Browse content similar to Howl. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
THIS PROGRAMME CONTAINS VERY STRONG LANGUAGE AND SOME SCENES OF A SEXUAL NATURE | 0:00:02 | 0:00:10 | |
Howl for Carl Solomon. | 0:01:15 | 0:01:17 | |
I saw the best minds of my generation | 0:01:20 | 0:01:24 | |
destroyed by madness, | 0:01:24 | 0:01:26 | |
starving, hysterical, naked, | 0:01:26 | 0:01:29 | |
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn | 0:01:29 | 0:01:33 | |
looking for an angry fix, | 0:01:33 | 0:01:36 | |
angel-headed hipsters burning | 0:01:36 | 0:01:38 | |
for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo | 0:01:38 | 0:01:41 | |
in the machinery of night, | 0:01:41 | 0:01:44 | |
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high | 0:01:44 | 0:01:48 | |
sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats | 0:01:48 | 0:01:53 | |
floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz! | 0:01:53 | 0:01:57 | |
Sometimes I feel in command when I'm writing. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:58 | |
When I'm in the heat of some truthful tears, yes. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:02 | |
Other times... most of the time, not. | 0:04:02 | 0:04:04 | |
You know, just diddling around... | 0:04:04 | 0:04:08 | |
woodcarving, you know, finding a pretty shape, | 0:04:08 | 0:04:10 | |
like most of my poetry. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:12 | |
There's only been a few times when I've reached a state of... | 0:04:14 | 0:04:18 | |
complete control... | 0:04:18 | 0:04:21 | |
Probably a piece of Howl, and... | 0:04:21 | 0:04:23 | |
one or two moments in other poems. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:25 | |
The beginning of the fear for me was... | 0:04:30 | 0:04:33 | |
..what would my father think of something that I would write? | 0:04:36 | 0:04:39 | |
At the time, writing Howl, | 0:04:39 | 0:04:41 | |
I assumed when writing it that | 0:04:41 | 0:04:42 | |
it was not something that would be published, because | 0:04:42 | 0:04:45 | |
I wouldn't want my daddy to see what was in there. | 0:04:45 | 0:04:49 | |
So, I assumed it wouldn't be published, therefore, I could | 0:04:49 | 0:04:52 | |
write anything that I wanted to. | 0:04:52 | 0:04:53 | |
I saw the best minds of my generation | 0:05:46 | 0:05:49 | |
destroyed by madness, | 0:05:49 | 0:05:52 | |
starving, hysterical, naked, | 0:05:52 | 0:05:55 | |
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn | 0:05:55 | 0:05:58 | |
looking for an angry fix... | 0:05:58 | 0:06:00 | |
Angel-headed hipsters | 0:06:03 | 0:06:05 | |
burning for the ancient heavenly connection | 0:06:05 | 0:06:08 | |
to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night... | 0:06:08 | 0:06:11 | |
..who poverty and tatters | 0:06:13 | 0:06:15 | |
and hollow-eyed and high | 0:06:15 | 0:06:18 | |
sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness | 0:06:18 | 0:06:21 | |
of cold-water flats | 0:06:21 | 0:06:22 | |
floating across the tops of cities, contemplating jazz... | 0:06:22 | 0:06:27 | |
..who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes | 0:06:29 | 0:06:32 | |
hallucinating Arkansas and | 0:06:32 | 0:06:33 | |
Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war... | 0:06:33 | 0:06:37 | |
..who were expelled from the academies for crazy | 0:06:38 | 0:06:41 | |
and publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull, | 0:06:41 | 0:06:46 | |
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, | 0:06:46 | 0:06:49 | |
burning their money in wastebaskets | 0:06:49 | 0:06:51 | |
and listening to the Terror through the wall, | 0:06:51 | 0:06:54 | |
who got busted in their pubic beards | 0:06:54 | 0:06:57 | |
returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York, | 0:06:57 | 0:07:02 | |
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank | 0:07:02 | 0:07:04 | |
turpentine in Paradise Alley, | 0:07:04 | 0:07:06 | |
death | 0:07:06 | 0:07:08 | |
or purgatoried their torsos night after night with dreams, | 0:07:08 | 0:07:12 | |
with drugs, with waking nightmares, | 0:07:12 | 0:07:14 | |
alcohol and cock and endless balls. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:20 | |
What I wanted to read into the record, Your Honour, | 0:07:28 | 0:07:30 | |
is not very much, but it is pertinent to our case. | 0:07:30 | 0:07:34 | |
Why aren't you at the trial? | 0:07:34 | 0:07:36 | |
Cos... | 0:07:37 | 0:07:39 | |
the trial's not about me. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:41 | |
As much as I have to thank them | 0:07:41 | 0:07:45 | |
completely for my fame... | 0:07:45 | 0:07:47 | |
It's the publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti that was | 0:07:47 | 0:07:50 | |
busted for selling obscene materials. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:53 | |
What I want to show is on the first page inside of Howl. | 0:07:53 | 0:07:59 | |
It says, "All these books are published in heaven." | 0:07:59 | 0:08:03 | |
And...I don't quite understand that, but anyway, | 0:08:03 | 0:08:06 | |
let the record show, Your Honour, | 0:08:06 | 0:08:09 | |
it's published by the City Lights Pocketbook Shop. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:11 | |
Mr Ferlinghetti could go to jail if convicted? | 0:08:11 | 0:08:14 | |
I hope not. That would be terrible. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:16 | |
May I have your name, please? | 0:08:38 | 0:08:40 | |
-Gail Potter. -And have you done any writing yourself? | 0:08:40 | 0:08:43 | |
Yes, I have done considerable. | 0:08:43 | 0:08:45 | |
I was on an NBC station for ten years while I was teaching. | 0:08:45 | 0:08:50 | |
I was community service director, educational coordinator. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:53 | |
I have rewritten Faust. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:55 | |
It took me three years to do that, but I did it. | 0:08:55 | 0:08:57 | |
I rewrote Everyman. | 0:08:57 | 0:08:59 | |
SNIGGERING | 0:08:59 | 0:09:01 | |
That isn't as funny as you might think. | 0:09:01 | 0:09:03 | |
Pardon me, madam. Ladies and gentlemen, | 0:09:03 | 0:09:05 | |
this is a trial that involves serious issues. | 0:09:05 | 0:09:08 | |
Kindly accord the witness the courtesy you would want to be accorded. | 0:09:08 | 0:09:11 | |
All right. Did you form an opinion as to whether or not the book called | 0:09:11 | 0:09:14 | |
Howl And Other Poems has any literary merit? | 0:09:14 | 0:09:19 | |
I think it has no literary merit. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:22 | |
Go ahead. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:26 | |
In order to have literary style, you must have | 0:09:26 | 0:09:28 | |
form, diction, fluidity, clarity. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:31 | |
Now, I am speaking only of style. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:34 | |
And in content, every great piece of literature, | 0:09:34 | 0:09:37 | |
anything that can really be classified as literature, is... | 0:09:37 | 0:09:40 | |
of some moral greatness, | 0:09:40 | 0:09:41 | |
and I think this fails to the nth degree. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:44 | |
I see. Can you think of any other reasons? | 0:09:44 | 0:09:46 | |
Yes. Use of language. | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
In regards to the figures of speech he uses, | 0:09:49 | 0:09:51 | |
he fails in rhetoric, of course, | 0:09:51 | 0:09:52 | |
for one thing, because his figures of speech are | 0:09:52 | 0:09:55 | |
crude, and you feel like you are going through the gutter | 0:09:55 | 0:09:57 | |
when you read that stuff. | 0:09:57 | 0:09:59 | |
I didn't linger on it long, I assure you. | 0:10:00 | 0:10:02 | |
You may cross-examine. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:05 | |
Step down. | 0:10:07 | 0:10:08 | |
There's something more you want? | 0:10:10 | 0:10:12 | |
Step down. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:14 | |
Mr Ehrlich doesn't want to cross-examine. | 0:10:14 | 0:10:17 | |
You're through with me? | 0:10:17 | 0:10:19 | |
Step down. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:21 | |
What is The Beat Generation? | 0:10:22 | 0:10:24 | |
There is no Beat Generation. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:29 | |
It's just a bunch of guys trying to get published. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:32 | |
Why don't you tell me how you started writing poetry? | 0:10:35 | 0:10:38 | |
I started writing poetry because I was a dope, | 0:10:40 | 0:10:44 | |
and my father wrote poetry. | 0:10:44 | 0:10:47 | |
So I began writing rhymes like him. | 0:10:47 | 0:10:50 | |
And then I went to Columbia University and I fell in love | 0:10:50 | 0:10:53 | |
with Jack Kerouac. | 0:10:53 | 0:10:56 | |
Until I was 18, I was a virgin. | 0:11:07 | 0:11:12 | |
I was unable to reach out to anybody's body. | 0:11:12 | 0:11:16 | |
To reach out to desire. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:17 | |
I just felt... | 0:11:18 | 0:11:20 | |
chained. | 0:11:20 | 0:11:21 | |
Jack gave me permission to open up. | 0:11:26 | 0:11:29 | |
He's a romantic poet. | 0:11:29 | 0:11:31 | |
And he taught me that writing is personal, | 0:11:32 | 0:11:34 | |
that it comes from the writer's own person. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:38 | |
His body, | 0:11:38 | 0:11:39 | |
his breathing rhythm, his actual talk. | 0:11:39 | 0:11:42 | |
Eventually I developed a much deeper sense of confession. | 0:11:44 | 0:11:48 | |
I needed to... | 0:11:48 | 0:11:49 | |
express my feelings to him, but he didn't want to hear them. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:54 | |
So I had to find a new way of expressing them... | 0:11:54 | 0:11:58 | |
a way that would entrance him. | 0:11:58 | 0:12:00 | |
This is good here. | 0:12:01 | 0:12:03 | |
"I was offered refreshments which I accepted. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:06 | |
"I ate a sandwich of pure meat. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:08 | |
"Enormous sandwich of human flesh, I noticed, | 0:12:08 | 0:12:10 | |
"while I was chewing on it. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:12 | |
"It also included a dirty asshole!" | 0:12:12 | 0:12:14 | |
That's good! | 0:12:14 | 0:12:16 | |
That's good! The meat and the asshole. | 0:12:16 | 0:12:18 | |
Allen, all right. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:20 | |
And then I realized that if I actually, um... | 0:12:20 | 0:12:24 | |
admitted and confessed the secret tenderness | 0:12:24 | 0:12:27 | |
of my soul in my writing, | 0:12:27 | 0:12:29 | |
he would understand nakedly who I was. And so... | 0:12:29 | 0:12:33 | |
that sincere talk replaced the earlier | 0:12:33 | 0:12:35 | |
imitative rhyming that I was doing for my father. | 0:12:35 | 0:12:38 | |
Jack was the first person I really opened up to and said, | 0:12:40 | 0:12:45 | |
"I'm a homosexual." | 0:12:45 | 0:12:47 | |
I very soon realized that nobody was really shocked by anything. | 0:12:49 | 0:12:54 | |
Unless you're out murdering people, you know, | 0:12:54 | 0:12:58 | |
people would never really be shocked by | 0:12:58 | 0:13:02 | |
an expression of feeling. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:04 | |
Really I wrote Howl for Jack. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:10 | |
Who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride | 0:13:14 | 0:13:17 | |
from Battery to holy Bronx on Benzedrine | 0:13:17 | 0:13:20 | |
until the noise of wheels and children brought them down | 0:13:20 | 0:13:23 | |
shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain | 0:13:23 | 0:13:28 | |
all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo, | 0:13:28 | 0:13:32 | |
who talked continuously 70 hours | 0:13:32 | 0:13:35 | |
from park to pad to bar to Bellevue | 0:13:35 | 0:13:38 | |
to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge... | 0:13:38 | 0:13:40 | |
A lost battalion of platonic conversationalists | 0:13:42 | 0:13:45 | |
jumping down the stoops, | 0:13:45 | 0:13:47 | |
off fire escapes, off windowsills, | 0:13:47 | 0:13:50 | |
off Empire State, out of the moon... | 0:13:50 | 0:13:54 | |
Yacketayakking, screaming, vomiting | 0:13:56 | 0:13:59 | |
whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and | 0:13:59 | 0:14:02 | |
eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars... | 0:14:02 | 0:14:07 | |
..who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars | 0:14:11 | 0:14:14 | |
racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grand-father night | 0:14:14 | 0:14:19 | |
who studied Plotinus, Poe, St John of the Cross, | 0:14:19 | 0:14:23 | |
telepathy and bop kabbalah | 0:14:23 | 0:14:25 | |
because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas | 0:14:25 | 0:14:30 | |
who loned it through the streets of Idaho | 0:14:30 | 0:14:32 | |
seeking visionary Indian angels who were visionary Indian angels, | 0:14:32 | 0:14:38 | |
who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma | 0:14:38 | 0:14:41 | |
on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight small-town rain, | 0:14:41 | 0:14:47 | |
who reappeared on the West Coast | 0:14:47 | 0:14:49 | |
investigating the FBI in beards and shorts | 0:14:49 | 0:14:53 | |
with big pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin | 0:14:53 | 0:14:57 | |
passing out incomprehensible leaflets... | 0:14:57 | 0:15:00 | |
..who burned cigarette holes in their arms | 0:15:02 | 0:15:04 | |
protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of capitalism... | 0:15:04 | 0:15:08 | |
..who distributed super-Communist pamphlets in Union Square | 0:15:11 | 0:15:15 | |
weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos | 0:15:15 | 0:15:17 | |
wailed them down and wailed down Wall, | 0:15:17 | 0:15:20 | |
and the Staten Island Ferry also wailed... | 0:15:20 | 0:15:23 | |
..who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists | 0:15:25 | 0:15:29 | |
and screamed with joy... | 0:15:29 | 0:15:32 | |
..who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, | 0:15:35 | 0:15:40 | |
caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love. | 0:15:40 | 0:15:44 | |
The problem, when it comes to literature, is this. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:57 | |
There are many writers who have preconceived ideas | 0:15:57 | 0:15:59 | |
about what literature is supposed to be, | 0:15:59 | 0:16:01 | |
but their ideas seem to preclude | 0:16:01 | 0:16:05 | |
everything that makes them most interesting | 0:16:05 | 0:16:08 | |
in casual conversation. | 0:16:08 | 0:16:10 | |
Their faggishness, | 0:16:10 | 0:16:12 | |
their solitude, | 0:16:12 | 0:16:13 | |
their neuroses, their goofiness, | 0:16:13 | 0:16:17 | |
their campiness, | 0:16:17 | 0:16:18 | |
or even their masculinity at times. | 0:16:18 | 0:16:21 | |
Because they think that they're going to write something | 0:16:21 | 0:16:24 | |
that sounds like something else that they've read before, | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
instead of sounds like them. Or comes from their own life. | 0:16:27 | 0:16:32 | |
We all talk amongst ourselves. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:34 | |
We have a common understanding. | 0:16:34 | 0:16:36 | |
We say anything we want to say. We talk about our assholes, | 0:16:36 | 0:16:39 | |
we talk about our cocks, | 0:16:39 | 0:16:40 | |
we talk about who we fucked last night, | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
or who we're going to fuck tomorrow, | 0:16:43 | 0:16:45 | |
or what kind of love affair we're in, or | 0:16:45 | 0:16:48 | |
when we got drunk and had a broomstick shoved up our ass | 0:16:48 | 0:16:51 | |
in the Hotel Ambassador in Prague... | 0:16:51 | 0:16:53 | |
I mean, everyone tells one's friends about that! Right? | 0:16:53 | 0:16:58 | |
So... | 0:16:58 | 0:16:59 | |
the question is, what happens when you make a distinction | 0:16:59 | 0:17:03 | |
between what you tell your friends and what you tell your muse? | 0:17:03 | 0:17:06 | |
The trick is to break down that distinction, | 0:17:06 | 0:17:09 | |
to approach your Muse as frankly as you would talk to yourself or to your friends. | 0:17:09 | 0:17:15 | |
It's the ability to commit to writing - to write - | 0:17:15 | 0:17:23 | |
the same way that you are. | 0:17:23 | 0:17:26 | |
Who balled in the morning, in the evenings, | 0:17:27 | 0:17:30 | |
in rose gardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries | 0:17:30 | 0:17:36 | |
scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may, | 0:17:36 | 0:17:41 | |
who hiccupped endlessly trying to giggle | 0:17:41 | 0:17:44 | |
but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish bath | 0:17:44 | 0:17:48 | |
with a blonde and naked angel came to pierce them with a sword. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:53 | |
The act of writing becomes, like, a meditation exercise. | 0:17:53 | 0:17:58 | |
If you walk down the street in New York for a few blocks, | 0:17:59 | 0:18:02 | |
you'll get this gargantuan feeling of buildings. | 0:18:02 | 0:18:06 | |
And if you walk all day, you'll be on the verge of tears. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:11 | |
But you have to walk all day before you get that sensation. | 0:18:11 | 0:18:14 | |
What I mean is, if you write all day, you'll get into it. | 0:18:15 | 0:18:19 | |
Into your body, into your feelings, into your consciousness. | 0:18:19 | 0:18:22 | |
I don't write enough in that way. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:28 | |
Who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate | 0:18:39 | 0:18:44 | |
the one-eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar, | 0:18:44 | 0:18:48 | |
the one-eyed shrew that winks out of the womb | 0:18:48 | 0:18:51 | |
and the one-eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass | 0:18:51 | 0:18:55 | |
and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman's loom, | 0:18:55 | 0:19:00 | |
who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer, | 0:19:00 | 0:19:04 | |
a sweetheart, a package of cigarettes, | 0:19:04 | 0:19:06 | |
a candle and fell off the bed | 0:19:06 | 0:19:09 | |
and continued along the floor and down the hall | 0:19:09 | 0:19:12 | |
and ended fainting on the wall | 0:19:12 | 0:19:14 | |
with a vision of ultimate cunt and come | 0:19:14 | 0:19:16 | |
eluding the last gyzym of consciousness... | 0:19:16 | 0:19:19 | |
..who faded out in vast sordid movies, | 0:19:24 | 0:19:27 | |
were shifted in dreams, | 0:19:27 | 0:19:29 | |
woke on a sudden Manhattan and picked themselves up | 0:19:29 | 0:19:32 | |
out of basements hungover with heartless Tokay | 0:19:32 | 0:19:36 | |
and horrors of Third Avenue iron dreams | 0:19:36 | 0:19:40 | |
and stumbled to unemployment offices... | 0:19:40 | 0:19:42 | |
..who created great suicidal dramas | 0:19:47 | 0:19:49 | |
on the apartment cliff-banks of the Hudson | 0:19:49 | 0:19:52 | |
under the wartime blue floodlight of the moon | 0:19:52 | 0:19:55 | |
and their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion, | 0:19:55 | 0:19:59 | |
who wept at the romance of the streets | 0:19:59 | 0:20:01 | |
with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music, | 0:20:01 | 0:20:06 | |
who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge, | 0:20:06 | 0:20:09 | |
and rose up to build harpsichords in their lofts... | 0:20:09 | 0:20:13 | |
..who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations | 0:20:19 | 0:20:23 | |
which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish, | 0:20:23 | 0:20:27 | |
who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits | 0:20:27 | 0:20:30 | |
on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse | 0:20:30 | 0:20:34 | |
and the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments of fashion | 0:20:34 | 0:20:38 | |
and the nitroglycerine shrieks of the fairies of advertising | 0:20:38 | 0:20:42 | |
and the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, | 0:20:42 | 0:20:46 | |
or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality. | 0:20:46 | 0:20:51 | |
Would you say that Howl has any literary merit? | 0:20:54 | 0:20:59 | |
Yes. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:00 | |
And I presume you understand the whole thing, is that right? | 0:21:00 | 0:21:05 | |
I hope so. | 0:21:05 | 0:21:06 | |
It's not always easy to know that one | 0:21:06 | 0:21:08 | |
understands exactly what a contemporary poet is saying, | 0:21:08 | 0:21:11 | |
but I think I do. | 0:21:11 | 0:21:13 | |
Well, let's go into some of this. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:15 | |
"With dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, | 0:21:17 | 0:21:21 | |
"alcohol and cock and endless balls." | 0:21:21 | 0:21:25 | |
What significance does that have to you? | 0:21:26 | 0:21:29 | |
Well... | 0:21:29 | 0:21:30 | |
..there are uprooted people wandering around the United States, | 0:21:32 | 0:21:36 | |
dreaming, | 0:21:36 | 0:21:37 | |
drugged... | 0:21:37 | 0:21:39 | |
That's clear, isn't it? | 0:21:39 | 0:21:41 | |
Even their waking hours like nightmares, | 0:21:41 | 0:21:44 | |
loaded with liquor and... | 0:21:44 | 0:21:46 | |
enjoying, I take it, | 0:21:46 | 0:21:48 | |
a variety of indiscriminate sexual experience. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:53 | |
You understand what "angelheaded hipsters | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
"burning for the ancient heavenly connection | 0:21:56 | 0:21:59 | |
"to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night" means? | 0:21:59 | 0:22:03 | |
Sir, you can't translate poetry into prose. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:06 | |
That's why it is poetry. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:09 | |
But what are "angelheaded hipsters"? | 0:22:09 | 0:22:12 | |
I was working as a copyboy at Associated Press, | 0:22:28 | 0:22:31 | |
and I was able to manage things. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:34 | |
Except that I was living in a 13-a-month, cold-water apartment | 0:22:34 | 0:22:37 | |
filled with junkies and thieves. | 0:22:37 | 0:22:39 | |
So the place was being filled with stolen silverware and | 0:22:40 | 0:22:44 | |
beautiful oaken furniture taken from the lobbies of apartment buildings. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:49 | |
At a certain point, | 0:22:51 | 0:22:52 | |
I figured that things were getting too hot, and that... | 0:22:52 | 0:22:56 | |
I'd better get out of there. You know, get out from under. So... | 0:22:56 | 0:23:00 | |
I piled myself and all my manuscripts | 0:23:00 | 0:23:02 | |
into the back of some guy's car that turned out to be stolen. | 0:23:02 | 0:23:06 | |
You know, he had in the back, | 0:23:06 | 0:23:07 | |
all these stolen suits and suitcases and silverware, | 0:23:07 | 0:23:10 | |
and he turned the wrong way up a one-way street, | 0:23:10 | 0:23:13 | |
at the end of which there was a police car. | 0:23:13 | 0:23:15 | |
So he swerves his car to take a side road out, | 0:23:15 | 0:23:19 | |
and skidded and smashed and papers flying... | 0:23:19 | 0:23:21 | |
my eyeglasses lost, all the clothes upside down. | 0:23:21 | 0:23:25 | |
I jumped out, looked around, and went back in the car to find my notebooks, | 0:23:25 | 0:23:30 | |
but I couldn't find my eyeglasses, so I couldn't find my papers. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:34 | |
The crowd was gathering around. Chaos. | 0:23:34 | 0:23:37 | |
The easiest way to get out of the whole thing, | 0:23:39 | 0:23:43 | |
as it turns out, | 0:23:43 | 0:23:44 | |
was to just go to the Psychiatric Institute on 168th Street. | 0:23:44 | 0:23:49 | |
I was in the loony bin for eight months. | 0:23:52 | 0:23:56 | |
I met Carl Solomon there. | 0:23:58 | 0:24:00 | |
He was thinking about the void also, | 0:24:00 | 0:24:04 | |
and such problems, and... | 0:24:04 | 0:24:05 | |
we spent months sitting around asking ourselves whether | 0:24:05 | 0:24:09 | |
the authority of the doctors | 0:24:09 | 0:24:11 | |
and their sense of reality was right for us | 0:24:11 | 0:24:13 | |
or whether we were right, or, you know, what was happening. | 0:24:13 | 0:24:16 | |
And Carl was having problems | 0:24:18 | 0:24:20 | |
because he was receiving shock treatment. | 0:24:20 | 0:24:23 | |
I didn't have any of that, no medication, no shock. | 0:24:24 | 0:24:28 | |
Cos I'd promised the doctor that I would be heterosexual. | 0:24:29 | 0:24:34 | |
And that's how I got out. | 0:24:34 | 0:24:36 | |
Your mother was institutionalized, wasn't she? | 0:24:38 | 0:24:41 | |
The concrete void of insulin, Metrazol, | 0:24:46 | 0:24:51 | |
electricity, hydrotherapy, psychotherapy, | 0:24:51 | 0:24:53 | |
occupational therapy, pingpong and amnesia, | 0:24:53 | 0:24:57 | |
who in humourless protest, | 0:24:57 | 0:24:59 | |
overturned only one symbolic pingpong table, | 0:24:59 | 0:25:02 | |
resting briefly in catatonia, | 0:25:02 | 0:25:05 | |
returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, | 0:25:05 | 0:25:10 | |
and tears and fingers, | 0:25:10 | 0:25:12 | |
to the visible madman doom of the wards | 0:25:12 | 0:25:14 | |
of the madtowns of the East, | 0:25:14 | 0:25:16 | |
Pilgrim State's Rockland's and Greystone's foetid halls. | 0:25:16 | 0:25:21 | |
My mother Naomi was in and out of mental institutions | 0:25:21 | 0:25:25 | |
from the time I was six. | 0:25:25 | 0:25:28 | |
When I was 21, I had to sign the papers for her lobotomy. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:32 | |
She died at Pilgrim State Hospital. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:35 | |
...bickering with the echoes of the soul, | 0:25:38 | 0:25:40 | |
rocking and rolling in the midnight | 0:25:40 | 0:25:43 | |
solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love, | 0:25:43 | 0:25:45 | |
dream of life a nightmare, | 0:25:45 | 0:25:49 | |
bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon, | 0:25:49 | 0:25:54 | |
with mother finally fucked, | 0:25:54 | 0:25:58 | |
and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, | 0:25:58 | 0:26:03 | |
and the last door closed at 4am | 0:26:03 | 0:26:07 | |
and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply | 0:26:07 | 0:26:11 | |
and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece | 0:26:11 | 0:26:15 | |
of mental furniture, | 0:26:15 | 0:26:17 | |
a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, | 0:26:17 | 0:26:21 | |
and even that imaginary, | 0:26:21 | 0:26:24 | |
nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination. | 0:26:24 | 0:26:29 | |
Ah, Carl, while you are not safe | 0:26:30 | 0:26:34 | |
I am not safe, | 0:26:34 | 0:26:36 | |
and now you're really in the total animal soup of time. | 0:26:36 | 0:26:42 | |
After I got out of the mental hospital, | 0:27:37 | 0:27:39 | |
I had a period of fear where... | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
I felt I had to get out of New York. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:45 | |
I was questioning my sense of reality versus the | 0:27:46 | 0:27:49 | |
social sense that was being imposed on me. | 0:27:49 | 0:27:52 | |
It was a position that... | 0:27:52 | 0:27:54 | |
Many people in the hospital came out with, you know, | 0:27:54 | 0:27:57 | |
a total self-rejection, | 0:27:57 | 0:27:59 | |
a rejection of, you know, their own universe. | 0:27:59 | 0:28:03 | |
Lip service, actually, to... | 0:28:03 | 0:28:05 | |
supposedly acceptable social patterns. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:09 | |
But I was falling in love over and over again, | 0:28:10 | 0:28:12 | |
and I kept writing my poetry about | 0:28:12 | 0:28:14 | |
the people I was falling in love with. | 0:28:14 | 0:28:16 | |
All straight men. | 0:28:16 | 0:28:19 | |
And I hitch-hiked cross-country | 0:28:19 | 0:28:21 | |
from Denver with my friend, Neal Cassady. | 0:28:21 | 0:28:24 | |
And Neal was very frenetic, | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
very charming, | 0:28:27 | 0:28:28 | |
and he had six thousand | 0:28:28 | 0:28:31 | |
girls across the continent that were keeping him very busy. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:35 | |
OK...um...no. Um... | 0:28:35 | 0:28:39 | |
Kiss! | 0:28:40 | 0:28:42 | |
Wait, wait, you have something... | 0:28:43 | 0:28:46 | |
I'll get that. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:48 | |
- Better? - Yeah. | 0:28:48 | 0:28:49 | |
-Get it? -I got it. | 0:28:55 | 0:28:58 | |
One day, Neal and I were thrown together in bed, at 4am | 0:29:01 | 0:29:05 | |
By circumstance... | 0:29:05 | 0:29:06 | |
with no place else to go and no place else to sleep. | 0:29:06 | 0:29:09 | |
And I remember being a little scared, | 0:29:09 | 0:29:14 | |
and not quite sure what to do, so... | 0:29:14 | 0:29:16 | |
I sort of like turned over and | 0:29:16 | 0:29:18 | |
stiffened my body and got on the edge of the bed. | 0:29:18 | 0:29:21 | |
And he saw that I was shy. | 0:29:23 | 0:29:25 | |
At the time I was still... | 0:29:26 | 0:29:27 | |
scared of feeling with another person. | 0:29:27 | 0:29:31 | |
So he put his arm around me, | 0:29:35 | 0:29:37 | |
and pulled me, and | 0:29:37 | 0:29:40 | |
put my head on his breast, and | 0:29:40 | 0:29:43 | |
gave me love, actually. | 0:29:43 | 0:29:45 | |
And then one day, I got a letter saying, finally, | 0:30:17 | 0:30:20 | |
"We shouldn't consider ourselves lovers... | 0:30:20 | 0:30:23 | |
"I'm distracted with the wife, as much as I love you." | 0:30:23 | 0:30:28 | |
So my heart was broken. | 0:30:29 | 0:30:32 | |
"Dear Allen, | 0:30:38 | 0:30:39 | |
"What you say is honestly what I've been doing | 0:30:39 | 0:30:43 | |
"or striving for all my life. Therein lies our, | 0:30:43 | 0:30:46 | |
"or my confused sense of closeness. | 0:30:46 | 0:30:49 | |
"Also, I fear therein lies our strength of tie to each other. | 0:30:49 | 0:30:53 | |
"I say, 'I fear,' | 0:30:53 | 0:30:54 | |
"for I really don't know how much I can be satisfied to love you. | 0:30:54 | 0:30:58 | |
"I mean bodily. | 0:30:58 | 0:30:59 | |
"You know, I sometimes dislike pricks and men and before you | 0:30:59 | 0:31:03 | |
"had consciously forced myself to be homosexual. | 0:31:03 | 0:31:07 | |
"You meant so much to me. | 0:31:07 | 0:31:09 | |
"I now feel I was forcing a desire for you bodily | 0:31:09 | 0:31:12 | |
"as a compensation to you for all you were giving me. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:16 | |
"Allen, this is straight. | 0:31:16 | 0:31:18 | |
"What I truly want is to live with you from September to June, | 0:31:18 | 0:31:21 | |
"have an apartment, a girl, go to college, | 0:31:21 | 0:31:25 | |
"see all and do all, | 0:31:25 | 0:31:26 | |
"and become truly straight, so please, Allen, | 0:31:26 | 0:31:30 | |
"give this a good deal of thought." | 0:31:30 | 0:31:32 | |
Who drove cross-country 72 hours to find out if I had a vision | 0:31:42 | 0:31:46 | |
or you had a vision | 0:31:46 | 0:31:47 | |
or he had a vision to find out eternity... | 0:31:47 | 0:31:50 | |
..who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, | 0:31:52 | 0:31:55 | |
who came back to Denver and waited in vain, | 0:31:55 | 0:31:58 | |
who watched over Denver and brooded and loned in Denver | 0:31:58 | 0:32:02 | |
and finally went away to find out the time, | 0:32:02 | 0:32:06 | |
and now Denver is lonesome for her heroes... | 0:32:06 | 0:32:09 | |
..who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals | 0:32:13 | 0:32:16 | |
praying for each other's salvation and light and breasts, | 0:32:16 | 0:32:19 | |
until the soul illuminated its hair for a second, | 0:32:19 | 0:32:23 | |
who sweetened the snatches of a million girls | 0:32:23 | 0:32:26 | |
trembling in the sunset, | 0:32:26 | 0:32:28 | |
and were red-eyed in the morning but prepared | 0:32:28 | 0:32:31 | |
to sweeten the snatch of the sunrise, | 0:32:31 | 0:32:33 | |
flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake... | 0:32:33 | 0:32:36 | |
..who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, | 0:32:38 | 0:32:42 | |
Neal Cassady, secret hero of these poems, | 0:32:42 | 0:32:46 | |
cocksman and Adonis of Denver, | 0:32:46 | 0:32:48 | |
joy to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls | 0:32:48 | 0:32:52 | |
in empty lots and diner backyards, | 0:32:52 | 0:32:55 | |
movie houses' rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves | 0:32:55 | 0:32:59 | |
or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside | 0:32:59 | 0:33:03 | |
lonely petticoat upliftings. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:06 | |
I think it's a howl of pain. | 0:33:06 | 0:33:08 | |
Figuratively speaking, his toes have been stepped on. | 0:33:08 | 0:33:11 | |
He's poetically putting his cry of pain and | 0:33:11 | 0:33:14 | |
protest into this book, Howl. | 0:33:14 | 0:33:17 | |
And do you think this book has definite literary value? | 0:33:17 | 0:33:20 | |
I do. As a matter of fact, I think in a way | 0:33:20 | 0:33:23 | |
he is employing the jazz phraseology here | 0:33:23 | 0:33:26 | |
and, may I say, I... | 0:33:26 | 0:33:28 | |
I think he's also employing the words he heard | 0:33:28 | 0:33:33 | |
in his life on the road and in his various experiences. | 0:33:33 | 0:33:37 | |
Thank you. | 0:33:37 | 0:33:38 | |
Now, do you understand most of the words in this book? | 0:33:38 | 0:33:42 | |
I think I understand their significance and the general context of it. | 0:33:42 | 0:33:46 | |
I see. | 0:33:46 | 0:33:47 | |
Taking on page 13, | 0:33:49 | 0:33:53 | |
the 14th line. | 0:33:53 | 0:33:55 | |
"Who howled on their knees in the subway | 0:33:55 | 0:33:58 | |
"and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts." | 0:33:58 | 0:34:03 | |
Now, do you understand what that paragraph is trying to say, | 0:34:03 | 0:34:07 | |
as a part of the Howl? | 0:34:07 | 0:34:10 | |
Not explicitly. | 0:34:10 | 0:34:11 | |
I would say he was attempting to show the... | 0:34:11 | 0:34:14 | |
lack of inhibition in the persons he's talking of, | 0:34:14 | 0:34:18 | |
post-World War II generation... | 0:34:18 | 0:34:22 | |
those who returned, | 0:34:22 | 0:34:24 | |
went into college or went into work immediately after World War II | 0:34:24 | 0:34:29 | |
perhaps were somewhat displaced by the chaos of the war and | 0:34:29 | 0:34:32 | |
didn't immediately settle down. | 0:34:32 | 0:34:36 | |
Now, the next paragraph. | 0:34:36 | 0:34:39 | |
"Who blew and were blown | 0:34:43 | 0:34:46 | |
"by those human seraphim, the sailors, | 0:34:46 | 0:34:50 | |
"caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love." | 0:34:50 | 0:34:54 | |
Now, you understand what "blew" and "blown" mean? | 0:34:54 | 0:34:57 | |
Well, I think they are words that have several meanings. | 0:34:57 | 0:35:01 | |
What meanings do you attribute to the words in this paragraph? | 0:35:01 | 0:35:04 | |
It can at one level mean... that they were vagabonds, | 0:35:04 | 0:35:08 | |
that they were being blown about by natural, literal winds. | 0:35:08 | 0:35:12 | |
On the other hand, perhaps it does have a sexual connotation. | 0:35:12 | 0:35:15 | |
In reference to oral copulation, right? | 0:35:15 | 0:35:19 | |
Yes, possibly. | 0:35:19 | 0:35:20 | |
Now then, do you find that those words | 0:35:20 | 0:35:22 | |
are necessary to the context | 0:35:22 | 0:35:24 | |
to make it a work of literary value? | 0:35:24 | 0:35:26 | |
I thought we had settled this, Your Honour. | 0:35:26 | 0:35:28 | |
Yes, Mr McIntosh, if you will recall, | 0:35:28 | 0:35:30 | |
I said I would not allow the use of the word "necessary". | 0:35:30 | 0:35:32 | |
But you may ask the question, "Are they relevant?" | 0:35:32 | 0:35:36 | |
Are they relevant to make this a work of literary value? | 0:35:36 | 0:35:40 | |
-Yes, I would say so. -Now then if you took those words out of there, | 0:35:40 | 0:35:43 | |
would that spoil the portrayal? | 0:35:43 | 0:35:46 | |
-That's doing indirectly what Your Honour won't permit him to do directly. -This man is an expert. | 0:35:46 | 0:35:51 | |
He has to speculate. | 0:35:51 | 0:35:53 | |
No, Mr McIntosh, I'm afraid I can't go along with you on that. | 0:35:53 | 0:35:57 | |
Whether the author might have used other or different words, | 0:35:57 | 0:36:01 | |
you're getting into the realm of speculation there. Objection sustained. | 0:36:01 | 0:36:05 | |
Going down a little further. | 0:36:06 | 0:36:09 | |
"Who sweetened the snatches of a million girls | 0:36:11 | 0:36:14 | |
"trembling in the sunset, and were red-eyed in the morning | 0:36:14 | 0:36:18 | |
"but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sunrise, | 0:36:18 | 0:36:22 | |
"flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake." | 0:36:22 | 0:36:27 | |
What's your question? | 0:36:32 | 0:36:33 | |
Is that word "snatches" in there... | 0:36:33 | 0:36:35 | |
Is that... | 0:36:35 | 0:36:37 | |
relevant to Mr Ginsberg's literary endeavour? | 0:36:37 | 0:36:40 | |
Yes. I think to use euphemisms in describing this would... | 0:36:40 | 0:36:44 | |
..seem dishonest to Mr Ginsberg. | 0:36:46 | 0:36:49 | |
You also said, I believe, literary value sometimes | 0:36:49 | 0:36:52 | |
is a book which will survive any test of time. | 0:36:52 | 0:36:55 | |
Do you think Mr Ginsberg's work will survive the test of time? | 0:36:55 | 0:36:58 | |
He has no way of knowing, | 0:36:58 | 0:37:00 | |
no more than some people thought Leaves Of Grass would survive. | 0:37:00 | 0:37:04 | |
I'm asking him for his opinion, to give us an opinion on that book. | 0:37:04 | 0:37:06 | |
He says that literary value | 0:37:06 | 0:37:08 | |
depends on surviving the test of time. I want to know if it will. | 0:37:08 | 0:37:12 | |
If Luther Nichols could answer that, then the Good Lord could use a helper | 0:37:12 | 0:37:16 | |
and he ought to be up there. How can he tell? | 0:37:16 | 0:37:18 | |
-I'm asking for his opinion as an expert. -I'll ask him. | 0:37:18 | 0:37:21 | |
Can you answer the question? | 0:37:21 | 0:37:23 | |
It calls for a prediction. | 0:37:25 | 0:37:28 | |
I think that this trial will draw attention to it. | 0:37:28 | 0:37:32 | |
Howl will have a wider readership than it might otherwise have had, | 0:37:32 | 0:37:35 | |
and may go down in history as a stepping-stone along the way | 0:37:35 | 0:37:39 | |
to greater or lesser liberality | 0:37:39 | 0:37:41 | |
in the permitting of poems of its type. | 0:37:41 | 0:37:44 | |
Poetry, generally, is a... | 0:37:57 | 0:38:00 | |
rhythmic articulation of feeling | 0:38:00 | 0:38:04 | |
and the feeling is | 0:38:04 | 0:38:06 | |
an impulse that begins inside. | 0:38:06 | 0:38:09 | |
Like a sexual impulse, you know. Almost as definite as that. | 0:38:09 | 0:38:13 | |
It's a feeling that begins in the pit of the stomach, right? | 0:38:13 | 0:38:17 | |
And rises up through the breast, and... | 0:38:17 | 0:38:21 | |
out the mouth and ears, right? | 0:38:21 | 0:38:23 | |
And...it comes forth as a croon or a groan or a sigh, right? | 0:38:25 | 0:38:30 | |
So if you try to put words to that | 0:38:30 | 0:38:33 | |
by looking around you and | 0:38:33 | 0:38:35 | |
trying to describe what's making you sigh, | 0:38:35 | 0:38:38 | |
just sigh in words, | 0:38:38 | 0:38:41 | |
you simply articulate what you're feeling. | 0:38:41 | 0:38:44 | |
Who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight | 0:38:44 | 0:38:47 | |
in police cars for committing no crime, | 0:38:47 | 0:38:49 | |
but their own wild cooking, pederasty and intoxication. | 0:38:49 | 0:38:54 | |
Who howled on their knees in the subway | 0:38:54 | 0:38:57 | |
and were dragged off the roof | 0:38:57 | 0:39:00 | |
waving genitals and manuscripts. | 0:39:00 | 0:39:04 | |
In the moment of composition, | 0:39:09 | 0:39:10 | |
I don't necessarily know what it means. | 0:39:10 | 0:39:14 | |
It comes to mean something later, after a year or two, I come to realise | 0:39:14 | 0:39:17 | |
it meant something clear, unconsciously. | 0:39:17 | 0:39:21 | |
Which takes on meaning in time, you know, like... | 0:39:21 | 0:39:23 | |
a photograph developing slowly. | 0:39:23 | 0:39:25 | |
If it's at all spontaneous... | 0:39:27 | 0:39:29 | |
..I don't know whether it even makes sense sometimes. | 0:39:31 | 0:39:33 | |
And other times, I do know it makes complete sense... | 0:39:33 | 0:39:36 | |
I start crying. | 0:39:38 | 0:39:39 | |
Cos I realise that I'm... | 0:39:41 | 0:39:42 | |
I'm hitting on an area that's... | 0:39:42 | 0:39:46 | |
absolutely true. | 0:39:46 | 0:39:47 | |
In that sense, able to be read by someone | 0:39:47 | 0:39:51 | |
and wept to, maybe, centuries later. | 0:39:51 | 0:39:54 | |
In that sense, prophecy, | 0:39:54 | 0:39:58 | |
because it touches a common key. | 0:39:58 | 0:40:01 | |
I mean, what prophecy actually is, | 0:40:01 | 0:40:05 | |
is not knowing whether... the bomb will fall in 1942. | 0:40:05 | 0:40:12 | |
It's knowing and feeling something | 0:40:12 | 0:40:15 | |
which someone knows and feels in a hundred years. Hmm? | 0:40:15 | 0:40:21 | |
And maybe articulating it in a hint that | 0:40:21 | 0:40:24 | |
they will pick up on in 100 years. | 0:40:24 | 0:40:26 | |
Who crashed through their minds in jail | 0:40:45 | 0:40:48 | |
waiting for impossible criminals with golden heads | 0:40:48 | 0:40:50 | |
and the charm of reality in their hearts... | 0:40:50 | 0:40:53 | |
..who sang sweet blues to Alcatraz, | 0:40:56 | 0:40:59 | |
who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism | 0:40:59 | 0:41:04 | |
and were left with their insanity | 0:41:04 | 0:41:06 | |
and their hands and a hung jury... | 0:41:06 | 0:41:08 | |
..who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism | 0:41:11 | 0:41:14 | |
and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse | 0:41:14 | 0:41:18 | |
with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, | 0:41:18 | 0:41:21 | |
demanding instantaneous lobotomy... | 0:41:21 | 0:41:24 | |
..and who were given instead | 0:41:26 | 0:41:28 | |
the concrete void of insulin Metrazol, | 0:41:28 | 0:41:31 | |
electricity, hydrotherapy, psychotherapy, | 0:41:31 | 0:41:33 | |
occupational therapy, pingpong and amnesia... | 0:41:33 | 0:41:36 | |
..and who therefore ran through the icy streets | 0:41:41 | 0:41:43 | |
obsessed with a sudden flash | 0:41:43 | 0:41:45 | |
of the alchemy of the use of the ellipse | 0:41:45 | 0:41:47 | |
the catalogue, the meter and the vibrating plane... | 0:41:47 | 0:41:51 | |
..who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in time and space | 0:41:56 | 0:41:59 | |
through images juxtaposed, | 0:41:59 | 0:42:01 | |
and trapped the archangel of the soul | 0:42:01 | 0:42:04 | |
between two visual images | 0:42:04 | 0:42:05 | |
to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose | 0:42:05 | 0:42:09 | |
and stand before you speechless and intelligent | 0:42:09 | 0:42:13 | |
and shaking with shame, | 0:42:13 | 0:42:16 | |
rejected yet confessing out the soul | 0:42:16 | 0:42:17 | |
to conform to the rhythm of thought | 0:42:17 | 0:42:20 | |
in his naked and endless head... | 0:42:20 | 0:42:22 | |
..the madman bum and angel beat in time, | 0:42:25 | 0:42:28 | |
unknown, yet putting down here | 0:42:28 | 0:42:30 | |
what might be left to say in time come after death... | 0:42:30 | 0:42:34 | |
..and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz | 0:42:35 | 0:42:39 | |
in the goldhorn shadow of the band | 0:42:39 | 0:42:42 | |
and blew the suffering of America's naked mind for love | 0:42:42 | 0:42:46 | |
into an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry | 0:42:46 | 0:42:53 | |
that shivered the cities down to the last radio | 0:42:53 | 0:42:56 | |
with the absolute heart of the poem of life | 0:42:56 | 0:42:59 | |
butchered out of their own bodies | 0:42:59 | 0:43:01 | |
good to eat a thousand years. | 0:43:01 | 0:43:04 | |
After I left New York, I spent a year in San Francisco. | 0:43:22 | 0:43:26 | |
I had an apartment on Nob Hill, | 0:43:26 | 0:43:29 | |
the tie and suit, | 0:43:29 | 0:43:33 | |
a job with several secretaries which was... | 0:43:33 | 0:43:35 | |
beginning to give me pleasure, | 0:43:35 | 0:43:38 | |
the pleasure of knowing I could do it | 0:43:38 | 0:43:39 | |
and was no longer intimidated by the social forms, | 0:43:39 | 0:43:43 | |
to be able to make it in the very dry, business world. | 0:43:43 | 0:43:46 | |
And that's when I met Peter. | 0:43:46 | 0:43:50 | |
It was when I met Peter that everything changed for me. | 0:44:18 | 0:44:22 | |
It was as if the heavens showered with gold. | 0:44:26 | 0:44:29 | |
Finally somebody loved me like I loved them, | 0:44:30 | 0:44:34 | |
and for the first time, I felt accepted in my life. | 0:44:34 | 0:44:39 | |
Completely. | 0:44:39 | 0:44:40 | |
In San Francisco, | 0:44:50 | 0:44:51 | |
I had a year of psychotherapy with Dr Hicks. | 0:44:51 | 0:44:54 | |
I was blocked, I couldn't write... | 0:44:56 | 0:44:58 | |
I was still trying to act normal. | 0:44:58 | 0:45:01 | |
I was afraid I was crazy. | 0:45:01 | 0:45:03 | |
I was sure that I was supposed to be heterosexual | 0:45:03 | 0:45:06 | |
and that something was wrong with me. | 0:45:06 | 0:45:08 | |
And Dr Hicks kept saying, "What do you want to do? | 0:45:10 | 0:45:15 | |
"What is your heart's desire?" | 0:45:15 | 0:45:18 | |
Finally I said... what I'd really like to do is to | 0:45:18 | 0:45:22 | |
just quit all this and... get a small room with Peter | 0:45:22 | 0:45:28 | |
and devote myself to my writing and | 0:45:28 | 0:45:30 | |
contemplation and fucking and smoking pot and... | 0:45:30 | 0:45:34 | |
doing whatever I want. | 0:45:34 | 0:45:37 | |
And he said, "Why don't you do it, then?" | 0:45:37 | 0:45:40 | |
I mean, what will happen if I grow old... | 0:45:42 | 0:45:45 | |
and I have pee-stains in my underwear | 0:45:45 | 0:45:47 | |
and I'm living in some furnished room | 0:45:47 | 0:45:50 | |
and nobody loves me and I'm... white-haired and... | 0:45:50 | 0:45:53 | |
I have no money, breadcrumbs are falling on the floor? | 0:45:53 | 0:45:56 | |
And he said, "Don't worry about that, | 0:45:56 | 0:46:00 | |
"you're very charming and lovable and people will always love you." | 0:46:00 | 0:46:04 | |
What a relief to hear that! | 0:46:04 | 0:46:06 | |
I very soon realized that it was all... | 0:46:07 | 0:46:10 | |
a fear-trap. | 0:46:10 | 0:46:11 | |
Illusory! | 0:46:12 | 0:46:14 | |
What sphinx of cement and aluminium bashed open their skulls | 0:46:16 | 0:46:21 | |
and ate up their brains and imagination? | 0:46:21 | 0:46:25 | |
Moloch! Solitude! Filth! | 0:46:25 | 0:46:29 | |
Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! | 0:46:29 | 0:46:34 | |
Children screaming under stairways! | 0:46:34 | 0:46:36 | |
Boys sobbing in armies! | 0:46:36 | 0:46:39 | |
Old men weeping in the parks! | 0:46:39 | 0:46:42 | |
Moloch! Moloch! | 0:46:42 | 0:46:45 | |
Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! | 0:46:45 | 0:46:49 | |
Mental Moloch! | 0:46:49 | 0:46:51 | |
Moloch the heavy judger of men! | 0:46:51 | 0:46:56 | |
Peter and I saw Moloch one day when we took peyote | 0:46:58 | 0:47:01 | |
and were wandering around downtown streets. | 0:47:01 | 0:47:05 | |
It's a god that you make fire sacrifices to. | 0:47:05 | 0:47:09 | |
But...in my mind, it was what drove my mother to madness. | 0:47:09 | 0:47:14 | |
So, I had the line... | 0:47:15 | 0:47:19 | |
Moloch, whose eyes are a thousand blind windows. | 0:47:19 | 0:47:23 | |
I had this word. | 0:47:23 | 0:47:24 | |
And...I also had the feeling | 0:47:27 | 0:47:28 | |
DA de de DA de de DA de de DA DA. Hmm? | 0:47:28 | 0:47:31 | |
So then all I had to do was look up and see a lot of windows, | 0:47:31 | 0:47:35 | |
and say, "Oh, windows, of course." | 0:47:35 | 0:47:38 | |
But what kind of windows? Right? And...not only that... | 0:47:38 | 0:47:42 | |
"Moloch, whose eyes"...Right? | 0:47:42 | 0:47:44 | |
"Moloch, whose eyes", which is beautiful in itself, but... | 0:47:44 | 0:47:48 | |
You know, what about it? | 0:47:48 | 0:47:49 | |
"Moloch, whose eyes" what? | 0:47:49 | 0:47:51 | |
"Moloch, whose eyes". | 0:47:51 | 0:47:53 | |
Then the next thing I thought was probably... | 0:47:53 | 0:47:56 | |
"Thousands." OK, but "thousands" what? | 0:47:56 | 0:47:59 | |
"Thousands blind"... | 0:47:59 | 0:48:00 | |
And then I had to finish it somehow. So... | 0:48:00 | 0:48:03 | |
I had to say "windows". | 0:48:03 | 0:48:05 | |
Moloch, whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! | 0:48:09 | 0:48:14 | |
Moloch, whose skyscrapers | 0:48:16 | 0:48:18 | |
stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! | 0:48:18 | 0:48:22 | |
Moloch, whose factories dream and croak in the fog! | 0:48:23 | 0:48:27 | |
Moloch, whose love is endless oil and stone! | 0:48:31 | 0:48:34 | |
Moloch, whose soul is electricity and banks! | 0:48:36 | 0:48:40 | |
Moloch, whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! | 0:48:40 | 0:48:44 | |
Moloch, in whom I sit lonely! | 0:48:45 | 0:48:49 | |
Moloch, in whom I dream angels! | 0:48:49 | 0:48:52 | |
Crazy in Moloch! | 0:48:55 | 0:48:57 | |
Cocksucker in Moloch! | 0:48:57 | 0:49:00 | |
Lacklove and manless in Moloch! | 0:49:00 | 0:49:04 | |
Moloch, who entered my soul early! | 0:49:04 | 0:49:06 | |
Moloch, who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! | 0:49:06 | 0:49:12 | |
Moloch, whom I abandon! | 0:49:12 | 0:49:14 | |
Wake up in Moloch! | 0:49:15 | 0:49:17 | |
Light streaming out of the sky! | 0:49:17 | 0:49:19 | |
Moloch! Moloch! | 0:49:22 | 0:49:24 | |
Robot apartments! | 0:49:24 | 0:49:25 | |
Invisible suburbs! | 0:49:25 | 0:49:27 | |
Skeleton treasuries! Blind capitals! | 0:49:27 | 0:49:31 | |
Demonic industries! | 0:49:31 | 0:49:33 | |
Spectral nations! Invincible mad houses! | 0:49:33 | 0:49:36 | |
Granite cocks! | 0:49:36 | 0:49:39 | |
Monstrous bombs! | 0:49:39 | 0:49:41 | |
They broke their backs lifting Moloch to heaven! | 0:49:41 | 0:49:45 | |
Pavements, trees! Lifting the city to heaven | 0:49:47 | 0:49:50 | |
which exists and is everywhere about us! | 0:49:50 | 0:49:54 | |
Dreams! | 0:49:54 | 0:49:55 | |
Adorations! | 0:49:55 | 0:49:57 | |
Illuminations! | 0:49:57 | 0:49:58 | |
Religions! | 0:49:58 | 0:50:00 | |
The whole boatload of sensitive bullshit! | 0:50:00 | 0:50:03 | |
Breakthroughs! Over the river! | 0:50:03 | 0:50:07 | |
Flips and crucifixions! | 0:50:07 | 0:50:09 | |
Gone down the flood! | 0:50:09 | 0:50:11 | |
Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! | 0:50:11 | 0:50:14 | |
Ten years' animal screams and suicides! | 0:50:14 | 0:50:18 | |
Minds! New loves! Mad generation! | 0:50:18 | 0:50:22 | |
Down on the rocks of time! | 0:50:22 | 0:50:24 | |
Real holy laughter in the river! | 0:50:24 | 0:50:27 | |
They saw it all! | 0:50:27 | 0:50:29 | |
The wild eyes! The holy yells! | 0:50:29 | 0:50:33 | |
They bade farewell! | 0:50:33 | 0:50:34 | |
They jumped off the roof! To solitude! | 0:50:34 | 0:50:37 | |
Waving! Carrying flowers! | 0:50:37 | 0:50:41 | |
Down to the river! | 0:50:41 | 0:50:43 | |
Into the street! | 0:50:43 | 0:50:44 | |
It is my opinion that if it has any literary value, | 0:50:46 | 0:50:49 | |
it's negligible. | 0:50:49 | 0:50:51 | |
I endeavoured to arrive at my opinion on an objective basis. | 0:50:51 | 0:50:54 | |
For example, a great literary work, | 0:50:54 | 0:50:57 | |
or even a fairly great literary work, | 0:50:57 | 0:51:00 | |
would obviously be exceedingly successful in form, | 0:51:00 | 0:51:03 | |
but this poem is really just a weak imitation | 0:51:03 | 0:51:06 | |
of a form that was used 80 to 90 years ago by Walt Whitman. | 0:51:06 | 0:51:10 | |
-Do you recall the name of that poem? -Leaves Of Grass was the name of the poem. | 0:51:10 | 0:51:15 | |
Literary value could also reside in theme, | 0:51:15 | 0:51:18 | |
and what little literary value there is in Howl, | 0:51:18 | 0:51:21 | |
it seems to me does come in theme. | 0:51:21 | 0:51:23 | |
The statement of the idea of the poem was relatively clear, | 0:51:23 | 0:51:26 | |
but it has little validity, and, therefore, | 0:51:26 | 0:51:29 | |
the theme has a negative value. | 0:51:29 | 0:51:31 | |
-No value at all. -Thank you. | 0:51:31 | 0:51:33 | |
Did I understand you to say that | 0:51:35 | 0:51:37 | |
Ginsberg used Walt Whitman's style? | 0:51:37 | 0:51:39 | |
The form. | 0:51:39 | 0:51:41 | |
The form of the book Leaves Of Grass. | 0:51:41 | 0:51:43 | |
And because of Ginsberg's using this format, | 0:51:43 | 0:51:46 | |
it is your opinion that the poem Howl | 0:51:46 | 0:51:48 | |
has no literary value or... merit, is that true? | 0:51:48 | 0:51:51 | |
On the basis of form, that's correct, | 0:51:51 | 0:51:53 | |
because great literature always creates | 0:51:53 | 0:51:56 | |
its own form for each significant occasion. | 0:51:56 | 0:51:59 | |
By that, you do not mean that | 0:51:59 | 0:52:00 | |
Walt Whitman's Leaves Of Grass doesn't quite qualify? | 0:52:00 | 0:52:03 | |
That is great literature. | 0:52:03 | 0:52:05 | |
The form was created by Walt Whitman. | 0:52:05 | 0:52:08 | |
And at the same time, you say, because | 0:52:08 | 0:52:10 | |
Ginsberg copied that format, | 0:52:10 | 0:52:11 | |
Howl has no value or merit, am I correct? | 0:52:11 | 0:52:15 | |
That is correct. An imitation never does have the value of the original. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:19 | |
Who did Walt Whitman copy? | 0:52:19 | 0:52:21 | |
To my knowledge, no-one. | 0:52:21 | 0:52:23 | |
But you don't know, | 0:52:23 | 0:52:24 | |
isn't that your answer, you don't know, sir? | 0:52:24 | 0:52:27 | |
That's right. | 0:52:27 | 0:52:30 | |
As I understand, your next signpost is that the idea | 0:52:30 | 0:52:33 | |
of Howl is clear, but has little validity. | 0:52:33 | 0:52:35 | |
Am I quoting you correctly? | 0:52:35 | 0:52:37 | |
That's the general conclusion, yes. | 0:52:37 | 0:52:40 | |
The idea of Howl is clear in theme. | 0:52:40 | 0:52:42 | |
-The idea is clear? -Yes. | 0:52:42 | 0:52:44 | |
What idea does Ginsberg have in Howl? | 0:52:44 | 0:52:47 | |
Well, he celebrates the unfortunate life of... | 0:52:47 | 0:52:50 | |
I can't remember the man's name, Solomon... | 0:52:52 | 0:52:54 | |
the unfortunate life of the man, Solomon, | 0:52:54 | 0:52:57 | |
who is a drifter of Dadaist persuasion. | 0:52:57 | 0:53:00 | |
A drift what? | 0:53:00 | 0:53:02 | |
Drifter of Dadaist persuasion. | 0:53:02 | 0:53:04 | |
-He portrays that? -That's correct. | 0:53:04 | 0:53:07 | |
And does that portrayal have any validity? | 0:53:07 | 0:53:10 | |
Not as literature, no. | 0:53:10 | 0:53:12 | |
Carl Solomon! I'm with you in Rockland where you're madder than I am. | 0:53:12 | 0:53:18 | |
I'm with you in Rockland where you must feel very strange. | 0:53:19 | 0:53:24 | |
I'm with you in Rockland where you imitate the shade of my mother. | 0:53:25 | 0:53:30 | |
I'm with you in Rockland where you pun on the bodies of your nurses, | 0:53:32 | 0:53:36 | |
the harpies of the Bronx. | 0:53:36 | 0:53:38 | |
I'm with you in Rockland | 0:53:38 | 0:53:41 | |
where you bang on the catatonic piano | 0:53:41 | 0:53:43 | |
the soul is innocent and immortal | 0:53:43 | 0:53:45 | |
it should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse. | 0:53:45 | 0:53:49 | |
I'm with you in Rockland | 0:53:49 | 0:53:51 | |
where fifty more shocks will never return | 0:53:51 | 0:53:54 | |
your soul to its body again | 0:53:54 | 0:53:55 | |
from its pilgrimage to a cross in the void. | 0:53:55 | 0:53:58 | |
I'm with you in Rockland | 0:53:59 | 0:54:00 | |
where you accuse your doctors of insanity | 0:54:00 | 0:54:03 | |
and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution | 0:54:03 | 0:54:05 | |
against the fascist national Golgotha... | 0:54:05 | 0:54:08 | |
I'm with you in Rockland | 0:54:09 | 0:54:11 | |
where you will split the heavens of Long Island | 0:54:11 | 0:54:13 | |
and resurrect your living human Jesus | 0:54:13 | 0:54:16 | |
from the superhuman tomb. | 0:54:16 | 0:54:18 | |
I'm with you in Rockland where there are 25,000 | 0:54:18 | 0:54:21 | |
mad comrades all together singing | 0:54:21 | 0:54:23 | |
the final stanzas of the Internationale. | 0:54:23 | 0:54:26 | |
I'm with you in Rockland | 0:54:27 | 0:54:29 | |
where we wake up electrified out of the coma | 0:54:29 | 0:54:31 | |
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the roof. | 0:54:31 | 0:54:35 | |
They've come to drop angelic bombs. | 0:54:35 | 0:54:37 | |
The hospital illuminates itself. | 0:54:37 | 0:54:41 | |
Imaginary walls collapse. | 0:54:41 | 0:54:46 | |
O, skinny legions run outside | 0:54:46 | 0:54:48 | |
O, starry-spangled shock of mercy. | 0:54:48 | 0:54:52 | |
The eternal war is here | 0:54:52 | 0:54:53 | |
O, victory forget your underwear, we're free. | 0:54:57 | 0:55:01 | |
I'm with you in Rockland in my dreams. | 0:55:02 | 0:55:06 | |
You walk dripping from a sea-journey | 0:55:06 | 0:55:09 | |
on the highway across America | 0:55:09 | 0:55:11 | |
in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night. | 0:55:11 | 0:55:17 | |
What is your impression of the third portion of Howl? | 0:55:19 | 0:55:24 | |
My understanding there would be that the poet expresses | 0:55:24 | 0:55:27 | |
the usual Dadaist line that | 0:55:27 | 0:55:29 | |
everything is created for man's despair, | 0:55:29 | 0:55:33 | |
and that everything must be forgotten and destroyed, | 0:55:33 | 0:55:35 | |
and that Solomon's life has had this kind of rhythm. | 0:55:35 | 0:55:38 | |
Therefore, there is some validity of theme in that area. | 0:55:38 | 0:55:42 | |
So there is validity of theme there? | 0:55:42 | 0:55:45 | |
I am afraid I got my tongue tripped up there...this... | 0:55:45 | 0:55:49 | |
I should have said "clarity" instead of "validity". | 0:55:49 | 0:55:51 | |
But you've been using the term "validity" | 0:55:51 | 0:55:54 | |
the entire time you've been on the stand. | 0:55:54 | 0:55:56 | |
By the way, Mr Kirk, have you read the Holy Bible? | 0:55:56 | 0:55:59 | |
I have. | 0:55:59 | 0:56:01 | |
Tell me, did you read Job? | 0:56:01 | 0:56:02 | |
I have. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:05 | |
Isn't Job crying the same cry as Ginsberg's Howl? | 0:56:05 | 0:56:08 | |
Not at all. | 0:56:08 | 0:56:10 | |
Do you agree with me that Job does condemn life? | 0:56:10 | 0:56:13 | |
Job condemns man's condition, yes, | 0:56:13 | 0:56:16 | |
but he does not go on then, as the Dadaist goes on, to... | 0:56:16 | 0:56:19 | |
desire to wipe out all human memory | 0:56:19 | 0:56:21 | |
of everything the human race has ever done | 0:56:21 | 0:56:24 | |
so that there can be a fresh start made, | 0:56:24 | 0:56:26 | |
as the Dadaist does. | 0:56:26 | 0:56:28 | |
You don't believe in that philosophy? | 0:56:28 | 0:56:30 | |
Not at all. No, it's been dead since about 1922 or '23. | 0:56:30 | 0:56:33 | |
But that doesn't necessarily mean that someone who does believe that is...wrong, does it? | 0:56:33 | 0:56:38 | |
No, but that does not create literature. | 0:56:38 | 0:56:40 | |
Well, what... What creates literature, Mr. Kirk? | 0:56:40 | 0:56:44 | |
I'd have to return to my three bases of objective criticism. | 0:56:44 | 0:56:47 | |
Form, theme and opportunity. | 0:56:47 | 0:56:49 | |
Well... Do you feel that Ginsberg had | 0:56:49 | 0:56:53 | |
the opportunity in his travels | 0:56:53 | 0:56:55 | |
to observe life and to write about it? | 0:56:55 | 0:56:57 | |
A small segment, yes. | 0:56:57 | 0:56:59 | |
-And this is the segment that he's writing about? -One thing... | 0:56:59 | 0:57:02 | |
Answer that question, please, yes or no. | 0:57:02 | 0:57:05 | |
Uh... I'm... I'm confused. | 0:57:05 | 0:57:10 | |
This is the segment that he is writing about, | 0:57:10 | 0:57:12 | |
isn't that true? | 0:57:12 | 0:57:13 | |
I can't answer that either yes or no. | 0:57:13 | 0:57:15 | |
But you said in his travels, | 0:57:15 | 0:57:17 | |
he wrote about a small segment of the community. | 0:57:17 | 0:57:19 | |
Here's where the confusion comes in. | 0:57:19 | 0:57:21 | |
I believe the travels are Solomon's, not Ginsberg's. | 0:57:21 | 0:57:24 | |
That's the basis of my confusion. | 0:57:24 | 0:57:26 | |
Yes, well, Ginsberg is writing it about Solomon. | 0:57:26 | 0:57:28 | |
It's his own observations. | 0:57:28 | 0:57:30 | |
You have read that, haven't you? | 0:57:30 | 0:57:32 | |
I am unable to know whether he has an acquaintance with Solomon. | 0:57:32 | 0:57:35 | |
That is the thing that is beyond my experience, | 0:57:35 | 0:57:37 | |
beyond my knowledge. | 0:57:37 | 0:57:39 | |
Do you evaluate a work by whether the writer knew | 0:57:39 | 0:57:41 | |
the person he was talking about? | 0:57:41 | 0:57:43 | |
Absolutely. | 0:57:43 | 0:57:45 | |
Are you certain that Carl Solomon ever lived? | 0:57:45 | 0:57:48 | |
-No. -Then you don't know, do you? -Not at all. | 0:57:48 | 0:57:51 | |
Have you ever read...Voltaire? | 0:57:53 | 0:57:55 | |
I've read one work, Candide. | 0:57:55 | 0:57:58 | |
-And what is your opinion of Candide? -As literature? It's great literature. | 0:57:58 | 0:58:01 | |
And whose style did Voltaire copy? | 0:58:01 | 0:58:04 | |
-Oh! Your Honour! -Please! | 0:58:04 | 0:58:07 | |
-Counsel is allowed to make an objection. -If he objects. | 0:58:07 | 0:58:10 | |
Well, I would like to... | 0:58:10 | 0:58:12 | |
I don't want to box with him. He's disturbing me. | 0:58:13 | 0:58:18 | |
I get my mouth open and out fly fists. | 0:58:18 | 0:58:21 | |
How long have you reflected on Howl? | 0:58:28 | 0:58:31 | |
I believe two weeks. | 0:58:31 | 0:58:34 | |
-Two weeks? -Two weeks would be the limit of my opportunity. | 0:58:34 | 0:58:37 | |
I made my mind up after five minutes. | 0:58:37 | 0:58:39 | |
And you reflected a long, long time | 0:58:39 | 0:58:41 | |
on Voltaire's Candide, is that right? | 0:58:41 | 0:58:43 | |
-Exactly. -Well, do you think that if you had another | 0:58:43 | 0:58:46 | |
ten years to reflect on Howl, you might change your opinion? | 0:58:46 | 0:58:49 | |
I am quite certain I would not. | 0:58:49 | 0:58:53 | |
That is all. | 0:58:54 | 0:58:56 | |
Where you accuse your doctors of insanity | 0:58:57 | 0:59:00 | |
and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution | 0:59:00 | 0:59:03 | |
against the fascist national Golgotha. | 0:59:03 | 0:59:05 | |
I'm with you in Rockland | 0:59:05 | 0:59:07 | |
where you will split the heavens of Long Island | 0:59:07 | 0:59:09 | |
and resurrect your living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb. | 0:59:09 | 0:59:14 | |
I'm with you in Rockland | 0:59:14 | 0:59:17 | |
where there are 25,000 mad comrades all together | 0:59:17 | 0:59:20 | |
singing the final stanzas of the Internationale. | 0:59:20 | 0:59:25 | |
I'm with you in Rockland where we hug and kiss | 0:59:25 | 0:59:29 | |
the United States under our bedsheets. | 0:59:29 | 0:59:32 | |
The United States | 0:59:32 | 0:59:33 | |
that coughs all night and won't let us sleep. | 0:59:33 | 0:59:37 | |
I'm with you in Rockland | 0:59:37 | 0:59:40 | |
where we wake up electrified out of the coma | 0:59:40 | 0:59:43 | |
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the roof. | 0:59:43 | 0:59:47 | |
They've come to drop angelic bombs. | 0:59:47 | 0:59:50 | |
The hospital illuminates itself. | 0:59:50 | 0:59:53 | |
Imaginary walls collapse. | 0:59:53 | 0:59:57 | |
O, skinny legions run outside | 0:59:57 | 1:00:01 | |
O, starry-spangled shock of mercy | 1:00:01 | 1:00:04 | |
the eternal war is here! | 1:00:04 | 1:00:07 | |
O, victory! Forget your underwear! | 1:00:07 | 1:00:10 | |
We're free! | 1:00:10 | 1:00:12 | |
I'm with you in Rockland. | 1:00:13 | 1:00:15 | |
In my dreams | 1:00:15 | 1:00:17 | |
you walk dripping from a sea-journey | 1:00:17 | 1:00:19 | |
on the highway across America | 1:00:19 | 1:00:22 | |
in tears to the door of my cottage | 1:00:22 | 1:00:26 | |
in the Western night. | 1:00:26 | 1:00:28 | |
Howl contains words, | 1:00:39 | 1:00:41 | |
taken just by themselves, Your Honour, | 1:00:41 | 1:00:43 | |
that are definitely obscene. | 1:00:43 | 1:00:46 | |
And we have had different literary experts testify that | 1:00:46 | 1:00:49 | |
the books have literary merit, and that the words | 1:00:49 | 1:00:53 | |
are necessary to that so-called merit. | 1:00:53 | 1:00:55 | |
But it's funny - in our law, | 1:00:57 | 1:01:00 | |
we are allowed to use | 1:01:00 | 1:01:02 | |
expert witnesses to testify as to literary merit, | 1:01:02 | 1:01:04 | |
but we are not allowed to bring in, | 1:01:04 | 1:01:07 | |
we will say, the average man | 1:01:07 | 1:01:09 | |
to testify that when he reads the book, | 1:01:09 | 1:01:12 | |
he doesn't understand it. | 1:01:12 | 1:01:13 | |
He doesn't know what it's all about. | 1:01:13 | 1:01:16 | |
Perhaps it's over his head. | 1:01:16 | 1:01:19 | |
Take, for example... | 1:01:19 | 1:01:21 | |
Frankly, and I made the comment in open court that I'd read it, | 1:01:23 | 1:01:28 | |
I don't understand it very well. | 1:01:28 | 1:01:30 | |
In fact, looking it all over, | 1:01:30 | 1:01:32 | |
I think it's a lot of sensitive bullshit, | 1:01:32 | 1:01:35 | |
using the language of Mr Ginsberg. | 1:01:35 | 1:01:37 | |
So then, | 1:01:37 | 1:01:39 | |
if the sale of a book is not being limited to just | 1:01:39 | 1:01:43 | |
modern book reviewers and experts on modern poetry, | 1:01:43 | 1:01:46 | |
but falls into the hands of the general public, | 1:01:46 | 1:01:49 | |
that is to say, the average reader, | 1:01:49 | 1:01:52 | |
this court should take that into consideration | 1:01:52 | 1:01:54 | |
in determining whether or not Howl is obscene. | 1:01:54 | 1:01:58 | |
Thank you, Your Honor | 1:01:58 | 1:01:59 | |
All right. I will hear from the defence. | 1:02:01 | 1:02:05 | |
The United States Supreme Court has said that obscenity | 1:02:09 | 1:02:13 | |
is construed to mean | 1:02:13 | 1:02:15 | |
"having a substantial tendency to corrupt | 1:02:15 | 1:02:17 | |
"by arousing lustful desires." | 1:02:17 | 1:02:21 | |
Is the word relevant to what the author is trying to say, | 1:02:24 | 1:02:28 | |
or did he just use it to be dirty and filthy? | 1:02:28 | 1:02:32 | |
He sees what he terms as | 1:02:32 | 1:02:36 | |
"an Adonis of Denver, joy to the memory | 1:02:36 | 1:02:38 | |
"of his innumerable conquests." | 1:02:38 | 1:02:42 | |
Who went out whoring through Colorado | 1:02:42 | 1:02:43 | |
in myriad stolen night-cars, | 1:02:43 | 1:02:47 | |
Neal Cassady, secret hero of this poem, | 1:02:47 | 1:02:52 | |
cocksman and Adonis of Denver, | 1:02:52 | 1:02:54 | |
joy to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls | 1:02:54 | 1:02:59 | |
in empty lots and diner backyards, | 1:02:59 | 1:03:02 | |
movie houses' rickety rows, | 1:03:02 | 1:03:05 | |
on mountaintops in caves or with gaunt waitresses | 1:03:05 | 1:03:09 | |
in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings | 1:03:09 | 1:03:14 | |
and especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, | 1:03:14 | 1:03:19 | |
and hometown alleys too. | 1:03:19 | 1:03:22 | |
Now, I suppose he could have said that, | 1:03:22 | 1:03:24 | |
the secret hero of these poems, | 1:03:24 | 1:03:27 | |
this "cocksman", this "Adonis of Denver", | 1:03:27 | 1:03:30 | |
joy to the memory of his innumerable conquests | 1:03:30 | 1:03:34 | |
at the Waldorf Astoria... | 1:03:34 | 1:03:35 | |
or at dinner at Chasen's, or after one or two drinks, | 1:03:35 | 1:03:38 | |
in going to bed at the Stork Club. | 1:03:38 | 1:03:41 | |
I presume he could have said that... | 1:03:41 | 1:03:43 | |
but that isn't the kind of person | 1:03:43 | 1:03:45 | |
he is writing about. | 1:03:45 | 1:03:48 | |
It is not for us to choose the words. | 1:03:48 | 1:03:51 | |
Mr Ginsberg, in telling his story, | 1:03:51 | 1:03:53 | |
is telling the story as he sees it. | 1:03:53 | 1:03:55 | |
He is using his words. | 1:03:55 | 1:03:56 | |
There are books that have the power to change men's minds, | 1:03:56 | 1:04:01 | |
and call attention to situations that... | 1:04:01 | 1:04:03 | |
are visible but unseen. | 1:04:03 | 1:04:06 | |
Now whether Howl is or is not obscene is of | 1:04:07 | 1:04:10 | |
little importance to our world, faced as it is with the threat | 1:04:10 | 1:04:14 | |
of physical survival, but... | 1:04:14 | 1:04:18 | |
the problem of what is legally permissible | 1:04:18 | 1:04:20 | |
in the description of sexual acts or feelings | 1:04:20 | 1:04:23 | |
in arts and literature is of the greatest importance | 1:04:23 | 1:04:26 | |
to a free society. | 1:04:26 | 1:04:28 | |
What is prurient? And to whom? | 1:04:29 | 1:04:32 | |
And the material so described is dangerous to some | 1:04:32 | 1:04:36 | |
unspecified, susceptible reader. | 1:04:36 | 1:04:38 | |
It is interesting that the person applying such standards of censorship | 1:04:38 | 1:04:42 | |
rarely feels as if their own | 1:04:42 | 1:04:44 | |
physical or moral health is in jeopardy. | 1:04:44 | 1:04:48 | |
The desire to censor is... | 1:04:48 | 1:04:49 | |
not limited, however, to crackpots and bigots. | 1:04:49 | 1:04:52 | |
There is... in most of us, a desire to | 1:04:52 | 1:04:56 | |
make the world conform to our own views. | 1:04:56 | 1:04:59 | |
And it takes all of the force of our own reason as well as | 1:04:59 | 1:05:03 | |
our legal institutions to defy so human an urge. | 1:05:03 | 1:05:06 | |
The battle of censorship will not be | 1:05:06 | 1:05:08 | |
finally settled by Your Honour's decision, | 1:05:08 | 1:05:11 | |
but you will either add to liberal, educated thinking, | 1:05:11 | 1:05:15 | |
or by your decision, you will add fuel | 1:05:15 | 1:05:18 | |
to the fire of ignorance. | 1:05:18 | 1:05:19 | |
Let there be light. | 1:05:21 | 1:05:23 | |
Let there be honesty. | 1:05:24 | 1:05:27 | |
Let there be no running from non-existent destroyers of morals. | 1:05:27 | 1:05:32 | |
Let there be honest understanding. | 1:05:34 | 1:05:37 | |
Gentleman, is the matter submitted? | 1:05:41 | 1:05:43 | |
It is submitted, Your Honour. | 1:05:44 | 1:05:46 | |
It is so submitted. | 1:05:47 | 1:05:49 | |
All rise. | 1:06:19 | 1:06:20 | |
Be seated. | 1:06:26 | 1:06:28 | |
There are a number of words used in Howl | 1:06:34 | 1:06:38 | |
that are presently considered coarse and vulgar | 1:06:38 | 1:06:41 | |
in some circles of the community, | 1:06:41 | 1:06:43 | |
and in other circles, such words are in everyday use. | 1:06:43 | 1:06:47 | |
The author of Howl | 1:06:47 | 1:06:49 | |
has used those words because he believed that | 1:06:49 | 1:06:52 | |
his portrayal required them as being in character. | 1:06:52 | 1:06:54 | |
The people state that such words are not necessary | 1:06:54 | 1:06:59 | |
and that others would be more palatable for good taste. | 1:06:59 | 1:07:03 | |
The answer is that life is not encased in one formula | 1:07:03 | 1:07:08 | |
whereby everyone acts the same | 1:07:08 | 1:07:10 | |
and conforms to a particular pattern. | 1:07:10 | 1:07:13 | |
No two persons think alike. | 1:07:13 | 1:07:16 | |
We were all made from the same form | 1:07:16 | 1:07:19 | |
but in different patterns. | 1:07:19 | 1:07:20 | |
Would there be any freedoms of press or speech | 1:07:20 | 1:07:23 | |
if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid, innocuous euphemism? | 1:07:23 | 1:07:28 | |
An author should be real in treating his subject | 1:07:28 | 1:07:31 | |
and be allowed to express his thoughts | 1:07:31 | 1:07:33 | |
and ideas in his own words. | 1:07:33 | 1:07:36 | |
In considering material claimed to be obscene, | 1:07:36 | 1:07:39 | |
it is well to remember the motto, "Honi soit qui mal y pense." | 1:07:39 | 1:07:43 | |
Evil to him who evil thinks. | 1:07:43 | 1:07:46 | |
The freedoms of speech and press | 1:07:46 | 1:07:49 | |
are inherent in a nation of free people. | 1:07:49 | 1:07:51 | |
These freedoms must be protected if we are to remain free, | 1:07:51 | 1:07:55 | |
both individually and as a nation. | 1:07:55 | 1:07:59 | |
Therefore, I conclude that the book Howl And Other Poems | 1:07:59 | 1:08:03 | |
does have some redeeming social importance, | 1:08:03 | 1:08:06 | |
and I find the book is not obscene. | 1:08:06 | 1:08:09 | |
The defendant is found not guilty. | 1:08:09 | 1:08:11 | |
The crucial moment of breakthrough came when | 1:08:35 | 1:08:38 | |
I realised how funny it would be, in the middle of a long poem, | 1:08:38 | 1:08:43 | |
if I said, | 1:08:43 | 1:08:45 | |
"Who let themselves be fucked in the ass | 1:08:45 | 1:08:47 | |
"and screamed with joy!" | 1:08:47 | 1:08:49 | |
Instead of, "and screamed with pain." | 1:08:49 | 1:08:51 | |
That's the contradiction in that line. | 1:08:51 | 1:08:53 | |
An American audience would expect it to be pain and, | 1:08:53 | 1:08:56 | |
instead, it's "screamed with joy!" Which is really true. | 1:08:56 | 1:09:00 | |
Absolutely, 100%. | 1:09:00 | 1:09:01 | |
And, again, I have a line, like, | 1:09:02 | 1:09:06 | |
"Who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, | 1:09:06 | 1:09:10 | |
"the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love." | 1:09:10 | 1:09:13 | |
It was an acknowledgement of the basic reality of homosexual joy. | 1:09:15 | 1:09:20 | |
That was a breakthrough in the sense of | 1:09:21 | 1:09:24 | |
public statements about | 1:09:24 | 1:09:26 | |
feelings, emotions, attitudes, you know, that... | 1:09:26 | 1:09:30 | |
..I wouldn't have wanted my father or my family to see, | 1:09:31 | 1:09:35 | |
and that I even hesitated to make public. | 1:09:35 | 1:09:39 | |
The poem is misinterpreted as... a promotion of homosexuality. | 1:09:44 | 1:09:49 | |
Actually, it's... more like a promotion of | 1:09:49 | 1:09:52 | |
frankness, about any subject. | 1:09:52 | 1:09:55 | |
If you're a foot fetishist, you write about feet. | 1:09:56 | 1:10:00 | |
If you're a stock-market freak, | 1:10:00 | 1:10:03 | |
you can write about the rising sales-curve erections | 1:10:03 | 1:10:06 | |
of the Standard Oil chart. | 1:10:06 | 1:10:08 | |
When a few people are... | 1:10:10 | 1:10:13 | |
frank about homosexuality in public, it breaks the ice. | 1:10:13 | 1:10:17 | |
Then people are free to be frank about anything and... | 1:10:17 | 1:10:20 | |
..that's socially useful. | 1:10:22 | 1:10:24 | |
Homosexuality is a condition, and because it alienated me | 1:10:33 | 1:10:38 | |
or set me apart from the beginning, | 1:10:38 | 1:10:40 | |
it served as a catalyst for self-examination, | 1:10:40 | 1:10:44 | |
or... | 1:10:44 | 1:10:46 | |
a detailed realisation of my environment and... | 1:10:46 | 1:10:50 | |
the reasons why everyone else is different and... | 1:10:50 | 1:10:56 | |
..why I'm different. | 1:10:57 | 1:10:59 | |
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! | 1:11:16 | 1:11:20 | |
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! | 1:11:20 | 1:11:28 | |
The world is holy! | 1:11:28 | 1:11:30 | |
The soul is holy! | 1:11:30 | 1:11:33 | |
The skin is holy! | 1:11:33 | 1:11:35 | |
The nose is holy! | 1:11:35 | 1:11:37 | |
The tongue and cock and hand and asshole, holy! | 1:11:37 | 1:11:41 | |
Everything is holy! Everybody's holy! | 1:11:41 | 1:11:44 | |
Everywhere is holy! Every day is an eternity! | 1:11:44 | 1:11:49 | |
Everyman's an angel! The bum's as holy as the seraphim! | 1:11:49 | 1:11:54 | |
The madman is holy as you, my soul, are holy! | 1:11:54 | 1:11:59 | |
The typewriter is holy! The poem is holy! | 1:11:59 | 1:12:03 | |
The voice is holy! The hearers are holy! | 1:12:03 | 1:12:06 | |
The ecstasy is holy! Holy Peter! | 1:12:06 | 1:12:10 | |
Holy Allen! Holy Solomon! | 1:12:10 | 1:12:12 | |
Holy Lucien! Holy Kerouac! | 1:12:12 | 1:12:15 | |
Holy Huncke, holy Burroughs, holy Cassady! | 1:12:15 | 1:12:18 | |
Holy the unknown buggered and suffering beggars! | 1:12:18 | 1:12:22 | |
Holy the hideous human angels! | 1:12:22 | 1:12:25 | |
Holy my mother in the insane asylum! | 1:12:27 | 1:12:29 | |
Holy the cocks of the grandfathers of Kansas! | 1:12:30 | 1:12:34 | |
Holy the groaning saxophone! | 1:12:35 | 1:12:38 | |
Holy the bop apocalypse! | 1:12:38 | 1:12:40 | |
Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters | 1:12:40 | 1:12:44 | |
peace and junk and drums! | 1:12:44 | 1:12:46 | |
Holy time in eternity! | 1:12:46 | 1:12:50 | |
Holy eternity in time! Holy the clocks in space! | 1:12:50 | 1:12:53 | |
Holy the fourth dimension! | 1:12:53 | 1:12:56 | |
Holy the Fifth Internationale! | 1:12:56 | 1:12:59 | |
Holy the Angel in Moloch! Holy the sea! | 1:12:59 | 1:13:03 | |
Holy the desert! Holy the railroad, holy the locomotive. | 1:13:03 | 1:13:08 | |
Holy the visions! Holy the hallucinations! | 1:13:08 | 1:13:12 | |
Holy the miracles! Holy the eyeball! | 1:13:12 | 1:13:15 | |
Holy the abyss! | 1:13:15 | 1:13:17 | |
Holy forgiveness! | 1:13:19 | 1:13:21 | |
Mercy! | 1:13:21 | 1:13:23 | |
Charity! | 1:13:23 | 1:13:25 | |
Faith! | 1:13:25 | 1:13:26 | |
Holy! | 1:13:26 | 1:13:27 | |
Ours! | 1:13:27 | 1:13:28 | |
Bodies! | 1:13:28 | 1:13:30 | |
Suffering! | 1:13:30 | 1:13:32 | |
Magnanimity! | 1:13:32 | 1:13:34 | |
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness | 1:13:34 | 1:13:40 | |
of the soul. | 1:13:40 | 1:13:42 | |
# Hey Father Death, I'm flying home | 1:13:55 | 1:13:59 | |
# Hey, poor man, you're all alone | 1:13:59 | 1:14:03 | |
# Hey, old daddy I know where I'm going | 1:14:03 | 1:14:09 | |
# Father Death, don't cry any more | 1:14:09 | 1:14:13 | |
# Mama's there underneath the floor | 1:14:13 | 1:14:17 | |
# Brother Death please mind the store | 1:14:17 | 1:14:22 | |
# Old, Auntie Death I hear your groans | 1:14:22 | 1:14:26 | |
# Old, Uncle Death I see your bones | 1:14:26 | 1:14:31 | |
# Oh, Sister Death how sweet your moan | 1:14:31 | 1:14:36 | |
# Oh, Children Death go breathe your breaths | 1:14:36 | 1:14:42 | |
# Sobbing breasts'll ease your deaths | 1:14:42 | 1:14:45 | |
# Pain is gone Tears take the rest | 1:14:45 | 1:14:51 | |
# Genius Death, your art is done | 1:14:51 | 1:14:55 | |
# Lover Death, your body's gone | 1:14:55 | 1:14:58 | |
# Father Death, I'm coming home | 1:14:58 | 1:15:02 | |
# Guru Death, your words are true | 1:15:02 | 1:15:07 | |
# Teacher Death, I do thank you | 1:15:07 | 1:15:11 | |
# For inspiring me to sing this blues | 1:15:11 | 1:15:16 | |
# Buddha Death, I wake with you | 1:15:16 | 1:15:18 | |
# Dharma Death, your mind is new | 1:15:18 | 1:15:22 | |
# Sangha Death we'll work it through | 1:15:22 | 1:15:26 | |
# Suffering is what was born | 1:15:26 | 1:15:29 | |
# Ignorance made me forlorn | 1:15:29 | 1:15:32 | |
# Tearful truths I cannot scorn | 1:15:32 | 1:15:36 | |
# Father Breath, once more farewell | 1:15:36 | 1:15:42 | |
# Birth you gave was no thing ill | 1:15:42 | 1:15:45 | |
# My heart is still as time will tell. # | 1:15:45 | 1:15:51 |