John Antonelli - Kerouac The Movie (ASV #31)

Still reeling from the Kerouac 90th birthday celebrations of last week, and before the expected onslaught of publicity following Walter Salles' upcoming, On The Road adaptation, we turn to Kerouac-in-the-movies, and in particular John Antonelli's 1985 documentary (or is it docu-drama?), now available in its entirety, here. (Not available in its entirety, but also well worth seeing is Richard Lerner and Lewis MacAdams investigation, "What Happened to Kerouac?" (here's the trailer), but we'll save that for another time).

Docu-drama - i.e. some of the film is re-enactments (Jack Coulter plays Kerouac, David Andrews plays Dean Moriarty/Neal Cassady). Peter Coyote provides narrative/voice-over. This aspect of the movie is perhaps less successful, but participation by the "real life" participants?Invaluable contributions here, not only from Allen, but also from William S Burroughs, Herbert Huncke, Carolyn Cassady, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Robert Creeley, John Clellon Holmes, Joyce Johnson, Edie Kerouac Parker, Ann Charters, and a host of others. Also vintage archival footage (the movie is book-ended by Kerouac's famous appearance on the Steve Allen show, Allen playing piano, Kerouac reading from On The Road).

Allen's sound-bytes (he appears on a number of occasions in the film) are as follows:

on Kerouac - "He had a compassionate open understanding of..alley-cats, and old-ladies-in-the-park empathy"

"He himself was in the bughouse in the navy so he met bureaucracy during the war and conquered it by coming to the conclusion - "best avoid the authorities" (old Chinese wisdom)."

and he goes on:

"From 1944 or so on, we began experimenting (myself, Burroughs, Kerouac, Huncke, and others) with benzedrine inhalers. I found, within a year, that I couldn't hardly write on them because my mind got too tangled, but Jack found that he could write novels on them, and I think a few of his novels in the early '50's, and maybe some aspects of The Town and the City were written on amphetamine, benzedrine inhalers, actually, and maybe "dexies" (dexedrine). I think Jack's practice was to sit down and exhaust himself at a typewriter for several weeks at a time, living a very straight regimen, you know, writing continuously for, say, four, five, six, seven hours a day, or maybe the whole day, sleeping it off, getting a big breakfast, starting it all over again, healthy, the next day, and continuing"

"Kerouac would empathize dramatically with most of the persons he knew, and assign them archetypal world stage roles. He had a way of comparing people to characters in novels that were favored by everybody, so that everybody came sort of familiar with their alter-ego as seen through Kerouac's eyes, so that he made, actually, a mythology of his own life, and put people into the mythology, and it was a mythology that was tender and dear and mortal, that people knowingly fell into it, with pleasure, because it was an interpretation that made sense. Actually, the portraits were caricatures even, but there was enough basic sympathy, so that everybody got hooked in and charmed. And it's charmed everybody since."

"At that time everybody knew the fact that Jack was a big angelic genius because this was the mid '50's and he'd already written On The Road, and Visions of Neal, and Dr.Sax, and (The) Subterraneans, and Visions of Cody, and Mexico City Blues, and many other works, by 1955, and we'd all read them, so we knew it, so whatever he did was alright. So he would withdraw, while we were left to carry on the day's business (say, me and Peter to wash the dishes, or Philip Whalen to go about his business watching chickens in the chicken laboratory, or Gary (Snyder) to do whatever he had to do (study his books?)). Then we'd make an appointment when we'd get together, say later in the week, or later in the day, to actually converse, party, or go visit people."

"He came to New York for the William Buckley show. We were in Burroughs' room in a hotel. Jack was with a couple of Greek brothers-in-law and he wanted Bill to come down. Bill said, "No Jack, you're too drunk, I don't want to witness this outrage. So I went down with him and (he) took out a tiny little bottle in the dressing room and was tippling from that (I think he had an old 1920's F.Scott Fitzgerald hip-flask at that point) and then got up on the Buckley program with that same heavy, solid, red-neck, beer-belly, look."

"He was more and more involved with the idea of suffering (as he'd always been) but in a Catholic..Christian and Catholic vision of scared heart, wounded heart. (He) made a lot of paintings of Christ's suffering, of Mary suffering, and saw, in his own existence, the suffering to the point that he wondered why it was worth being born. When Gregory (Corso) had a baby, he said, "aw, you're bringing a thing up to die" - it's a cruel remark, not very tender, but on the other hand, springing from a frank understanding that birth means death."

"I don't know of any other writer who had more seminal influence than Kerouac in opening up the heart of the writer to tell the truth from his own secret personal mind."

Friday's Weekly Round-Up 65

[Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovksy and fellow meditators, blocking the supply rail for Rocky Flats nuclear weapons production facility, Jefferson County, Colorado, June 1978. photo c. Joe Daniel]

One year on from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (of March 11). Here's one of numerous news reports (this one from Aljazeera). Here's Aileen Mioko Smith, executive-director of the Kyoto-based Green Action, speaking on Democracy Now! - Here's our old friend (much-missed) Nanao Sakaki (in 1999, wise and prophetic - "Stone Age Japanese never knew Atomic Energy./ Now nuclear power plants are/ Poisoning modern Japan to a slow death"). Here (ever-timely) Allen's magisterial Plutonian Ode ("What new element before us unborn in Nature..?" - and don't miss Allen's spirited reading of it and footage of the Rocky Flats anti-nuclear protest in Costanzo Allione's" Fried Shoes and Cooked Diamonds"). The Poets For Renewable Energy and Peace (PREP) group-reading of this poem (that took place last October, in conjunction with the New York City East Village "Howl" Festival) has just recently been put on-line and can be accessed here.

Among the company on that occasion, Eliot Katz, Bob Rosenthal, Anne Waldman and.. David Henderson. David Henderson's definitive-we-would say 1991 Bob Kaufman radio-documentary recently got another airing, via the singular energies of the irrepressible (and indeed likewise legendary), John Sinclair - on free radio, Radio Free Amsterdam - in two parts. It may be (at least for the present moment) listened to here and here. (Cedar Sigo's recent appreciation of Kaufman for the City Lights blog, Abandon All Despair Ye Who Enter Here, is, incidentally, while we're on the subject, also well worth perusing).

Attention on another "legend" and "cult hero", the late-lamented Richard Brautigan (do people still read Trout Fishing in America?) - Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan, William Hjortsberg's long-awaited and monumental biography of the West Coast writer has just appeared (clocking in at close to 900 pages!). A (mostly positive) early review of the book ("Hjortsberg is a talented novelist and screenwriter. He knows how to tell a story and can create brilliant atmospherics..") can be found here.

And Jack Kerouac - more Kerouac! - We reported last week on the On The Road film trailer. The latest Kerouac news involves a new (indeed, the first ever!) production of a "lost work", Kerouac's only play, The Beat Generation. Full details about it and its upcoming October 2012 production here.

And Jack (and Allen) are not the only ones to be having films made about them. News reaches us of another exciting "Beat" adaptation - "coming soon" - Steve Buscemi's eagerly-anticipated William Burroughs production, Queer.

William Blake Class - 7 (Urizen continues)

AG: Chapter IV [of the Book of Urizen] - Urizen is still asleep, however. All this time, while

being created by Los, while being given form by Los, Urizen is still asleep. We all know why Los wants to give Urizen a form? Does everybody got that? The reason Los, Imagination, has to give madness a definite form (or Urizonic madness, rational madness, a definite form), is that otherwise it will go infinitely in every direction and it will never be limited. Unless he gives it a definite form, he can't deal with it. It's a corollary, as I said before, as (in) Blake's line, (to paraphrase), "If you want to know Satan's secret - find out his system". If you're dealing with madness or irrationality, find out what the systematics of it (are), and you'll find the whole. You'll find out how to deal with it. You'll find out the hole in the bottom, or you'll find where it comes from, or what its original root is.

Student: It seems to me that Los is establishing form..Urizen (is) establish(ing)...

AG: Well, it's seen several ways. Actually, in Chapter III, I believe, he's establishing his own form, and in Chapter IV, I think, simultaneously, Los is establishing a form for it - he's making his form. See, Los, the Imagination with a hammer. is making it material. The Imagination is imagining something, which can then be acted out on. Reason, self-created, is also making a universe, but a self-created..well, it just wouldn't have enough stuff to work with it, unless it had some imagination, it'd be too abstract. You only wind up with a mathematical formula for the universe if it were just Reason. So you need Imagination creating a material universe, actually saying it's creating a material universe. The Imagination is imagining a material universe. (The imagination) is dreaming. In other words, you need the dream of a material universe plus the architectural blueprint.

There is some confusion as to whether Los is building according to Reason's blueprint, or not. I think, generally, it's according to Reason's own blueprint. They're identical. Los and Urizen. After a while, when you look at the pictures, you recognize they're opposite sides of the same moment of creation - or they're opposite aspects of loss - the loss of Eternity, because of the rising of Urizen, and therefore Los has to take care of Urizen. (It) has to go along with him all along, accompany him, control him, finally, work with him. So, "Ages on ages rolled over" on Urizen, (and you can see it if you check the pictures (on page) 191 (and) 192, for these "ages on ages" rolling over him, and forming (the) "nets and the gins". Well, Los is "..smitten with astonishment,/ Frightened at the hurtling bones" ((on) page 190 in the book of Illuminations, Plate 8b, corresponding to Chapter IV, page 73 [of Erdman]) - "Los smitten with astonishment,/ Frightened at the hurtling bones" - there's the bones.

"And Los formed nets and gins/ And threw the nets round about (him)". Well, there's these rocks on the corresponding page, page 191 - "Ages on ages rolled over him/ In stony sleep ages rolled over him." That would be page 191 of the illustrations, and 192, I think, in the Illuminations [The Illuminated Blake], for those who have it. Am I going too fast for those who have the pictures? Okay. You might share the pictures, if somebody's got (them). Just look at the pictures. Look at the pictures, don't (just) sit there. For those who don't have the books, look over somebody's shoulder - page 190-191-192 okay?

"..around him in whirlwinds/ Of darkness. The eternal prophet.." - Los - "howled,? Beating still on his rivets of iron/ Pouring solder of iron, dividing/ The horrible night into watches./ And Urizen (so his eternal name)/ His prolific delight obscured more and more/ In dark secrecy, hiding in surging/ Sulphureous fluid his fantasies" - "Sulphureous" - that's pretty good! - "The eternal prophet heaved the dark bellows" - Los, who works with a bellows - "And turned restless the tongs, and the hammer/ Incessant beat, forging chains new and new,/ Numbering with links hours, days and years." - Creating Time. But there's a line in Jerusalem that says. "But you cannot behold him till he be revealed in his system". In other words, Urizen is a great error, but you can't behold the error, you can't actually analyze and examine the error, and see where the error doesn't hang the universe together, unless you behold him, unless he be revealed in his system. So the reason the Imagination has to empathize with Urizen and create a form for him is so he can actually see what the architectonics, what the blueprint, what the structure, of ignorant Reason is, so he can put it out in the open air, revealed in his system, and then actually examine it with common sense - "..forging chains new and new,/ Numbering with links hours, days and years." - There are some interpretations of this line that say it means that Los is here creating the poetic meters. And the meter of this poem we might check out just now, since they've just been created. (It) is anapestic tri-meter, anyway. Trimeter - three beats. Anapest - dah-dah-dum, dah-dah-dum, dah-dah-dum - "The eternal mind, bounded, began.." - "The eternal mind bounded, began to roll" - "The eternal mind bounded, began to roll'. And here, if Blake is talking about the meters - the eternal mind bounded into meters..began to roll - you've got a pretty funny pun going on. And I think that's what's intended here, for a little, very subtle, piece of self-consciousness by Blake. "The eternal mind bounded, began to roll/ Eddies of wrath ceaseless round and round" - Duh-duh-dah, duh-duh-dah, duh-dah-dah, duh-dee-dee - "And the sulphureous foam surging thick" - Duh-duh-duh-dah-duh-duh-dah-duh-duh-dah. Dah-duh-duh-dah - "Settled, a lake, bright and shining clear,/ White as the snow on the mountains cold." - Well, it's a variable anapest. Then the next line locks it in - "Forgetfulness, dumbness, necessity" - Duh-dah-duh-duh, dah-dah, dah-dah-duh - "Forgetfulness, dumbness, necessity" - Above that we have "a lake bright and shining clear" (which, Damon suggests, in this process of birth, is the amniotic fluid, by the way, the amnion - who knows?) - "White as the snow on the mountains cold" - "Forgetfulness, dumbness, necessity", I think that's one of the great lines of the poem. You can use it as a sort of epigram anywhere - as the state of Urizen, as the state of sophomoric rationalism. So the critic, whoever that was, who wrote that review of Renaldo and Clara in the Denver Post - "Forgetfulness, dumbness, necessity!" (by "necessity" here, it means locked up in some repetitive, mechanical, "reasonable" set of trite reasons. Urizen, locked up in a set of mechanical, trite, stereotype stereotypes - "Forgetfulness, dumbness, necessity,/ In chains of the mind locked up,/ Like fetters of ice shrinking together/Disorganized, rent from Eternity./ Los beat on his fetters of iron,/ And heated his furnaces and poured/ Iron solder and solder of brass." - This is the Self's creation, finally - "Restless turned the Immortal, enchained,/ Heaving dolorous, anguished, unbearable,/ Till a roof. shaggy wild enclosed/ In an orb his fountain of thought" - Well, the skull, with hair - "In a horrible dreamful slumber,/Like the linked infernal chain - Probably you can find that on page 193 [of The Illuminated Blake] - Urizen and Los together, linked in this "dreamful slumber"

"A vast spine writhed in torment/ Upon the winds, shooting pained/ Ribs, like a bending cavern./ And bones of solidness froze/ Over all his nerves of joy./ And a first age passed over,/ And a state of dismal woe" - Okay. Now, from here on, we've got seven ages, like the seven days of Genesis, the seven days of creation. (Harold) Bloom, in his notes, says that Blake is parodying, or satirizing the Biblical Genesis (he's definitely doing something with the seven days). Actually, it's first the spine, then the heart and circulatory system in the second age, and the third age is the nervous system (Reason's senses and eyes), the fourth age is the Imagination - and ears, the fifth age is the nostrils, the sixth age is the stomach and body and tongue and digestive system, and the seventh age is the limbs. I'll go over it again. Page 74 of the Erdman text, Plate 1, Verse VI - the first days of creation (illustrated, perhaps, with page 193 of the Illuminated book. First, the ribs - "A vast spine writhed in torment/ Upon the winds, shooting pained/ Ribs, like a bending cavern./ And bones of solidness froze/ Over all his nerves of joy./ And a first age passed over,/ And a state of dismal woe". Now Plate II, Verse VII - what's described as the heart and circulatory system - "From the caverns of his jointed spine,/ Down sunk with fright a red/ Round globe hot-burning deep,/ Deep down ino the abyss - / Panting, conglobing, trembling,/ Shooting out ten thousand branches/ Around his solid bones/ And a second age passed over,/ And a state of dismal woe" - So that's the second stage. Third, (on page 75, Verse VIII), the nervous system. If the (last stage was the) heart and circulatory system, who would that be? - that would have been Tharmas, the Body? - Next, another version of the creation of Urizen, or symbols of Urizen (because, remember, Urizen is the eyes) - "In harrowing fear rolling round,/ His nervous brain shot branches/ Round the branches of his heart/ On high into two little orbs;/ And fixed in two little caves/ Hiding carefully from the wind,/ His eyes beheld the deep,/ And a third age passed over/ And a state of dismal woe" - That's a very curious description of the eyeballs - the limitations of the eyeballs - from an Einstein-ian point of view, that all they are are two little orbs, fixed in two little caves, hiding carefully from the wind. And they're supposed to be the viewers of the entire universe of creation? these little tiny plops inside of their cave, hidden?. In other words, Blake is constantly saying, well, all we see of Eternity is a little portion that we can see through these little chinks in the cavern, or chinks in the wall. That human creation is really a reduction and solidification and limitation of the vastness of expanse that might be viewed, that's beyond the eyeball, or that exists beyond the compass of the eye. But the eye exists in two little compasses, just like the front of the skull looking out that way, and so the eye, the consciousness, Urizonic consciousness, thinks that's the real (world), what it can see, but the eyes are just these two little tiny orbs in these two tiny caves. And it's so barely said there, that you recognize that it's the kind of thought you have in childhood, that's really real, and then you dismiss (it), as being,

"well, that's not practical, but this must be real, since everybody else sees it" (not realizing (that) it's this universal agreement to be stupid, or to be limited) - "Round the branches of his heart" - and also connect(ed) with all these ganglia - that's all it is, it's really a monstrous creation. And the language of it is monstrous, and Blake has painted it with all the monstrousness that you will find in any Hinayana samsaric description of the corruption of the body and the limitations of the body. If you open up the door, you'll see it's nothing but a lot of veins, and electric wires - the door in the breast - "His nervous brain shot branches/ Round the branches of his heart/ On high into two little orbs;/ And fixed in two little caves/ Hiding carefully from the wind" - There's a great line later on about that, by the way, (on) page 81, if you'll check it (out), in Chapter IX, the end of the page, page 81 - "Till the shrunken eyes, clouded over,/ Discerned not the woven hypocrisy;/ But the streaky slime in their heavens/ Brought together by narrowing perceptions/ Appeared transparent air; for their eyes,/ Grew small like the eyes of a man,/ And in reptile forms shrinking together/ Of seven feet stature they remained" - That's fantastic. He says: "..the shrunken eyes, clouded over,/ Discerned not the woven hypocrisy;/ But the streaky slime in their heavens". In other words, everything we see as air, he's saying, is a lot of streaky slime from heaven. However, brought together by narrowing perceptions, it appears to be transparent.... [(one side of the) tape ends here]

William Blake class - 6 (Urizon and the Skandhas)

I want to go through the text (of the Book of Urizon) more carefully now. Chapter IV. There are six verses. What I'm going to do is deal with this very, very carefully, so if you pay attention you can hear something (if you don't pay attention, it'll go right by you). The first verse, form is established - "Los smitten with astonishment/ Frightened at the hurtling bones" - (In the) second verse, there is some relation of feeling, "peturbed" and "sulphureous". (In the) third and fourth verses, some kind of discrimination and conception being made, and formations - "In whirlwinds and pitch and nitre/ Round the furious limbs of Los". "And Los formed nets and gins" - to contain Reason - "And threw the nets round about" - to contain this mad Reason, to give a form to Reason. So he's beginning to find some kind of a (form). There's this form that rises, there's these feelings' relations to it in this active creation of Urizen over and over again, cyclically, as you'll notice. Then there's a choice among the feelings, and then the creation of a structure, and then finally the birth of a consciousness - "He watched in shuddering fear/ The dark changes and bound every change/ With rivets of iron and brass" - Till, finally, there is a definite fixed existence there. In other words, this one little cycle in Chapter IV repeats the cycles I've already tried to point out to you, or tried to define to you. There are similar cycles in Chapter I and II - one series - and Chapter III, the same series.

Is anybody following this? Is it making any sense? Then I can outline it, going through again, several times more, in the book. But before I do that, I want to tell you what I'm up to, which is correlating these mysterious changes in the birth of Urizen with the classic Buddhist skandhas.

This is, say, a swift summary of the doctrine of the skandhas that I've composited from (Chogyam) Trungpa's Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, and various other writings and lectures. ("Skandha" means "heap", or appearance, the five "heaps"). Beginning (with) "Rūpa" form - a split in ignorance, or in the vast inane, or a split in the void, or an eternity, a split which suddenly becomes panic. Very similar to Urizen's panic described over and over again in the first stages of appearance of the form, that split off from the infinite, where (there were) internalizations of the split, impulsive accumulation of experience, and outward looking for verification of the split. (That's) the traditional skandha scheme. This is all part of ignorance, by the way, basically, to be subsumed under Ignorance. Then, the second skandha is feeling, or "Vedanā", as it is called, a reaching out for texture or sensation. I kept interpreting Vedanā as "he strove in battles dire/ in unseen conflictions which shapes/ Bred from his forsaken wilderness", a reaching out for texture or sensation, but still just sort of the blind sensation, textures of different forms rising. But then, there is what they call "Saṃjñā", or perception impulse..how would you say it?..perception impulse, or impressions, or reactions. That's the third (which would be three separate reactions - attraction, repulsion (or indifference, in this case. In any case, attraction, repulsion and indifference). In other words, you get born, you get faced with a wall, then you say you like it, or don't like it, and then you establish "wall". Then the next stage would be establishing "walls" as friendly, or unfriendly, forever, and then having a whole universe with "walls" - or whatever. Other people - you like other people or you don't like other people. So the third is perception impulse or reaction - the third stage of consciousness, so to speak. First stage of consciousness - there. Second stage of consciousness - something outside to bang against, third state of consciousness - do I like it or not? Attraction repulsion ignorance..love..hatred..or indifference. (The) fourth stage is called "Saṅkhāra", which would be sets, habits, inclinations, that is - do I like it? - Several times I see the wall, I like it, a couple of times, so therefore, I finally see that, that's alright, that's alright, that's alright, (but) fire? - no - Los? - no, Orc? - no, my brass Laws? ["the book/ Of eternal brass] - yes. So there would be repeated experience of pleasure or pain, the fourth stage would be repeated experience of pleasure or pain forming a kind of set or a vocabulary or symbol, or a repeated experience (so (that) you look back on it as a recognizable experience). The first time, you react. The second time - "Oh, I reacted that way before". And you have enough of these.

The fifth stage would be consciousness itself, the birth of consciousness itself, where you'd have a continuum of consciousness made out of all these sets. Just like a movie continuum of consciousness made out of separate pictures - still pictures making up a movie.

This is the classic or traditional Buddhist division of "skandhas" or "heaps", which is their classic description of the rising of consciousness. Buddhists here recognize that, don't they? How many here know about the skandhas? [a fitful show of hands] - Then most don't. (But) what I've been explaining is a somewhat abstract form of what it might feel like to be rising out of Eternity, or out of nothing, and coming into consciousness, what steps there might be.

First, there's sort of a logical analysis of the growth of consciousness in the fetus, maybe, or from fetus to wakened separate being. It comes, in the Buddhists, from observation of phenomena, from very close observation of the phenomena of mind. (And) what I'm pointing out is a very similar cycle of rising from Ignorance, or void, through the appearance of form, all the way up to the building up of different stages, till you get a complete birth of consciousness, from Blake's own observation of mental phenomena, he seems to have arrived at a somewhat roughly approximately equivalent series of stages, which is quite amazing. Since I don't think any Blakean has ever checked out (the skandhas) before, or any Buddhist checked out Blake (in this way) before, (I think) this is probably sort of a little interesting literary moment in history, discovering the correlation between Blake's psychology of genesis and Buddhist psychology of genesis.

Student: Did you (ever come across any similar correlation in Gnosticism and the skandhas)?

AG: I don't think so, because I think that was before the translation began in Europe of real Buddhist thought. But as I kept saying, Buddhist thought and Gnostic (thought), or Eastern Buddhist, Western Gnostic (thought) comes from (the) Middle Eastern Mesopotamian Tree of Knowledge, somewhere. They come from similar areas originally. So that the Gnostic theories that he knew - like the theories of Basilides, who was a Gnostic, included the fact that there were 365 separate heavens, or 365 different universes.. well, that's not very far from the Buddhist notion of a number of different, simultaneously occurring universes. (This was Basilides - B-A-S-I-L-I-D-E-S, Basilides' version of the universe, which you can check out in the Hans Jonas book. [The Gnostic Religion]. So he came across similar ideas, probably in Gnostic theory. This set of gradations, of progressions, of the development of wider and wider consciousness, from the first snap, to the final unfolding of five senses and the continuum, that probably has a Gnostic reference, but I don't know. But I bet it wouldn't be very hard to find in Jonas' book).