Beatific Details

I recently finished reading Bill Morgan's 2007 biography of poet Allen Ginsberg I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg. It's a good read, and especially interesting because it focuses on material that became available only after Ginsberg's death in 1997, taken from his personal journals and archives.

It helps to already know something about Ginsberg's life and times before reading this biography, since it tends to skim over famous events from Ginsberg's life in order to put the emphasis on the new material never before released. The biography brings to light a number of aspects of Ginsberg such as:

- His basic insecurity. Ginsberg was always bold and socially uncompromising in public settings, often appearing to relish shocking people with his rude disregard for societal conventions. Yet his journals reveal that he was often filled with confusion and self-doubt in private.

- Ginsberg had a long term relationship with Peter Orlovsky (above left) that has often been cited as a role model of an enduring homosexual romance. However Ginsberg's journals reveal that their relationship was much rockier behind the scenes than the public ever saw, including incidents of violence.

- There are also details revealed that portray other figures of the beat generation in a different light. Jack Kerouac is shown as being sharper in his final alcoholic phase than he is usually given credit for. Neal Cassady, previously thought to have had only a brief homosexual affair with Ginsberg, is revealed as having had a much more extensive sexual relationship, much of which was conducted in secret because Cassady was married at the time.

- Although Ginsberg was so famous that to this day he is the only modern poet that most Americans can recognize from a photograph, this book says Ginsberg was secretly jealous of the fame of rock stars and wished he could be one himself. He also apparently had a lot more private (non-sexual) interaction with Bob Dylan than was previously known.


Incidentally, when I told Springfield Republican columnist and Dylan obsessive Tom Shea (above) that I was reading this book, he told me a bit of local Ginsberg lore that I hadn't known. Apparently just after Ginsberg's death, Dylan played at Smith College in Northampton and dedicated the song "Don't Think Twice" to his old friend. Shea also reminded me that Ginsberg appeared onstage at the Springfield Civic Center in 1975 playing finger cymbals during the all-star encore for Dylan's "Rolling Thunder" tour. I was at that show and recall spotting Ginsberg standing on stage. Here is a picture of Dylan and Ginsberg at the grave of Kerouac in Lowell, Massachusetts taken the day before the Springfield show.

So while I think I Celebrate Myself is a good read for the true beat generation fan in search of formerly unavailable details, the general reader would probably find this book lacking in its overview and more in-depth than they would require. 

Old Pine Point

Speaking of local history, here's some pictures of the Pine Point section of Springfield that people have sent me. Here is the late Yolly Nahorniak on Boston Road in 2008.

 



This is State Street just before you get to Saint Michael's Cemetery, where the road splits into Berkshire and Boston Road. The neighborhood gets its name from a huge, ancient pine tree that once stood at that fork in the road, but not in the lifetime of anyone now living. The date of the photograph is unknown. I believe both of those structures shown in the picture are still standing, one is a gravestone seller (as it apparently was back then) and the other in recent years was a car lot. Dig the trolley tracks. 

An undated photo of a cemetery worker in Saint Michael's.

 



Good advice from a St. Michael's resident. 

 

Kerouac's Writing Tips

I can't believe I never saw this before! It's a list that Jack Kerouac once wrote of the "essentials" of writing which he called Belief and Technique for Modern Prose. Here's the list with my comments after each one based upon my own writing experiences.

Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy

I used to keep notebooks and I agree they are essential to the beginning writer, even if you are writing only to yourself. I lost all my old notebooks, which is a shame.

Submissive to everything, open, listening.

Yes, especially listening. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to listen.

Try never get drunk outside your own house.

He failed to follow this advice and so did I.

Be in love with your life.

Absolutely essential.

Something that you feel will find its own form.

I've often had the experience that I don't really have a clear idea of how I want something to turn out, but then discovered that it will find a form of its own if I will only begin.

Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind.

I'm not sure exactly what this means, but I agree.

Blow as deep as you want to blow.

Wise metaphor.

Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind.

Yes, go as deep as you can.

The unspeakable visions of the individual.

Writing is a solitary activity and only you know what those visions are.

No time for poetry but exactly what is.

Not true. You can tell what is and still take time to be poetic.

Visionary tics shivering in the chest.

The only way to let them out is to write them out.

In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you.

Drugs will take you there, but then you don't feel like writing.

Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition.

No rules should restrain a first draft, but eventually words have to have structure and form.

Like Proust be an old teahead of time.

Proust was a teahead? I think he means get into reflecting on your own past like it was a drug. Remember the past is the only pure resource you have.

Telling the true story of the world in interior monologue.

We all have that monologue going in our heads - so write it out!

The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye.

Statements like this is what comes of hanging out with Dr. Leary.

Write in recollection and amazement for yourself.

Writing that doesn't please yourself won't please anybody else.

Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea.

More of Leary's mischief.

Accept loss forever.

Okay, but only if I can accept gain forever too!

Believe in the holy contour of life.

There is a holiness to life, and you know what I'm talking about, even if you pretend to yourself that you don't.

Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind.

That's the challenge really, to get it on paper as good as it is in your head.

Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better.

Don't tell: Show.

Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in your morning.

It is worth remembering that every day is irreplaceable and unrepeatable.

No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language and knowledge.

I write everything that is relevant to me, without holding back due to phony standards of propriety or cultural fear. An honest appraisal of reality is never shameful.

Write for the world to read and see your exact pictures of it.

How exact the picture I create with words depends on my own inspiration and talent, but it's all out there for the world to read and judge.

Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form.

Be the hero of your own movie. For better or worse, I think America has made more great movies than great books.

In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness.

Alone in the dark our true character is all we have.

Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better.

Maybe not the crazier the better, but crazy is still good.

You're a Genius all the time.

Thanks, but that attitude might not inspire the best revisions!

Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven.

I guess I'll write my earthly thought-movies and the angels can read what they will. 

 

 

Crime Watch

 



Politicians are worse than thieves. At least when thieves take your money, they don't expect you to thank them for it. - Walter Williams

 

Tis the Season

I see they installed armrests on the benches in Northampton's Coolidge Park to prevent the homeless from sleeping on them. 

I also see they're putting up the Christmas lights. 

Well if you have no place to sleep at least you can admire the lights. 

March On

Surfing around I stumbled upon how Amherst College went crazy photographing the Amherst 250th birthday parade that was held several weeks ago. I must admit it was a great day, despite the rain. Here's a sampling from their photo essay:

State Representative Ellen Story.

Congressman John Olver, who seems to be everywhere these days. 

Amherst politicos Stephanie O'Keefe and Gerry Weiss. 

 

Beloved Amherst Bulletin columnist Phyllis Lehrer,

 

 

Motown Bennie with his bucket and gazoo. 

Of course one of our local bears joined in the fun.

 



To see all 164 photos go here.

Flashback

I like it when someone sends me a picture from a concert I went to years ago. Here's Jack Cassady of Hot Tuna at the Music Inn in Lenox, Ma. on September 5, 1976.

Today's Video

Get down.

 

Happy Kerouac Day

An official observance in Massachusetts

 

 

Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac

Today, in accordance with Massachusetts State Law, is the fourth annual celebration of Jack Kerouac Day. Here is the text of the enabling legislation:

Chapter 43 of the Acts of 2004

AN ACT PROVIDING FOR THE ANNUAL OBSERVANCE OF JACK KEROUAC DAY.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

Chapter 6 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 15UUUU, inserted by chapter 12 of the acts of 2004, the following section:-

Section 15VVVV. The governor shall annually issue a proclamation setting apart March 12 as Jack Kerouac Day, in recognition of Jack Kerouac's contributions to American literature and the genre of spontaneous prose, for his contributions to his Franco-American heritage, and for his love of his hometown of Lowell, and recommending that said day be observed in an appropriate manner by the people.

Approved March 12, 2004.

Frankly, I didn't see much evidence of anyone celebrating the day, although I did see this display at Amherst College of Jack Kerouac stuff in the collection of the Robert Frost Library.

Oh well, maybe there will be more done next year. In the meantime, here are some Kerouac quotes.

“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!”

“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”

"Write in recollection and amazement for yourself."

“Offer people what they secretly want and they of course immediately become panic-stricken.”

"All our best men are laughed at."

"I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life."

“What is the feeling when you're driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? -it's the too huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”

"Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?"

Let's hope we see more in the way of public celebrations of Kerouac Day in the future. 

I read the news today, oh boy.



DRIGGS, Idaho (AP) -- Gilligan's Mary Ann is on probation after police in Driggs, Idaho said they found four half-smoked joints in her car after a surprise 69th birthday party. Police say they stopped Dawn Wells when they saw her car swerve across the center lines of a highway. A sheriff's deputy says he smelled "a strong odor of burning marijuana" coming out of the car. Wells was sentenced to five days in jail and put on probation. Wells cut a deal with authorities and pleaded guilty to reckless driving, so the more serious drug counts were dropped.

 

Here's the mug shot:



Mary Ann is 69? Damn that makes me feel old!

 

The sun is out now, but it was a dark, wet, dreary start to the day at UMass this morning. 

Of course it's always a dreary view each morning out my kitchen window of the remaining ruins of the Northampton State Mental Hospital. Gazing up at it as I drink my morning coffee, it's a little scary even on sunny mornings, and no wonder since some pretty scary things went on up there.

Which brings us to today's video: