Blog Six. Kill Your Darlings (2013).

Here is the pertinent information about the movie from IMDB. And here is the web page for the film talking about its making, its creative decisions. And read this New York Times article about Lucien Carr, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, the murder of David Kammerer, and the aftermath (I, for one, didn't know until now that one of Lucien Carr's children is the novelist Caleb Carr). 

I had not seen the movie until now, and I have to say I like it.  It's energetic, it captures vividly a particular time and place, and while it borders on romanticizing these already romanticized figures, it doesn't quite go that far—at least for.  As Ryan said in class today, and echoed by Emma, our heroes can and do behave badly—and that's before Lucien stabs David Kammerer to death and rolls his body into the river.  They are—surprise—selfish and self-involved, over dramatic—and very much precocious and talented young people beset by some genuine demons.  I believe that they are real people.  And hey, it's Harry Potter as Allen Ginsberg!  And I believe Daniel Radcliffe in this difficult role.

1. So your reaction to the movie?  Why?  And what scene or moment has stuck out to you—or has stayed with you?  And why?

2.  Of the four main Beat figures—Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kerouac, and Carr—which one do you find yourself most drawn to?  And why?

3.  This story in a very conscious way is about the birth of the Beats—a strange mixture of middle and working class young men, Jewish and Catholic, straight and gay, all well educated.  It's not totally accurate—Caleb Carr, Lucien's son, especially dislikes it for its inaccuracies.  But for ou =r purposes, let's take it at face value.  How does what we see help explain what soon became Beat?  Draw a line from what we see to the literary (and cultural) movement we've been investigating and discussing the last three weeks.  Be specific: how does what we see here help explaining the Beats we've been talking about?  Use specific details, examples from the film in your answer.

200-250 words.  See you all tomorrow.  Below: the real people.

Blog Five. On The Road. "The Sooner He's Dead The Better."

"...said Galatea, and she spoke officially for almost everyone in the room.
   "Very well, then," I said, "but now he;s alive and I'll bet you want to know what he does next and that's because he's got the secret that we're all busting to find..."

"All you think about is what's hanging between your legs and how much money or fun you can get out of people and then you just throw them aside.  Not only that but you're silly about it.  It never occurs to you that life is serious and there are people trying to make something decent out of it instead of just goofing all the time."
   That's what Dean was, the HOLY GOOF.

He was BEAT—the root, the soul of beatific.

And the last I saw of him he rounded the corner of Seventh Avenue, eyes on the street ahead, and bent to it again.  Poor little Laura, my baby, to whom I'd told everything about Dead, began almost to cry.
   "Oh, we shouldn't let him go like this.  What'll we do?"
   Old Dean's gone, I thought, and out loud I said, "He'll be all right."  And off I went to the sad disinclined concert for which I had no stomach whatever and all the time I was thinking of Dean and how he got back on the train and rode over three thousand miles over that awful land and never knew why he had come anyway, except to see me.

So you got a brief glimpse of the best known work of the Beat writers.  If it makes no sense to you today, as some of you expressed today, then imagine reading this in 1957.  It's a book true to its subject.  Lauryn brought up the way we see women portrayed—and how men like Dean treat them—and when you read the except tonight you realize that the women in the novel feel much the same way about Dean. Kerouac understood the sexism and chauvinism of his characters; and it's no coincidence that his alter ego Sal ends up in a stable relationship at the end of the book—for Sal is a man who feels drawn to the Levittown life, as you all are too. 

Here's Kerouac reading on the Steve Allen show the end to "On The Road."

1.  Galatea and the other women give Dean an earful: and Dean doesn't seem to hear a word of it—or he doesn't care.  He's a pathetic figure with his injured thumb, saying "'Yes, yes, yes" as the women chastise him.  Kind of what you did in class today.  But Sal defends him.  He's The HOLY GOOF after all.  What does that mean—the Holy Goof?  And does Sal make a good argument for Dean?  Is Dean worth venerating and/or elevating the way Sal does?  Quote in your response.

2.  "He no longer cared about anything (as before) but now he also cared about everything in principle; that is to say, it was all the same to him and he belonged to the world and there was nothing he could do about it."  What does this mean?  And how does this help explain Dean and his behavior?

3.  So the book ends and unlike in real life, Sal never sees Dean again.  Your reaction to the end of the novel, from our last glimpse of Dean to Sal on the pier looking west?  I know you haven't read the whole book—but what does this ending perhaps say about what Sal got from Dean?

200 words.  Answer thoughtfully and thoroughly.

In class today we talked about how The Beats and how they were constantly wandering from place to place. Why do you think they did that? What was the point/end goal? We'll talk about this some more in the next couple of days but I'd like to get a general impression about people's feeling on the subject.
In this section we also see more description of Cassady and his frantic driving. Describe what effect if any this information has had on you.
Also talk about any moments that stood out to you and why they did so. Use a quote or two to further eleborate maybe.

Blog Three. Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac, and "On The Road.

"...Because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "'Awww!'"

"And his criminality was not something that sulked and sneered; it was a wild yea-saying overburst of American joy; it was Western, the west wind, an ode from the Plains, something new, long prophesied, long a-coming..."

Take a look at this brief clip about Neal Cassady. And here's the trailer for the 2010 movie adaptation.

I bought a new copy of the novel yesterday at Barnes and Noble, and when I put it on the counter, the cashier shrieked: "I love this book!"  Many have.  It was published in 1957 and there's a good chance it has never been out of print. The basic narrative is about several road trips Kerouac made starting in 1947, some by himself, some with Neal Cassady.  The original manuscript, the famous scroll, uses the names of the real people in the story: Jack, Neal, Allen, etc.  But this is not that version.  So...

1. Without using the passages I quotes above, what passage or line stuck out to you in the reading: and why?

2.  What is Sal looking for on the road?  Quote from the text in your answer.

3.  Dean Moriarty in the book so far.  Your opinion of him?  Would you want to spent time with him?  What makes him special?  Is he special? In fact, how would you characterize him?

Write a couple hundred words answering the three questions above. 

Look at the following clips: they are the songs for the lyrics we handed out in class today. First: "Hey Jack Kerouac" by 10,000 Maniacs.

 Second, "The Persecution and Restoration of Dean Moriarty" by Aztec Two-Step.

 And third,  Bob Weir and "Cassidy."

See you all tomorrow.

Here's a link to the foot note of Howl https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/54163

Take a look at that and give your thoughts of what you've read. In your response talk a little about what your understanding of the last two section of Howl, looking up Moloch and Carl Solomon for instance would be very helpful in this process. I mentioned in class that the last two sections were added later, why do you think Ginsberg felt the need to go back and add them? We also also talked about the morality of the people discussed in this poem. Should these minds be considered the best? Why are they they way that Ginsberg described them in part one, in your opinion? Answer as many of these questions as you can (it's fine to not have a clear cut definite answer too) and be ready to talk about the details of and points of confusion in the poem in class tomorrow.

Blog Two. "Howl." "I Saw The Best Minds of My Generation..."

Here is a link to the most famous Beat work, alongside Kerouac's On The Road, and one of the most controversial poems in American literature: "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg ª1955).  As Beth instructed, read to part two.  Here's 4 minutes of Ginsberg reading it.  Give it a listen.

What are your reactions to this poem?  Like?  Dislike?  Undecided?  Given what we've said about the Beats in the last couple days, what makes this a singularly "Beat" poem?  What lines jump out at you in particular?  Why don't you choose 3 lines that particularly strike you—and how so?

We'll talk about this tomorrow. Have fun!

Blog One. Beats!

Look at the following.

Here's a video (and audio) of Allan Ginsberg reading "A Supermarket in California": in the pictures you can see his companion Peter Orlovsky, Jack Kerouac, and others

Here is Jack Kerouac reading about the great jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker from 1959.

Here is a scene from the film "Pleasantville" that satirizes the culture the Beat writers were trying to escape:

Here is a parody of the"beatnik" culture from the great 60s cartoon "Rocky and Bullwinkle":

So there's a lot to digest.  And what we talked about in today's class.  So a few questions to get the term going.

1.  What stuck with you from today's discussion?  What do you know understand or know about the Beats that you didn't know before?

2. Your reaction to either the Ginsberg or Kerouac poem above?  Do they correspond at all with what we talked about in class today?

3.  The Whitman poem we handed out at the end of class, "Beat! Beat! Drums!": given what we said in class and what you hear in the Ginsberg and/or Kerouac poems, can you see how this kind of poem would have been an inspiration to Beat writers like Ginsberg and/or Kerouac?  In what ways do you hear something "Beat" in Whitman's poem?

That's it.  Write a couple hundred words in all.  See you tomorrow!