=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 19:10:46 PST
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Keith Medline
<mrsparty@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Apology to Keith...
Content-Type:
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Mr.
Lewis,
I accept your apology. Thank you for apologizing to me publicly,
it
shows a great deal of class and integrity.
I commend you and not
wavering
on your opinions that takes courage.
Keith
------------------------------------------------------------
Keith mrsparty@hotmail.com / I think of Dean Moriarty.
http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/rothko/31/index.html
------------------------------------------------------------
______________________________________________________
Get
Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 21:42:40 -0600
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From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: Re: poem by anne walden
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Patricia
Elliott wrote:
>
>
Romance
> poem by Anne Walden
>
>
Wind in foothills
> Automatically dramatic, dominating
> and side by side with lavish texture &
style
> You could always do this & are
liberated-
> No going back! the wind says You
> are amusing & therefore the wind moves
for you,
> spins for you and won't settle easily
tomight
> Wind can be rueful too, and stubborn
> not behaving like any government.
Wind
essence of romance foothills or Flinthills by the Kaw the people of
the
southwind sing stories in the nights of she and of lovers and of the
journey
of romance we call living.
thanks
so much for the wonderful poem, p.
p,l,&
u
d
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 04:15:41 UT
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From: Sherri
<love_singing@CLASSIC.MSN.COM>
Subject: Re: poem by anne walden
Baby,
just finished reading the posts from July 10, you sent me. breathless,
awestruck
and oh my God i want you!!!!!!!
devouringly,
sherri
----------
From: BEAT-L: Beat Generation List on behalf of
RACE ---
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 1997 7:42 PM
To: BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: poem by anne walden
Patricia
Elliott wrote:
>
>
Romance
> poem by Anne Walden
>
>
Wind in foothills
> Automatically dramatic, dominating
> and side by side with lavish texture &
style
> You could always do this & are
liberated-
> No going back! the wind says You
> are amusing & therefore the wind moves
for you,
> spins for you and won't settle easily
tomight
> Wind can be rueful too, and stubborn
> not behaving like any government.
Wind
essence of romance foothills or Flinthills by the Kaw the people of
the
southwind sing stories in the nights of she and of lovers and of the
journey
of romance we call living.
thanks
so much for the wonderful poem, p.
p,l,&
u
d
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 22:20:33 -0600
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From: Bob Lewis <kokupokit@JUNO.COM>
Subject: Re: Apology to Keith...
Keith-
thanks
for overlooking my previous ignorance- and acting like the adult.
too bad
all the arguments on this list aren't so simply solved :)
in
retrospect, i should've mentioned this poem by ferlinghetti as a
response
to your poem:
The
world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you
don't mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you
don't mind a touch of hell
now and then...
ya get
the point. it's from "25", in
"pictures of a gone world". I've
got it
in an anthology city lights put out a couple years ago. it's a
great
intro to the beat poetry, especially for those like myself who are
not
huge on poetry.
been
reading "the adding machine" for the first time- great book.
probably
the best of burroughs i've read. i
think what fascinates me
most
about the beats is the collective amount of intelligence. anybody
have
suggestions for other reading similar to this type of writing by any
of the
beats?
also
seeking spoken word from ginsberg- i've got a couple clips from the
internet,
but can't find anything else. does it
exist?? and where should
i be
looking??
thanks
for the help!
bob
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 22:19:23 -0600
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From: Patricia Elliott
<pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
Subject: Re: poem by anne walden
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Sherri
wrote:
>
>
Baby, just finished reading the posts from July 10, you sent me. breathless,
>
awestruck and oh my God i want you!!!!!!!
>
well
dear, bad news, my dear one sits beside me and caught your post.
we are
discovered. When william was driven to
describe me, he would
sometimes
say well she is very popular with the gentlemen, and raise his
brows. but not after my dear one made me go legal.
but i hope this
doesn't
rule out a group hug. I would love to
have a party, if any you
are
thinking of coming to lawrence, the beat hotel just put a wall on
its
downstairs bed room and bathroom. very modern
regards
patricia
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 20:56:49 -0800
Reply-To: stauffer@pacbell.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: James Stauffer
<stauffer@PACBELL.NET>
Subject: Re: cheap used books (was Re: Steal this
book)
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Michael,
I would
have to check my recollection, but I believe Al Hinkle is in Los
Gatos,
Ca. I recall a reference in John
Cassidy's interview on Levi's
site
where describes talking to Al in a supermarket--a nice Beat
interaction,
totally anonymous, in a good old supermarket.
J.
Stauffer
Michael
Stutz wrote:
>
> On
Mon, 27 Oct 1997, randy royal wrote:
>
>
> at my church's used book store i found am ugly looking hardback copy
>
> of herman hesse's siddartha. for only a quarter. that was yesterday.
>
> randy
>
> i
went hogwild at a library book sale this weekend, ~15 books for $3,
>
including _a coney island of the mind_. and i recently bought the letters of
>
wsb, 1945-1959, been immersed in this for past few days. one thing i
>
wondered is what became of hinckle and his wife?
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 23:05:28 -0600
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From: "Donald G. Jr. Lee"
<donlee@COMP.UARK.EDU>
Subject: Beat addresses
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Does
anyone know of a single source for getting the various addresses of
Beat
writers who are still around and writing?
Don Lee
Fayetteville,
Ark.
"I
always imagined I would write a book, if only a small one, that would
carry
one away, into a realm that could not be measured nor even
remembered."
-- Patti
Smith, Woolgathering
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 21:13:29 -0800
Reply-To: stauffer@pacbell.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: James Stauffer
<stauffer@PACBELL.NET>
Subject: Re: What do you think??
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Jo,
It's a
mixed bag. If someone like Livan
Hernandez really wants to be
able to
excercize all his options he comes here--for the money, for the
chance
to play the best, or just to be able to make his own choices.
Cuba
beats us at dealing with infant mortality (which given our
resources
is inexcusable.) We beat them at offering a freer intellectual
and
economic climate for those with abilities.
Maybe one would rather
be an
infant in Cuba, but a dissident or a baseball player here. There
are
trade offs both ways, not always very nice ones in either case.
J.
Stauffer
Tim
Gallagher wrote . . .snip
>
>
>
>True, but also to play against and with the best in the world. Big bucks is
>
>a consequence of being the best.
>
Jo
Grant wrote
>
Cuba has the lowest infant mortality rate in this hemisphere--possibly the
>
world. Where are the big bucks that are
the consequence of being the best
> at
saving the lives of infants? Or are big bucks not always the consequence
> of
being the best--just being the best at games?
>
> j
grant
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 00:49:05 -0500
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From: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: to Marie, one of our list poets
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Thanks
Marie, but I'm no less unblemished by anger than others right now.
I am
glad to be back though. As you were preparing to get away to Louisville
- and
by the way, I loved your travel tales - I was listening again, at
length
to your reading on the tape you sent me. It had taken me a long time
before
I would brave opening the package and listening to you read; I think
I was
afraid of the power I might have to confront; they had lifted off the
pages
of your e-mail and god only knew what they would be like out of your
mouth!
No fear - one quiet night, late, it
was a great pleasure to listen
to your
calm, albeit with the anger showing through, appropriately, at
times.
Have listened a number of times again since then (it was late
August),
always late at night. They've been nice to have around as I've
withdrawn
a bit from the activity of the Beat list. What a time to choose to
come back.
Regarding your travels, the Albany Bus
Depot story particularly
resonated.
Five or six years ago, when I was more regularly travelling back
and
forth to New York/Connecticut I picked up a guy hitchhiking right at the
border
north of Plattsburgh. His car had brokn down between Montreal and the
border,
he had to get back to Washington, D.C., and with a short ride to the
border
he had waited for the bus to arrive so he could get on it and
continue
his trip. His name was Bob or Charles Blue, black guy from the
States
who had been living outside of Montreal.
The bus driver wouldn't let him get on
the bus; said there wasn't
enough
room. Bob was pretty pissed off when I picked him up but with a nice
zen
overlay! I was thinking to myself, "Goddamn racist bus driver!" Told
him
I could
get him as far as Albany. Somewhere near Saratoga Springs a
Greyhound
bus hove into view and we decided it was the same bus. I said,
"Cool,
we can meet him at the terminal in Albany!" We tucked right in behind
him and
followed him in. I pulled right along side of him as the bus stopped
and Bob
whipped out and ran up the steps as the door opened... "Got any room
for the
rest of the trip?" It was great! The bus driver said " Where did you
come
from? ....yeah, I think so.."
Turned out, by the way that he was black
too! I
talked to Bob a few times over the next year and a half whenever he
was in
town, till we finally lost touch. Road trips - I love 'em.
Your poems that you post continue to
find a quiet place in my poetry
mailbox.
Keep it up. I'm still goin' to come your way one of these
days...I'll
give you plenty of warning and will try to do it soon before you
take
off west. I saw in Derek's post to Leon that you stopped in Noank on
your
way back north...How is the old place?
Antoine
****************
>i
don't think i can do justice to just who glad i am that you are back and
>active
among us, antoine, with your clarity and respectful attitudes,
>may
we all take a lesson from you.
>mc
>
Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
"Blessed are they who can laugh at
themselves, for they shall never
cease
to be amused."
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 00:49:08 -0500
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From: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: Re: stock market
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What
great investing advice David. What do you charge to execute a trade?
...any
disciunt rates for volume trades?
Antoine
>sitting
quietly doing nothing
>daylight
savings time comes
>and
the stock market crashes by itself ....
>
>
>what
is the meaning of the stock market crash!!!????
>have
you had breakfast?
>yes....?....
>do
the dishes ....
>
>david
rhaesa
>salina,
Kansas
>
Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
"Blessed are they who can laugh at
themselves, for they shall never
cease
to be amused."
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 23:48:52 -0600
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: Re: stock market
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Antoine
Maloney wrote:
>
>
What great investing advice David. What do you charge to execute a trade?
>
...any disciunt rates for volume trades?
>
> Antoine
>
just blue
light specials. the market seemed to
respond rather well
today
to this advice by the way :)
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
>
>sitting quietly doing nothing
>
>daylight savings time comes
>
>and the stock market crashes by itself ....
>
>
>
>
>
>what is the meaning of the stock market crash!!!????
>
>have you had breakfast?
>
>yes....?....
>
>do the dishes ....
>
>
>
>david rhaesa
>
>salina, Kansas
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 00:13:01 -0600
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From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: AG Spoken word (was Re: Apology to
Keith...
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Bob
Lewis wrote:
>
>
also seeking spoken word from ginsberg- i've got a couple clips from the
>
internet, but can't find anything else.
does it exist?? and where should
> i
be looking??
wonderful
box set of cd's available called "Holy Soul Jelly Roll". I
can't
recall who produced it off hand.
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
>
thanks for the help!
>
bob
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 22:15:34 -0800
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: "Timothy K. Gallaher" <gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>
Subject: Re: What do you think??
Comments:
To: stauffer@pacbell.net
Mime-Version:
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>Jo,
>
>It's
a mixed bag. If someone like Livan
Hernandez really wants to be
>able
to excercize all his options he comes here--for the money, for the
>chance
to play the best, or just to be able to make his own choices.
>
>Cuba
beats us at dealing with infant mortality (which given our
>resources
is inexcusable.)
I
didn't say anything about this before, but I am very cynical about tis
statistic.
>We beat them at offering a freer
intellectual
>and
economic climate for those with abilities.
Maybe one would rather
>be
an infant in Cuba, but a dissident or a baseball player here. There
>are
trade offs both ways, not always very nice ones in either case.
>
>J.
Stauffer
>
>
>Tim
Gallagher wrote . . .snip
Who's
Tim Gallagher?
>>
>
>>
>True, but also to play against and with the best in the world. Big bucks is
>>
>a consequence of being the best.
>>
>Jo
Grant wrote
>>
Cuba has the lowest infant mortality rate in this hemisphere--possibly the
>>
world. Where are the big bucks that are
the consequence of being the best
>>
at saving the lives of infants? Or are big bucks not always the consequence
>>
of being the best--just being the best at games?
>>
>>
j grant
>>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 01:22:02 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: Ballad of the Skeletons
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Rinaldo,
Found the words buried in an interview
that Steve Siberman conducted
with
Allen shortly before his death. Good
interview at
http://porter.appstate.edu/~kh14586/links/beats/ginsberg/ag_htwired.html
I'll try to find "Amazing
Grace". I heard another wonderful version
of this
that he did accompanied by the great Cape Breton fiddler, Ashley
MacIsaac.
Haven't tracked a copy of that yet.
Antoine
I see
now that Dave Redfern has beat me to the punch...here it is anyway.
Said
the Presidential Skeleton
I won't
sign the bill
Said
the Speaker skeleton
Yes you
will
Said
the Representative Skeleton
I
object
Said
the Supreme Court skeleton
Whaddya
expect
Said
the Miltary skeleton
Buy
Star Bombs
Said
the Upperclass Skeleton
Starve
unmarried moms
Said
the Yahoo Skeleton
Stop
dirty art
Said
the Right Wing skeleton
Forget
about yr heart
Said
the Gnostic Skeleton
The
Human Form's divine
Said
the Moral Majority skeleton
No it's
not it's mine
Said
the Buddha Skeleton
Compassion
is wealth
Said
the Corporate skeleton
It's
bad for your health
Said
the Old Christ skeleton
Care
for the Poor
Said
the Son of God skeleton
AIDS
needs cure
Said
the Homophobe skeleton
Gay
folk suck
Said
the Heritage Policy skeleton
Blacks're
outa luck
Said
the Macho skeleton
Women
in their place
Said
the Fundamentalist skeleton
Increase
human race
Said
the Right-to-Life skeleton
Foetus
has a soul
Said Pro
Choice skeleton
Shove
it up your hole
Said
the Downsized skeleton
Robots
got my job
Said
the Tough-on-Crime skeleton
Tear
gas the mob
Said
the Governor skeleton
Cut
school lunch
Said
the Mayor skeleton
Eat the
budget crunch
Said
the Neo Conservative skeleton
Homeless
off the street!
Said
the Free Market skeleton
Use 'em
up for meat
Said
the Think Tank skeleton
Free
Market's the way
Said
the Saving & Loan skeleton
Make
the State pay
Said
the Chrysler skeleton
Pay for
you & me
Said
the Nuke Power skeleton
&
me & me & me
Said
the Ecologic skeleton
Keep
Skies blue
Said
the Multinational skeleton
What's
it worth to you?
Said
the NAFTA skeleton
Get
rich, Free Trade,
Said
the Maquiladora skeleton
Sweat
shops, low paid
Said
the rich GATT skeleton
One
world, high tech
Said
the Underclass skeleton
Get it
in the neck
Said
the World Bank skeleton
Cut
down your trees
Said
the I.M.F. skeleton
Buy
American cheese
Said
the Underdeveloped skeleton
We want
rice
Said
Developed Nations' skeleton
Sell
your bones for dice
Said
the Ayatollah skeleton
Die
writer die
Said
Joe Stalin's skeleton
That's
no lie
Said
the Middle Kingdom skeleton
We
swallowed Tibet
Said
the Dalai Lama skeleton
Indigestion's
whatcha get
Said
the World Chorus skeleton
That's
their fate
Said
the U.S.A. skeleton
Gotta
save Kuwait
Said
the Petrochemical skeleton
Roar
Bombers roar!
Said
the Psychedelic skeleton
Smoke a
dinosaur
Said
Nancy's skeleton
Just
say No
Said
the Rasta skeleton
Blow
Nancy Blow
Said
Demagogue skeleton
Don't
smoke Pot
Said
Alcoholic skeleton
Let
your liver rot
Said
the Junkie skeleton
Can't
we get a fix?
Said
the Big Brother skeleton
Jail
the dirty pricks
Said
the Mirror skeleton
Hey good
looking
Said
the Electric Chair skeleton
Hey
what's cooking?
Said
the Talkshow skeleton
Fuck
you in the face
Said
the Family Values skeleton
My
family values mace
Said
the NY Times skeleton
That's
not fit to print
Said
the CIA skeleton
Cantcha
take a hint?
Said
the Network skeleton
Believe
my lies
Said
the Advertising skeleton
Don't
get wise!
Said
the Media skeleton
Believe
you me
Said
the Couch-potato skeleton
What me
worry?
Said
the TV skeleton
Eat
sound bites
Said
the Newscast skeleton
That's
all Goodnight
Steve
Silberman: Thank you, Allen.
>friends,
>by
the Campo Santa Margherita, in a shop window
>Allen
Ginsberg looks at me, i brought the lion
>for
real, worth buying, in the tracks there's
>as
a plus for the CD italian edition "the ballad of
>skeletons"
and "amazing grace" but there's isn't
>the
lirycs, help!, i appreciate if one can post it,
>un
mucchio di grazie in anticipo da
>Rinaldo.
>
Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
"Blessed are they who can laugh at
themselves, for they shall never
cease
to be amused."
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 01:38:28 -0500
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: Re: AG Spoken word (was Re: Apology to
Keith...
Mime-Version:
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Hal
Wilner produced it and Rhino brought it out.
Antoine
>Bob
Lewis wrote:
>>
>>
also seeking spoken word from ginsberg- i've got a couple clips from the
>>
internet, but can't find anything else.
does it exist?? and where should
>>
i be looking??
>
>wonderful
box set of cd's available called "Holy Soul Jelly Roll". I
>can't
recall who produced it off hand.
>
>david
rhaesa
>salina,
Kansas
>>
thanks for the help!
>>
bob
>
Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
"Blessed are they who can laugh at
themselves, for they shall never
cease
to be amused."
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 00:58:29 -0600
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: jo grant <jgrant@BOOKZEN.COM>
Subject: Re: AG Spoken word (was Re: Apology to
Keith...
In-Reply-To: <3456D3ED.FD5@midusa.net>
Mime-Version:
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>Bob
Lewis wrote:
>>
>>
also seeking spoken word from ginsberg- i've got a couple clips from the
>>
internet, but can't find anything else.
does it exist?? and where should
>>
i be looking??
>
>wonderful
box set of cd's available called "Holy Soul Jelly Roll". I
>can't
recall who produced it off hand.
>
>david
rhaesa
>salina,
Kansas
>>
thanks for the help!
>>
bob
Rhino
Records. The text of the booklet that comes with the four CD's is at:
http://www.bookzen.com/holy_soul.html
Great
reading and the CD's are absolutely wonderful. If you need Rhinos
address,
E-mail, etc. let me know..
j grant
Small Press Authors and Publishers
display books
FREE
at
BookZen
http://www.bookzen.com
402,900 visitors - 07-01-96 to
07-01-97
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 01:01:01 -0600
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: jo grant <jgrant@BOOKZEN.COM>
Subject: Re: What do you think??
In-Reply-To:
<v01510100b07c156ccffa@[128.125.222.5]>
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>>Jo,
>>
>>It's
a mixed bag. If someone like Livan
Hernandez really wants to be
>>able
to excercize all his options he comes here--for the money, for the
>>chance
to play the best, or just to be able to make his own choices.
>>
>>Cuba
beats us at dealing with infant mortality (which given our
>>resources
is inexcusable.)
>
>I
didn't say anything about this before, but I am very cynical about tis
>statistic.
Call
the Reference Desk at your nearby public, college or university library.
Ask
for: Infant mortality rates world wide. They have 'em.
j grant
Small Press Authors and Publishers
display books
FREE
at
BookZen
http://www.bookzen.com
402,900 visitors - 07-01-96 to
07-01-97
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 11:12:00 +0100
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Nils-Oivind Haagensen
<Nils-Oivind.Haagensen@LILI.UIB.NO>
Subject: kerouacs dharma
In-Reply-To:
<"noralf.uib.873:29.10.97.05.14.52"@uib.no>
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THE
TRUE MIND is like the Diamond
sound---accidental
thoughts come & go
to try
imprinting on its surface, but
they
cant really...
(some
of the dharma, page 168)
---
reminds me of emily dickinsons poem 701
which
goes something like:
a
thought went up my mind today
that i
have had before
but did
not finish - some way back -
i could
not fix the year
nor
where it went - nor why it came -
the
second time to me
nor
exactly what it was -
have i
the art to say
--- a
poem which i am sure kerouac knew
and an
interesting simlarity between
dickinsons
fixation and kerouacs evation
of
thoughts
the
thinking, the thinker & the thought-of
---all
3 equally empty & same, in
reality
invisible
(sotd,
p. 144)
--- so
kerouacs budhism and dickinsons musing
sharing
the same outlook
(one
major difference in dickinsons final
verse
when she refers to the first
and
second thought as "the Thing," as in
she's
met the thing before, according to
kerouac
no division between man and thoughts
--- i
believe in emptiness, i do not believe in things
(sotd,
p.175)
--- so
what am i doing? thinking? or nothing?
probably
both!
nh
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 06:33:39 -0600
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From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: morning thoughts
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the
myth
Fire up
Thunder Creek and the mountain --
troy's burning!
The
cloud mutters
The
mountains are your mind.
The
woods bristle there,
Dogs
barking and children shrieking
Rise
from below.
Rain
falls for centuries
Soaking
the loose rocks in space
Sweet
rain, the fire's out
The
black snag glistens in the rain
&
the last wisp of smoke floats up
Into
the absolute cold
Into
the spiral whorls of fire
The
storms of the Milky Way
"Buddha
incense in an empty world"
Black
pit cold and light-year
Flame
tongue of the dragon
Licks
the sun
The sun
is but a morning star
-- Gary Snyder
dbr
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 08:36:35 +0000
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From: Marie Countryman
<country@SOVER.NET>
Subject: Re: See ya later. . .
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well,
guys we've lost another friendly and informative soul again.
md
M.
Cakebread wrote:
>
Well, I've been back for a few DAZE and I'm outta here
>
once again. Too much crap for me!!!
>
>
Mike
>
>
PS. If anyone needs me, you know where I am.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 09:15:12 +0000
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From: Marie Countryman
<country@SOVER.NET>
Subject: Re: to Marie, one of our list poets
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hi
antoine: noank was wonderful as always. i met my 'surrogate' family there
many
years ago when my mother was dying in denial. i lived on a 27 foot
unmasted
sailboat (whchi regularly needed fiberglassing (like after every
rain).
i met a friend from montpelier there
who gave me a ride home. it is
lovely
and as beautifull and noncommercial as always.
i'm
glad you've been enjoying my poetry. i have too. what fun., i try to keep
focused
on the good, chide the rude, and keep truckin. in many ways i am
writing
for my life. i am writing my way out of a profession i can no longer do
into
the profession i've always been afraid to dare to aspire.
but i'm
writing.
it's so
good to know you are reading and listening.
i'm
working on another tape, to include more recent pomes. would you like one?
and ps
i'm going to do some readings out on west coast leave dec 15 return jan
18:
will have email. of course. goin out to visit leon, jim, sherri, anne
marie.
etc. leon is my host.
i hope
to have even more poems aftwerwards. the trip out there is 3 days on the
train
with 6 hr layovers in chicago: anyone know of anything decent near the
chicago
train station? bookstore? pub? non plastic foodd?
antoine
my friend, stay in touch and let me know if you want the tape. i need
to
practice. i like to imagine my audience.
you are
always out there smiling kindly
marie
Antoine
Maloney wrote:
>
Thanks Marie, but I'm no less unblemished by anger than others right now.
>
> I
am glad to be back though. As you were preparing to get away to Louisville
> -
and by the way, I loved your travel tales - I was listening again, at
>
length to your reading on the tape you sent me. It had taken me a long time
>
before I would brave opening the package and listening to you read; I think
> I
was afraid of the power I might have to confront; they had lifted off the
>
pages of your e-mail and god only knew what they would be like out of your
>
mouth!
>
> No fear - one quiet night, late, it
was a great pleasure to listen
> to
your calm, albeit with the anger showing through, appropriately, at
>
times. Have listened a number of times again since then (it was late
>
August), always late at night. They've been nice to have around as I've
>
withdrawn a bit from the activity of the Beat list. What a time to choose to
>
come back.
>
> Regarding your travels, the Albany
Bus Depot story particularly
>
resonated. Five or six years ago, when I was more regularly travelling back
>
and forth to New York/Connecticut I picked up a guy hitchhiking right at the
>
border north of Plattsburgh. His car had brokn down between Montreal and the
>
border, he had to get back to Washington, D.C., and with a short ride to the
>
border he had waited for the bus to arrive so he could get on it and
>
continue his trip. His name was Bob or Charles Blue, black guy from the
> States
who had been living outside of Montreal.
>
> The bus driver wouldn't let him get
on the bus; said there wasn't
>
enough room. Bob was pretty pissed off when I picked him up but with a nice
>
zen overlay! I was thinking to myself, "Goddamn racist bus driver!"
Told him
> I
could get him as far as Albany. Somewhere near Saratoga Springs a
>
Greyhound bus hove into view and we decided it was the same bus. I said,
>
"Cool, we can meet him at the terminal in Albany!" We tucked right in
behind
>
him and followed him in. I pulled right along side of him as the bus stopped
>
and Bob whipped out and ran up the steps as the door opened... "Got any
room
>
for the rest of the trip?" It was great! The bus driver said " Where
did you
>
come from? ....yeah, I think so.."
Turned out, by the way that he was black
>
too! I talked to Bob a few times over the next year and a half whenever he
>
was in town, till we finally lost touch. Road trips - I love 'em.
>
> Your poems that you post continue to
find a quiet place in my poetry
>
mailbox. Keep it up. I'm still goin' to come your way one of these
>
days...I'll give you plenty of warning and will try to do it soon before you
>
take off west. I saw in Derek's post to Leon that you stopped in Noank on
>
your way back north...How is the old place?
>
> Antoine
>
> ****************
>
>
>i don't think i can do justice to just who glad i am that you are back and
>
>active among us, antoine, with your clarity and respectful attitudes,
>
>may we all take a lesson from you.
>
>mc
>
>
> Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
>
> "Blessed are they who can laugh at
themselves, for they shall never
>
cease to be amused."
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 08:47:52 -0500
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: Re: AG Spoken word (was Re: Apology to
Keith...
Mime-Version:
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I'll
second what Joe Grant said. The CD notes - which I printed off
yesterday,
are a great read, full of Allen's insights and the history of
their
creation and recording.
at
http://www.bookzen.com/holy_soul.html
Antoine
Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
"Blessed are they who can laugh at
themselves, for they shall never
cease
to be amused."
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 08:53:29 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: "Nick O. Seeya"
<philzi@TIAC.NET>
Subject: Re: long walk to the mailbox
In-Reply-To:
<199710280633.WAA05795@iceland.it.earthlink.net>
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At
10:33 PM 10/27/97 -0800, you wrote:
>I'd
still like to know why Attila Gyenis (Blue Ribbon Boy) keeps a >post
office
box in Lowell if he hasn't been there for a year and a >half? - G.
Nicosia
Gerry,
don't tell anyone this. I wouldn't want it to leak out. Between you
and me.
Shhhhh... John picks Attila up in his corporate jet and flies him
to New
England to pick up his mail. Probably so he can give him his weekly
stipend
($$BIG BUCKS$$) and edit his magazine for him. I am pretty sure
there
are a few book deals in the works. I also heard mention of a movie
deal
where Attila will play a cabaret dancer. As always those lucrative
Viking
ads keep rolling in. I'll see if I can get more inside information.
Nick O.
Seeya - A.K.A. (Philzi C.)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 08:58:02 -0500
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From: "Hemenway . Mark"
<MHemenway@DRC.COM>
Subject: Re: Kerouac Source Material
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Please
don't tell me what my point is. I say it again. There is lots of
Kerouac
material in libraries and Universities around the country. If
you
want to see some lists, check out <<Dharma beat>> magazine.
Mark
Hemenway
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 09:34:42 -0500
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From: "Paul A. Maher Jr."
<mapaul@PIPELINE.COM>
Subject: Re: long walk to the mailbox
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I have
placed four of the Kerouac reviews of The New York Times from the
mid- to
late 1950's on The Kerouac Quarterly web page. You may access it at:
http://www.freeyellow.com/members/upstartcrow/KerouacQuarterly.html
Thank-you, Paul. . .
"We
cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway to our virtues."
Henry David Thoreau
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 09:25:58 -0500
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From: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: Re: What do you think??
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Joe,
I also have questions about the Cuban
infant mortality figures and
I'm not
reassured by the fact that I can find them quoted in the reference
material
at my local library. Have to consider where the information flows
from.
My questions certainly don't come from any base of knowledge; I don't
have
any special insights into health care in Cuba.
I believe that the US embargoes are wrong, but unfortunately I
also
believe
that they must be having some negative effects - on infant mortality
among
other things. Fact is though that the siege mentality that Cuba has
been
forced to adopt by the US actions is likely to drive them to sanitize
figures
like this - just as has happened in other countries where the state
controls
information. And none of this is to deny the facts of unacceptable
infant
mortality, illiteracy and unemployment rates in our great
democracies...but
they are democracies.
Castro et al, on the other hand HAVE
transformed Cuba from the days
of
Batista and I'm prepared to be convinced that those extend to infant
mortality.
Certainly, on the testimony of friends who have lived and worked
in
Cuba, the quality and access to health care is admirable.
Antoine
Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
"Blessed are they who can laugh at
themselves, for they shall never
cease
to be amused."
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 09:22:11 EST
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Bill Gargan
<WXGBC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Subject: scope of beat-l
Over
the last week or so, posts have drifted somewhat far afield. There
have
also been many postings that would better have been backchanneled.
I've
received several reminders about this privately, including one
request
that I reset the "reply" button so that all replys go the the
sender
rather than the list unless specifically specified. Rather than
do
this, I suggest that all of us make a conscious effort to foucs more
closely
on the lives and literature of the Beat Generation, our list's
topic,
and to only send messages to the list that are aimed at all
listmembers.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 09:00:16 -0600
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: As for Poets
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As For
Poets
As for
poets
The
Earth Poets
Who
write small poems,
Need
help from no man.
The Air
Poets
Play
out the swiftest gales
And
sometimes loll in the eddies.
Poem
after poem,
Curling
back on the same thrust.
Af
fifty below
Fuel
oil won't flow
And
propane stays in the tank.
Fire
Poets
Burn at
absolute zero
Fossil
love pumped back up.
The
first
Water
Poet
Stayed
down six years.
He was
covered with seaweed.
The
life in his poem
Left
millions of tiny
Different
tracks
Criss-crossing
through the mud.
With
the Sun and Moon
In his
belly,
The
Space Poet
Sleeps.
No end
to the sky --
But his
poems,
Like
wild geese,
Fly off
the edge.
A Mind
Poet
Stays
in the house.
The
house is empty
And it
has no walls.
The
poem
Is seen
from all sides,
Everywhere,
At
once.
-- Gary Snyder
from Turtle Island section "For
the Children"
I think
i definitely need to put this in instead of one of my three
epigrams
at the beginning of the Work in Progress "salina, kansas"
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 10:29:01 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: "Paul A. Maher Jr."
<mapaul@PIPELINE.COM>
Subject: Re: Kerouac Source Material
Mime-Version:
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At
09:10 PM 10/28/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Mark:
>
>I
don't think anyone questions that some materials are available. That is
>not
the question or the point. You gloss
over the fact that Sampas has, and
>this
was confirmed to me in person by the librarian at Berkeley, attempted
>to
force these libraries not to let people have access to any material that
>was
originated by Jack Kerouac. This worked
at the UMass at Lowell. I have
>seen
comfirmation of the fact that scholars have been denied access to the
>archives
there. The question isn't what is out
there. The question is what
>is
the estate sitting on, what has it sold and to whom, who stole the
>letters
from U Mass at Lowell and why is John Sampas trying to keep people
>from
accessing Kerouac's letters etc. There
are more questions, but the
>answers
to these would be a good start.
>
I am
appalled that such inaccuracies originate from one who is supposed to
be
educated in the subject of law. The estate has never denied access to any
of its
archives but merely, to require permission for the xeroxing of
documents
originating from Jack Kerouac. Your research with Berkeley, I am
positive,
was taken out of context.
As far as stolen letters. Quite simply, what
letters? The library has no
record
of whatever letters in question as being stolen. This was confirmed
by
myself when I was informed by Gerry Nicosia that I was suspected (by the
library)
in this. With a clear conscience I know that I did not make off
with
them. The librarian had no idea, nor is there documentation. when I
approached
UMass Lowell police, they had nothing to go on. They have nothing
that is
like the inventory list that is similar to the list on Jo Grant's
site.
If these are the letters in question, suffice it to say that there has
not
been an attempt to recover them because the existence of them in the
library
is disputable.
On the other hand, the security in the
library is marginal. I remember
a case
of some letters, dating from the 1700's to the present, (among them
letters
from Thoreau and Emerson) donated to the library through the
passionate
efforts of a professor of the same institution. The letters were
placed
in a box similar to a shoe box and left on a open shelf like many
other
items of ephemeral value. The letters were taken away by the
Massachusetts
Historical Society when it made a surprise inspection to see
how the
letters were being handled. Hoards of Kerouac fans each year go to
this
place to see, hopefully, Kerouac items. They also go to the Lowell
Public
Library. Items, books and such, from the city library had all been
made
off with over the years. As it has been highlighted before in a similar
thread,
books of this subject are often stolen from book stores. Anyone
wanting
something bad enough will go to its source and take it.
Paul....
"We
cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway to our virtues."
Henry David Thoreau
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 10:14:45 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Neil Hennessy
<nhenness@UWATERLOO.CA>
Subject: Re: naked lunch
In-Reply-To:
<Pine.3.89.9710181918.A426-0100000@vifa1>
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On Sat,
18 Oct 1997, Sarah Sage wrote:
> I
recently wathched a video in class on W.S.Burroughs, and he talked
>
about his book "Naked Lunch" and how it was put together randomly
from
>
different bits and pieces of his life. I was wondering if it is sort-of
>
like Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse five". I would love to hear anyone
and
>
everyone's opinion on this.
This
gets into issues of non-linearity of narrative versus aleatory forces
in
composition. Vonnegut constructs a non-linear work of narrative
fragments
that all revolve around a singular plot. Naked Lunch, on the
other
hand, has non-linear and aleatory methods involved in the assemblage
of the
work itself, and as wsb said of NL: "I do not attempt to impose
narrative,
plot, continuity" or any other arbitrary constructs of fiction.
Burroughs
does not establish any singular frame of reference, like
Vonnegut
does (ie the main character, whose name escapes me, it's been
many
years), but rather constructs a book that is all figure and no
ground.
Hope
this helps,
Neil
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 10:20:48 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Neil Hennessy
<nhenness@UWATERLOO.CA>
Subject: Re: wsb step-daughter?
In-Reply-To:
<971022124449_-526604709@emout14.mail.aol.com>
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On Wed,
22 Oct 1997, Sean Elias wrote:
>
Reading H. Hunke's 'The Evening Sun...' he makes reference to a daughter
> of
Joan Adams named Julie that lived with Joan and Bill in Texas. She
>
was then 5 yrs. old. Does anyone have
any info on what happened to
>
this girl? Presumably she was sent to live with more responsible
>
relatives after Bill killed her mom......Is she still alive??? Any info
>
would be appreciated.
>
> s.e.
As far
as I remember, when Joan was killed, the kids went to live with her
parents.
Whether or not the step-daughter is
still alive, or what, I have
no
idea. Billy, of course, wrote a couple mediocre books and died of liver
disease.
He was one of the unfortunate few who really suffered for having
known
Burroughs. A nuclear family was impossible in his life. It doesn't
surprise
me that a man whose fiction advocated the end of the American
mom,
pop, two kids and a dog life saw his only bizarre incarnation of a
family
disintegrate in a sordid affair. Try looking her up in the index in
Literary
Outlaw.
Neil
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 10:27:28 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Neil Hennessy
<nhenness@UWATERLOO.CA>
Subject: Re: Hello !
In-Reply-To: <344F7F20.72E2@egenet.com.tr>
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On Thu,
23 Oct 1997, Murat Balkose wrote:
>
Hello Neil,
>
> The other two are:
> 1)Junky
> 2)Ghost of Chance
>
> I know it is strange but Naked Lunced is not
published yet but it is
>
translated and ready to publish.The other book "Cities of the Red
Night"
> is
not published either.
>
> I think I follow pretty good which book
is/will published.I just read
>
The Cat Inside and it is pretty good.
>
> Ciao,
> Murat Balkose
>
Hmm, I
find that a rather odd three books to take as representative of
Burroughs'
writing. Cat Inside and Junky are both Viking books though, so
perhaps
that's the reason there, although I would choose The Western
Lands
(also a Viking book) over those two. One odd consequence is that
readers
of Cat Inside and Ghost of Chance would think of Burroughs as
chiefly
an animal loving sentimentalist, and would be shocked by any of
the
earlier stuff, whereas people familiar with the bulk of his work
were
shocked at the sensitivity of CI and GoC (perhaps shocked isn't the
right
word, but surprised and intrigued).
just
some random thoughts,
Neil
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 10:30:19 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Neil Hennessy
<nhenness@UWATERLOO.CA>
Subject: Re: HELP PLEASE!!!!!!
In-Reply-To:
<BEAT-L%1997102319254037@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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On Thu,
23 Oct 1997, Bill Gargan wrote:
>
Check out Eric Mottram's book "The Algebra of Need." It's a good place to
star
>
t. I'd give you additional suggestions
but I think you'll find other sources
f
>
rom different listmembers.
>
As a
starting point I'd recommend Jennie Skerl's _William Burroughs_.
Mottram
is pretty heavy stuff, and requires a high degree of familiarity
with
Naked Lunch and the cut-up trilogy. Skerl's is from the outset a
critical
introduction and overview.
And if
you want to get critical opinions from list-members, it's best to
post
some of your own ideas to elicit responses.
Neil
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 11:48:38 +0000
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Marie Countryman
<country@SOVER.NET>
Subject: Re: As for Poets
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thanks
dave, this is wonderful - mc
RACE
--- wrote:
> As
For Poets
>
> As
for poets
>
The Earth Poets
>
Who write small poems,
>
Need help from no man.
>
>
The Air Poets
>
Play out the swiftest gales
>
And sometimes loll in the eddies.
>
Poem after poem,
>
Curling back on the same thrust.
>
> Af
fifty below
>
Fuel oil won't flow
>
And propane stays in the tank.
>
Fire Poets
>
Burn at absolute zero
>
Fossil love pumped back up.
>
>
The first
>
Water Poet
>
Stayed down six years.
> He
was covered with seaweed.
>
The life in his poem
>
Left millions of tiny
>
Different tracks
>
Criss-crossing through the mud.
>
>
With the Sun and Moon
> In
his belly,
>
The Space Poet
>
Sleeps.
> No
end to the sky --
>
But his poems,
>
Like wild geese,
>
Fly off the edge.
>
> A
Mind Poet
>
Stays in the house.
>
The house is empty
>
And it has no walls.
>
The poem
> Is
seen from all sides,
>
Everywhere,
> At
once.
>
> -- Gary Snyder
> from Turtle Island section "For
the Children"
>
> I
think i definitely need to put this in instead of one of my three
>
epigrams at the beginning of the Work in Progress "salina, kansas"
>
>
david rhaesa
>
salina, Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 10:53:47 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Neil Hennessy
<nhenness@UWATERLOO.CA>
Subject: Re: naked lunch
In-Reply-To:
<Pine.SOL.3.95q.971029101420.11426E-100000@picard.math.uwaterloo.ca>
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my
quotation of Burroughs should have read "story plot continuity"
sorry.
Neil
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 08:09:48 PST
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Keith Medline
<mrsparty@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: BASEBALL and Cuba and Beat???
Content-Type:
text/plain
Hello,
I hate to be a pain, but what does
baseball have to do with beat
topics? I know Kerouac loved baseball and this
country enjoys it as
well,
but really can the three or four of you that discuss Cuba please
do so
on a back channel. Iyt would mean a lot
to everyone else because
not
many people as youcan see have joined in on your debate.
Thank
you for considering this,
Keith
------------------------------------------------------------
Keith mrsparty@hotmail.com / I think of Dean Moriarty.
http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/rothko/31/index.html
------------------------------------------------------------
______________________________________________________
Get
Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 08:22:31 -0800
Reply-To: stauffer@pacbell.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: James Stauffer <stauffer@PACBELL.NET>
Subject: Re: See ya later. / post format
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Marie,
(and Bill Gargan)
Sorry
to see Mr. Cakebread go. I'm wondering
if a return to the interim
post
format, where the default "reply" mode is a backchannel wouldn't
help
restore civility to the list. I, for
one, preferred it that way.
J.
Stauffer
Marie
Countryman wrote:
>
>
well, guys we've lost another friendly and informative soul again.
> md
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 11:16:53 -0500
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Neil Hennessy
<nhenness@UWATERLOO.CA>
Subject: Ruski and the Jungle Rot Kid
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I've
recently picked up two little items of note. One is a parody of
Burroughs
by science fiction writer and multiple Hugo award winner Philip
Jose
Farmer. It's called "The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod", and is included
in the
anthology _Alien Sex_ edited by Ellen Datlow. It begins:
"If
William Burroughs instead of Edgar Rice Burroughs had written the
Tarzan
novels..."
and
continues in a sometimes convincing, sometimes hilarious parody of
WSB,
the highlight of which (for me) was the appearance of the
apeomorphine
treatment. Haha, nothing like a good pun.
I've
heard many critics, including Norman Mailer, give Burroughs high
praise
for his use of dialect, and his ability to speak in character in
his
writing; one critic went so far as to say that Burroughs had the best
ear for
American dialects since Mark Twain. I didn't really realise how
good
Burroughs was at this until I read someone try to imitate the way he
could
slip into characters and speech mannerisms like so many masks. This
is the
one spot in the parody where Farmer fails miserably, and it acts as
a
testament to Burroughs' ability in that area.
I
highly recommend it to any Burroughs admirer with a sense of humour,
which
should be all of them, since he's such a wickedly funny writer.
The
other piece I picked up was included in _A Twist of the Tale: An
Anthology
of Cat Horror_, also edited by Ellen Datlow. It includes a
Burroughs
piece called "Ruski" that was originally published as a
chap-book
in 1988 in a really small edition of < 200, I think. This piece
acts as
an interesting counter-point to The Cat Inside, and any other
sensitive
cat writings that have appeared in his work throughout the years
in The
Western Lands, and My Education. In this story Ruski is a cat that
belongs
to Gatsby, and spooks all the guests at parties until he gets his
brains
bashed in. Not something that would have appeared in The Cat
Inside.
It smacks of a dream story, although he never states it
outright.
In a bizarre way, it was almost comforting to see Burroughs
write a
twisted cat story involving his first beloved cat; it was an
indication
that nothing is sacred (or true) and that he could turn his
dark
fantasies on his own love, even if only for a moment.
Both
are mass market paperbacks widely available for little money.
Cheers,
Neil
(the one-man
official beat content machine ;-)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 10:29:52 -0600
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: jo grant <jgrant@BOOKZEN.COM>
Subject: Re: BASEBALL and Cuba and Beat???
In-Reply-To:
<19971029160949.15568.qmail@hotmail.com>
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>Hello,
>
> I hate to be a pain, but what does
baseball have to do with beat
>topics? I know Kerouac loved baseball and this
country enjoys it as
>well,
but really can the three or four of you that discuss Cuba please
>do
so on a back channel. Iyt would mean a
lot to everyone else because
>not
many people as youcan see have joined in on your debate.
>Thank
you for considering this,
>Keith
>
You're
right, of course. As I was going on about Cuba, etc. that fact was
right
in the front of my mind, but I was down there while that revolution
was
going on, had first-hand experience with why that revolution happened,
understand
it, support it, live with the deprivation the Cuban people face,
and had
to jump up on the "stage" and grab the "mic."
By the
way, if any on the list speak Spanish and want to contact Cuban
librarians
about any Spanish translations of Beat authors I'll provide an
E-mail
address. But you must remember, that contacting a Cuban librarian
and
asking about a book, is a felony crime in the United States--but only
in the
United States, so maybe that will change soon.
j grant
Small Press Authors and Publishers
display books
FREE
at
BookZen
http://www.bookzen.com
402,900 visitors - 07-01-96 to
07-01-97
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 10:35:52 -0600
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: jo grant <jgrant@BOOKZEN.COM>
Subject: Re: An end to Responding to second-hand
Sampas
In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19971029152901.006944e8@pop.pipeline.com>
Mime-Version:
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> On the other hand, the security in the
library is marginal. I remember
>a
case of some letters, dating from the 1700's to the present, (among them
>letters
from Thoreau and Emerson) donated to the library through the
>passionate
efforts of a professor of the same institution. The letters were
>placed
in a box similar to a shoe box and left on a open shelf like many
>other
items of ephemeral value. The letters were taken away by the
>Massachusetts
Historical Society when it made a surprise inspection to see
>how
the letters were being handled.
It saddens me that we can't do to the Memory
Babe Collection what the
Massachusetts
Historical Society did to the Thoreau and Emerson letters.
The
tape recordings contained in the Memory Babe Collection collection are
deteriorating
and the invaluable interviews they contain may end up lost
forever.
This wold be a tragic loss and the responsibility will be placed
directly
on the special Colections Librarian and John Sampas.
One
hell of a bitter legacy being responsible for the loss of thousands and
thousands
of words from people who personally knew Jack Keroauc.
FINALLY:
I'm going to try to make this my last response to anything
concerning
the Keroauc Collection unless I'm able to respond directly to
John
Sampas. Getting very tired of second-hand, tell-'em-I-said
information.
If John Sampas can't speak for himself on this list, instead
of
through others and lawyers, responding
is a waste of time. Time I'd
rather
spend with the poetry of MC, DR, B, and the many others--and the
analysis.
j grant
Small Press Authors and Publishers
display books
FREE
at
BookZen
http://www.bookzen.com
402,900 visitors - 07-01-96 to
07-01-97
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 17:30:24 +0100
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Subject: from Memory Noises
In-Reply-To:
<199710262138.PAA19672@dfw-ix5.ix.netcom.com>
Mime-Version:
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On the Road by Jim Morrison
Miles and miles to the horizon
along sandroads
without landfall
crossed from occasions
of sin & fear
the rhythm of the
wandering footsteps
toward the smile
of a stranger.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 17:57:49 +0100
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Rinaldo Rasa <rinaldo@GPNET.IT>
Subject: thanks for Re: Ballad of the Skeletons
In-Reply-To: <BEAT-L%1997102901220257@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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many
thanks to the friends who gave me info 'bout
the
tracks #18 and #19 of The Lion For Real, the
sound
of Ginserg's voice/word and the music in back have
a great
feeling...
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 17:35:22 PST
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: Tracey Daborn
<T.E.Harberd@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Leavng the list
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On Sun,
26 Oct 1997 02:32:42 -0500 Rod Macy wrote:
> I
don't need that popping up in my mailbox at home too. See ya later
>
and thanx for everything. Maybe I'll be
back one day . . .
>
>
Eric "Moose" Macy
NOOOOOO.
Don't
go.
There
are nice people here, honest.
But
like everywhere on the Net.... things could be better.
Just
ignore the twats.
Respect.
Tom. H.
http://www.uea.ac.uk/~w9624759
"To
know, and be not knowing."
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 17:38:23 PST
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: Tracey Daborn
<T.E.Harberd@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Hacking the Bible
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On Sat,
25 Oct 1997 22:23:42 -0400 R. Bentz Kirby wrote:
>
From: R. Bentz Kirby <bocelts@SCSN.NET>
>
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 22:23:42 -0400
>
Subject: Hacking the Bible
>
To: BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
>
>
Someone brought up Hacking the Bible and the "code" discovery that
>
predicts the future.
I was
going to read the book, but then I decided that it was just another
version of
the
Kabbala. If you read a book on langauge
that talks about the Kabbala, like
"The
Search
for a Perfect Langauge" (Umberto Eco) you can see that by using a few
simple
rules, practically any combination and prediction is possible, so that
with
hindsight
you can fit it back in. Like Hebrew
doesn't write vowels, so you're
free to
insert
them anywhere, whatever you like, until you find a word that matches what
you
want it to mean.
.
Australian mathematician Brendan
>
McKay says it's a sham. "Anyone can program a computer to make
>
coincidences appear to be meaningful," he says. Tune in as they face
>
off.
Right.
Nice
idea though.
Tom. H.
http://www.uea.ac.uk/~w9624759
"God
is dead, and we have killed him."
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 11:02:44 -0600
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: Inspiration
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How
Poetry Comes to Me
It
comes blundering over the
Boulders
at night, it stays
Frightened
outside the
Range
of my campfire
I go to
meet it at the
Edge of
the light.
-- Gary Snyder
from No Nature
I'll
need help with this one. Not being
exactly an "outdoorsman", i can
only
try to comprehend GS here by analogy.
The best I get is some local
parks
for a literal understanding of what he's saying.
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 12:04:17 -0500
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Michael Stutz <stutz@DSL.ORG>
Subject: Re: cheap used books (was Re: Steal this
book)
In-Reply-To: <3456C211.37F@pacbell.net>
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On Tue,
28 Oct 1997, James Stauffer wrote:
>
Michael,
>
> I
would have to check my recollection, but I believe Al Hinkle is in Los
>
Gatos, Ca. I recall a reference in John
Cassidy's interview on Levi's
>
site where describes talking to Al in a supermarket--a nice Beat
>
interaction, totally anonymous, in a good old supermarket.
...in
California, no less. ;-)
Thanks
for the update. As I mentioned I'm reading the '45-'59 letters of WSB
for the
first time and it got me to wondering where a number of these
peripheral
characters have gone. It would seem then that Hinckle is one of
the few
from that OTR road trip who are still with us.
email
stutz@dsl.org Copyright (c) 1997
Michael Stutz; this information is
<http://dsl.org/m/> free and may be reproduced under GNU GPL,
and as long
as this sentence remains; it comes with absolutely NO
WARRANTY; for details see
<http://dsl.org/copyleft/>.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 09:23:25 -0800
Reply-To: stauffer@pacbell.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: James Stauffer
<stauffer@PACBELL.NET>
Subject: Re: Inspiration
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David,
To get
the image to work, just envision the brightness of the campfire,
which
makes the surrounding darkness deeper and even more unknown.
Sounds
out there. Animals moving around. The
Other.
J.
Stauffer
RACE
--- wrote:
>
>
How Poetry Comes to Me
>
> It
comes blundering over the
>
Boulders at night, it stays
>
Frightened outside the
>
Range of my campfire
> I
go to meet it at the
>
Edge of the light.
>
> -- Gary Snyder
> from No Nature
>
>
I'll need help with this one. Not being
exactly an "outdoorsman", i can
>
only try to comprehend GS here by analogy.
The best I get is some local
>
parks for a literal understanding of what he's saying.
>
>
david rhaesa
>
salina, Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 09:37:40 -0800
Reply-To: stauffer@pacbell.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: James Stauffer
<stauffer@PACBELL.NET>
Subject: The John Cassady Interview/ Al Hinkle
MIME-Version:
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This is
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--------------B725B2C67CE
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http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/JCI/JCI-Two.html
Michael
Stutz,
I
rechecked the Cassidy interview and my recollection was correct. The
stuff
on Hinkle and his wife (deceased) is toward the end of the
interview. This is a wonderful thing on it's own, and
hopefully I am
sending
only the URL and not the entire text!
J.
Stauffer
--------------B725B2C67CE
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inline; filename="JCI-Two.html"
Content-Base:
"http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/JCI/JCI
-Two.html"
<BASE
HREF="http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/JCI/JCI-Two.html">
<HEAD><HTML><TITLE>The
John Cassady Interview</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY
BACKGROUND="" BGCOLOR="#00007f" TEXT="#ffffff"
LINK="#cf00ff"
ALINK="#ffff00" VLINK="#00cfff">
<META
NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="John Cassady,Neal Cassady,Los
Gatos,Beat">
<CENTER>
<H1>The
John Cassady Interview</H1>
</CENTER>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>WHAT'S
UP</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>So
what have you been up to lately? Where
do you work, what do
you do
for fun, etc.?</I><P>
Let's start at the beginning. First, the
Earth cooled... <P>
No, we'll skip to my birth in San
Francisco, 9/9/51. By about age
three we had settled in Los Gatos, a
small town in the foothills 50 miles
south of SF, which I've gravitated back
to ever since. While living in the
coastal resort town of Santa Cruz for
most of the '70's, what I lacked
in career motivation I made up for in
life experience and having fun.
Along the way I harvested a son, Jamie
Neal, born 8/18/75, who still
lives with me while attending a local
community college, and I also
tried my hand at marriage on two
occasions in different decades.<P>
I moved back to Los Gatos and Silicon
Valley in 1983 to pursue a career
in (what else?) electronics and
computers. The field wasn't my first
choice, preferring to play guitar in rock
bands, but, as they say,
"when in Rome." My music career
certainly couldn't be counted upon to
pay the bills. So I've been fairly
settled since then, having lived in
the same house in south San Jose for the
past seven years. <P>
My '90s lifestyle is much more stable and
less crazy
than in years past. For
the past 12 years I've been with Caere
Corporation, producer of
page-reading software and scanner
systems, in (where else?) Los Gatos.
It's a good gig and I'm reasonably
comfortable.<P>
And for fun? Sorry, no time. Actually, I
like to hang out with my
girlfriend Pat and read, watch flicks or
whatnot. Occasionally I'll dust
off the guitars to play with friends at
open mike
nights or recording sessions. Then
there's always the unabashed
self-promotion on the Net! (This is my
first, honest). So that about sums it up
in one, long paragraph.
Pretty frigging boring, eh?<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>MUSIC</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>Tell
me more about your music.</I><P>
I listened to KEWB, Channel 91,
out of San Francisco as a little kid. I
dug stuff like Bobby
Darin's "Splish Splash" and all
the novelty songs like "The Flying
Purple People Eater" and
"Monster Mash." Everything by Ray Stevens
and the Coasters. My parents were into
cool jazz, of course, which was a great
influence later. "Sketches of
Spain" by Miles is permanently
imprinted in my brain, after so many
nights falling asleep to that album
drifting in from the party in the
living room.<P>
At age 13, three pals and I bought Beatle
wigs, put up posters around the neighborhood,
and put on a "show." We
set up a picnic table with Hi-fi speakers
hidden underneath, and
actually climbed up there and played
tennis rackets (and a wash tub)
while lip synching to the Beatles
"Second Album". Dweeb city. The girls
loved us. I had found my
calling.<P>
I met a blues-harp player in college, an
ex-Marine just out of Vietnam
named Matt Shaw. He learned blues harp by
hiding in the ammo
bunker under his fire base near Laos and
playing Paul Butterfield's
classic "East/West" album over
and over. What a killer harmonica
player Matt was by the time I met him. He
lived in a little house out
in the middle of this huge orchard where
we made big noise without
complaints. <P>
We
got pretty good and eventually quit college and moved
to a little town called Felton in the San
Lorenzo Valley of the Santa
Cruz Mountains, surrounded by redwood
trees and hippies. We named our
new band The Feltones. Actually,
"Those" Fabulous Feltones is what we
decided on because it had a more
notorious ring to it. And notorious
we were. The drummer was a madman. Triple
Scorpio
coke dealer; need I say more? The girls
loved him. He even stole my
old lady for a while, but we were all
friends. We played venues like
the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, the Chateau
Liberte and the Town & Country
Lodge in Ben Lomond, all legendary bars
back when SC was wild. I could
write volumes. Someday I will; "The
Adventures of The Fabulous
Feltones."<P>
<I>What
were some of your favorite Dead songs?</I><P>
I saw them a lot in the Sixties, and then
our paths didn't cross for
many years, so I missed most of their
later albums. In fact, I
couldn't win any trivia contests after
"American Beauty," although I
listened to "Europe '72" quite
a bit at the time. I loved their first
album, and figured out every
Dexedrine-propelled Jerry lick on it that
I could as a wanna-be guitarist. "Viola
Lee Blues," etc. I loved Pig
Pen's version of "Love Light."
We'd stand under him stoned at the
Avalon Ballroom in SF and not even notice
that he'd drag it out to 45
minutes sometimes. Every track on
"Workingman's Dead." Of course
"Casey Jones." "Dire Wolf" especially reminds me of
Jerry now (since
August 9th). Dead standards like
"Ripple," "Birdsong" and many I can't
recall right now are great. I leaned
toward the Garcia/Hunter
compositions.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>KIDS</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>Do
you have kids?</I><P>
I'm a single parent with my
twenty-year-old son living with me.
I've been married and divorced twice. Pat
and I have been an item for
exactly one year now, the proverbial
office
romance. My son's name is Jamie,
named for one of my sisters, and he is
working and
attending a local community
college. He turned out pretty good,
although I don't see
much of him. He and his
girlfriend come up for air every few days
and I catch
sight of him then. I was going
to name him Cody, after the character
Pomerey in Jack's
Visions of. His middle name
is Neal.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>BEING
NEAL'S SON</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>Do
you get a lot of recognition in your everyday life for being Neal's
son?</I><P>
Naw. There's always been the occasional
letter or call.<P>
<I>Has
the interest increased recently, or not?
And does it bug you?</I><P>
I love it. Who else gets to garner
attention and
strokes for something they
had nothing whatsoever to do with? The
only thing that's a little scary is
having to carry the torch someday. My
mother's got so many stories and
knowledge that hasn't been shared. I
don't think I can adequately
represent the legend with authority, so
most of the good stuff will be
lost with her passing.<P>
<I>I've
bragged to all my friends about getting e-mail from you
already</I><P>
... cool!<P>
<I>--
but I'm keeping your email address to myself, or else god knows what kind
of
weirdos you'd start hearing from (and that's just my friends ...)<P>
But it
must be a funny thing being Neal Cassady's son, because while he is
so
well-known and beloved in some circles, I would guess that most people
in
America have never heard of him. Just
how much has being 'Neal's son'
colored
your identity in life?</I><P>
Being the son of an infamous
"legend" is a constant source of
surprise, amazement and pride. Surprise
and amazement because, to this
day, I can't believe how many people HAVE
heard of him. Pride because,
although I had nothing to do with the
legend's conception, I agree
with those that regard the man as
something special on this planet. Of
course, my perspective is somewhat
biased, having loved him as a
father as well as a hip icon. I feel
fortunate that I was in the
unique position to do both. <P>
I've been blessed with the opportunity to
meet so many fascinating individuals who
operate on levels of art and
wisdom that I admire and to which I long
to aspire. Doors of
opportunity have been opened, most of
which I haven't taken advantage
of, I guess for fear of exploiting
something intangible that I don't
think is mine to abuse. But the
outpouring of friends and fans has
always been a pleasant surprise over the
years and is something I
still think is great.<P>
<I>Beat
aficionados like me have heard 'Visions of Neal' from many people --
Jack
Kerouac (of course), Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, Charles Bukowski,
John
Perry Barlow, your mother, etc. How
about your visions -- can you
give us
a memory or two we haven't heard before?</I><P>
By far the number one question asked re:
Neal is: "Did you ever
know/see/remember your father?" And
a good question it is, too,
because he was everywhere else at once.
The more I learn about his
life from other sources, the more I'm
amazed that I ever did see him,
much less how much. It's simply
astounding. He really was everywhere
at the same time. How he pulled it off,
we'll never know.<P>
To me he was Dad, although admittedly he
was absent more than I would
have liked. But my memories are almost as
plentiful as if I had been
brought up by "normal"
parents.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>DRIVING</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>What
was it like being a kid in the back seat with "the fastest
man
alive" behind the wheel?</I><P>
Those are images I'll never forget. On
Friday nights he
would take me, and sometimes one or two
of my best buddies, to the
quarter-mile oval race track called San
Jose Speedway out in the dusty
fields about 10 miles from our home in
Los Gatos. Driving there and
back was most of the adventure,
especially on the return trip, after
he'd watch his heroes slide the midget
racers sideways around the track
all night. I can still smell the tire
dust and fuel fumes that would
drive Dad into a frenzy. He'd get so
excited that he'd elbow me in the
ribs and point till I was bruised, but I
loved every minute of it. Of
course, at the age of 10 or so, I was
usually more interested in
crawling around under the bleachers or
going for an ice cream
sandwich. I was always getting lost,
especially when my friends came
along. <P>
While driving, he was fond of jerking the
steering wheel to the
beat of the rock and roll on the car
radio. Chuck Berry was one of his
favorites, and songs like
"Maybelline" and "Nadine" fit him to a T.
Two pals and I would be in the back seat
and knock heads every time he
jerked the car onto two wheels side to
side going down the freeway,
and we'd giggle uncontrollably and hold
our sides. My friends thought
he was about the coolest dad on the
planet. Their parents probably
didn't agree.<P>
There was a guy named Roy who owned Los
Gatos Tire Service who gave
Dad a job when no one else would after he
was released from San Quentin.
Neal had the drug rap on his record which
was, in 1960,
tantamount to being an ax murderer. No
one asked if he'd been sent up
for two sticks of tea. Old Roy could have
cared less. <P>
Roy was known to have a drink or two,
and died sometime in the '70s, but not
before repeating some of his
favorite Neal stories to a young man who
worked there starting in
about '72. I ran into this guy by
coincidence when I had some tire
work done at the present location of the
shop, and after seeing my
last name on the work order, he was glad
to share some of Roy's
stories with me. Roy's favorite was how
Neal would drive his car down
from our house, which was two miles up a
hill from the tire shop,
without the benefit of brakes, an almost
obsessive pastime of Dad's. I
believe this would have been the '49
Pontiac. Anyway, he would time it
perfectly every morning so the car would
bump up into the driveway
(after having slowed it by rubbing curbs
when necessary), he would
then hop out in front of the garage
doors, and the car would continue
along the flat driveway, the door
flapping shut, and on out to the
back dirt parking lot, where it would
nudge over a small mound so the
front wheels would rock back and forth to
settle into the dirt trough
beyond. It never failed to amaze and
delight Roy.<P>
Another amazing
story, which I can't verify but is great,
has it that one night Roy
passed Neal going the other way through
town and waved. Neal threw the
car into reverse and caught up with Roy,
the transmission screaming,
and chatted with him door to door while
driving backwards, glancing
back occasionally for oncoming traffic.
Dad had a penchant for driving
in reverse, probably because the steering
is so squirrely, like
driving a fork lift. He was proud of his downhill-in-reverse speed
record on Lombard Street, the twisty
tourist trap in SF.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>KEROUAC</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>You
were Jack Kerouac's godson, and there are several references to you
and
your sisters in the Kerouac/Cassady letters. What do you remember of
him?</I><P>
My memories of Jack are few and sketchy;
mostly just images of him rather
than conversations. My sisters would remember
more. The images are hazy
from when he was around a lot at the new
Los Gatos house because I was
under five. <P>
I better recall being around age ten and
going to Big Sur when
he was living in Ferlinghetti's cabin in
Bixby Canyon, driving down in
Dad's new (to us) Willys jeep wagon, what
a ride! Jack took time to
instruct me on the nuances of packing a
proper rucksack and keeping my
socks dry. I confused him with Jack
London when he was in his
plaid-wool-shirt-in-the-woods phase. We
would wander down the creek trail
to the beach and stand in front of the
immense surf which seemed to tower
over us like a wall of water as in
"The Ten Commandments." He would yell
into the din with arms outstretched; I'd
explore an old wrecked car
resting on its top at the foot of the
cliff, looking for skeletons. I
had no idea he was loaded on wine and/or
pot the whole
time, and wouldn't have cared
less.<P>
He was funny and kind and gentle and took
a goofy interest in our kid
stuff that parents might find tedious. At
least that's my impression after
all these years.<P>
Ginsberg, of course, was around a lot
more in years to
come, and I still see him whenever
possible.<P>
<I>What
was the first Kerouac book that you read?
What did you think of
it, and
what do you think of him as a writer now?</I><P>
I first read "On the Road" at
about age 15. I dug it but forgot most of it
until just this year when I read it again
and really enjoyed it. I also
read "Dharma Bums" as a
teenager and thought it pretty good, but I was
never much of a reader, being too busy
goofing off, which I now regret. I
made a stab at the rest of Jack's stuff
and couldn't make sense of it. I
frankly think it reads like drunken
ramblings that one must struggle to
comprehend. Such blasphemy from his
Godson!<P>
<I>Was
it obvious to you as a child that Jack had romantic feelings for your
mother?</I><P>
I had no clue about an intimate
relationship between Jack and my mom until
I was grown. By that time I thought it
was far out, to use the vernacular
of the times. I was a baby when all this
was going on, but I think Jack
always carried the torch. Toward the end,
he would call at like 3:00 AM
drunk and ramble and rave, my mom trying
to politely get him off the phone.
I answered one night and only vaguely
remember him crying "Johnny!" and "I
have to speak to Carolyn!" I handed
her the phone with a "whoa!" as she
looked worried. We were more sad than
surprised upon his demise.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>MOVIES</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>(I
asked John about the new Coppola movie of "On The Road," and this led
to
a
discussion of a previous, less-than-satisfying attempt at translating the
Kerouac/Cassady
legend onto film. 'Heart Beat' was
based on the book of the
same
title by John's mother, Carolyn Cassady.
I mentioned that I'd never
seen a
copy of this book, though I'd read and enjoyed her later book, "Off
The
Road.")</I><P>
"Heart Beat" has been out of
print for twenty years, so don't bother.
It's actually only an excerpt of
"Off the Road," anyway. A publisher in
Berkeley chopped the juicy chapters out
of her original manuscript,
the menage a trois parts, and sold that,
a travesty taken out of
context. Then, as you know, Orion picked
up the movie rights and made
an even worse film of it. Nolte, I
thought, wasn't as bad as the
script and director. We were disgusted,
especially since they promised
some creative control.<P>
<I>But
did you think Nolte captured your father at all? Obviously you would
know
best ... as I said in my review of the movie in Literary Kicks, though,
Nolte's
schtick seems to be the surly, snarling
kinda-deep-and-sad
tough guy, which is
not at
all my image of your father. </I> <P>
An astute observation. Nolte's whole
persona is the antithesis of Neal's.
Every film Nick is in, that's Nick. He
talks
and acts the same off the set.
He certainly tried hard on "Heart
Beat", though. He told me he
had studied Neal a lot and based his
previous movie's character on him. It was
a war flick
called "Who'll Stop the Rain?"
Looked like Nick to me. The only time he
came at all close in
HB was the last scene
when he calls Carolyn from the phone
booth burned out.
He sounded sad enough for
that stage of life.<P>
I flew down to watch them film, and fell
in love with Sissy Spacek,
what a doll she was. (Her husband
agrees.) I was also very
fond of Nick and his party materials,
especially at the all-night wrap
party at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where
we hid at a
corner table and blabbed
for hours. We're both clean nowadays
(this was 1977),
but that was way fun.
He wanted me to come up to his ranch in
Malibu and
ride dirt bikes and play
some more, and like an idiot I declined
and flew
home, fool. I think I hurt
his feelings. Never heard from him again.
Well, we all
have regrets. I just
have more than others! I could write
volumes.<P>
Sissy also did her best to save the
rotten script, and
read the entire 1100-page manuscript of
my mother's book to get into the role.
Those two really hit it off, and
during filming Sissy used the same
approach with
Loretta Lynn, studying for
her next film, "Coal Miner's
Daughter." She's a pro.
The thing about "Heart Beat"
was they just bought the names and made
up their own story, with just some
highlights based in fact. John Byrum
(writer/director) didn't do his
homework and it showed. They could have
made it authentic, almost a
documentary, and still had all the stuff
that sells: sex, drugs, violence,
and it would have been the real thing.
Stupid waste. My mother was so
disappointed in the script that she wrote
her own screenplay. Of course
they didn't use it because they had
already paid off Byrum. Oh well.<P>
<I>Who
would be the ideal movie "Neal"?</I><P>
The only actor I've seen that came close
was Paul Newman in 1957's
"Somebody Up There Likes Me,"
the Rocky Marciano bio. When he wore a tight
t-shirt and smiled, he was a dead ringer.
Too bad he's too
old for the part
now. There's a couple unknowns that my
mother likes.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>DENVER</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>(John
told me about a business trip to Denver, the city where Neal grew
up.)</I><P>
I flew to Denver on the 7th on business
and wound up on Larimer Street
among the gloomy brick ruins of my father's
past, hoping for a glimpse of
the ghosts of little Neal and Neal Sr.
down an alley off the dark street. We
took some clients to a downtown
restaurant for dinner, one of whom was a
Kerouac fan, and my colleague and I took
a wrong turn trying to find the
freeway out of town and to the airport.
Suddenly we were in the worst part
of town, amid old abandoned buildings and
railway depots, but with rickety
wood houses, shops and bars wedged
in-between,
still occupied. Then there it
was, Larimer Street, as well as several
other
street names familiar from "On
the Road" and "The First
Third." Unlike the modern
Larimer Square and other
tourist traps up the road, this section
didn't
invite exploration that late
at night, but I finally got to see it and
get its feel, even from behind a
rental car window. It was an unexpected
treat.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>THE
HAMMER, AND SILLY STUFF IN GENERAL</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>(During
the period that John and I were conducting this interview I
received
an e-mail asking if I knew anything about the myth about
"Cassidy's"
habit of flipping a hammer and catching it, which Tom Wolfe
wrote
about in "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." The person wrote:
"Somewhere,
sometime, somebody said that Cassidy used the hammer as a practice
to
sharpen his perseption. Something about
that it took about 1/30 th of a
second
to percieve something happpening in the world and that he used the hammer
as an
exercise to shorten the recognition time." I thought this seemed a bit
silly,
but forwarded the mail to John to see what he'd say, asking if he wanted
me to
keep sending him stuff like this.)</I><P>
Sure, I like to be bothered by silly
stuff. Keeps me current.<P>
As far as this guy's search, why anyone
would look for meaning in this
hammer thing is beyond me, but that
theory sounds vaguely familiar.
First we must correct his spelling on
"Cassady" and "perception." I
guess you receive mail from scholars and
otherwise.<P>
My take on the hammer is that by that
stage of the game Neal was,
sadly, so loaded up on crank that he
simply needed something to fiddle
with. He retained massive arm strength,
and the hammer suited his
ancient wheel karma railroad/car/tool
trip. Tim Allen on steroids. <P>
Also, he always had a penchant for
juggling and sight gags a la W.C.
Fields. Inept at real juggling, he would
flip objects (pencils, etc.)
and catch them on the same
"handle" end. The game was to count how
many flips he could go before missing and
starting over at "1." He
would frequently get into double digits,
to the delight of us kids (we
were easily entertained). He would also
do this trick, a lot when we
were young, where he'd balance on one
leg, grab his ankle and leap
over his other leg, nearly knocking his
chin with his knee, and land
upright again on one foot. He couldn't do
it as well after his various
railroad accidents stiffened his legs, so
he'd go careening across the
room on landing, YAAAA, and we'd giggle
all the more. <P>
But I guess this stuff isn't nearly as
mystically legendary
or
mysterious as his trying
to shorten his recognition time to 1/30th
of a second or whatever.
People can believe whatever they like if
it helps get them through the
night, right?<P>
<I>(Pat,
who was on the cc: list for much of these conversations, chimes in
here)
</I><P>
PAT: Hey, at the least the guy has
something to keep him busy. Kesey
rambled on and on in Electric Kool-Aid
Acid Test about 1/30 of a
second being the least amount of time in
which a human could perceive
something. He said most humans took much
longer with the exception of
Neal Cassady, the fastest man alive. It's
something along those lines.
He also said that Cassady never dropped
the hammer unless he wanted to
make a point that something was happening
and that people should pay
attention to it. 'Course, Kesey was
tripping his ass off quite a lot
then and that's conducive to theories. I
had friends who believed
Jerry Garcia communicated with them at concerts
by reflecting the
light off his glasses into their
eyes.<P>
JOHN: Would that we all could make
mistakes and have people go "oooh,
aaaah,
it's cosmic!"<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>KESEY
AND BABBS</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>(The
above led me to ask about Ken Kesey and Ken Babbs, the leaders (if
there
was any such thing) as The Merry Pranksters.)</I><P>
I consider Kesey and Babbs friends. I saw
neither of
them for about 15 years, although I kept
track of them. Kesey was at
my first wedding in 1975, then I didn't
run into him again until
around 1990. I've seen them both at
various functions quite a bit
since then. They're being more visible as
of late. I took 8mm movies
of Kesey and Neal, along with Ginsberg
and others, when they'd visit
our house in Los Gatos. They were an
already infamous bunch that I
wanted to record for posterity. Alas,
those films have been lost. I
next went to visit Ken on his farm in
Eugene in '72 with another 8mm
camera. Those films I still have and plan
to transfer them to video
someday.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>THE
KEROUAC CD-ROM</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>Penguin
sent me the new Kerouac CD-Rom last night (free stuff,
about
the only perk I get for doing LitKicks) and in the Gallery section I was
pleased
to see a photo of a bearded Neal surrounded by three nice-looking kids
including
a cute and pudgy tousle-haired tyke ... John, that was you!</I><P>
I haven't seen this CD-Rom yet, although
it's all I heard about
for months from my mother while they were
working on it. They
solicited a lot of material from her, and
she was enthusiastic about
helping them because they seemed genuine
and they paid well for
pictures and stuff. But in the end they
used only a fraction of the
stuff she'd sent, a typical
disappointment. <P>
"Pops" grew the beard after one
of his railroad accidents when he
was home for months recuperating. If it's
the picture I'm thinking of,
I was only months old. That picture has
been in several books. I was
so "pudgy" (read: fat) that it
looks like they have rubber bands around the
joints on my arms and legs, and I'm
puffing my cheeks out. There's a
later one with beard in our back yard in
San Jose where I'm about two
and have a buzz cut on my massive head.
So flattering.<P>
<I>Neal
looks great in a beard -- how the hell did he stay so fit? Did he
ever
eat? Did he work out? Somehow I can't picture him in a Soloflex,
so it
must
have been his work and all that legendary hammer-flipping -- but then
I know
a lot of people who do physical work, and they don't look so
great.</I><P>
He worked out on free weights a lot as
a
teenager, probably at reform school
and in Denver skid row gyms.
He was born with a great physique and
developed it early. Later it was
work that kept it tight, sprinting in
parking lots, walking miles in the
rail yards, tossing truck tires in and
out of the retreader. He didn't
start
the hammer schtick until shortly
before his death.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>JAMMING
WITH ALLEN GINSBERG</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>(One
day John wrote me about an event in England.)</I><P>
I called mum Tuesday, October 17, to
ask how the big poetry festival at
the Albert Hall went the night before
at which Ginsberg was supposed to
perform. She said he called her that
day and was really chummy but had
declined comp tickets because it was a
benefit (jeez), but luckily a
couple of her fans insisted on
escorting her and bought seats at seventh
row center. Allen comes out and after
some "one-liners," one about Neal,
he introduces his accompanist for the
evening, a job I used to do on
guitar when he'd be in the Bay Area.
Out walks
Paul McCartney, as you may
have heard by now, and of course
everyone is shocked that there was no
media leaks beforehand and the place
was
half empty (only holds 4500). Did
she go backstage afterwards to snarf
an autograph
for her Beatle-fan son?
Noooooooooo! Oh well. "I told
Allen I'd go to a book signing of his
later in the week, so I left early,
knowing I'd see him then." Christ.
Anyway, she said they rocked the house
and that I
was in good company as
one of Allen's accompanists. I wish I
shared Paul's bank balance as
well!<P>
<I>So
you jammed with Allen Ginsberg? Believe
it or not, I actually find
his
music very pleasant. He has a voice
like an operatic frog, but there's
some
strange lilting-ness to it that I find very contradictory and interesting.
When
did you play with him, and what did you play?</I><P>
Allen was kind enough to invite me along
on gigs he did during the
seventies while visiting the Bay Area. I
was living in Santa Cruz at
the time. We only performed together a
few times, but a couple shows
stand out in my memory.<P>
The first was when my rock band at the
time was playing as house band
at a nightclub called the Sail Inn near
the Portola Avenue beach.
Ginsberg somehow found us and showed up
unannounced with Peter
Orlovsky and others in tow. I convinced
the band to take a break so I
could get Allen up there to do his thing,
and I joined him on electric
guitar. He played his harmonium and Peter
played banjo. I was used to
Allen simply reading his poetry and
wailing on finger cymbals, so this
configuration was new to me. He told me
he had learned the blues and
jammed with Dylan on three-chord
progressions, mostly in the key of
"C." He had recently done local
shows accompanied on guitar by Barry
Melton of the Fish, and he now needed a
new sideman as Barry was busy
somewhere else. I said I'd be
honored.<P>
That first night we played about a half
hour on slow, dirge-like blues
chords over which he sang poems. I peered
into the audience to see the
club's owner and the few patrons that
were left in attendance staring
with their mouths agape. They hadn't a
clue and we nearly lost our
cush gig there, but Allen liked it and
soon called me for others. The
best was a benefit for Chet Helms and the
Family Dog called the Tribal
Stomp held at the Greek Theater in
Berkeley in 1978. It was a big
thrill for me because I got to meet all
my hero bands from the sixties
backstage. Allen even paid me; what a
deal.<P>
<I>I'm
a pretty big Beatles fan too. My
favorite is Lennon's solo albums.
I like
Yoko's albums quite a bit as well.
McCartney is sometimes good ...
he had
good taste in partners.</I><P>
I've never listened to Yoko's stuff, but
if it's anything like "Two
Virgins," I'll pass. I was caught by
the Beatles at the perfect age to
experience the mania, and I confess that
I never got over it. Paul,
although more traditional in style, was a
great songwriter when with
John, but lost it without him. I don't
think Lennon did as well on his
own, either. I think as I did in the
sixties: Lennon = God.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>THE
REST OF THE FAMILY</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>What
are your siblings up to?</I><P>
My two older sisters still live in
California and we get together
whenever possible.<P>
Cathy, 47, and her husband George live
near Sacramento.
Their three kids are now grown and off on
their own. Cathy's a health
care professional and teacher who moved
out of the house as a teenager
and got married so I didn't hang out with
her as much as I would have
liked as an adult. We're very close but
only see each other on rare
visits a couple times a year because of
the distance between our
homes. She's got a lot of Neal stories of
her own of which I only
catch glimpses when we're able to meet.
She's happy to stay more out
of the mainstream Beat lore
network.<P>
Jami, 45, and her husband Randy live near
Santa Cruz.
They have a daughter, Becky, 14. They
lived in Los Gatos up until a
year ago, so I've kept in fairly close
contact with Jami over the
years. "How's my sweet little
Jami?" Jack would write to Carolyn in
the early '50s. Cathy and I weren't
exactly treated like chopped
liver, mind you, but Jami was such a doll
and everyone's favorite.
They're both in Jack's books a lot (I was
the runt of the litter and
too young). Jami works in a dental
office, and often wonders why she
and Cathy rarely get mentioned in these
Neal articles (thanks for
asking, Levi). Jami has shared some
amazing memories of Dad with me on
occasion, like the time her boyfriend's
band was playing The Barn in
Scotts Valley (infamous psychedelic dance
hall/Prankster hangout) and
Neal was so high she had to look after
him all night in the black-lit,
postered catacombs of the place. Someday
I'll record her tales.<P>
Curt Hansen is my half brother by Dad's
short-lived marriage to Diana
in New York. Although I've only met him
twice in person, he's a great
guy and we keep in touch. He and his wife
Debbie came out for a
weekend visit in '94 and we had good
talks. I couldn't recall our
first meeting at Carolyn's in 1969, but
then again I can't recall most
of that year anyway. Curt is the program
manager at radio station WEBE
in Connecticut.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>EDGAR
CAYCE</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>Jack
and Allen Ginsberg seemed to have felt alienated when your
parents
become devotees of Edgar Cayce's mystical philosophy.
At the
same time, Cayce's influence seems to have been a good
one for
Neal, and for your parent's marriage.
What do you
think
of all this? Did they teach much of it
to you? Is your mother
still
influenced by it, and are you? It almost
seems, from what I've
read,
to have been your family "religion."</I><P>
Edgar Cayce represented a great
alternative to the dogmatic
Catholicism in which Neal was raised, and
my parents shared his
philosophy with us kids at a young
age. My mother insists it was not
the man, but his "channeled
information" that is important.
Apparently he
was just a farmer from Alabama or
somewhere.<P>
They didn't raise us to be
ignorant of the basics, though, and sent
us to Sunday school first.
That's us on the way to church on Easter
Sunday, 1957, on the cover of
"Grace Beats Karma." I wasn't
fond of going to church, except for
getting ice cream cones at Foster's
Freeze next door after the ordeal.
After about a year of that they announced
they would keep us home
Sunday mornings, but we had to listen to
them for an hour as if it
were school. This news was like being let
out of jail when you're
seven years old, and we heartily approved.
They would read from
different alternative books including
Cayce and other metaphysical
stuff, and in that context it didn't seem
way out at all. Also, they
weren't fanatics by then on Cayce or
anything else, as described
earlier by Kerouac when it was
fresh.<P>
We grew up with an understanding
of Karma and reincarnation that I took
for granted until I went to
public schools and realized this
knowledge wasn't normal among my
peers. In that regard it was somewhat of
a cruel shock to learn that
everyone didn't believe this stuff, and I
had to adjust to other
points of view. Still, I don't regret
adopting their perspective. They
thought much in organized religion was
distorted, except for the basic
concepts that started them, like the
Golden Rule. My experience since
then has resulted in similar
thinking.<P>
My mother hasn't changed her outlook much
over the years, but doesn't
"preach" it much anymore. She
seems secure in her knowledge of how the
universe works. Her basic beliefs remain
unchanged, which is
comforting, and they still ring true for
me.<P>
I think after Jack had embraced Buddhism
so desperately he was
unwilling to shift gears again when
confronted with Neal's Cayce rap
and tuned it out. Just a theory; I was
awfully young.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>"CHILDREN
OF THE BEATS"</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>
(On November 5, the New York Times Magazine printed an article called
"Children
of the Beats." Written by Daniel
Pinchbeck (son of Jack Kerouac's
one-time
girlfriend Joyce Johnson), it featured profiles of John, Neal's other
son (by
a different woman, Diana Hansen) Curt Hansen, Jan Kerouac,
Parker
Kaufman, Lisa Jones and others. This
article caused a
bit of
a stir with its tragic overtones -- the thesis seemed to be that all
the
Beat writers had been despicable parents.
I wrote to John that I didn't
think
the article captured what I saw as the positive side of his
life.)</I><P>
I agree with you about the article's
overall negative tone. Even I came
off sounding like I thought the whole era
was trivial. My biggest
beefs were that he only mentioned the
book "Heart Beat," not "Off the
Road," as my mother's principal
work. Christ, it's been out of print
for twenty years, and sales of "Off
The Road" could have been helped
by a mention in a piece with this kind of
circulation. Also, no mention
of my sisters, who, last I checked, were
Neal's kids as well. And what's
up with this "John Allen?" I
don't recall calling myself that when we
talked. I suspect he was trying to allude
to the Kerouac/Ginsberg
namesakes, but he never mentioned them!
And shouldn't one say "His
mother IS Carolyn Cassady," not
"WAS?" At least his spelling was
correct.<P>
I think he was out for sensationalism in
the Neal stories he recorded,
similar to the Beats-suck-as-parents
theme in the other interviews.
The only story he bothered to print was
about Neal's decline, although
I gave him two hours worth of upbeat,
funny ones. Pat noticed he
wasn't writing in his notebook during
these. Possibly because when he
would earlier ask things like "what
did you learn from all this?" or
"how were you affected?", I'd
blow him off and continue with stories
(similar to our interview?) and he might
have felt slighted. At least
you were compassionate and let me ramble.<P>
All things considered, I'd say it's about
a C+. I've had worse
showings, but certainly better. The piece
in the Metro (San Jose) from
about '88 comes to mind as more accurate
(and pages longer). Too bad
it was not as widely read.<P>
<I>One
other thought I had -- since some of the other "children of the
Beats"
don't
seem like the type to have kids, it would have been nice to mention
that
you have a son.</I><P>
<I>Speaking
of which, what does he think of all this Neal publicity? Did he
like
the article?</I><P>
Yeah, that would have been nice if the
article had mentioned Neal's
grandson. His name's Jamie, after my
sister, cruel parents that we
were. I came home last night and said his
picture is in the NY Times
so he's famous. That's a chalk portrait
of him above my head [in the
photo of John that accompanies the
article] which my
mom drew in London in '92. Jamie hasn't
read much Beat stuff and probably
doesn't understand what the big deal is,
but he thinks it's bitchin' to
have a famous grandfather and to see our
name in stuff all the time.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>JAN
KEROUAC</H3>
</CENTER>
I think Pat early on sent you a description
of when I spoke at Jan's
benefit show in SF earlier this year. I
got loaded and lost my wallet,
which Kesey found and gave to Nicosia to
return to me, Jeez. I was
given a pretty cool photograph taken of
Jan and I sitting together
while giving interviews earlier that day
which I can try to send to
you somehow. An historic meeting. It's
too bad her life's been rough
lately. Makes me not feel so bad about my
own life, though. We all have
demons to exorcise. <P>
I proposed to her at our first meeting in
North
Beach in the early '70s. She was lookin'
good back then, and I
thought, "what a perfect
match-up!", historically speaking, at least.
What would Jack and Neal have thought? I
forget what her response was,
but we never married, as I
recall.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>BILL
BURROUGHS JR.</H3>
</CENTER>
Bill showed up at my mother's house in
Los Gatos around 1973. At that
time her place was party central, and I
recall some crazy times during
that era. I had just returned from a
year's travel across the US, and
my sister Jami and her husband Randy were
living with Carolyn. I had
been home about a week, sleeping on the
couch because J&R had claimed
my old room in my absence, when they
threw a giant party in the
half-acre dirt back yard. It was a
Memorial day party, to celebrate
all our gone "gone"
friends. <P>
We built a big stage at the back of the
lot on a hill.
There were three rock bands and Allen
Ginsberg did a long set,
singing, chanting, and reading poetry. He
had a broken leg from
slipping on the ice at his place in
Cherry Valley, NY, and sat
cross-legged on a rug with his cast
sticking out in front and incense
burning. The police were mellow about the
crowds and a good time was
had by all. Wait a minute, what does this
have to do with Burroughs?
He wasn't even there yet. I know,
background color about my mom's
house in those days. I soon moved to
Santa Cruz, but the next spring I
found they had built a huge vegetable
garden in the back yard complete
with grass trails through it with benches
and bird baths and stuff. <P>
There under a tree toward the back was this short, stocky guy with
long hair and a scruffy beard with a
gallon of red wine in his lap
talking to Jami. They were half lit and
laughing a lot, so naturally I
joined them. Bill Jr. was only working on
his first liver in those
days and was quite lucid and witty.
Everyone seemed to migrate
to Carolyn's at one time or another. We
would have wild all-night
discussions in the living room. My mother
recently sent me an audio
tape she found of one of those nights,
but I was so high that poor
Bill couldn't get a word in edgewise, I
was talking so much. It's an
embarrassment, except for one stretch
where we're all talking at once,
Mom included, while completely ignoring
the others. That part's funny.<P>
Anyway, I didn't see Bill for a year or
two. When he arrived at my
house in Santa Cruz he looked thin and
wasted. The first thing he did
was lift up his shirt to show me the
scar, more like a hole, left from
his recent liver transplant, a new
procedure at the time which he had
just received in Denver. I nearly hurled,
but helped myself to the jars
full of Valium which he spread on the
kitchen table. He was
understandably tired and our subsequent
discussions weren't nearly as
lively as in the past. The great local
writer William J. Craddock
sought him out and had us over for
dinner. Craddock was a big fan of
Neal's and seemed to enjoy having the
second generation converge at his
house.<P>
The sad day came when Bill was feeling so
poorly that I insisted on
driving him to the ER at Dominican
Hospital in Santa Cruz. They
immediately whisked him back to Denver
and within days he was dead.
Although his father's money gave him a
second chance with a
transplant, I think it was too little,
too late. He was one of the
casualties of the tragic side of these
lost artist types. Daniel
Pinchbeck was just twenty years too late
to interview Bill Jr.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>THE
"DUNKELS"</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>(Ed
and Galatea Dunkel were two of the more colorful characters in
"On
The Road." Like most of Kerouac's
characters they had their real
life
equivalents, and Al and Helen Hinkle were still close friends of
Carolyn
Cassady's when Helen died last year.)</I><P>
I ran into Al Hinkle in the supermarket
last night. On the way home I
flashed on the fact that the suburban ladies
pushing shopping carts
around us had no clue that Big Ed Dunkel
from "On the Road" was
chatting with Dean Moriarty Jr. in the
frozen food isle (nor would
they have cared). He's in his late 60's
and looks great; just got back
from a month in Denver visiting an older
sister in Neal's old
neighborhood. He lost his wife Helen to
cancer last year which was
heavy for all of us. <P>
<I>
That blows my mind about Big Ed Dunkel ... I didn't know "Galatea"
had died,
either. I always enjoyed that part in the book where
she chews your father
out and
he goes and sits on the stoop for a few minutes considering it, then,
without
a word, gets up and continues with his life.
Sometimes you gotta just
do that
...</I><P>
Helen Hinkle was an extremely wise woman. I liked that scene,
too.
It's almost excruciating to read because
she's so right and Dean is so
foolish. Helen called it like it is. I
was so grateful that I looked
her up in recent years and had long talks
with her about them all in
the days, not knowing her time would be
short. I almost missed her
altogether. They've lived in the same
house for over forty years, and
just a few miles from my current address,
but I just never got around
to seeing them much until about three
years ago. The Metro also did an
excellent piece on the Hinkles a couple
years ago. They were a big
part of it all and no one knows. Helen
was so funny. She liked to
remind me that she used to change my
diapers when I was a baby, jeez.
She'd sit there and smoke cigarettes,
drink coffee and curse during
her stories; what a character. Al is more
of a mellow talker and a bit
long-winded, but has some great stuff
from the Denver days.<P>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="jcass.gif" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=94>
<H3>THIS
PAGE</H3>
</CENTER>
<I>I
told John I was going to illustrate this interview with a photo his
girlfriend
Pat had sent me, showing John in a "far-out" Greg-Brady-style
shirt
at a party.</I><P>
Jeez, I
look like a dork-o-rama, but go ahead. <P>
<CENTER>
<A
HREF="JCI-Three.html">On to Part Three</A><P>
<A
HREF="JCInterview.html">Back to Top</A><P>
</CENTER>
<A
HREF="../LitKicks.html">Literary Kicks</A><BR> by
<A HREF="../HomePages/LeviAsher.html">Levi
Asher</A><P>
</BODY></HTML>
--------------B725B2C67CE--
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 12:53:36 -0500
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Gary Mex Glazner
<PoetMex@AOL.COM>
Subject: Goofball Blues
Kerouac
Goofball
Blues
I'm
just a human being with a lot of
shit on
my heart
My
ambition was not to be a great
lover,
but
that's what I am
Even in
dreams, fiancees
of
other men
ball on
my joint
And I
am the Flying Horse
of Mien
Mo
When I
am an old man
my
grave will rot me
The one
I loved were crazy
without
knowing why
When I
am old I'll yawn
in the
Flannel Grave
>From
Pomes All Sizes
published
by City Lights
with a
great painting by Ferlinghetti
for the
cover. The Inroduction by Ginsberg starts
out:
He was
Poet;- "You guys call yourselves poets, write little short
lines,
I a poet but I wrtie line paragraphs and pages and many pages long."
Quoting
Jack from a letter written in the mid 50's in Mexico City
yrs
Gary
Mex Glazner
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 12:53:39 -0500
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Gary Mex Glazner
<PoetMex@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: AG Spoken word (was Re: Apology to
Keith...
Comments:
To: jgrant@bookzen.com
Dear
Beat List and Bob Lewis,
Lewis
Wrote<< also seeking spoken word from ginsberg- i've got a couple clips
from
the internet, but can't find anything else.
does it exist?? and where
should
i be
looking??>>
Holy
Soul Jelly Roll
listing
price is 39.98
Special
Beat List Price:
30.00
including shipping, handling and tax.
>From
Words On Wheels
We can
do credit card over the phone or email
or if you
prefer we can send COD and
you can
pay by check.
I have
some in stock so
you
would recieve in a few days
Let me
know if you are interested.
Yrs
Gary
Mex Glazner
Words
On Wheels
85
Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows
415.892.0158
office
Headless
Buddha
http://www.well.com/user/poetmex
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 10:08:09 -0800
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Timothy K. Gallaher"
<gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>
Subject: Re: BASEBALL and Cuba and Beat???
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At
08:09 AM 10/29/97 PST, you wrote:
>Hello,
>
> I hate to be a pain, but what does
baseball have to do with beat
>topics? I know Kerouac loved baseball and this
country enjoys it as
>well,
but really can the three or four of you that discuss Cuba please
>do
so on a back channel. Iyt would mean a
lot to everyone else because
>not
many people as youcan see have joined in on your debate.
>Thank
you for considering this,
>Keith
>
What
does your poem have to do with beat?
You see
it is a two way street. Your post started
it and it had nothing to
do with
beat.
But no
one threw stones at you or your glass house.
You see
what I mean?
I think
there are always topics that fall off the beaten track but I do not
complain
(except in instances like this where I address another complaint).
I
believe things take care of themselves on a list like this and work
themselves
out naturally.
For
example I wasn't going reply to the beat-l about Cuba or the integrity
of the
statistics as it drifted away from beat too much. I was going to
reply
to Jo saying pretty much what Antoine wrote.
But in
perspective the mistake was relpying to the original "what do you
think"
as it was all ready non-topic.
But I
am for letting the conversations go and play out. I figure Keroac and
Burroughs
and Ginsberg and Lucien Carr and the other folks hanging out
drifted
"off topic" in a lot of ways in the course of their conversations.
I like
when folks post a poem and ask "what do you think?", but it is
definately
not beat-related.
So I
say keep asking what do you think and if it rolls around to foreign
policy
or foreign cars, like cool daddyo
>------------------------------------------------------------
>Keith mrsparty@hotmail.com / I think of Dean Moriarty.
>http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/rothko/31/index.html
>------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>______________________________________________________
>Get
Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 17:40:12 PST
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Tracey Daborn <T.E.Harberd@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: New List?
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Idea:
A new
list, for people that want to squabble about the estate, and insult each
other.
So that
they don't have to waste my time doing it.
Just a
suggestion...
Peace?
Tom. H.
http://www.uea.ac.uk/~w9624759
"A
Bear of Very Little Brain"
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 10:09:28 -0800
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: "Timothy K. Gallaher"
<gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>
Subject: Re: wsb step-daughter?
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At
10:20 AM 10/29/97 -0500, you wrote:
>On
Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Sean Elias wrote:
>
>>
Reading H. Hunke's 'The Evening Sun...' he makes reference to a daughter
>>
of Joan Adams named Julie that lived with Joan and Bill in Texas. She
>>
was then 5 yrs. old. Does anyone have
any info on what happened to
>>
this girl? Presumably she was sent to live with more responsible
>>
relatives after Bill killed her mom......Is she still alive??? Any info
>>
would be appreciated.
>>
>> s.e.
>
>As
far as I remember, when Joan was killed, the kids went to live with her
>parents.
Whether or not the step-daughter is
still alive, or what, I have
>no
idea. Billy, of course, wrote a couple mediocre books
No. I disagree.
I think Billy's boooks were good.
In some ways a lot
better
than huis father's.
and
died of liver
>disease.
He was one of the unfortunate few who really suffered for having
>known
Burroughs. A nuclear family was impossible in his life. It doesn't
>surprise
me that a man whose fiction advocated the end of the American
>mom,
pop, two kids and a dog life saw his only bizarre incarnation of a
>family
disintegrate in a sordid affair. Try looking her up in the index in
>Literary
Outlaw.
>
>Neil
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 10:10:43 -0800
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: "Timothy K. Gallaher"
<gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>
Subject: Re: BASEBALL and Cuba and Beat???
Mime-Version:
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So
who's going win the superbowell?
At
10:29 AM 10/29/97 -0600, you wrote:
>>Hello,
>>
>> I hate to be a pain, but what does
baseball have to do with beat
>>topics? I know Kerouac loved baseball and this
country enjoys it as
>>well,
but really can the three or four of you that discuss Cuba please
>>do
so on a back channel. Iyt would mean a
lot to everyone else because
>>not
many people as youcan see have joined in on your debate.
>>Thank
you for considering this,
>>Keith
>>
>
>You're
right, of course. As I was going on about Cuba, etc. that fact was
>right
in the front of my mind, but I was down there while that revolution
>was
going on, had first-hand experience with why that revolution happened,
>understand
it, support it, live with the deprivation the Cuban people face,
>and
had to jump up on the "stage" and grab the "mic."
>
>By
the way, if any on the list speak Spanish and want to contact Cuban
>librarians
about any Spanish translations of Beat authors I'll provide an
>E-mail
address. But you must remember, that contacting a Cuban librarian
>and
asking about a book, is a felony crime in the United States--but only
>in
the United States, so maybe that will change soon.
>
>j
grant
>
> Small Press Authors and Publishers
display books
> FREE
> at
> BookZen
> http://www.bookzen.com
> 402,900 visitors - 07-01-96 to
07-01-97
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 13:03:22 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Neil Hennessy
<nhenness@UWATERLOO.CA>
Subject: Re: Hacking the Bible
In-Reply-To: <ECS9710291723H@smtp.uea.ac.uk>
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Not
sure who posted this originally, but I'd love to get a source to look
up the
quotation from this Brendan McKay fellow. Anyone?
Neil
> .
Australian mathematician Brendan
>
> McKay says it's a sham. "Anyone can program a computer to make
>
> coincidences appear to be meaningful," he says. Tune in as they face
>
> off.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 10:34:55 -0800
Reply-To: stauffer@pacbell.net
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: James Stauffer
<stauffer@PACBELL.NET>
Subject: Re: Inspiration
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David,
A
little Lew Welch in counterpoint to the Snyder pome on poetry
(WHENEVER
I MAKE A NEW POEM)
Whenever
I make a new poem,
the old
ones sound like gibberish.
How can
they ever make sense in a book?
Let
them say:
"He
seems to have lived in the mountains.
He
travelled now and then.
When he
apeared in cities,
he was
almost always drunk.
"Most
of his poems are lost.
Many of
those we have were found in
letters
to his friends.
"He
had a very large number of friends."
(THE
IMAGE AS HEXAGRAM)
The
image, as in a Hexagram:
The
hermit locks his door against the blizzard.
He
keeps the cabin warm.
All
winter he sorts out all he has.
What
was well started shall be finished.
What
was not, should be thrown away.
In
spring he emerges with one garment
and a
single book.
The
cabin is very clean.
Except
for that, you'd never guess
anyone
lived there.
(I SAW
MYSELF)
I saw
myself
a ring
of bone
in the
clear stream
of all
of it
and
vowed,
always
to be open to it
that
all of it
might
flow through
and
then heard
"ring
of bone" where
ring is
what a
bell
does.
(all
from "Hermit Poems", Ring of Bone)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 13:38:45 -0500
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From: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: Amazing Grace....
Mime-Version:
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Rinaldo,
Did someone track down the lyrics of
Ginsberg's "Amazing GRace?" If
so. I'd
love a copy, backchannel. I listen to the EP CD frequently and love
it. I
couldn't find them when I looked on the WEB, but I did discover that
the
composition was motivated by Ed Sanders (once of the Fugs) who asked a
number
of fellow artists to come up with alternative lyrics. Anyone know
anything
more about this?
Antoine
Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
"Blessed are they who can laugh at
themselves, for they shall never
cease
to be amused."
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 13:45:41 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: Neil re: Bill Burroughs jr.
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Neil,
Saw your comment about young Bill
Burroughs' "mediocre books"....is
that
pretty much the case? I saw a copy of "Kentucky Ham" and was
wondering
about
getting it just today. Can you tell me anything about it. I recently
bought
Jan Kerouac's "Baby Driver" and thought I might let my completist
instincts
run riot.
Antoine
Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
"Blessed are they who can laugh at
themselves, for they shall never
cease
to be amused."
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 12:42:56 -0600
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: Re: Inspiration
Comments:
To: stauffer@pacbell.net
MIME-Version:
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james,
groggy
mid=siesta thinking. (your address is
one of those which
defaults
the old way BTW)
James
Stauffer wrote:
>
> David,
>
> To
get the image to work, just envision the brightness of the campfire,
>
which makes the surrounding darkness deeper and even more unknown.
>
Sounds out there. Animals moving
around. The Other.
>
> J.
Stauffer
Sun in
south window, microwave beeping poems, the world outside #23 as
far
away as Tangier, Crickets outside my window, cars move by to and
fro,
books scattered two and fro, the Other.
I know the Other
intimately.
thanks
for the help....david on way back to siesta of rip van winkle
proportions.
dbr
>
>
RACE --- wrote:
>
>
>
> How Poetry Comes to Me
>
>
>
> It comes blundering over the
>
> Boulders at night, it stays
>
> Frightened outside the
>
> Range of my campfire
>
> I go to meet it at the
>
> Edge of the light.
>
>
>
> -- Gary Snyder
>
> from No Nature
>
>
>
> I'll need help with this one. Not
being exactly an "outdoorsman", i can
>
> only try to comprehend GS here by analogy. The best I get is some local
>
> parks for a literal understanding of what he's saying.
>
>
>
> david rhaesa
>
> salina, Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 12:48:48 -0600
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: Re: Amazing Grace....
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Antoine
Maloney wrote:
>
>
Rinaldo,
>
> Did someone track down the lyrics of
Ginsberg's "Amazing GRace?" If
>
so. I'd love a copy, backchannel. I listen to the EP CD frequently and love
>
it. I couldn't find them when I looked on the WEB, but I did discover that
>
the composition was motivated by Ed Sanders (once of the Fugs) who asked a
>
number of fellow artists to come up with alternative lyrics. Anyone know
>
anything more about this?
>
> Antoine
> Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
>
> "Blessed are they who can laugh at
themselves, for they shall never
>
cease to be amused."
Me too!
david
rhaesa
nita
#23
500
east crawford st.
salina,
Kansas 67401
dbr
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 13:04:34 -0600
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: jo grant <jgrant@BOOKZEN.COM>
Subject: Re: Gargon on Cuba
In-Reply-To:
<199710291755.LAA22319@msn.globaldialog.com>
Mime-Version:
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>Jo,
are you sure it's a felony to contact cuba about books or journals.
>As
a librarian collecting spanish language materials, I've had
>correspondence
with Cubans on book and journal orders several times.
>The
only problem I've encountered is paying for the stuff in a different
>currency.
Just
got a clarification.... No sanctions on E-mail to Cuba. There once
was,
but no more. Ditto for phone calls I'm told. However, the
clarification
is not authoritative. Have requested authoritative
clarification
from Sen. Wellstones's office.
will
pass info on.
j grant
Small Press Authors and Publishers display books
FREE
at
BookZen
http://www.bookzen.com
402,900 visitors - 07-01-96 to
07-01-97
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 14:08:36 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: Re: Inspiration
Mime-Version:
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David,
If you haven't done it, to be out,
really in the wild, on a moonless
night
is atounding and great....and can be fearsome. One can hardly believe
the
inky blackness of a cloud covered moonless night. In 1970 when I was
doing
lots of hitchhiking, my city eyes and sensibilities had a few shocks.
I can
remember waking up on a roadside in northern Ontario sealed in my
sleeping
bag to escape the mosquitoes; it had turned cool, the mosquitos
were
gone and the moon was long gone; the sky was SO filled with stars... I
just
lay there gaping and turned and woke Mike to look as well.
A month later we we driving through
Redwood National Forest at night
-
moonless. I asked if we could stop on the chance I could find a few
Redwood
or Sequoia cones. When the door closed on the van it was as if a
black
velvet bag had been pulled over my head. I looked up and could see a
tiny,
tiny ribbon of stars way overhead...just befpore I toppled over into
the
roadside ditch.
We had just come away from San
Francisco and I so wish I had been
clued
into the Beats then.
I can certainly imagine what Snyder describes with his "I go to
meet
it at
the edge of the light."
Antoine
****************
from
David Rhaesa
>How
Poetry Comes to Me
>
>It
comes blundering over the
>Boulders
at night, it stays
>Frightened
outside the
>Range
of my campfire
>I
go to meet it at the
>Edge
of the light.
>
> -- Gary Snyder
> from No Nature
>
>I'll
need help with this one. Not being
exactly an "outdoorsman", i can
>only
try to comprehend GS here by analogy.
The best I get is some local
>parks
for a literal understanding of what he's saying.
>
>david
rhaesa
>salina,
Kansas
>
Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
"Blessed are they who can laugh at
themselves, for they shall never
cease
to be amused."
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 14:17:04 -0500
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: Antoine Maloney
<stratis@ODYSSEE.NET>
Subject: Re: BASEBALL and Cuba and Beat???
Mime-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Timothy
"like cool daddyo" ....now that's Beat for sure!!
Antoine
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 11:39:23 -0800
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: Levi Asher
<brooklyn@NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Al Hinkle
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To
answer the question about Al Hinkle, the real life
Ed
Dunkel of On The Road -- he died about a year ago.
He and
his wife Helen (Galatea Dunkel) were still living
in the
San Jose/Los Gatos area, and were still good
friends
with Carolyn Cassady and the Cassady kids at the
end,
which is a sort of interesting fact given the odd
way
they met during that cross-country trip that is now
Beat
legend ...
-------------------------------------------------------
| Levi
Asher = brooklyn@netcom.com
|
|
|
| Literary Kicks:
http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/ |
| (the beat literature web site) |
|
|
| "Coffeehouse: Writings from the
Web" |
| (a real book, like on paper) |
| also at
http://coffeehousebook.com |
|
|
|
*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---* |
|
|
| "Not
sunglasses, shades" |
-------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 13:54:42 -0600
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: Re: Inspiration
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Antoine
Maloney wrote:
>
>
David,
>
> If you haven't done it, to be out,
really in the wild, on a moonless
>
night is atounding and great....and can be fearsome. One can hardly believe
>
the inky blackness of a cloud covered moonless night. In 1970 when I was
>
doing lots of hitchhiking, my city eyes and sensibilities had a few shocks.
> I
can remember waking up on a roadside in northern Ontario sealed in my
>
sleeping bag to escape the mosquitoes; it had turned cool, the mosquitos
>
were gone and the moon was long gone; the sky was SO filled with stars... I
>
just lay there gaping and turned and woke Mike to look as well.
>
> A month later we we driving through
Redwood National Forest at night
> -
moonless. I asked if we could stop on the chance I could find a few
>
Redwood or Sequoia cones. When the door closed on the van it was as if a
>
black velvet bag had been pulled over my head. I looked up and could see a
>
tiny, tiny ribbon of stars way overhead...just befpore I toppled over into
>
the roadside ditch.
>
> We had just come away from San
Francisco and I so wish I had been
>
clued into the Beats then.
>
> I can certainly imagine what Snyder describes with his "I
go to meet
> it
at the edge of the light."
>
> Antoine
>
> ****************
>
>
from David Rhaesa
>
>
>How Poetry Comes to Me
>
>
>
>It comes blundering over the
>
>Boulders at night, it stays
>
>Frightened outside the
>
>Range of my campfire
>
>I go to meet it at the
>
>Edge of the light.
>
>
>
> -- Gary Snyder
>
> from No Nature
>
>
>
>I'll need help with this one. Not
being exactly an "outdoorsman", i can
>
>only try to comprehend GS here by analogy.
The best I get is some local
>
>parks for a literal understanding of what he's saying.
>
>
>
>david rhaesa
>
>salina, Kansas
>
>
> Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
>
> "Blessed are they who can laugh at
themselves, for they shall never
>
cease to be amused."
Antoine,
I have
some memories of the type you are describing and the inspiration
you
mention does come to me. It is just
that the place -- for now --
must be
different. My home is my forest right
now the town a darkness I
am
learning to traverse. Memories of last
outing with a poetess and
dear
friend Joy Golisch haunt me. The
friendship turned sour and i
became
perhaps the ugliest feeling being in my entire memory. Feeling
totally
betrayed, I reacted by changing roles from being Joy's secretary
to
finding my own voice. So in some ways
many poems written anywhere
come
from the outdoor inspirations. The
night Allen Ginsberg died i
made a
phone call and was told that Joy had died of leukemia. Still
makes
me sad that I didn't mend fences before fate cast that straw.
Somewhere
there is a poem "I think I fell in love with her name" which
is
close as I could come to a resolution of a vicious cold war in the
poetic
community of the Quad Cities. I guess
it still haunts me now --
though
i thought it was long past. Along with
that my world collapsed
before
and after that spectacle many times and as the Work in Progress
probably
begins to make clear the living in this world is a new art
being
learned all over again. The analogies i
drew make sense to me.
The
microwave speaks in ways that i can't quite describe right now and I
woke
from a siesta hearing the thermostat tell me of tales to tell.
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 11:59:49 -0800
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
List" <BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
From: ANNE ELIZABETH SNEDDON
<sneddon@NEVADA.EDU>
Subject: Carolyn Cassady (was: Al Hinkle)
In-Reply-To:
<199710291939.LAA09986@netcom.netcom.com>
MIME-Version:
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Which
reminds me, does Carolyn make any public appearances? Is she
involved
with anything on the Internet? Is it possible for fans/students
to get
in touch with her, or is she reclusive?
Anne
Sneddon
On Wed,
29 Oct 1997, Levi Asher wrote:
> To
answer the question about Al Hinkle, the real life
> Ed
Dunkel of On The Road -- he died about a year ago.
> He
and his wife Helen (Galatea Dunkel) were still living
> in
the San Jose/Los Gatos area, and were still good
>
friends with Carolyn Cassady and the Cassady kids at the
>
end, which is a sort of interesting fact given the odd
>
way they met during that cross-country trip that is now
>
Beat legend ...
>
>
-------------------------------------------------------
> |
Levi Asher = brooklyn@netcom.com |
>
| |
>
| Literary Kicks:
http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/ |
>
| (the beat literature web
site) |
>
| |
>
| "Coffeehouse: Writings
from the Web" |
>
| (a real book, like on
paper) |
>
| also at
http://coffeehousebook.com |
>
| |
>
|
*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---* |
>
| |
>
| "Not
sunglasses, shades" |
>
-------------------------------------------------------
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 14:21:52 -0600
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: Re: Inspiration
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James,
Thanks, as i'm pretty sure you know,
my knowledge of Snyder and Welch
is up
there with Seargeant Schultz of Hogan's Heroes "I KNOW NOTHING!"
And it
seems these are voices I will want to learn and embrace in time.
A
gradual process I'm certain.
I must venture to the library tomorrow
and will look for Welch junk. I
think
they might have some McClure junk too.
So when I turn in some
Joyce
junk I'll try and check out some of those to connect more with
this
different style and attitude towards writing.
I think Charlie Plymell mentioned Lew
Welch in Last of the Mocassins
but I
can't be certain.
It will take me some time to digest
these. I'm about to look into the
second
thing on As For Poets in Turtle Island.
david
James
Stauffer wrote:
>
>
David,
>
> A
little Lew Welch in counterpoint to the Snyder pome on poetry
>
>
(WHENEVER I MAKE A NEW POEM)
>
>
Whenever I make a new poem,
>
the old ones sound like gibberish.
>
How can they ever make sense in a book?
>
>
Let them say:
>
"He seems to have lived in the mountains.
> He
travelled now and then.
>
When he apeared in cities,
> he
was almost always drunk.
>
>
"Most of his poems are lost.
>
Many of those we have were found in
>
letters to his friends.
>
>
"He had a very large number of friends."
>
>
(THE IMAGE AS HEXAGRAM)
>
>
The image, as in a Hexagram:
>
>
The hermit locks his door against the blizzard.
> He
keeps the cabin warm.
>
>
All winter he sorts out all he has.
>
What was well started shall be finished.
>
What was not, should be thrown away.
>
> In
spring he emerges with one garment
>
and a single book.
>
>
The cabin is very clean.
>
>
Except for that, you'd never guess
>
anyone lived there.
>
> (I
SAW MYSELF)
>
> I
saw myself
> a
ring of bone
> in
the clear stream
> of
all of it
>
>
and vowed,
>
always to be open to it
>
that all of it
>
might flow through
>
>
and then heard
>
"ring of bone" where
>
ring is what a
>
>
bell does.
>
>
(all from "Hermit Poems", Ring of Bone)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 14:38:17 -0600
Reply-To: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation List"
<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sender: "BEAT-L: Beat Generation
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From: RACE --- <race@MIDUSA.NET>
Subject: On "As for Poets"
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"Energy
is Eternal Delight" -- William Blake, in The Marriage of Heaven
and
Hell. What are we to make of this? As the overdeveloped world (the
U.S.,
Japan, etc.) approaches an "energy crisis" with shortages of oil
and
electric power (and some nations plan a desperate gamble with
nuclear
generating plants) we must remember that oil and coal are the
stored
energy of the sun locked by ancient plant-life in its cells.
"Renewable"
energy resources are the trees and flowers and all living
beings
of today, especially plant-life doing the primary work of
energy-transfer.
On these fuels contemporary nations
now depend. But there is another
kind of
energy, in every living being, close to the sun-source but in a
different
way. The power within. Whence?
"Delight." The delight
of
being
alive while knowing of impermanence and death, the acceptance and
mastry
of this. A defintion:
Delight
is the innocent joy arising
with
the perception and realization of
the
wonderful empty, intricate,
inter-penetrating,
mutually-embracing,
shining
single
world beyond all discrimination
or
opposites.
This joy is continually reflected in
the poems and songs of the world.
"As
for Poets" explores the realm of delight in terms of the five
elements
that Ancient Greek and China both saw as the constituents of
the
physical world. To which the Buddhist
philosophers of India added a
sixth,
consciousness, or Mind. At one point I
was tempted to title this
poem
"The Five Elements embracing; pierced by; Mind," -- as illustrated
in the
mudra (hand position) generally see on images of Vairocana
Buddha.
EARTH is our Mother and a man or woman
goes directly to her, needing no
intermediary.
AIR is our breath, spirit,
inspiration; a flow which becomes speech
when
"sounded" -- the curling back on the same thrust" is close to
what
is
meant in the Japanese word FUSHI - knot, or whorl in the grain, the
word
for song.
FIRE must have a fuel and the heart's
fuel is love. The love that makes
poetry
burn is not just the green of this spring, but draws on the
ancient
web of sympathetic, compassionate, and erotic acts that lies
behind
our very existence, a stored energy into our genes and dreams --
fossil
love a sly term for that deep-buried sweetness brough to
conscious
thought.
WATER is creation, the mud we crawled
on; the wash of tides in the
cells. The Water Poet is the Creator. His calligraphy is the trails
and
tracks we living beings leave in each other; in the world; his poem.
But swallow it all. Size is no problem, a little SPACE encloses
a huge
void.
There, those great whorls, the stars hang.
Who can get outside
the
universe? But the poem was born
elsewhere, and need not stay. Like
the
wild geese of the Arctic it heads home, far above the borders, where
most
things cannot cross.
Now, we
are both in, and outside, the world at once.
The only place
this
can be is the MIND. Ah, what a
poem. It is what is completely, in
the
past, present, and future simultaneously, seeing being, and being
seen.
Can we really do this? But we do.
So we sing. Poetry is for all
men
and
women. The power within -- the more you
give, the more you have to
give --
will still be our source when coal and oil are long gone, and
atoms
are left to spin in peace.
-- Gary Snyder
From Turtle Island Section "Plain
Talk"
Goodness
... all but the earth is in the mind's eye of this typist and
why is
it left out? Hmm. And how to leave the mind and move back into
space,
water, fire (real not metaphysical), and earth???? Questions
hoping
to learn in this new brand of beat poetry.
david
rhaesa
salina,
Kansas
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Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 17:04:11 +0000
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From: Marie Countryman
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Subject: lately i just
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lately
i just keep waking
alone
in the
black in the night
i
breathe shallowly i wear earphones
not to
wake you
not to
waken you
i
breath shallowly
3 am 4
am
mind
wanders and stumbles
stuck in the valley of consciousness
motorless
timelessness,
i
don=92t
think of tomorrow
merge
with the blackness
and
listen to the burning
fire
in my
ears, break free
and
turning
turn up
the volume on the stereo
sobbing
i make
my choice
i light
the candle
i shed
clothes
a sunder
i twirl
on the balls of my
feet
and let
my hips
find their own rhythm
i have
a scarf
i twirl
throw
it
veils the lamp
i dance
to my anima, shasdow cast
i ride the the fiddles
in the
midst of my
halcyon
hurricane
dancing
the blackness
go away
if it bothers you, in fact
please
go away.
its the
blackness you see
the
blackness and me
everybody
knows about me
everybody
knows about me
the
song
the
vigil
energy
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 16:17:24 -0500
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From: "john v. omlor"
<omlor@PACKET.NET>
Subject: Speaking of Poets... (a longish bit o'
fun)
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Since
the subject of poets (as generic types) has come up I thought I'd
just
offer this small bit of fiction to
which at least a few of you might
relate. It takes place in a small, fictional,
southern town called...
Shad County
Things
were just startin to quiet down around Shad County when the call
came
into the office. Lucy found me on the
radio to let me know that Billy
Taylor
had called from over his place. It
seems he had just got back from
his
last seven-day haul and when he went to park his rig out behind his
house
he noticed a rustle or somethin coming from back in the shack where
he used
to keep that old tractor his daddy left him.
Well, anyways, what
he
found when he got there, what he described to Lucy and she described to
me,
right away it got me worried.
I
figured the best thing to do first off was to go deputize Fred Silver's
oldest
boy, Fred Jr.. If this was what I
thought it was we were in for
some
serious trouble. I headed over to the
Silver's to pick up young Fred
and on
the way I tried to figure out what the most sensible way of
approachin
this thing might be. Even after I got
Fred in the car and we
were on
our way to Billy's I didn't really have an idea.
The
scene at the Taylor place was just about what I expected. Billy was
scared.
'Course, he hadn't slept for seven
straight days, so it was kinda
hard to
tell, but he just didn't seem himself.
Anyway, he didn't have the
foggiest
what could of left that old shack in the state it was in inside.
Fred
and I grabbed a couple of flashlights and started real slowly to ease
our way
in through the old wooden door that was already startin to fall of
its
hinges. One side of the shack was
filled to near burstin with Billy's
old 72
Malibu convertible, with holes chewed clean through the top. The
thing
had been on blocks since Billy's brother didn't come back from Los
Angeles
or Vietnam or wherever it was that he died, and anyway, nobody
talked
about it much. The other side of the
shack, where the roof beams
had
started to sag and where even the bats couldn't hang on for their lives
anymore,
well, that side told the whole story.
Our
flashlights lit up the room bright enough.
Scattered around on old
buckets
and some old cement block were all these candles, burnt most of the
way down. The floor was covered, almost an inch deep,
in cigarette butts
and at
least a dozen bottles, some broken, some not even empty were thrown
around
the place. It was bad enough that a lot
of them were wine bottles
but
there was no question left when I made my way over to the far corner of
the
shack. There, near a small hole broken
into the back wall -- it was
single
piece of white paper with thin blue lines, the kind somebody
obviously
ripped out from one of them grade school composition books.
I held
it up to the light of Fred's flashlight and looked the kid straight
in the
eyes.
"Well,
Fred, you know what we got here, don't ya?"
Fred's
eyes got bigger. "Ya mean..."
"Yep,"
I said. "Poets."
When I
said it Fred gave a small shiver.
"Poets! We ain't never had poets
in this
county. There can't be a poet within a
hundred miles of this
place."
"I'm
tellin' ya Fred, this here's the remains of a poets' gatherin. Look
at the
wine bottles, and generic cigarettes for Chrissakes."
Fred
was scared now. "You ever seen
poets before?"
"Not
really. A few years back they had a run
of them up at Cross Point,
out
behind Charlie's tackle shop. But we
didn't pay much mind down here,
we just
figured wherever you got lakes, come Springtime you gonna' get some
poets,
its just a fact of life you gotta learn to live with. You know,
what
with the scenery and all. Anyways,
Charlie had the mayor close down
the
bars for a month and they vanished back into the hills I guess. These
ones here
must of been scared down by hunters or those nature hikers or
somethin. Just look at this place."
"What're
we gonna' do Sheriff. I mean, we don't
wanna be over run."
"Well,"
I said as I picked up a couple of the bottles and checked the marks
left on
the ground by big poet butts, "I don't rightly think we have to
worry
just yet. There looks to only be about
eight or nine of 'em so far,
I'd
guess about half males and half females.
That's usually how it is
anyway,
the males usually follow the females down."
"You
mean," Fred was stammerin' now, "they might, you know, might have
babies!?"
"Nah,
we don't really gotta worry there.
Everybody knows poets ain't
fertile. Hell, the males don't often make it much
past thirty 'fore they
die, and
the females seem to have found some way to use alcohol as birth
control. Anyways, if they was likely to be havin'
babies they wouldn't be
poets,
would they?"
Fred
didn't look that sure as I led him out.
He was even less sure that
night
when we came back to see if the poets showed up. Sure enough, the
glow
through the door of the Taylor shack told us what we wanted to know.
With
just me and Fred I wasn't about to go burstin' in on a bunch of juiced
up
probably suicidal poets in the middle of the night, so we just listened
and
waited. Suddenly a great wave of
coughin and hackin came from the
shack.
"Well,
one's things for sure," I said as I turned to Fred. "We ain't gonna
be able
to smoke 'em out."
It was
just before sun up when we finally heard em scatterin out through
the
back hole, coughin and laughin about probably nothin. Fred and I
waited
a while for the smoke to clear and then made our way into the shack.
It was
a nightmare in there. Fred found a
small scrap of paper over by
the
hole and when I got to him he was holdin' back his dinner.
"Jesus,
listen to this... You ripped me
bleeding from my own womb only to
shred
me like second hand jeans."
"Animals,
what do you expect? Don't look like
there's more this time than
last
though. Maybe that's the whole
pack. I figure, we get fifteen maybe
twenty
guys and maybe also a couple of those Neil Diamond eight tracks I
got
back in my garage, and maybe send down to the University for an old
poetry
professor or two and that should scare 'em back into the hills."
Fred
had lost it over in the corner of the shack, but even after he was
done,
the place actually smelled better.
"Anyway," I said, "we'll be OK
for a
few hours anyway. Its not that they
actually sleep I don't think,
but
they do tend to stay out of sight during breakfast and lunch hours.
Liked
they worked somewhere or somethin.
C'mon, Fred."
But, as
I turned, there, behind Fred with their backs against the back wall
and a
look on their eyes that told me parts of them were on vacation
somewhere,
were four of the scariest lookin poets any man had ever seen.
At
first I wasn't sure...it must have been the hair that fooled me, but I
think
it was three females and a male, though just which one had the
mustache
was kinda hard to tell. I tried to
signal to Fred not to turn
around
even though he could tell I was lookin behind him, but it was too
late. The one in the second hand dress and cowboy
boots, the one with the
legs
whiter than the bark on a birch, bared her teeth. "Hey, what's up?"
Fred
froze. I knew I couldn't leave him
there or he'd be dead meat. Next
time
I'd see him he'd be chain smokin' and talkin about re-workin' some
image
cause he didn't think it worked in the context of the whole piece.
He'd
have that lost puppy look in his eyes of a young man who lives with
the
possibility of drunken no-strings-attached sex every day of his life. I
had to
save him for his own sake if not for his daddy's. Fred Sr., after
all,
pulled a lot of strings around the county.
The
shortest one, another female, this one in old sweats and carryin a book
with
one of them psychedelic covers slipped up next to Fred and asked him
if he'd
ever been to Mexico and hadn't they gotten high once at somethin
called
the Yucatan peninsula. All this time
the other female wandered over
the
floor of the shack, pushing her bang out of her eyes with one hand
while
she checked the bottles for left overs with the other. The male,
tall
and skinnier than a split rail with straight hair that my wife would
kill
for sat quietly in the corner workin in a little spiral bound pocket
notebook.
Hell, he was probably sittin right there in front of me...revisin
or
somethin. The whole thing was like one
of them National Geographic
specials. I swear I wished I woulda had my camera,
them pictures woulda
been
worth a fortune to one of those tabloid papers. Still, I had to think
fast. Fred was already startin' to lose it. The female with the bang and
tight
brown shirt had found a bottle and was throwin it back and Fred's
eyes
were glued to her breasts like they held the promise of eternal life.
"Fred! Fred!
She'll only use you as somethin to write about and tomorrow
you'll
feel like hell and won't recognize yourself in the poem anyways.
Fred!"
I
couldn't break his trance. I tried
somethin' else.
"Fred,
I hear their givin out free Beer over at the Lighthouse tavern in
Pine
Bluff. You hear that Fred? Free
Beer Free...
But the
night had gone on too long and the poets weren't conscious enough
to
recognize what would have otherwise been like a mating call to 'em.
Fred
had drifted over to the brown one and was about to say somethin to
her,
probably about the shards of light that were torn through the broken
fragments
of a long forgotten window pain or somethin,
Finally a light
went
off in my head.
"I
know, Fred, I know, let's do a little structuralist analysis, what do
you
say? C'mon, it'll be fun. Let's decode the semiotic process inscribed
into any
utterance, semiological or otherwise.
Think about it Fred, what
sort of
signification process do we have here..."
It was
workin. The poets had started to inch
backwards, their faces
twisted
in that same scowl I seen once at the movies when they threw water
on that
witch in the Wizard of OZ.
"You
know, Fred, we were chewin over this just the other night on your
daddy's
back porch after supper. Isn't there
some sort of transcendental
process
of signification inscribed into any utterance that positions it
within
a loop of meaning? That makes it
possible for it to mean? What was
it you
said about meanin?
Fred's
eyes broke their stare. "You mean
that meanin is never stable
always
bein positioned as it is between the unstable construction of a
subject
position and the possibility of a gap between signifier and
signified?"
That
did it... The females burst out the door in a full gallop, the male
staying
only long enough to close his book and mumble somethin about not
even a
decent roach to be found, and the shack was quiet and Fred was cryin
in my
arms.
As I
put him into the back of the patrol car and lit myself a good old
fashioned
Salem I ran through the evenin' in my mind and let out one final
long
stream of clear blue smoke.
Sometimes
I really don't like bein the sheriff around here.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 17:37:06 +0000
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From: Marie Countryman
<country@SOVER.NET>
Subject: wrong draft
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quoted-printable
lately
i just keep waking
alone
in the
black in the night
i
breathe shallowly i wear earphones
not to
wake you
not to
wake you
i
breath shallowly
3 am 4
am
mind
wanders and stumbles
stuck in the valley of consciousness
black
timelessness,
i don=92t
think
of tomorrow
merge
with the blackness
listen
to the burning
fire
in my
ears, break free
and
turning
turn up
the volume on the
sobbing
stereo wailing
i make
my choice
light
the candle
shed my
clothes
twirl
on the balls of my
feet
and let
my hips
find their own rhythm
scarf
in hand,
flung
swirls, settles
the
lamp shadows cast,
i dance
to my anima,
shadow
cast
i ride the the fiddles
in the
midst of hurricane
a
halcyon dance
with
blackness
go away
if it bothers you, in fact
please
go away.
its the
blackness you see
the
blackness and me
everybody
nobody knows about me
nobody
everybody
nobody
knows about me
the
song
the
vigil
energy
oct 29?
97
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 15:35:18 -0600
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From: Patricia Elliott
<pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
Subject: Re: Neil re: Bill Burroughs jr.
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Antoine
Maloney wrote:
>
>
Neil,
>
> Saw your comment about young Bill
Burroughs' "mediocre books"....is
>
that pretty much the case? I saw a copy of "Kentucky Ham" and was
wondering
>
about getting it just today. Can you tell me anything about it. I recently
>
bought Jan Kerouac's "Baby Driver" and thought I might let my
completist
>
instincts run riot.
>
> Antoine
> Voice contact at (514) 933-4956 in Montreal
>
> "Blessed are they who can laugh at
themselves, for they shall never
>
cease to be amused."
in my o. kentucky ham is far superior to
literary outlaw as a
purchase, i was so disappointed in the accuracy of LO,
a hack job very
poorly
writen. kentucky ham was uneven but
strangely gripping.
p
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 17:40:33 -0500
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From: "Paul A. Maher Jr."
<mapaul@PIPELINE.COM>
Subject: Aesthetica Eclectica and more!
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I have another web page for your perusal...
http://www.angelfire.com/biz/mapaul/index.html
News on Bill Morgan's new book, The Beat
Generation In New York: A Walking
Tour of
Jack Kerouac's City:
http://www.freeyellow.com/members/upstartcrow/KerouacQuarterly.html
The New York Times book reviews on four of
Jack Kerouac's novels reprinted
here
at:
http://www.freeyellow.com/members/upstartcrow/thereviews.html
Thanks! Paul...
"We
cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway to our virtues."
Henry David Thoreau
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 18:17:16 -0500
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From: Jonathan Pickle
<jrpick@MAILA.WM.EDU>
Subject: Re: Al Hinkle
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I
thought his name was Ed Hinkle?
Jon
At
11:39 AM 10/29/97 -0800, you wrote:
>To
answer the question about Al Hinkle, the real life
>Ed
Dunkel of On The Road -- he died about a year ago.
>He
and his wife Helen (Galatea Dunkel) were still living
>in
the San Jose/Los Gatos area, and were still good
>friends
with Carolyn Cassady and the Cassady kids at the
>end,
which is a sort of interesting fact given the odd
>way
they met during that cross-country trip that is now
>Beat
legend ...
>
>-------------------------------------------------------
>|
Levi Asher = brooklyn@netcom.com |
>|
|
>| Literary Kicks:
http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/ |
>| (the beat literature web site) |
>|
|
>| "Coffeehouse: Writings from the
Web" |
>| (a real book, like on paper) |
>| also at
http://coffeehousebook.com |
>|
|
>| *---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*
|
>|
|
>| "Not
sunglasses, shades" |
>-------------------------------------------------------
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 19:00:48 -0500
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From: Alex Howard
<kh14586@ACS.APPSTATE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Neil re: Bill Burroughs jr.
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<BEAT-L%1997102913454133@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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I like
Billy's stuff too. Though its not
particulary stylized, what he
has to
say is great. He's also quite frank
about it all, which is where
his
talent lie I think. You could put his writing next Jan's and Hunke's.
Not
possessed of genius but you can see a lot of potential. I wonder what
he
would have been able to do if he'd been able to clean himself up (had
something
in his mind to clean himself up for) and take to writing
seriously.
------------------
Alex
Howard (704)264-8259 Appalachian State
University
kh14586@am.appstate.edu P.O. Box 12149
http://www1.appstate.edu/~kh14586 Boone, NC 28608
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 19:21:02 -0500
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From: Phil Chaput <philzi@TIAC.NET>
Subject: Re: Speaking of Poets... (a longish bit
o' fun)
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<199710292117.QAA27201@lido.packet.net>
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At
04:17 PM 10/29/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Since
the subject of poets (as generic types) has come up I thought I'd
>just
offer this small bit of fiction to
which at least a few of you might
>relate. It takes place in a small, fictional,
southern town called...
>
>
>
Shad County
John, I
absolutely loved it. It helps to keep a sense of humor in all this
madness.
What else you got? Phil
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 19:23:28 -0500
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From: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Subject: Re: Kerouac Source Material
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Mark:
I
wasn't telling you what your point was. I was saying what to me, the
point
is. And that is that anyone that I know
would acknowledge that there
is
plenty of "Kerouac" material out there. That is not new news. If
you
want to
get to something that his an issue, you have to go beyond the
surface
issue. I took your post to say that
something "new" was being put
forth,
that material is available. To Me, that
is beside the point. I
did not
disagree with you or tell you that you were wrong, just that I
think,
you missed the real point. You
disagree, fine. We both are
entitled
to our opinons.
Hemenway
. Mark wrote:
>
Please don't tell me what my point is. I say it again. There is lots of
>
Kerouac material in libraries and Universities around the country. If
>
you want to see some lists, check out <<Dharma beat>> magazine.
>
>
Mark Hemenway
--
Peace,
Bentz
bocelts@scsn.net
http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 19:29:11 -0500
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From: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Subject: Re: Kerouac Source Material
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Paul:
I will
not take the time to address these issues.
Simply to say, that there are
inventories
of the stolen letters. I have a letter
from the University claiming
that it
did all it could do to recover the stolen letters. You saying that they
don't
exist and weren't stolen certainly means that your information lacks
credibility. Myself, I care not to indulge you as Gerry
has done.
Please
get it straight and quit trying to pretend that the facts are not there.
You
know they are.
Paul A.
Maher Jr. wrote:
>
>
> I
am appalled that such inaccuracies originate from one who is supposed to
> be
educated in the subject of law. The estate has never denied access to any
> of
its archives but merely, to require permission for the xeroxing of
>
documents originating from Jack Kerouac. Your research with Berkeley, I am
>
positive, was taken out of context.
> As far as stolen letters. Quite simply,
what letters? The library has no
>
record of whatever letters in question as being stolen. This was confirmed
> by
myself when I was informed by Gerry Nicosia that I was suspected (by the
>
library) in this. With a clear conscience I know that I did not make off
>
with them. The librarian had no idea, nor is there documentation. when I
>
approached UMass Lowell police, they had nothing to go on. They have nothing
>
that is like the inventory list that is similar to the list on Jo Grant's
>
site. If these are the letters in question, suffice it to say that there has
>
not been an attempt to recover them because the existence of them in the
>
library is disputable.
> On the other hand, the security in the
library is marginal. I remember
> a
case of some letters, dating from the 1700's to the present, (among them
>
letters from Thoreau and Emerson) donated to the library through the
>
passionate efforts of a professor of the same institution. The letters were
>
placed in a box similar to a shoe box and left on a open shelf like many
>
other items of ephemeral value. The letters were taken away by the
>
Massachusetts Historical Society when it made a surprise inspection to see
>
how the letters were being handled. Hoards of Kerouac fans each year go to
>
this place to see, hopefully, Kerouac items. They also go to the Lowell
>
Public Library. Items, books and such, from the city library had all been
>
made off with over the years. As it has been highlighted before in a similar
>
thread, books of this subject are often stolen from book stores. Anyone
>
wanting something bad enough will go to its source and take it.
>
> Paul....
>
"We cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway to our
virtues."
> Henry David Thoreau
--
Peace,
Bentz
bocelts@scsn.net
http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 19:34:27 -0500
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From: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Subject: Keith and baseball
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Keith:
Go to
my page, to the beat page and to Cosmic Baseball and see for
yourself. Check it out dude. :-)
SUHOZA,
JAMES P wrote:
> Mike,
>
> If you are located near Sacramento, as
is our buddy Warren,
>
cruise up to Diamond Springs and find
> the used record store, (can't recall
the name but, heh, the town
>
ain't that big). The owner has about
> 30 old JJW records and probably 30-40
old singles, remember
> 45's? My guess is that he also has Waylon's stuff
(thank God he missed
>
the plane!)
>
> Good luck
>
> Jim in El Dorado
>
>
> hello out there. i am looking for
a 1976 recording by jjw entitled
>
> "it's a
>
> good night for singin' " as well as a ''78 recording of "white
>
> mansions" done
>
> by waylon and others. suggestions
would be most appreciated. thanks.
>
> mike.
>
> **********************************************************************
>
> **
>
> SEND UNSUBSCRIBES TO: majordomo@io.com with message of unsubscribe
>
> JJW-L
>
> **********************************************************************
>
> **
>
>
>
************************************************************************
>
SEND UNSUBSCRIBES TO: majordomo@io.com with message of unsubscribe JJW-L
>
************************************************************************
--
Peace,
Bentz
bocelts@scsn.net
http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 19:34:59 -0500
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From: "R. Bentz Kirby"
<bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Subject: Keith and baseball
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Keith:
Go to
my page, to the beat page and to Cosmic Baseball and see for
yourself. Check it out dude. :-)
--
Peace,
Bentz
bocelts@scsn.net
http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 20:16:17 -0500
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: "Paul A. Maher Jr."
<mapaul@PIPELINE.COM>
Subject: Re: Kerouac Source Material
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At
07:29 PM 10/29/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Paul:
>
>I
will not take the time to address these issues. Simply to say, that
there
are
>inventories
of the stolen letters. I have a letter
from the University
claiming
>that
it did all it could do to recover the stolen letters. You saying that
they
>don't
exist and weren't stolen certainly means that your information lacks
>credibility. Myself, I care not to indulge you as Gerry
has done.
>
>Please
get it straight and quit trying to pretend that the facts are not there.
>You
know they are.
Just
another hack lawyer who can't admit when he's wrong....
"We
cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway to our virtues."
Henry David Thoreau
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 20:16:21 -0500
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From: "R. Bentz Kirby" <bocelts@SCSN.NET>
Subject: Re: Kerouac Source Material
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Paul:
This is
sad. As I have stated before, you lose
all your credibility when you
make
personal
attacks. I hope you will grow out of
it. But, I will not play your
dirty
games. And on this list, I am not a lawyer. I am just another person, like
you.
Paul A.
Maher Jr. wrote:
>
Just another hack lawyer who can't admit when he's wrong....
>
"We cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway to our
virtues."
>
Henry David Thoreau
--
Peace,
Bentz
bocelts@scsn.net
http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 10:44:10 +0900
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From: Timothy Hoffman
<timothy@GOL.COM>
Subject: November Blues
In-Reply-To: <199710292138.QAA03575@pike.sover.net>
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Hi
everyone.
Usually,
I like to get out my old paperback copy of Tough Guys Don't Dance
(by N.
Mailer) and read it as the seasons change as they do this time of
year.
Great book. Before I do, though, I thought,
that I might humbly
submit
a little something I worked on recently to the list. I tried to get
a rythm
going in it, and must say I got a little inspiration from Dylan's
"Last
Thoughts on Woody Guthry". Copy it and take it outside to read
somewhere
where it's cloudy and windy and the dry leaves are scritching
across
the road and it's getting chilly.
November
Blues
When
you feel beat
. . .like tired of the crowds
they're
pushin ya and they're pullin ya stuck in the store where the PA's
too
loud
the
hour's too late the stairs too far the escalator's broken
the air
cooler out
and
you're chokin and coughing like in a dream where you know its gone bad
but you
can't wake up you claw n scrape n scream but
you're
back at that boot camp cabin, soldier, Fort Lost in the Woods
where
they test their gas masks
and
guys in green are lined up by the door in twos prayer calm
and
inside the CS riot control gas is fuming from a Folgers coffee can
set on
a wooden office desk in the center of the bare room you breathe it
like
water
it rips
the soft skin of yr nose and eyes and out you burst from the other side
crying
for Jesus or Mom
--Why?
screaming stumbling snotty through the trees to fall in a pile face
to the
sky
. . .
like dark body gloom
wheel's
fallen off
yr left
knee's shot and there's something in yr cough that spells
N-O-V-E-M-B-E-R
a word
that was written in the fog you steamed up the car window with
little
breaths
as yr
Pa brought you home after the crash with yr left leg broken the cast
on yr
arm
the
stitches they counted like years flipped over and over down Maplegrove Lane
the
stars the railroad ties the snowfields tumble
and the
little hairline or compound fears grow
from
all the ways you could kick before yr hairbrush fills with snow
before
you spat on the moon 'fore you saw a perfect Saturday
where
you woke up yr kid brother to a harmless cartoon that goes and goes
round n
round n round in a bowl of Cheerios
and the
bumps heal fast and the fallen nevermind
and the
circus sledgehammers squeak like toys and the coyote's fine
. . .
like everyone's gone or left you alone in the dark
you try
to forget it but can't, kick a can in the shadows
pick a
song on an old guitar as you walk through the park
turn a
dial press a nothing button gone it comes back gone on channel whatever
gone on
her smile
so across
the fields so (what was that?) everything stops
as you
count the change alone into little piles of order,
renaming
souls relighting fires restarting engines reliving days rewalking
yr
street
all
over all over again when you feel beat
. .
.like when you're longing for home looking in through the windows at night
seeing
the old clock that stopped in the warm carpet livingroom scene
the
glow of the family in all their buttery faces
the
kitchen smells coming out to you on the porch from the oven in great
batches
and pans looking in on the bedrooms and yr self as a kid
and the
others fresh out of the bath throwin' towels used and damp down in
a pile
after
changing into pajamas
some
doing homework late
looking
in older from the porch on the empty foyer
not
ringing the bell but looking back when you feel beat
and
moving slowly under the black canopy of the evening leaves of November
walking
down yr old roads to Main Street
by
Timothy Hoffman
:::===:::===:::===:::===:::===:::===:::===:::
Timothy
Hoffman
Komaki
English Teaching Center (KETC)
Komaki
Shiminkaikan, KETC
2-107
Komaki
Komaki,
Aichi 485
work
(0568) 76-0905
fax
(0568) 77-8207
home
(0568)72-3549
timothy@gol.com
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 20:06:00 -0600
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From: Patricia Elliott
<pelliott@SUNFLOWER.COM>
Subject: david o and scattered scraps
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david
ohle
QUIET, WHATS THAT NOISE
ringmaster, orphan, thinking, thinking
twisting,
turning over rocks.
solid honor, clever charm
he can
take a small point,
by
twisting and turning it,
show a
large amount of light.
he
honors love, small warm things
fill
him with a wonder that he of
course
hides, what does he care.
found poem
curiousity
I use an on-line service called Data Base
Technology to
find
missing witnesses. It is amazing. With
just a SSN, date of birth
and
last name, or even a license plate number, I can find addresses,
phone
numbers, relatives, SSN's, DL's, vehicles owned, etc., etc.
what is
data base technology?
Circling
space
Web,
web weave, now a moment
new art
dancing in cyber space,
its not
real, nor is man.
a magic
wand of time,
created
life from frankenstein to dancing sticks,
lift
the line and grimacing begins.
i
strung beads for rides preparing for geography
handing them over at the exit.
now,
simple urls of blue light offered to each of us.
lets go
where the pimply faced boys is king,
the old
can rock around the world in a click.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 18:21:41 PST
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From: Keith Medline
<mrsparty@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: BASEBALL and Cuba and Beat???
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HA HA
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Lets
see poems, baseball.....
You
tell me what has more to do with beat?
I wrote the poem for a beat
reading
that is coming up and wanted input. You
see you just got pulled
over on
a one way street you thought was a two way street and missed my
glass
house by a mile....
Keith
PS let
it die s'il vous plait
>What
does your poem have to do with beat?
>
>You
see it is a two way street. Your post
started it and it had
nothing
to
>do
with beat.
>
>But
no one threw stones at you or your glass house.
>
>You
see what I mean?
>
>>
>>
>
______________________________________________________
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Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
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Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 18:27:17 PST
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From: Keith Medline
<mrsparty@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Mr. Gallaher
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This is
an open letter to Mr. Gallaher:
Dear
Mr. Gallaher,
Why do you find it nessisary to attack my
request? Do you find it
funny
to point fingers and mock me? Is that
what your mental abilities
allow
you to do, or am I over exaggerating you mental capabilities by
giving
you that much credit? Perhaps you
simply thought I would find
being
mocked and ridiculed publicly funny?
Perhaps when you look in the
mirror
you should think about when you were eight years old, have you
changed
at all mentally? Or do you find the
same juvenile pranks
hilarious,
because I certainly don't. Maybe you
should express yourself
to
others who appreciate it.
A very
offended,
Keith
------------------------------------------------------------
Keith mrsparty@hotmail.com / I think of Dean Moriarty.
http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/rothko/31/index.html
------------------------------------------------------------
______________________________________________________
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Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 20:57:32 -0600
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From: jo grant <jgrant@BOOKZEN.COM>
Subject: Re: Kerouac Source Material
In-Reply-To: <3457DFE4.5AA33DA5@scsn.net>
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Bentz,
What
are you doing? You can't respond to
that kind of crap.
Ignore
them.
Let 'em
talk.
Let 'em
rave. Sit back. Build an archive.
The
courts will hear both sides, deliberate, and make a decision.
Believe
me it's a relief to rid yourself of them.
j grant
>Paul:
>
>This
is sad. As I have stated before, you
lose all your credibility when you
>
make
>personal
attacks. I hope you will grow out of
it. But, I will not play your
>
dirty
>games. And on this list, I am not a lawyer. I am just another person, like
>
you.
>
>
>Paul
A. Maher Jr. wrote:
>
>>
Just another hack lawyer who can't admit when he's wrong....
>>
"We cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway to our
virtues."
>>
Henry David Thoreau
>
>
>
>--
>
>Peace,
>
>Bentz
>bocelts@scsn.net
>http://www.scsn.net/users/sclaw
Small Press Authors and Publishers
display books
FREE
at
BookZen
http://www.bookzen.com
402,900 visitors - 07-01-96 to
07-01-97
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Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 19:45:08 -0800
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: "Timothy K. Gallaher"
<gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>
Subject: Re: Mr. Gallaher
Mime-Version:
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I didn't
mock you. If you think I did read
again.
Fee
free to tell me what made you feel bad.
I actually tried to be nice.
I
actually said that I was happy to have people post their poems and then
ask
what one thinks.
I don't
understand why you have this reaction.
>This
is an open letter to Mr. Gallaher:
>
>Dear
Mr. Gallaher,
>
> Why do you find it nessisary to attack my
request? Do you find it
>funny
to point fingers and mock me? Is that
what your mental abilities
>allow
you to do, or am I over exaggerating you mental capabilities by
>giving
you that much credit? Perhaps you
simply thought I would find
>being
mocked and ridiculed publicly funny?
Perhaps when you look in the
>mirror
you should think about when you were eight years old, have you
>changed
at all mentally? Or do you find the
same juvenile pranks
>hilarious,
because I certainly don't. Maybe you
should express yourself
>to
others who appreciate it.
>A
very offended,
>Keith
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>Keith mrsparty@hotmail.com / I think of Dean Moriarty.
>http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/rothko/31/index.html
>------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>______________________________________________________
>Get
Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
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Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 19:47:38 -0800
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<BEAT-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
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From: "Timothy K. Gallaher"
<gallaher@HSC.USC.EDU>
Subject: Re: BASEBALL and Cuba and Beat???
Mime-Version:
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>HA
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
>
>Lets
see poems, baseball.....
>
>You
tell me what has more to do with beat?
Baseball
by all means,
an
unspoken form of poetry.
There
are many.
unlax
(maybe
with exlax?)
au
revoir mon petit avoirdupuis
>I wrote the poem for a beat
>reading
that is coming up and wanted input. You
see you just got pulled
>over
on a one way street you thought was a two way street and missed my
>glass
house by a mile....
>Keith
>PS
let it die s'il vous plait
>
>>What
does your poem have to do with beat?
>>
>>You
see it is a two way street. Your post
started it and it had
>nothing
to
>>do
with beat.
>>
>>But
no one threw stones at you or your glass house.
>>
>>You
see what I mean?
>>
>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
>______________________________________________________
>Get
Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
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Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 21:07:19 -0800
Reply-To: stauffer@pacbell.net
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From: James Stauffer
<stauffer@PACBELL.NET>
Subject: Re: Carolyn Cassady (was: Al Hinkle)
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Anne,
I think
Leon or Levi are best equipped to answer this, but as I remember
it,
Carolyn Cassidy is supposed to be here in California now and is
making
an appearance at UC Santa Cruz. She
spends most of her time in
England. I saw her last at the party for the
publication of the "Women
of the
Beat Generation" book of Brenda Knights at Tosca in SF. John
Cassidy,
whose interview with Levi I sent to the list this morning,
would
be your best contact. I've got his
e-mail address if you need it.
J.
Stauffer
ANNE
ELIZABETH SNEDDON wrote:
>
>
Which reminds me, does Carolyn make any public appearances? Is she
>
involved with anything on the Internet? Is it possible for fans/students
> to
get in touch with her, or is she reclusive?
>
Anne Sneddon