Thank
you,
Michael
Czarnecki
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 20:48:59 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: William Miller
<KenofWNC@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: WSB & TSE
Hey
folks.
someone
wrote:
>>
Also, I read that Bill was presenting a TV series on his favourite cats!
Has
anyone any more information about this, has it been broadcast yet?
And
andrew Howald replied:
Now
this is something. I've been more &
more interested in WSB's affinities
with
TSE lately. (T. S. Eliot, that
is.) They have St. Louis & Harvard
in
common.
And
both specialized in a cut-up style, layering multiple voices. (Somewhere
I came
across
a cut-up by Burroughs of The Waste Land--cut-up of a cut-up, all-out
puree.--
Does
anyone know where I saw this?) Now I hear that WSB is doing some sort of
cat
thing. Is it conscious emulation?
BTW,
TSE reading the end of Book II of the Waste Land sounds just like our
birthday
boy.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Add to
that: the collaboration of TSE and EP had a major impact, there was
some sort
of synergy there, as there was with AG and Burroughs.
But
still I don't think that it's conscious emulation.
Eliot
spend a lot of time and effort on criticism, and our birthday boy
certainly
has not. I've heard that Eliot kept the
private life WAY in the
background,
and, although Burroughs has sometimes been cited as attempting to
be
private, el hombre invisible and all that, he's a huge public figure.
It's
fun to think about, though.
William
Miller
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 20:49:35 -0500
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From: William Miller <KenofWNC@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Character references
Hello
again.
I think
that "just looking at the texts themselves" is a big mistake. You
have to
learn everything you can about a work, at least all that's cogent,
and in
K's case, you have to look outside the text as well, once you realize
that
there's something out there worth
looking at.
On the
first reading of OTR, I was truly disappointed. I had read some
biographical
materiel on JK, and I finished the book thinking "could this guy
invent
ANYTHING?". i could see the
invention of a major style, but that
wasn't
enough for me.
Now
that I look at it sort of like this
A
<----------> some of JK's life
experiences
B
<----------> text of OTR.
The
exploration of how he got from A to B is the key, I must believe.
All the
complaining about the "Beats aren't getting their literary due" is
rapidly
nearing a massive whine. If it's
because certain people can't get
beyond
the beatnik/ "hey, daddy-o" image, that's too bad, but it's not our
loss. It's theirs.
William
Miller
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 18:06:09 -0800
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.BITNET>
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From: Janet Hoelle
<97jhoell@ULTRIX.UOR.EDU>
I WOULD
LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR MAILING LIST. PLEASE ADD ME TO YOUR LIST.
NICOLE
HOELLE
97jhoell@ultrix.uor.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 23:56:59 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.BITNET>
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From: Dan Lauffer <DanLauff@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: More OTR Ravings
For the
major application of "automatic writing" see Gertrude Stein. She
wrote a
thesis on it when she studied with James at Harvard. Her composition
methods
described by Souhami seem to be a use of hypnogogic and hypnopompic
states
of consciousness for her compositions, with
Alice B. typing it up the
next
day.
Dan
Lauffer
<I'm
with you in Rockland>
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 23:52:37 -0800
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.BITNET>
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From: "Aldon L. Nielsen"
<anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Harold Carrington
I am
trying to track down mss. and letters from the late poet Harold
Carrington,
who died mostly unpublished in the early sixties -- Would be
much
interested in hearing from anyone who knows location of any
Carrington
papers --
Also
looking for current address, if there is one, for Ray Bremser, who
was a
friend of Carrington's --
Lastly,
for now, trying to solve a puzzle. Ray
Bremser published two
versions
of a piece titled "Drive Suite."
Several years later, a version
of the
poem was published in Paul Breman's Heritage Series and attributed
to
Carrington -- I suspect that somebody found a ms. of the poem among
Carrington's
stuff and was confused, but it could also be that they
worked
on it together -- Does anybody know anything about this??
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 13:13:49 EST
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.BITNET>
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From: CLAY VAUGHAN
<CLV100U@MOZART.FPA.ODU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Missing Texts
Comments:
To: Tim <tching@VOYAGER.CO.NZ>,
"BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L%CUNYVM.BITNET@oduvm.cc.odu.edu>
Pull My
Daisy: I don't believe there is anything published (if it
is the
script of the film you're interested in), though the poem that
was
written by Ginsberg/Kerouac of that same title and written in the
late
forties has been published. The film, Pull My Daisy, was said to
be based
on a three-act play Kerouac wrote called The Beat
Generation,
the scenario of the movie being the third act.
Wake
Up and
Some of the Dharma are basically
unpublished, though
the
Buddhist mag Tricycle began (at least) to serialize Wake Up . I'd
read
rumors that Some of the Dharma would be published at the end of
last
year, but so far, no go.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 14:12:37 -0500
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From: Dave Quattro
<quattro@DCSEQ.USCGA.EDU>
Subject: thoughts?
i'd
like to see what a bunch of beatniks think of ayn rand... anyone,
anyone? i know she's no JK, but as beatniks, we're
thinkers too, right?
here's
some thoughts too.
ayn
rand has backed herself up well. she
says that people who deserve a
social
contract are those who understand that it's exactly that. we all
rely on
each other. if you're not participating
in the production of
things,
pretty much if you don't have a monster frigging work ethic, then
you're
part of the destruction. ayn rand also
feels very strongly on this:
too
many people don't understand, don't care.
too many people leave things
up to a
question: "Who is John Galt?"
too many people just say, "oh well -
it's
something i can't understand, a catch 22.
it can't be helped." she
hates
that. ayn rand calls bullshit on
society. she says that that
attitude
is death. it is leachness, and it is
evil. but you know what it
really
is? cognative dissonance.
when
you trust... you leave yourself open to the imperfections of others.
you
WILL pay for their mistakes.
(unavoidable? i don't know.)
i used
to want to be a simple farmer - living off what i grow, making no
profit,
keeping chickens and maybe some pigs/cows/horses... a simple life
in the
country free of nuclear bombs and traffic jams. and if a nuclear
bomb or
radon gas kills me, well i can melt or choke knowing that i had
absolutely
nothing to do with it, and i'd be free.
BUT i
have grown out of this, because i don't want to be the farmer who is
self
sufficient and doing fine but oh! he has no teeth, because he refuses
to buy
the toothbrush that's manufactured.
when my cows all get
hemerhoids,
i am not too proud to take them to the vet...
when my child
becomes
deathly ill, i'm not so proud that i will just let him/her die...
when
there's a flood, i'm not too proud to borrow some seeds or grain from
my
neighbor.
there
are things on earth - natural things out of our control that do not
allow
us to live a perfectly lonely life.
life is unpredictable. it's
impossible
to plan for everything (anything).
where's
this guy going with this? i don't know
- randomesque thoughts.
upon
rereading, i see that i've got some incoherency and idea hopping, but
oh
well.
so
what's the solution? here's what i
think: remember ayn's power... and
remebmer
dave's farmer power too. it's up to all
of us to decide what
solution
is appropriate in what situation.
learn
& teach
-
D=AA=88=A1=8F Q=B5=C5=DDt=AE=9A
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 14:09:09 -0500
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From: "Trevor D. Smith"
<V116NH27@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization:
University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: Hesse and _Big Sur_
Thanks
Rod W. for the quote from _Big Sur_ which apparently
is
critical of Hesse's _Steppenwolf_.
Earlier in Jan., Dan
Barth
also quoted a part of that quote, but I missed the
"old
fart....trying to be like Nietzsche...Dostoyevsky" part.
(Can I
assume that this refers to Harry Haller, or do you
suppose
JK is alluding to Hesse??-- If he means ol' Hesse,
this is
a dandy quote, and somewhat accurate.)
I will
have to have a closer look at _Big Sur_, as I am not familiar
with
it, but that quote is very telling. I
am, frankly, surprised
that
_Steppenwolf_ would not appeal to JK. I
am sure many
of you
are familiar with this work, so I will spare you the
details,
but it is essentially about an artist (outsider) in
search
of himself. In his search, he discovers
his sexuality
(and
the notions of multiply partners, homosexuality and prostitution),
Dionysian
music (in the 20's this was dance music-- forerunner
to
jazz), murder and crime, and lastly drugs (the drug influence
in the
novel has been questioned, but most critics agree that
drugs
play at least a "minor" role).
In a nutshell,
_Steppenwolf_
would seem to share many of the "Beat Generation
ideals",
I think (I am no Beat expert, so correct me if I am
wrong!!)
Despite
all of my ruminations and arguments, JK may have despised
Hesse's
_Steppenwolf_ and perhaps saw nothing in it he even
remotely
liked (which, in _Big Sur_, appears to be the case).
So......if
_Steppenwolf_ did not influence JK (or any of the Beats),
then I
guess I am wrong.
Not the
first time!!
Any
ideas..... ?
Trevor
Smith
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 14:31:52 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: Paul McDonald - Bon Air Branch
<PAUL@LOUISVILLE.LIB.KY.US>
Subject: GINSBERG AND MEDITATION
I was
wondering if anyone knew if Allen Ginsberg studied meditation with
Swami
Muktananda Paramahansa before deciding that Chogyam Trungpa would be his
primary
teacher. I read a little about him and
Muktananda in "Dharma Lion"
and the
bio by Barry Miles, but it is very short.
Apparently Muktnanada made
quite
an impression on him, according to a statements Ginsberg made in an
interview
I read on the net. Any info about this
association would be greatly
appreciated.
Paul
McDonald
Paul@louisville.lib.ky.us
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 17:11:36 -0500
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From: Ted Pelton <Notlep@AOL.COM>
Subject: TSE-WSB
But
waaaait a minute -- TSE & WSB were on real opposite sides of the fence.
I think perhaps the most major diff was that
WSB always made it a point not
to be
judgmental; Eliot, on the other hand, became the arbiter for at least a
decade
of American Literature, and the stuff he was involved in publishing
(as
editor at Faber & Faber) so closed down the local/vernacular/experimental
possibilities
of American poetry that a generation of poets -- including many
beat
influenced poets like Creeley, etc., found in Eliot the great villain of
a New
American verse. See intro to Poetics of
the New American Poetry, a
volume
which includes Pound, WC Williams and Stein as forbears but
deliberately
EXCLUDES TSE. Eliot would not have
published (and was a major
influence
on the publishing industry that resisted publishing) Jack, Bill,
Allen,
etc. He WAS the canon (directly or
indirectly) throughout the 40s &
50s. Yes he was an experimental, cut-up using,
marginal poet in the late
teens
and early twenties, BUT once given power he used it very ungenerously
and
dogmatically.
Ted
Pelton
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 20:27:03 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.BITNET>
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From: Howard Park <Hpark4@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Missing Texts
Pull My
Daisy (text and pictures from the film) was published by Grove in
paperback
in the early sixties or late 1950's. It
is extremely rare and has
been
out of print for decades. The only time
I ever saw it the asking price
was
something like $100.
If
anyone ever sees it at a garage sale or used bookstore at a reasonable
price,
buy it!
As for
Kerouac's Buddhist writings, I would be surprised if they are not out
by the
end of the year given the resurgence of interest in all things beat
these
days.
Anyone
know when the next volume of JK letters will be out?
Howard
Park
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 20:33:13 EST
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: Blaine Allan
<ALLANB@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>
Subject: Re: Missing Texts
In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 5 Feb 1996 20:27:03 -0500
from <Hpark4@AOL.COM>
On Mon,
5 Feb 1996 20:27:03 -0500 Howard Park said:
>Pull
My Daisy (text and pictures from the film) was published by Grove in
>paperback
in the early sixties or late 1950's. It
is extremely rare and has
>been
out of print for decades. The only time
I ever saw it the asking price
>was
something like $100.
>If
anyone ever sees it at a garage sale or used bookstore at a reasonable
>price,
buy it!
Howard
scooped me. I was writing a similar
response when my computer
hung
up. When I got back, he'd passed along
the appropriate information.
There
was a copy of the book in the Whitney show, as well as the
transcription
Alfred Leslie had made of the act of Kerouac's play
The
Beat Generation, on which the film is based.
The
gift shop at the Whitney also had copies of Pull My Daisy on VHS for
sale: "First Video Release," the package
trumpets. It cost $40, and
the
only indication of the source of the tape release is a note on the
back
concerning the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (phone 713 639 7531),
and its
circulating collection of film and video by Robert Frank.
The
print used for the video transfer, interestingly enough, is a
pre-release
version, interestingly enough, which carries the original
title
of the film, The Beat Generation, rather than Pull My Daisy.
This,
I'm presuming, is the print Frank reportedly unearthed a few
years
ago and placed in the Houston museum.
Blaine
Allan
ALLANB@QUCDN.QueensU.CA
Film
Studies
Queen's
University
Kingston,
Ontario
Canada K7L 3N6
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 21:11:23 -0500
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From: "W. Luther Jett"
<MagenDror@AOL.COM>
Subject: Saint Ayn
Comments:
cc: quattro@dcseq.uscga.edu
Dave
Quattro asks:
>i'd
like to see what a bunch of beatniks think of ayn rand... >anyone,
anyone? i know she's no JK, but as beatniks, we're
>thinkers too, right?
We're
both running the risk of being flamed for topic deviance here, but I'll
take a
stab at this:
In that
Ayn Rand was an iconoclast, who often went against the grain and was
spurned
by the academic establishment as a consequence, a thinker who
challenged
"collective reality" and championed the individual, I can see a
connection
with the gestalt of the Beats. However, the comparison can't be
carried
much further, I think. Rand was extremely intolerant of ambiguities,
be
those aesthetic or moral. (Her credo, borrowed from Aristotle, can be
summed
up as: " A is A".) And she utterly detested mysticism. So, I doubt
that
she would ever have sought out the Beats (indeed, I seem to recall that
she
made some rather disparaging remarks about Beat culture), and had she
found
herself in a room with Kerouac, Ginsberg, or Burroughs (let alone Neal
Cassady),
I think she would have left in very short order, her cigarette
holder
held high.
Interesting
question, though. As an aside, I'd have to add that a number of
post-Beat
'60s rebels ended up reading Ayn Rand and digging what she had to
say,
myself included. And there are distinctly libertarian threads in both
the
philosophy of Rand and the yearnings of the Beats. Rand has had the
misfortune,
I think, to have been much maligned by the left, with the result
that
many otherwise open-minded people have developed a knee-jerk antipathy
to the
mention of her name. More's the pity.
On the
other hand I don't recall ever reading anything by Hermann Hesse.
Luther
Jett, preparing now to duck and cover . . .
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 21:32:25 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.BITNET>
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From: Perry Lindstrom
<LindLitGrp@AOL.COM>
Subject: Happy B'Day
Happy
82nd Berfday WSB wherever you are!
I wrote
to the Bradford exchange trying to persuade them to do a
commemorative
plate for his 80th, but they never responded.
Strangely enough
I
suggested a vision of Burroughs with the American flag flying behind him --
which
was the exact image that I later saw in the Burroughs video --
Commisioner
of Sewers (right title?) -- very strange.
I
assume the people who keep asking about Burroughs and his cats are aware of
his cat
book -- if not, it's out there and it is serious -- I have dogs and
birds
so we wouldn't get along on that topic -- although I have to admit to
also
being fond of cats.
Perry
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 20:44:00 -0700
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.BITNET>
From: James M Spear
<jspear@COUGARNET.BYU.EDU>
Subject: plese remove
would
the responsible party remove me from this list thanx
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 22:48:34 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.BITNET>
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From: "s. mark johnson"
<smark@PIPELINE.COM>
Subject: Re: Saint Ayn
On Feb
05, 1996 21:11:23, '"W. Luther Jett" <MagenDror@AOL.COM>'
wrote:
>Rand
has had the
>misfortune,
I think, to have been much maligned by the left, with the
result
>that
many otherwise open-minded people have developed a knee-jerk
antipathy
>to
the mention of her name. More's the pity.
I, too,
read a lot of Ayn Rand (much more of the beats) and at probably too
young
an age. I do know that her book "Anthem" was a cause celebre of the
right
(wm f. buckley in particular) in the 60's and her killer capitalist
ideas
in "fountainhead" and Atlas shrugged" were maligned by what was
then
called
the left. She seems almost antithetical to what a lot of the beats
were
saying and doing then, although I'm sure Jerry Rubin later followed
some of
her precepts. And that was really pitiful!
Mark
Johnson
smark@nyc.pipeline.com
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 01:08:59 -0500
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.BITNET>
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From: Liz Prato <Lapislove@AOL.COM>
Subject: Buddhism v Catholicism
I read an interesting article by the Dalai
Lama regarding the similarities
of
Buddhism and Christianity. A few examples of places where he found
similarities:
In Buddhism, there is a belief that
every living person posses
the
seed of Buddha-nature, and in Christianity, there is the idea that all
people
are created in God's likeness. His
Holiness found the greatest
similarities
between Buddhist and Christian monks however, specifically that
both Christian & Buddhist monks practice
a way of life which involve
commitment,
simplicity & modesty. He also compares the vows taken by
Christian
monks to such Buddhist principles as Pratimiksha Sutra.
This
article can be found in the may 1995 edition of "Shambhala Sun,"
where
there
is also an article by Father Robert Kennedy about the areas where
Catholicism
and Buddhism can find common ground. (Kenney is a Jesuit preist
and zen
teacher - a good person to read if you're interested in further
exploring
the connection between Buddhism & Catholicism).
Liz
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 03:27:57 EST
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.BITNET>
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From: Andrew Howald
<103256.1311@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject: TSE-WSB
>But
waaaait a minute -- TSE & WSB were on real opposite sides of the fence.
>I think perhaps the most major diff was
that WSB always made it a point not
>to be judgmental; Eliot, on the other
hand, became the arbiter for at least a
>decade of American Literature, and the
stuff he was involved in publishing
>(as editor at Faber & Faber) so
closed down the local/vernacular/experimental
>possibilities
of American poetry that a generation of poets -- including many
>beat
influenced poets like Creeley, etc., found in Eliot the great villain of
>a
New American verse. See intro to
Poetics of the New American Poetry, a
>volume
which includes Pound, WC Williams and Stein as forbears but
>deliberately
EXCLUDES TSE. Eliot would not have
published (and was a major
>influence
on the publishing industry that resisted publishing) Jack, Bill,
>Allen,
etc. He WAS the canon (directly or
indirectly) throughout the 40s &
>50s. Yes he was an experimental, cut-up using,
marginal poet in the late
>teens
and early twenties, BUT once given power he used it very ungenerously
>and
dogmatically.
>Ted
Pelton
Ted, I certainly get your drift here and mostly agree. For one thing, as
has
already been pointed out by William Miller,
WSB has always eschewed literary
criticism (thank god that's been true of most
of the beats!) whereas TSE
couldn't stop pontificating. Still I see resemblances however. Isn't Bull Lee
in OTR a little like the pontifical Possum?
And where is it that Burroughs
quotes, without irony, the Eliot line
"After such knowledge, what forgiveness"?
(Apologies for being without texts.) And
WHERE is that damn cut-up he did of
the Waste Land?
I don't know if WSB and TSE were
"on real opposite sides of the
fence"
but they were certainly a generation
apart. WSB was eight when the
Waste Land appeared. I myself
find it impossible to imagine Naked Lunch
as we know it without the Waste Land, and
this is not just for technical
reasons
(though the similarites in technique are
strong). It is more for a certain
sense
of the grotesquely comic that the two works share.
I admit these are just impressions. I mean to delve further. Before I go
let me add that Gary Snyder has called TSE's
Four Quartets a major work.
Yours,
Andrew
"These
men, and those who opposed them
And
those whom they opposed
Accept
the constitution of silence
And are
folded in a single party."
--Little Gidding
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 06:37:31 -0500
Reply-To: Peter Jaeger <pjaeger@bosshog.arts.uwo.ca>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.BITNET>
From: Peter Jaeger
<pjaeger@BOSSHOG.ARTS.UWO.CA>
Subject: Re: Buddhism v Catholicism
Comments:
cc: Multiple recipients of list BEAT-L <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.uwo.ca>
In-Reply-To:
<960206010858_415632725@emout07.mail.aol.com>
On Tue,
6 Feb 1996, Liz Prato wrote:
> I read an interesting article by the Dalai
Lama regarding the similarities
> of
Buddhism and Christianity. A few examples of places where he found
>
similarities: In Buddhism, there is a
belief that every living person posses
>
the seed of Buddha-nature, and in Christianity, there is the idea that all
>
people are created in God's likeness.
His Holiness found the greatest
>
similarities between Buddhist and Christian monks however, specifically that
> both Christian & Buddhist monks practice
a way of life which involve
>
commitment, simplicity & modesty. He also compares the vows taken by
>
Christian monks to such Buddhist principles as Pratimiksha Sutra.
>
>
This article can be found in the may 1995 edition of "Shambhala Sun,"
where
>
there is also an article by Father Robert Kennedy about the areas where
>
Catholicism and Buddhism can find common ground. (Kenney is a Jesuit preist
>
and zen teacher - a good person to read if you're interested in further
>
exploring the connection between Buddhism & Catholicism).
>
>
Liz
>
Thomas
Merton's _Thoughts on the East_ (New directions 1995), a
collection
of earlier essays, is also a good way to enter into
catholic/buddhist
dialogue. Merton writes on his meeting
with the Dalai
Lama: "It was a very warm and cordial
discussion and at the end I felt
we had
become very good friends and were somehow quite close to one
another. I felt a great respect and fondness for him
as a person and
believe,
too, that there is a real spiritual bond between us. He
remarked
that I was a "Catholic geshe," which, Harold said, was the
highest
psooble praise from a Gelugpa, like an honorary doctorate!"
-Peter
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 09:52:28 EST
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From: CLAY VAUGHAN
<CLV100U@MOZART.FPA.ODU.EDU>
Subject: Cheever on Kerouac
Not to
belabor the obvious, but the characters who inhabit John
Cheever's
fiction couldn't be any further from the spirits of those
Kerouac
sketched in his work. But I found it interesting, in this 1958
entry
from John Cheever's Journals, this commentary, based obviously
on THE
SUBTERRANEANS, but pretending to encompass and understand all
of what
Kerouac was about in his writing. There's no mention that
he's
read OTR or DHARMA BUMS, which would've been published by the
time
SUBTERRANEANS came out, but he certainly has a sort of extra-
literary
ax to grind (as, it seemed, so many folks did at the time),
appearing
not to attack the work so much as its author and/or his
lifestyle:
"My first feelings about the Kerouac
book were: that it was not
good;
that most of its accents or effects were derived from some of
the
real explorers, like Saul; and that the apocalyptic imagery was
not
good enough-- was never lighted by true talent, or deep feeling,
vision.
It pleased me to catch him at a disadvantage, to sum up the
facts,
which could reflect on my lack of innocence. Here is a man of
thirty
who lives with his hard-working mother, cooks supper for her
when
she gets home from the store, has a shabby affair with a poor
Negress--
who knows so little about herself that she is easy prey--
wrestles,
very suspiciously, with his pals, weeps in a train yard
where
his mother's image appears to him, discovers that he is
deceived,
and writes a book. The style has the advantages, to make a
rough
comparison, of abstract painting. When we give up lucidity we
have,
from time to time, the power of broader associations. Life is
chaotic,
and so we can state this in chaotic terms. In trying to
catch
him at a disadvantage, I find him vulgar, meaning perhaps
unsophisticated--
his sexual identity, his prowess, is not much. He
is a
writer and wants to be a famous writer, a rich writer, and a
successful
writer, but the question of excellence never seems to
cross
his mind. The question of the greatest depth of feeling,
of
speaking with the greatest urgency. My life is very different from
what he
describes. There is almost no point where our emotions and
affirs
correspond. I am most deeply and continuously involved in the
love of
my wife and my children. It is my passion to present to my
children
the opportunity of life. That this, this passion, has not
reformed
my nature is well known. But there is some wonderful
seriousness
to the business of living, and one is not exempted by
being a
poet. You have to take some precautions with your health. You
have to
manage your money intelligently and respect your emotional
obligations.
There is another world--I see this--there is chaos, and
we are
suspended above it by a thread. But the thread holds. People
who
seek, who are driven to seek, love in urinals, do not deserve the
best of
our attention. They will be forgiven, and anyhow, sometimes
they
are not seeking love; they are seeking a means to express their
hatred
and suspicion of the world. Sometimes."
The
first reference, to what Cheever sees as derivative similarities
between
Kerouac, and... does he mean Saul Bellow? Can anyone make
sense
of this?
But
primarily, I find it interesting that, in a sense, Cheever WANTS
to like
the man, he wants to like the work, but there is something he
finds
"uncomfortable" in K's writing, something that unsettles him,
and he
weaves in and out of relevent attacks, now chastising him as
would
an elder writer a younger one (he was only 10 years older
than K,
though a century away from K in attitude), then practically
accusing
him of writing from a very base, almost smutty and
irresponsible
point of view (exposing Cheever's puritanism, his
priggishness,
not his literary critical acumen), but coming back, it
seems
to a very vague interest in K, but as what? We're not sure.
(Kerouac's
sudden rocket to fame might have something to do with
this,
in that Cheever achieved a steady though slower rise to reknown
as a
writer; jealously, I guess, can't be ruled out.) I think it shows
Cheever's
confusion when it comes to his comprehension of what is
acceptable
or what constitutes, to him, an unacceptable lifestyle.
Cheever
exhibited as much contradiction and confusion in his personal
life,
if not in his writing, something he seems to be attacking K for
in this
entry. What I will say in Cheever's favor, though, is that he
seems
to be trying to write his way into making some sense of what is
to him,
essentially, something new, something unusual (not flippantly
writing
K off as, say, Capote did), though his prejudices carry him
much of
that way to a very strange and, I think, unresolved
conclusion.
Anyone
have any other take on this?
Clay
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Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 11:14:13 -0500
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From: William Miller
<KenofWNC@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Happy B'Day
Thanks
to Perry Lindstrom for the happy birthday greetings to William.
Basically,
he's the only reason I'm on this list, which apparently gets
mainly
Kerouac action (that's the fault of us Burroughs people, I know)
I'll
just salute the old man again for giving us writing well into his
seventies.
Thanks,
Mr. Burroughs.
William
Miller
PS The
passage in _The Cat Inside_ in which the schoolmaster at Los Alamos
kills
the badger (or some small mammal) is simply perfect Burroughs.
Profoundly sad situation. Described, the old man makes it seem
hilarious.
Folks, read it if you haven't.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 11:20:19 EST
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From: Peter McGahey <PRM95003@UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Happy B'Day (fwd)
----------------------------Original
message----------------------------
Thanks
to Perry Lindstrom for the happy birthday greetings to William.
Basically,
he's the only reason I'm on this list, which apparently gets
mainly
Kerouac action (that's the fault of us Burroughs people, I know)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Wow, I
think Perry's comments are perceptive but don't know if I'd
go that
far.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 13:29:03 -0500
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From: Jim Stedman <jstedman@NMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Cheever on Kerouac
I agree
with all you said, Clay... but what crossed my mind while reading
your
post was "I wonder what Jack thought of Cheever?"
Had
Jack been of the type to type out a review, say, of some of Cheever's
early
stuff... what would he have said?
I think
that there was a significant want in Jack's later self to become
like
those Wapshot bigshots, taking-in the late morning poolside glass of
gin...
smug, satisfied, and beholding to their secrets.
Not
much is known of Jack's days in Northport... and article/interview here
and
there. I wonder how close Jack came to the pool in those days?
Jim
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 13:55:24 -0500
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From: Louis N Proyect
<lnp3@COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Cheever on Kerouac
In-Reply-To:
<v01510102ad3d084bde7b@[198.110.207.218]>
Check
out Cheever's "Falconer" written in 1977, a tale of alcoholism,
self-hatred,
repressed homosexuality and madness. It is a lot closer to
Kerouac's
"Big Sur" than any of the Wapshot type tales. It is also closer
to
Cheever the human being, according to Susan Cheever, than the image of the
buttoned-down
suburbanite more commonly known to the reading public.
Cheever
was no Updike, the country club stuff was just a facade.
Louis
Proyect
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 18:55:41 GMT
Reply-To: Dan_Barth@RedwoodFN.org
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: Dan Barth
<Dan_Barth@REDWOODFN.ORG>
Organization:
Redwood Free-Net
Subject: Re: Hesse and _Big Sur_
It does
seem that Kerouac would have responded more favorably to the old
Steppenwolf.
(By the way I just came across a reference in William Burrough's
book
*Exterminator*, to "Audrey Carson's first literary exercise,
'Autobiography
of a Wolf.'" I think young Burroughs really did write a piece
with
that title.) Anyway . . . a few thoughts on Kerouac's reaction. 1) He
was an
alcoholic experiencing severe mood swings (to put it mildly) so I
mistrust
his reaction to the book; the next day he may have loved it. 2) I
wonder
if he really read the entire book. 3) Later in *Big Sur* he talks
about
"the magic game of glad freedom," cf. Magic Theatre, so maybe Hesse
influenced
him more than he knew.
I don't
agree that Haller or Hesse were uninteresting old farts; they were
very
interesting old farts in my opinion. I see many similarities in Hesse
and
Kerouac, two of my favorite writers, but no direct influence of Hesse on
Kerouac,
just indirect influence and common influences such as Dostoevsky,
Nietzsche,
Spengler and Bach.
DB
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 14:52:24 -0500
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From: mai kuha
<mkuha@SILVER.UCS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject: Your help needed
Fellow
netters,
I'm a graduate
student in Linguistics and I'm writing to ask for your
help. I am interested in how people carry out
conversations (a
surprisingly
complex task!). Currently, I'm
researching how people
interpret
what their conversational partners say.
The reason
I'm contacting you is that I need data from speakers from a
variety
of dialect areas. Would you be willing
to respond to a
questionnaire
over e-mail? If you are, please send me
a note at
mkuha@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
and
I'll e-mail the questionnaire to you.
Thanks
in advance for your help!
Mai
Kuha
Indiana
University, Bloomington
e-mail: mkuha@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 19:57:08 +0000
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From: "col. it's steve"
<VOSHEA@DIT.IE>
Subject: Re: missing texts
i
remember talking to someone in a bar two years ago about JK and he mentioned
pull my
daisy. He seemed to know alot about its making and also said he had a
copy of
the film on video. i don't know how reliable his info was but i can
contact
him again. is this any use? voshea@dit.ie
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 15:43:34 -0500
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From: Andra <asg5@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: beat writers, current status
I hope
I don't sound too naive, but are Kerouac and Ginsberg still alive?
If so,
where are they living and what are they up to?
I gather from the
posts
of the past few days that Burroughs is still alive.
Thanks
in advance for any information.
Andra
* *
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
*
Well,
the wind keeps a-blowin' me
Up and
down the street Andra
Greenberg
With my
hat in my hand Duke
University
And my
boots on my feet
asg5@acpub.duke.edu
Watch
out so you don't step on me
"Bob Dylan's Blues"
* *
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
*
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 16:10:08 -0500
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From: "Trevor D. Smith"
<V116NH27@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization:
University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: Hesse and _Big Sur_
My
apologies: I hope the Hesse/Beat
tangent is relevent here
and
interesting.
Dan Barth's
last post sheds a new light on the Hesse reception
in JK--
perhaps JK was truly more "influenced" by Hesse than
he
thought. Given the circumstances around
the time of
_Big
Sur_ (as Dan points out), one must really question the
truth
of JK's statements. We must also
consider the authorial
perspective,
which leads me to a question: are the
words
in _Big
Sur_ uttered by JK himself, or does there exist
the
possibility of a (fictional?) narrator??
We must (in any
work of
art) consider the degree of authorial influence--
often
this approximates 100%, other times 0%.
This was a
topic
of recent list debate. But I digress.
Dan (or
anyone else who might know), could you give me more
info.
regarding this "Autobiography of a Wolf" (?) by Burroughs.
I, too,
agree with Dan that neither Hesse nor Haller were
unnteresting
old farts. They were certainly not
uninteresting,
but I
do think it could be argued that they were old farts, who
were
able to put their respective "old-fartedness" behind them
(no pun
intended) and transcend to higher levels of being.
Was
this also not also a goal of many of the Beats??
Cheers,
Trevor
Smith
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 17:16:35 -0500
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From: "W. Luther Jett"
<MagenDror@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Your help needed
>The
reason I'm contacting you is that I need data from >speakers from a
variety
of dialect areas. Would you be
>willing to respond to a
questionnaire
over e-mail?
Sure.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 12:17:56 -0800
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From: Janet Hoelle
<97jhoell@ULTRIX.UOR.EDU>
Subject: Re: Hesse and _Big Sur_
In-Reply-To:
<01I0UU38IOVM8X9NLJ@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu>
DEAR
TREVOR,
IF you
are interested in discovering what the Beat ideals were, you
should
read GOOD BLONDE AND OTHERS by Jack Kerouac. I think the essays in
this
compilation of works, reveal
what
the essence of the Beat movement was. Also, if you want something on
Kerouac,
the Ann Charters biography entitled Kerouac is the best I've
found
yet.
NICOLE
HOELLE
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 21:16:26 -0500
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From: "s. mark johnson"
<smark@PIPELINE.COM>
Subject: Re: Happy B'Day
On Feb
06, 1996 11:14:13, 'William Miller <KenofWNC@AOL.COM>' wrote:
>I'll
just salute the old man again for giving us writing well into his
>seventies.
>
>Thanks,
Mr. Burroughs.
>
>William
Miller
I met
and interviewed ol' Bull Lee in the late 70's in his loft on Bowery
and
Prince. I'm sure he still looks and
sounds about the same. I'll never
forget
him.
Mark
Johnson
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 21:16:12 -0500
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From: "s. mark johnson"
<smark@PIPELINE.COM>
Subject: Re: Cheever on Kerouac
On Feb
06, 1996 13:55:24, 'Louis N Proyect <lnp3@COLUMBIA.EDU>' wrote:
>Cheever
was no Updike, the country club stuff was just a facade.
>
>Louis
Proyect
For a
more complete picture, read "Journals" by John Cheever. They are
completely
autobiographical and shattered quite a few illusions. I don't
think
they lessen his stature as a writer, but they give great insight into
the
alcoholism, the bi-sexuality, etc.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 00:24:28 -0500
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From: "DOUGLAS W. WACKER"
<dwacker@IN.NET>
Subject: Re: Missing Texts
>Could
somebody please help me. I'm trying to get hold of the following texts
>by
Jack. I've searched everywhere and come up empty handed. These are the
>books
I'm after.
>
Pull my daisy
>
Wake up
>
Some of the dharma
>
> Thanks.
> Tim.
You
know, I'm not sure about this, but not long ago I saw a book called 'Big
Sky
Mind
-
Buddhism and the Beat Generation' and I think segments of 'Some of the
Dharma'
were printed in there. I may be wrong
because I was broke and
couldn't
buy the book so I
just
skimmed it. It might of just had
sections of 'Scripture of the Golden
Eternity'
(avail. through City Lights Publishing) in it.
Hope I could
help.... Doug.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 22:32:15 -0800
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From: Scott Holstad <sch@WELL.COM>
Subject: Re: beat writers, current status
In-Reply-To:
<199602062043.PAA20964@jeter.acpub.duke.edu>
On Tue,
6 Feb 1996, Andra wrote:
> I
hope I don't sound too naive, but are Kerouac and Ginsberg still alive?
Kerouac
died in 1969. Ginsberg is alive and
living in NYC.
> If
so, where are they living and what are they up to?
I
belive Ginsberg teaches at CUNY (at least at Brooklyn College), as well
as
Naropa occasionally. Also
tours/lectures, etc.
I gather from the
>
posts of the past few days that Burroughs is still alive.
>
Thanks in advance for any information.
>
Andra
>
>
>
* *
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
*
>
Well, the wind keeps a-blowin' me
> Up
and down the street
Andra Greenberg
>
With my hat in my hand
Duke University
>
And my boots on my feet
asg5@acpub.duke.edu
>
Watch out so you don't step on me
> "Bob Dylan's Blues"
> * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
*
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 03:14:30 -0600
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From: Joseph McNicholas
<mcnichol@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU>
Subject: Sarah Schulman
In
Sarah Schulman's Girls Visions and Everything (Seal Press, 1986),
Kerouac's
OTR is used as a reminder throughout of (among other things) the
tension
between commitment to individuals and freedom, of the tension
between
"stability and stagnation."
One way she works out this tension is
to
point out that the lesbian community could use the kind of self-generated
popular
press that the Beats gave themselves.
She says (p 59-60) "Guys like
Jack,
William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, some of them were smart and had
some
good ideas and wrote some lasting and inspiring work. Mostly, though,
they
weren't all the geniuses their reputations implied. The thing was,
they
made a phenomenon of themselves. They
made themselves into the
fashion,
each quoting from the other, building an image based not so much on
their
work as on the idea that they lead interesting lives. . . .that is
exactly
what lesbians needed to do."
Often,
this exact point is used as a criticism of the Beats. Yet Schulman,
who
actually went on to do just that for lesbians through the Lesbian
Avengers,
which started in 1992 as a political action/media blitz, used it
to try
to affect real social change of consciousness.
Although I am sure
that
Schulman's feelings about the Beats is pretty mixed, I was excited to
see
them fit into a continuing and very lively tradition of social and
artistic
endeavor. I was wondering what the list
might think, and if anyone
has
more info about other groups who have found some modicum of inspiration
in the
Beats, or more on Schulman, herself. I
was also wondering if there
were lesbian
beat writers who I may be unaware of.
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Joseph
McNicholas
mcnichol@mail.utexas.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Joseph
McNicholas
mcnichol@mail.utexas.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 12:27:29 EST
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From: Mark Fisher <Fisher@PROGRAMART.COM>
Subject: Bob Donlin died
Founder of the legendary Cambridge, MA
folk venue, Passim, and friend
of Jack Kerouac, who appeared in Jack's
books under the name Bob
Donnelly, died on Monday, 5 Feb 1996, at
the age of 72. Today's Boston
Globe has a memorial to him in the Living
Arts section.
Mark Fisher
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 12:51:25 -0500
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From: Igor Satanovsky <Isat@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Sarah Schulman
>I
was also wondering if there
>were
lesbian beat writers who I may be unaware of.
One you
may be interested in is Eileen Myles. Check out Black Sparrow Press
Catalogs
for "Maxwell Parish" and
"Chelsea Girls".
i.s.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 14:01:45 EDT
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From: Ron Jacobs
<RJACOBS@THYME.UVM.EDU>
Organization:
University of Vermont
Subject: Neal -- Happy Birthday
Neal
Cassady February 8, 1926
An
Aquarian, he embodied its characteristics: mentally brilliant,
dynamic,
intense, and full of an explosive, electric-type energy that
shatters
the old forms in order to make way for the new. At the same
time he
represented a humane, non-judegemental benevolence that seeks
the
brotherhood of man and promotes brotherly love; that gives
everyone
the rgith to experience the "garden of earthly delights."