nearby geographic areas, but the entire Pacific Rim according to Brechin through the Spanish-American War in the Philippines with military bases located in various locations around SF (East Bay area); seen explicitly through the vast aqueduct set-up which allows SF to dominate and control natural resources from the Sierra Nevadas (Hetch Hetchy and Mokelumne Aqueducts; see pg. 112, map 3)
3) - ALSO, don't forget Brautigan's commentary regarding the cover of TFinA: Ben Franklin representing the American Dream that any man can make it (and "Was it Kafka...who said, 'I like Americans because they are healthy and optimistic"), while hungry people "gather in the park across the street from the church"; contrasting what we often choose not to see in America with images which we all too often glorify
9) "Coming into the Watershed": seems to me to be Snyder's reply to Brechin with regards to SF's domineering contado and influence, while suggesting our human-made boundaries to enhanced by understanding natural "contados" for example the ideas of watershed or bioregion
14) Turtle Island: "the old-new name" for the North American continent (243); "rediscovery" of Turtle Island coincides with Snyder's idea of "reinhabitation" and really knowing, valuing, and living off of your "place in space"; suggests mutual respect and engagement (a oneness) between humans and nature
-relates back to various Native American cultures' creation stories
17) City Lights Bookstore: Snyder regarding the beats, "It published its poems in its own little magazines, and didn't even bother to submit works to the large established highbrow journals that had held the monopoly on avant-garde writing for so long" (9); City Lights gave the Beats the freedom to stray from mainstream literature tropes and monopolies
Thanks Sadie,
Your ID's are nicely pithy.
About Alcatraz is Not An Island
You may be going one step beyond the lecture in thinking about the action there as an imperialist counter-takeover.
The way it was positioned in the series of lectures that action seemed to me to be an opening out or first ray of hope after those pretty gloomy Brechin readings.
Remember right after that we got Gary Snyder and all of those crazy art projects.
I'd say, keep the comment that you've already made but in finding the significance contrast the island action a little bit backwards (and then forwards) with Brechin and Snyder.
And Amanda,
Good work too on Dylan. But what was that 'far out' subterranesan homesickness contrasting with?
What was life like before Dylan?
A quick comparison of Dylan and Bennet might help.
Or you could look at the essay in the Peters book.
I feel like something's still missing in the discussions of the significance and it's probably because you are not quite seeing what Dylan and the beats are reacting against...
Some more points that I hope will hope:
1. "Westward the course of empire..."
-This passage and others like it creates an East-West binary that effectively denigrates the orient. The idea that history starts in the east and moves west served to justify San Francisco's control of the Pacific as well as racism.
4. "I left my heart..."
"Mythical" is an appropriate way to describe the picture of San Francisco that Bennett creates in the song. It relates San Francisco to Rome and implies that Bennett's visions of the city conforms to Brechin's imperial city.
6. "I was certainly surprised..."
-That Ferlinghetti used "left" and not "west" signifies a movement away from the romanticized expansion west and the imperial connotations that come with it. As if Ferlinghetti believes that SF can transcend its past. This is very imaginative, but, after all, Ferlinghetti discarded Williams dictum "No ideas but in things" (29).
10.Citizen Kane/Hearst
Brechin mentions the mystery and curiosity that surrounded what he calls "the Hearst enigma" (214). Citizen Kane can be considered Welles' interest and desire to understand the infamous newsman. At the end of the movie we learn that all Kane ever wanted was to be loved.
12. "Alcatraz is not an inland"
-The title suggests rethinking the way we look at geophysical space, inherited as it is from capitalistic notions of property, borders, and limits (to our imaginations). See Snyder and also Ferlinghetti's "Great American Waterfront Poem".
14. "Beat/beatitude"
-Beatitude: "the perfect happiness and inner peace enjoyed by the soul in heaven"
-This idea of transcending the real and structural by falling out of the mainstream, living among "the teeth and excrement of this life," is paradoxical (Intro to Howl).
-Ginsberg: "angel headed hipsters... in the machinery of night"
-Beat is to Beatitude as Brechin's imperial SF is to Ferlinghetti's "far-out city." That is to say, this is about re-imagining reality, not material/technological advancing, but using imagination and creativity to move out of this world, to "see" with the eyes of angels.
18. "Franciscan" San Francisco
-The San Francisco that Ferlinghetti evokes, a pre-imperial San Francisco named after St. Francis de Assisi.
-represents the beatific, or saintly, vision of SF, as opposed to the industrial, imperial and car-wrecked.
24. "...creating a spontaneous beat prosody..."
-Ginsberg dedicating Howl to his friend Jack Keroauc, calling him the "New Buddha of American prose". -Enlightenment
Here is some more help with the IDs from Brechin that may help provide further understanding of the terms/ideas:
2) contado:
“For [the Italians], the civilized world was a duality made of the city and its contado -- that is, the territory that the city could militarily dominate and thus draw upon. The contado provided the city with its food, resources, labor, conscripts, and much of its taxes, while its people (the contadini) received a marketplace and a degree of protection in return” (xxxi).
“The contado contains other cities and villages that owe tribute to the dominant city. Providing the essential resources and labor that power the capital, the contado is the outer ring of the urban whirlpool, but very much of it” (xxxiii).
“For an imperial city such as ancient Rome or modern Washington -- which San Francisco sought to become -- the contado is national, continental, or even planetary” (xxxiv
10) Citizen Kane/William Randolph Hearst:
“…Hearst’s memory is increasingly invested in his favorite palace. When he is remembered at all, it is as a publisher, a connoisseur of fine arts, and the patron of architect Julia Morgan. Only Orson Welles’s masterpiece, Citizen Kane, continues to significantly trouble that reputation with its unflattering depiction of press lord Foster Kane” (239)
Also, here is some info from lecture:
2) Rob described contado as: "the idea of SF's vast urban periphery providing material resources as well as huge labor needs and inputs to build up the wealth and splendor of the "imperial city" a la Rome or Constantinople.
15) Beattitude
Where the term "beat" comes from; started by Jack Kerourac and means utmost bliss
17) City Lights
You might want to note that it was started in 1953.
Hey guys! I put together everyone's answers on my blog. Hope it helps. Happy studying =]
Can people please add more thoughts to the following? I feel like my answers are lacking....
18. Franciscan San Francisco
21. Bayard Taylor
24. "( ) creating a spontaneous bop prosody and original classic literature. Several phrase and the title of Howl are taken from him."
Here are a few additions:
2. Gray Brechin’s concept of “the contado”
-Gray Brechin’s Imperial San Francisco. The Italian word “contado” has no exact English equivalent, though it can be taken to mean “countryside” or “territory,” which is significant in terms of SF’s aspirations for oceanic and continental domination. A “contado” contains other cities and villages that owe tribute to the dominant city while also providing essential resources/labor that power the capital. As SF grew in strength, it sought to become as powerful as imperial Rome, a national, or even global form of the “contado”. SF’s immediate contado encompassed norcal and NV.
3. “A Walden Pond for Winos” / Washington Square in SF
-Poem by Richard Brautigan taken from The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster (1968)
-depicts brilliant, microscopic street artists that drink port wine all day. With limited options they discuss two possible futures: constructing a vivid flea circus, or being placed in an insane aslym. The insane asylum wins. Though this is a bleaker poem about CA, there is a certain dignity and grace in the winos’ silence.
-Importance: debunks American idealists like Ben Franklin, who claimed that working fifteen hours a day will surely bring you success.
5. Moloch
-Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems (1956)
-In the second part of Howl, “Moloch,” the god of war/death, is used by Ginsberg as a manner of keeping the beat of his poem, much like the word “who” in part one. Ginsberg is comparable to Jeremiah in the city, especially in his denouncement of the idolatry of capitalism and industrialism. This portion also strongly alludes to purgatory – a fiery inferno/hell. In the “footnote to Howl,” everyone and everything is redeemed (“The world is holy! The soul is holy! Everyday is holy!” as though Ginsberg is attempting to undo the imperialist project by sanctifying all of creation.
8. North Beach
-artistic haven – one of few areas, if not only area, in America where all ethnicities could get along and have sense of unity/camaraderie. Center for free thought and bohemian lifestyle. Lawrence Ferlinghetti feels as though it’s losing this quality, reflected in “A North Beach Scene”
-Nancy J. Peters, “The Beat Generation and SF’s Culture of Dissent” (Reclaiming SF)
-she writes that press coverage brought people to North Beach who tried to be beats/hipsters, but ultimately, served to merely commodify the beats (not something beats wanted clearly).
-On the midterm, will the preferred length of our answers to Part C be specified? (Or are we just supposed to write as much as is necessary to address the topic?)
Hi Lilja,
Just as a benchmark, I'd guess that you should be able to write between 3-5 blue book pages in a half an hour.
I'm grading on the quality and completeness of the essay, not the pages though.
& many thanks Amanda
I recommend to everyone the moloch and tony bennet discussions that you've got there.
I would like to remind some people that the word 'beatitude' was not invented by Kerouac or anyone else from the Beat generation. It is an actual English word that was derived a long time ago from the Latin word 'beatus,' meaning 'happy.'
The fact that 'beatitude' is very similar in its spelling structure to the word 'attitude' and reflects a certain frame of mind or 'attitude' towards life is simply a coincidence, and a good way to remember its definition... (which is 'supreme blessedness or happiness.') it is NOT spelled 'beattitude,' and it was NOT invented by the Beats.
If you want to explain how the word relates to the Beat poets, you could potentially say that Kerouac shortened the word 'beatific' or 'beatitude' to 'beat' (which has a LOT of verbal definitions, namely musical) and applied it to a unique frame of mind that he recognized in the artists and poets of his generation...
Good clarification Lilja. There is also the religious connotation to the term "beatitude", in which one is meant to practice the art of "possessing an inward contentedness and joy that is not affected by physical circumstances". I think this helps to understand the term Beat in regards to the dichotomy which exists between having beatitude while still being beat/beat down.
This list so bad ass. Just one addition.
North Beach:
I don't think Snyder is implying that it North Beach is a place where everyone gets along, I think what he is really implying is that their is so much more natural history to North Beach than people understand. Most people would think of North Beach as it is at present as well as the various aspects of the beat generation that are associated with it, but Snyder is actually trying to unearth this sort of rich history of cultures that is by all means perhaps more important than anything that happened at North Beach in the 20th century. It's part of Snyder's whole "world within a world" ideology. In my humble opinion.
Just to add a little to Moloch...
Moloch is both a "vastness" in which Ginsberg is spatially situated (Moloch as "the incomprehensible prison", "soulless jailhouse", "robot apartments", "invisible suburbs", whose ear is a "smoking tomb", etc.) and an internal force that influences him. ie: "Mental Moloch", "who entered my soul", "whose name is the Mind"
The materialism and industrial culture that Ginsberg criticizes is both a geographic and existential place we occupy as well as a state of mind. I just thought this kind of duality was an interesting part of the poem.
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