By Sunday at Midnight
Please post a *critical* close reading of one passage from one of your sources.
i.e. don't just look at what the text says, but also what it doesn't say, and how it says what it says.
(This could be a historical or literary source the same kind of literary reading is needed).
Think about the tone of the passage, and the metaphors that it uses to make it's point and how these give force to whatever the passage is referring to.
(It's often helpful to compare your passage with some other text in order to see some of the alternative metaphors that could have been used and to draw out the specific meaning of the one that you are looking at.)
Note this assigment works for Creative Projects as well. Just think about the stylistic treatment of a theme that you are working with and think about some of the choices that were made.
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My final paper will be about the competing symbolisms of the Golden Gate Bridge: an imperial image and a symbol for death and suicide.
I will definitely be using Gray Brechin and Ann Garrison to establish the less conventional views of the bridge, as well as other sources yet to be determined. As a counterweight to those, I will be drawing from the official Golden Gate Bridge website (www.goldengatebridge.org) for the more accepted, sanctioned view.
This website maintains the polished, naïve exterior that the city would prefer people take. The website, like Brechin, cites John C. Fremont as the one who named the Golden Gate. The website merely says that it reminded him of a similar strait in Istanbul or Golden Horn, so he chose the name “Chrysopylae,” or Golden Gate. This is true, but, according to Brechin, it omits certain facts. Fremont went on to say that he was “inspired by its advantages for commerce, (Asiatic inclusive)” and that he named it for Rome’s heir because he “anticipated a destiny greater than Rome’s” (Brechin 5). Brechin’s interpretation adds a layer of imperialism and conspiracy that is absent from the publicly sanctioned version.
Important holes in the website that Brechin references are the military significance of the Golden Gate and the bridge’s significance in expanding the SF contado to Marin county. There is also no mention whatsoever of the suicide mythology surrounding the bridge on the website. There is information about which workers died on the construction job, which, conveniently, is impressively low for such a grand structure. It is as though the bad aspects of the bridge are hidden from view: both the death rate and the imperialistic underpinnings. Interestingly, the 19 men who fell from the bridge and were caught by the safety net are part of what is called the “Half-Way-to-Hell Club.” There was even mythology surrounding death and near-death experiences on the bridge before it was fully built.
The website contains many small details such as what replaces the rivets that wear out or how often the bridge is painted, yet there is nothing about protests, suicides, or socially conscious artwork. The only art mentioned is the poem written by Joseph B. Strauss, “The Mighty Task is Done,” upon the completion of the bridge and what movies include it.
This entire source is an example of how hard people strive to cover the bad parts of San Francisco and, more specifically, the bridge. Only easy-to-swallow facts are reported, and there is no mention of social upheaval or unpopular events.
“We got up and started back. Now when I went around that ledge that had scared me it was just fun and a lark, I just skipped and jumped and danced along and I had really learned that you can’t fall off a mountain. Whether you can fall off a mountain or not I don’t know, but I learned that you can’t. That was the way it struck me” (Kerouac 87).
My final essay is going to be a compare and contrast essay of Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums and Maxine Hong Kingston’s Tripmaster Monkey. Since I have not read Tripmaster Monkey yet, I chose a passage from Dharma Bums. Both of the works focus on learning and the idea of finding a self. This quote shows how Ray Smith is discovering more about himself and learning through others during the mountain hike the characters partake in. He learns some important values about life and reflects on them throughout the novel.
This passage is from Chapter 12 when Japhy, Morley, and Ray are making there way back down Matterhorn. Ray describes how when climbing up the mountain, this particular ledge frightened him, but now it is a piece of cake to walk across. The way the sentence is structured with the use of “skipped and jumped and danced” causes the reader to imagine Ray doing all of these actions one right after the other. It moves from one verb to another as he takes one step after the other. He can dance on the mountain now because he is no longer afraid of falling and has overcome this. This also shows the imagery of Kerouac’s language as the reader can visualize Ray at first being scared but can now see him leaping on the ledge. These particular words and the sentence structure show how the reader can imagine things in a certain way based on the how the author portrays events in a work.
In the passage, it is apparent that Ray is putting negative thoughts behind him by thinking that “you can’t fall off a mountain” and saying that he doesn’t know if you actually can fall off of one. Because he is not thinking the negative thoughts (since it is obvious you can fall on a mountain), he is showing how the Buddhist religion has impacted his life. He is not focusing on the negative and instead only believes there is no possible way a person can fall off a mountain. Ray, who has just witnessed prior to this passage Japhy running down the mountain, has been motivated and taught that he can do the same thing without falling. It “struck” him because it was an idea that he had not thought of before but was now something present in his mind. The lesson also alludes to the fact that it is possible to do anything if you have the right mindset. If Ray thinks he will not fall, he won’t. Thinking positive allows a person to be able to achieve their goals and this is a valuable message to Ray.
This is only one of the lessons that Ray learns in the novel, and shows how it will become a prominent theme throughout the work. The combination of all of the messages will allow him to become a new person with different beliefs and a new identity.
In exploring Kerouac's need for socially-defining terms of his lifestyle, the importance placed on his family sheds a new light on the struggle to represent oneself and one's group through language. During the narrator's visit at home in North Carolina for Christmas, tension between him and his brother-in-law finally reaches a breaking point in an argument over the dog:
...my serenity was finally disturbed by a curious argument with my brother-in-law; he began to resent my unshackling Bob the dog and taking him in the woods with me. "I’ve got too much money invested in that dog to untie him from his chain."
I said "How would you like to be tied to a chain and cry all day like the dog?"
He replied "It doesn’t bother me." (143)
The tension between Ray Smith and his brother-in-law lies deeply in their societal values, not in their specific concerns for Bob. The brother-in-law's values are placed in tradition and economics. He cannot stand the idea of a dog being able to run free because it is normal--traditional, even--to keep him chained up. Also, he views the dog as property, "I've got too much money invested in that dog.."--his property, while Ray views the dog rather as a sentient being who should be valued and respected on a more humane level. This dog, like any human, is alive, and should be treated with the same respect and mutuality, according to Ray. Ray also views all humans tied into the system of economic concerns and consumerism to be chained and controlled like Bob. A few pages before this passage, Ray announces, “I felt free and therefore I was free” expressing his liberation from the bonds of consumerism (138). In this argument with his brother-in-law, the reader sees (ironically through his own words) that the brother-in-law is not free, but rather shackled to consumerism and capitalism, just as he also wishes to chain the dog under and into the same system. The two men cannot agree on a subject as small as whether to let a dog run free or keep him chained because their ideologies and basic value systems differ so greatly: Ray values freedom and life, while his brother-in-law values tradition and wealth.
Many others also view Ray's values as going against tradition, against the grain, but that seems to be even more why he stresses his desire to be defined as "free," instead of "lazy" or "odd." He also possesses an understanding that many who are locked into these restricting societal values desire to be confident and comfortable with a freer lifestyle similar to his own, but either do not know how to break free from their chains, or do not realize that they are restrained by them:
So what did I care about the old tobacco-chewing stickwhittlers at the crossroads store had to say about my mortal eccentricity, we all get to be gum in graves anyway. I even got a little drunk with one of the old men one time and we went driving around the country roads and I actually told him how I was sitting out in those woods meditating and he really rather understood and said he would like to try that if he had time, or if he could get up enough nerve, and had a little rueful envy in his voice. Everybody knows everything” (139).
Betsy Erkkila on Thomas Eakins's photograph "old man":
"...the very ambiguity of this nude photograph... with its erasure of individual identity and its blurred but nevertheless culturally charged conjuncture between the democratic poet Walt Whitman and the democratic painter Thomas Eakins around the site of the body, nakedness, homoeroticism, and American nationality, raises questions about identity, queerness, the body politic, and the making and breaking of boundaries at once national and transnational, cultural and social..." (Breaking Bounds, 5).
My final project will be a comparison of the American poets Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg, particularly surrounding each of their visions of universal democracy, and whether or not this vision is exclusive to other cultures. I have not decided my focus, but I think it might be Whitman's and Ginsberg's relationship with Buddhism. I want to discover whether or not these two uphold existing prejudices directed at the East (their orientalism) and how they differ and relate in this respect.
Though the quotation cited above is not from a literary work, it poses an interesting subject for my paper. I do not disagree with Erikkla's analysis of the "naked man", who may very well represent Whitman's democratic ideal, the interchangeability of people, the metaphysicality of the idea "America." And although I am not yet confident enough to prove it, I don't doubt that Ginsberg's idea of America shares a similar unphysical or spiritual quality.
But what is most telling about Eakins photograph is not the blurred identity of its subject but his obvious identity as a white male. Now I do not want to look to deeply into this, but it certainly is interesting that Erikkla's analizes the photograph as a metaphor for Whitman breaking national and transnational bounds, while the body represents a monoculturality.
Does this conceptual spreading of Whitman across America and to the rest of the world mirror the physical expansion of white pioneers and soldiers, otherwise known as imperialism? If so, how far does Ginsberg move away from Whitman's phallocentrism?
My final paper will utilize Brautigan's style and technique while commenting on cities, lakes, rivers, structures, etc. named after saints. A great example of what Brautigan does can be found in the chapter The Last Year The Trout Came Up Hayman Creek in Trout Fishing In America. The two important devices on display in this chapter are Brautigan's use of historical landmarks or people and also his ability to utilize these historical figures to create modern metaphores. This approach helps him to highlight irony and a notion of idiocy being linked to capitalism. The chapter begins to reflect on the notion that not only do hippies appreciate nature more than capitalist society but nature also prefers the hippy types to consumers.
In this particular chapter, Brautigan creates a metaphor between Charles Hayman and the post Beatnik, pre-hippy type of individual he associated with because of his tone and emphasis on lifestyle.
One example of both Brautigan's historically based metaphors takes place in this passage:
"Gone now the old fart. Hayman Creek was named for Charles Hayman, a sort of half-assed pioneer in a country that not many wanted to live in because it was poor and ugly and horrible. He built a shack, this was in 1876, on a little creek that drained a worthless hill. After a while the creek was called Hayman Creek."
Brautigan not only did his research on the Charles Haymon figure, he also uses a discrediting tone which is a subtle comparison to the way in which beat and hippys were portrayed,as half-ass and as living worthless or meaning less lives because of their lack of consumerism or contributuion to empire in other words. As young farts in other words.
A great example of Charles Hayman being portrayed as a beat type character is evident in this passage:
"Mr. Hayman used to eat a trout or two and eat raw trout with his stone-ground wheat and his kale, and then one day he was so old that he did not feel like working any more, and he looked so old that children thought he must be evil to live by himself."
Brautigan uses Charles Haymon's humble approach to fishing in that he only catchs a trout or two which is a subtle critique on consumerism. The fact that he eats it raw also highlights his closeness to nature. Brautigan also emphasizes Charles' preferable vegetarian diet of wheat and kale which reflects Buddhist philosophy also closely associated with the beat and hippy types of Brautigans generation. Brautigan also illustrates the way in which someone with ideals oppossing that of the consumer norm can be ostracized and portrayed as a hermit or freak by children which symbolize empirical progress. The passage begins to reflect on the notion that not only do hippies appreciate nature more than capitalist society but nature also prefers the hippy types to consumers. Another allusion to nature respecting the beat-hippy type lies in this passage, "With the old man dead, the trout figured it was better to stay where they were." Most importantly Brautigan selecting to give the trout an ability to favor certain people the passage suggests that the fish are too smart for the toxicity of capitalsim and the people who help to fuel it unquestioningly. It suggests that fish and animals are more aware of the eco system and co-specie dependance than most people living under a capitalist rule.
For my final paper I will be examining the cultural significance of modern museums in San Francisco. Further, I will explore their impact on a modern progressing society as they seem to establish San Francisco as a sort of cultural hub for all of California. My particular interest in these museums is their metaphorical symbolism in regards to how they affect the validity of San Francisco as an important cultural landmark of the world. For example, the Wax Museum in San Francisco displays many national celebrities and it is uniquely interesting that tourists from all over come to this particular city to examine these important and famous people (presidents, celebrities, etc.)
Upon initially searching the internet for more information on these museums, I found it particularly interesting that almost all sites linked me to methods by which I could purchase tickets. Rather than presenting background information on these museums, the sites actually act as ways to attract tourists directly, further reinforcing the validity of the city as a cultural nucleus.
For sources regarding the social implications of San Francisco existing as a cultural hub, I plan to examine works primarily from Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg. Many of their poems focus on San Francisco’s obligatory nature as a center of such cultural significance.
One particular passage from one of my sources that I found to be particular telling of the essence of my project is from Ferlinghetti’s inaugural address. Though the quotation has been somewhat played out in class, his mention of San Francisco as a “far-out city on the left side of the world” (9) is uniquely applicable to the ideology behind my project.
This notion presents the implication that San Francisco has an unspoken obligation to act as a liberal city present unique ideals that somewhat reflect the mindset of the nation as a whole. Similarly, the analysis of my project seeks to explore the city’s nature as its cultural significance becomes increasingly important in our modern society. Through the medium of modern museums, the city successfully presents unique ideologies of the nation as a whole, just like Ferlinghetti implies in his inaugural quotation.
I am writing about the influence of jazz music on Beat literature. Here, I am exploring the concept of action writing, what Kerouac would call spontaneous bop prosody. I use different quotes from one book source.
Kerouac says that he "follow[s] free deviation (association) of mind into limitless blow-on-subject seas of thought, swimming in sea of English with no discipline other than rhythms of rhetorical exhalation and exposulated statement, like a fist coming down on a table with each complete utterance, bang!... Never afterthink to “improve” or defray impressions…" (Phillips, 175)
Kerouac follows this because it is vital to the essence of action writing; it is not rules for action writing, but merely a guideline of the creed of action writing—in a sense, the purpose of action writing. In Kerouac’s explanation of “spontaneous bop prosody” he misspells “expostulate”and creates the word “afterthink,” but does not bother to go back and change his mistakes. The words are are misspelled and made up in the passion of the moment. This is uncannily similar to how jazz musicians make mistakes to create new melodies while improvising, likewise, never stopping to correct the mistakes or dwell upon a single melody. Kerouac followed in the words of Thelonious Monk: “Make a mistake. Play what you want and let the public pick up”(156). Allen Ginsberg even described his work as “bop…unworried wild poetry, full of perception” (139). Neither Kerouac nor Ginsberg cared about polishing up or revising their work; it is written, it is there in the moment, and no need to change it, otherwise it wouldn’t be authentically in the moment; it would defeat the whole purpose of spontaneous action writing in that action writing is supposed to consist free flowing thoughts that arise in the moment of creation and there is no going back to change errors—you cannot change the past.
After reading many articles about parks in my research of locations to visit in San Francisco, I found an interesting article by Michael Boland about Crissy Field loftily entitled “Crissy Field: A New Model for Managing Urban Parklands.” Given that Crissy Field was created out of the destruction of acres upon acres of wetlands in San Francisco, this title doesn’t entirely fit with the actuality of the location. Although the historical facts are not concealed, they are presented in a manner which undermines the significance of these occasions.
First a marshland, then filled for the Panama Pacific Exhibition, Crissy Field was created in order to promote tourism during the early 1900’s. As years went by, the site changed in order to fit the demands of San Francisco, becoming a military airfield and then returning to rather common tourist location in San Francisco. Boland’s article covers these historical facts, and continues to add that under the National Park Service’s direction the location has “struck a delicate balance” between “natural and cultural resources” and “public use and enjoyment”. Whether this is true is clearly arguable, because the devastation inflicted upon the environment when the area was first filled during the 1870’s has never been remedied. Efforts to now return the site back to a more original form seem futile at best, and it seems unfair to claim that the location has a balance between nature and tourism when it clearly cannot.
It may be that Boland is trying to sugar coat the truth behind the history of Crissy Field to his reader, by highlighting the efforts made today to preserve the valuable natural elements the location has to offer. Although not entirely masking the truth, the article cleverly persuades the reader into believing that the area is something more than it really is.
Since my project involves Ginsberg, I thought it wise to go over some of his other poems and found a particularly nice anthology of his poetry in the McHenry Library. The book is thick! It covers his work from 1947-1997 and has a lot of material to sift through. I did find a number of poems dealing with queer themes and explicit homosexual imagery.
The poems concerning homosexuality seem to range from social issues and love to more physical depictions of male same sex relations. For instance "Please Master" (link: http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Allen-Ginsberg/3694) goes into a lot of detail and quite explicitly describes sexual intercourse between men. For the time this kind of imagery was very confrontational. It wasn't until 1973 that homosexuality was disqualified as a mental illness and "Please Master" was published in 1968! When Ginsberg published this poem, there was no public discussion of homosexuality as a form of sexuality in general let alone literature detailing sexual acts between men. The nature of Ginsberg's poetry concerning homosexuality seems to confront the lack of discussion on the topic. Ginsberg makes no attempts to soften or create any mystery around what he's saying. Whereas traditionally homosexuality was only hinted at or spoken of in cryptic language, Ginsberg wrote lines such as "drive in my belly your selfsame sweet heat-rood" His literal depiction of homosexual relationships opened the door for discussion on such a delicate and ‘unapproachable’ issue.
Other poems such as “Student Love” and “This Form of Life Needs Sex” criticize the pressure to conform to a heteronormative lifestyle. “This Form of Life Needs Sex” opens with the line “I will have to accept women/ if I want to continue the race” and depicts Ginsberg’s hesitation to pursue female relations simply for acceptance or to “issue my own cockbrain replica Me-Hood” ie: have children. He refers to this kind of relationship as “ignorant Fuckery” and the woman with which he would pursue it as “living meat phantom,/ a mystery scary as my fanged god” In “Student Love” Ginsberg looks to the future of a young lover, “In twenty years thick bellied,/ bright eyes dulled with office work,/ his children’ll pout in the bathroom” and the urgency to “get in bed with him” before this occurs. Both of these poems show a distaste for traditional ways of life; “This Form…” in its mysterious and nightmarish depiction of the female form and “Student Love“ in its depiction of Ginsberg‘s beautiful bright young lover as worn down and deformed by his capitalist existence. In terms of Ginsberg’s place within the larger gay rights movement, the ideology demonstrated in these two examples of his work fit nicely with the emergence of the more radical and confrontational gay movement that emerged in the 60’s, rejecting the homophile movement that preceded it.
I’m planning to use quotes and thoughts from “The Rediscovery of Turtle Island” by Gary Snyder (A Place in Space) in my paper about the Native American Renaissance of the 1960s-1970s in the Bay Area. Keeping in mind ideas generously donated by Stacy about a quest to rediscover and claim Native American identities in the Bay Area, pursued particularly passionately by students in the Civil Rights Movement, I’m thinking about what a non-Native American person can contribute as far as ruminations on the possibilities of rediscovering a Native America.
Reading critically, as per Eireene’s suggestions, a quote on page two forty-three stood out to me: “Many whites [pre-1970] figured that the best they could do on behalf of Turtle Island was to work for the environment, reinhabit the urban or rural margins, learn the landscape, and give support to Native Americans when asked.” I don’t know if Gary Snyder is including himself in this assumption about “many whites,” but I wonder how true (or not) this is. Turtle Island as an idea which incorporates pagan and animistic creationist connotations seems pretty impossible to acknowledge in larger society, even in the nineteen-seventies. I mean, McCain still got a good number of votes, if you know what I mean. Americans are a long way from acknowledging our unholy and blasphemous genocidal crimes against our own native peoples, much less venture into polytheism as a country.
Who is Snyder supposing is going to be doing any official renaming? How big do the human supporters of this need to be to constitute successful transformation of continental identity, in Snyder’s opinion? Turtle Island: “a name: that we may see ourselves more accurately on this continent of watersheds and life communities – plant zones, physiographic provinces, culture areas, following natural boundaries.” (244) I know Snyder feels successful when surrounded by people who enlighten him and who are enlightened by him, and who live Zen and counter-culturally (see Dharma Bums, if I may hold Kerouac’s perceptions of actions of Snyder’s committed fifty years ago as evidence of Snyder’s character). If Snyder would be satisfied with an enlightened circle using and celebrating this new moniker for North America, then I would be happy for him, but it would not be what I consider wide-spread acknowledgment of a reclaiming of Native American identity within the native land.
After reading a good deal this quarter about American protest movements of the nineteen-sixties (Free Speech, end the War in Vietnam, Civil Rights/Women’s Rights), I am convinced that mass movements are one way to achieve change in systems, or at least it was a way. I’ll have to research approximate numbers of people participating the in biggest movements in the Bay Area (SF State’s “Ethnic Studies” protests, UC Berkeley’s FSM sit-ins and protests) and see how they compare to the Native American occupation of Alcatraz. Sadly, the U.S. government has tortured and murdered Native Americans to a number which is far from competitive in the United States House of Representatives, or any branch of government for that matter. Lacking a huge movement and successful operatic disruption, I’m afraid Coyote and Earthmaker will never enjoy equal notoriety with those gods who exist among the pantheon of those majority-worshipped in the U.S. (These numbers are of interest to me, because it took a good five hundred years of genocide for the government to nearly wipe out its native people; I’d like to see how Native Americans’ representative numbers in capitalist, tourist, reservation, public and religious communities stack up today, to see how Native Americans’ numbers affect their representation in America.) These principles of economy determining social worth in America are not democratic, and therefore are even farther from the progression needed to celebrate and make reparations for the natives whom we attempt to destroy. The whites will need to do a lot more than stand alongside when called upon to help achieve the equality promised in America.
I am writing about eastern influences upon San Francisco culture and literary circles.
"Thus his great Mantra:
Namah samanta vajranam chanda masharoshana
Sphataya hum traka ham mam
'I dedicate myself to the universal diamond--be this raging fury destroyed'
And he will protect those who love woods and rivers, Gods and animals, hoboes and madmen, prisoners and sick people, musicians, playful women, and hopeful children; And if anyone is threatened be advertising, air pollution, or the police, they should chant SMOKEY THE BEAR'S WAR SPELL..." (Snyder 27)
Snyder here places Smokey the Bear as a buddhist symbol, a protector of all living things. Snyder takes Smokey's motto "Only you can prevent forest fires" and transforms it into a mantra which reaches out not only to prevention of forest fires but expands to greater environmental protection practices. He takes Smokey's environmental protection promotions as a path to spiritual enlightenment. He (Smokey) helps all kinds of people from "madmen" to "playful women." Snyder uses the concept of the mantra to acheive this goal of environmental protection as a spiritual idea.
So I missed last weeks assignment (sorry for that) but here is what I have been thinking of working with.
As a creative writing major in fiction on this campus I love to write stories that a certain undertone. The genre that is my favorite is mystery/science fiction/adventure and I think I may have a way of combining these passions with this assignment. As I saw, we can create our own topic. Mind you this is all off the top of my head so bare with the rambling but what I was hoping on doing was having some sort of conflict where different ethnicities/genders are confined somewhere. This could be from a disasterous earthquake or a zombie attack or anything in between, as long as it's life threatening and people's true colors come out. Under these pressure situations I could delve into the lifestyle of certain people, such as gays and homophobes or hippies and republicans, and make them clash. Using this medium, I could input my understandings that I have developed through the course of this class into the characters and reveal certain things I have learned and come to believe. Ten pages may seem like a lot but in the creative writing word this is a short story so I could definitely get a lot of information in as well as make it interesting. This will be a modern day society setting, anywhere in San Francisco, and I am sure it will be a lot of fun. As you can tell this is extremely rough but I love the idea and am really looking forward to figuring out how to make it work for this final paper. If you have any ideas to help me out I would really appreciate them. Good luck with all your stuff and I'll see you all in class.
So I missed last weeks assignment (sorry for that) but here is what I have been thinking of working with.
As a creative writing major in fiction on this campus I love to write stories that a certain undertone. The genre that is my favorite is mystery/science fiction/adventure and I think I may have a way of combining these passions with this assignment. As I saw, we can create our own topic. Mind you this is all off the top of my head so bare with the rambling but what I was hoping on doing was having some sort of conflict where different ethnicities/genders are confined somewhere. This could be from a disasterous earthquake or a zombie attack or anything in between, as long as it's life threatening and people's true colors come out. Under these pressure situations I could delve into the lifestyle of certain people, such as gays and homophobes or hippies and republicans, and make them clash. Using this medium, I could input my understandings that I have developed through the course of this class into the characters and reveal certain things I have learned and come to believe. Ten pages may seem like a lot but in the creative writing word this is a short story so I could definitely get a lot of information in as well as make it interesting. This will be a modern day society setting, anywhere in San Francisco, and I am sure it will be a lot of fun. As you can tell this is extremely rough but I love the idea and am really looking forward to figuring out how to make it work for this final paper. If you have any ideas to help me out I would really appreciate them. Good luck with all your stuff and I'll see you all in class.
My final paper is on Brautigan and his portrayal of women.
This passage is in The Abortion by Brautigan. He is talking to a woman he just met who will ultimately end up being the woman who has the abortion.
• “I just don’t understand why women want bodies like this. The grotesqueness of them and they try so very hard to get these bodies, moving hell and high water with dieting, operations, injections, obscene undergarments to arrive at one of these damn things and then if they try everything and still can’t get one, the dumb cunts fake it. Well, here’s one they can have for free. Come and get it, you bitches.” p. 66
The man's response is:
• “Whether you like it or not, you’re a very beautiful woman and you’ve got a grand container. It may not be what you want, but this body is in your keeping and you should take good care of it and with pride, too. I know it’s hard but don’t worry about what other people want and what they get. You’ve got something that’s beautiful and try to live with it.” p. 67
The woman, named Vida, is complaining about how voluptuous her body is and the extreme responses from both men and women. Her body makes her uncomfortable and she wishes she had a more appropriate body to coincide with her mental state. She feels as if she is literally in the wrong body and says that her sister has a body more in line with what she thinks she should have. She comments on how hard women work to get bodies like the one that makes her so uncomfortable. They go through so much pain and effort to for other women and men they want to attract, not themselves. Vida's statement brings to mind the competition between women to be the most beautiful, the most wanted. All the man can say is that she should accept her body. He even calls her body a "container" which while it may seem offensive at first glance, actually points out that there is more to her. Her body is just a facade, the outside which contains all her wonderful ideas and inner beauty. However, he will never know what it feels like to be stared at, hollered at, groped, etc. He really cannot comfort her much in this situation because even if she fully accepts her body and comes to term with its beauty, the reactions from other people will still be excessive. (In other passages, men will run into things and yell things in her direction) She does not want to be a spectacle, but her body is perceived as perfection and will be noticed and desired. This passage emphasizes our society's view of women as objects, and in some extreme cases, as property.
While my analysis of this passage is mostly negative regarding the male character's attitude towards the woman, tentatively, the bulk of my paper will be wrestling with the themes of love and somewhat misogynistic statements. Although Brautigan sometimes objectifies women, it is clear that he has a deep love for them and intense respect for certain women in particular. As a woman, it is hard to justify any misogyny and patriarchy, but I see something else in Brautigan's work that I want to focus on.
“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?”
Ann Garrison’s essay “Suicide in the City” discusses the Golden Gate Bridge not only as an iconic symbol of San Francisco but as one of the most popular suicide sites in the country. She discusses how the bridge has often been a site of street theater; host to war protests, research into the destruction of climate and nature, as well as a backdrop to movies and televisions shows set in the city. Ann discusses the arguments for and against the construction of a barrier. Should a city known for its tolerance and flexibility of personal choices prevent someone from taking their own life? Garrison then goes on to refute the various theories regarding the popularity of San Francisco as a site for suicide. She concludes her investigation by discussing the reality of suicide statistics in San Francisco. She discusses AIDS and gives a brief history of the issues regarding the barrier. She concludes with a consideration of why it took almost 44 years for the Bridge Authority to install a barrier.
Garrison’s essay covers a lot of information which I think needs to be expanded upon. Her overall tone was in favor of the suicide guard and concern over how notions of personal freedom became mixed with notions of one’s right to die. I think Garrison briefly touches on some key issues I want to discuss in my final research paper. My intention is to draw links between community outreach in San Francisco regarding the disenfranchised. I am hoping to draw interesting connections between the Golden Gate Bridge and Girl Scouts of America a community service and education based program. I wish to further investigate Garrison’s initial concern over how the image and idea of personal freedom so historically and ideologically foundational to San Francisco can be manipulated into something supportive of suicide. Also Garrison briefly mentions statistics regarding alcoholism and drug abuse, race, gender, and sexual orientation as contributing factors to percentages of suicides. I think this would be an interesting way to deconstruct the romantic notions of a free thinking free choice city and to truly examine issues of homelessness, drug abuse, and gender issues in the city. Garrison mentions how the onset of AIDS transformed the right to die movement and I would like to investigate this issue further.
Garrison sets an interesting and investigative tone to her discussion of the Golden Gate Bridge. She covers history both literal and fictional regarding the Bridge and city as both a symbol and a living functioning reality. While I think she oversimplifies some of the major issues of themes her essay in totality provides a strong resource in which to find further research topics and themes.
My project is about street art in the city and how the different murals and graffiti define each neighborhood separately.
In Reclaiming San Francisco, Timothy Drescher talks about graffiti art and murals in his essay: Street Subversion. There are a few one particular passages that deal with some of the themes of my creative project, on page 242 in the book. In completing my project I think it's important to talk about the differences between graffiti and murals, which Drescher touches on in his essay.
"...graffiti may be a kind of "striking back" at injustice by any powerful institution, creating an "instant dialogue" that is carried out in action..."
This is definitely true. I wouldn't even use the word "may" as Drescher does. I believe that graffiti is striking back at injustice. That's all graffiti is- putting art in a place that it's not supposed to be. Murals work very much in the same way but the fact that they are approved to be in these public places makes them different from graffiti. Murals are less of a protest to government domination, while they do often have themes which speak to this.
"Traditional muralists were sometimes concerned with both geographical and architectural environments as well as audience...But spray-can artists have a different conception of political georgaphy..."
It's true that graffiti artists use locations which are harder to reach but still visible- in order to get their message across. I think graffiti artists are very much concerned with geographical environments. I find it very interesting that in the Haight, graffiti art often becomes a mural of sorts- which the neighborhood does not touch. I'm thinking of one in particular which is a portrait of Bob Marley. Because the Haight is so accepting of subversive culture- it has not been touched for years.
One of the poems that I’d like to look at is The Beautiful Poem by Brautigan and how he displays his sexuality and, how he avoids the conventional role, how he breaks barriers.
The Poem goes..
The Beautiful Poem
I go to bed in Los Angeles thinking
About you.
Pissing a few moments ago
I looked down at my penis
Affectionately.
Knowing it ha been inside
You twice today makes me
Feel beautiful.
The Beautiful Poem is very specific in the sense that he wrote in the poem that he wrote it at 3 AM on January 15, 1967. I googled the date and the only major thing that came up was the super bowl between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs. This I feel asserts Brautigan’s need to fulfill the machismo image of masculinity. He however, goes against the role of masculinity and talks about how he is able to feel beautiful, a more feminine trait. In each of Brautigan’s poems about sexuality, he shows that he is obsessed with himself. He always goes for the non-congenital role.
In research for my final essay, I stumbled upon a passage I thought was very interesting. My topic is Beat woman writers. However, after reading from a book called Girls Who Wore Black (essays about beat woman writers) Ginsberg states that he did not find any women writers with “such power as Kerouac or Burroughs” except Diane di Prima. I found some of her poetry books and begun researching her as a beat writer. I think I now want to focus more specifically on di Prima as a woman in beat writing.
In Girls Who Wore Black an essay called “Visions and Revisions of the Beat Generation” by Ronna C. Johnson and Nancy M. Grace had some very remarkable quotes from other people who examine beat woman writers. One of them was an idea from Alix Kates Shulman’s (an early radical feminist and writer) novel Burning Questions that reads, “women beats were a protofeminist vanguard. Antecedent to women’s liberation of the sixties, they were those who, advancing ‘From Silent to Beat to Revolutionary’, had suffered a paralysis of expression—“some of us felt we had nothing to say and the rest had no one to say it to”.
This made me think about how women beats were more than just women in that culture. They were up against things that the men couldn’t understand. To understand a woman beat writings, you need to understand the 1960’s and the circumstances surrounding places in America like San Francisco and other beat metropolises. These women were doing things that not many other women had thought to do at the time, and they changed how women are viewed today, even if we don’t realize it. From Diane di Prima’s poems I see a lot of ideas I can draw to make statements about the time and her own struggles, and relate them to men beats such as Brautigan or Ginsberg.
When I get to more close readings or her work, I’ll post them on my blog. For now I’m just researching background information that can help me formulate my ideas.
I’m writing about the impacts of the acid tests. Who went? How did the acid tests influence them? What was the purpose of the tests? How did they start? My thesis and focus are still unclear, but I’m truly curious as to what Ken Kesey and his Marry Pranksters were trying to achieve.
“Christ! how many movements before them had run into this selfsame problem. Every vision, every insight of the… original… circle always came out of the new experience… the kairos… and how to tell it! How to get it across to the multitudes who have never had this experience themselves? You couldn’t put it into words. You had to create conditions in which they would feel an approzimation of that feeling, the sublime kairos. You had to put them into ecstasy… Buddhist monks immersing themselves into cosmic love through fasting and contemplation, Hindus zonked out in Bhakiti, which is fervent love in the possession of God, ecstatics flooding themselves with Kirishna through sexual orgies or plunging into the dinners of the Bacchanalia, Christians off in Edge City through gnostic onanism or the Heart of Jesus or the Child of Jesus with its running sore—or—
"The Acid Tests.”
-Electric Kool-aid Acid Tests, Tom Wolfe
This passage addresses the purpose that Kesey and his Pranksters are trying to inspire to in their acid tests. Not only that, it also shows what they think is so beautiful about acid in the first place. It’s not just a way to have a good time or get fucked up. It is a genuinely religious experience, a way to “experience the kairos.” Much like the previous beat movement had been facinated with, how do their philosophies and ideals intermingle with the religious quest into Eastern and even Western philosophies and religious teachings.
The acid tests were created to put people into ecstasy. The Pranksters were aspiring to use this drug to create a religious experience, although they admit that the drug is not necessary and Buddhist monks can immerse “themselves into cosmic love through fasting and contemplation” alone.
By taking drugs, namely acid, and putting people into given conditions with “lights, movies, video tapes, video tapes of themselves” (231), acid creates a spiritual experience for people that had never had such an experience themselves.
Passage:
“They probably swept him up one morning and put him in jail to punish him, the evil fart, or they put him in a nuthouse to dry him out a little. Maybe Trout Fishing in America Shorty just pedaled down to San Jose in his wheelchair, rattling along the freeway at a quarter of a mile an hour.” (Brautigan, 47).
It’s interesting to think about Richard Brautigan’s thought process while writing this piece, especially because producing an accurate Brautigan biography with much depth is pretty difficult. Brautigan himself created this problem through fictionalization both in his writings and stories told friends and family; thus, some of the autobiographical details of his life are either inaccurate or sparse. Accounts provided by friends and family are often puzzling or conflicting in content.
With this in mind, it seems as though lore was woven throughout Brautigan’s life and placed within his stories, like The Shipping of Trout Fishing in America Shorty to Nelson Algren. In this passage, Brautigan’s language is terse and to the point, taking only a couple sentences to sum up Trout Fishing in America Shorty’s fate. This exemplifies his style overall – brevity being a tool used to highlight key events or descriptions. Because Brautigan also tends to use unique phrasing ("rattling along the freeway at a quarter of a mile an hour"), a lot of his humor can be located in these precise moments.
Ginsberg continues the stanza with those “who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy/who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love” (Ginsberg 13). By calling the motorcyclists “saintly,” Ginsberg contradicts the image of Hells Angels and the ultimate masculine figure, softening or perhaps even feminizing these figures. He furthers this by mentioning sailors, and brings a more romantic and softer image to homosexuality by discussing the gentle “caresses” of their love. This quote describes homosexuality as a global matter, unconfined to one country or race. Additionally, by using adjectives such as “saintly” and comparing these lovers to seraphim, or angels, Ginsberg gives sex a religious aspect and implies that even gay sex can be considered spiritual and worthy of marriage, a contradiction to one of the arguments people today have against gay marriage. One author describes how these sailors, who might have considered themselves heterosexual at home and even had a wife and child, could temporarily indulge in homosexual desires while abroad. “With the stress of dislocation and impending doom, almost anyone in uniform was available…far from their home communities, unhindered by what others thought, most responded willingly to homosexual acts” (Marler, xxvi). This segregation during wartime, causing men to fight alongside men and women to work in factories primarily with women, introduced those who ever felt slight curiosity or even urges to homosexual encounters. By demonstrating how free sailors—and therefore anyone—can act when uninhibited by society’s judgments and restrictions, Marler’s statement illustrates how homosexuality is a natural desire, and not necessarily controllable.
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