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"Howl" for Carl Solomon.
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I saw the best minds
of my generation
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destroyed by madness,
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starving hysterical naked,
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dragging themselves through
the negro streets at dawn
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looking for an angry fix,
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angel headed hipsters burning
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for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo
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in the machinery of night,
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who poverty and tatters and
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hollow eyed and high
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sat up smoking in the supernatural
darkness of cold water flats
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floating across the tops
of cities contemplating jazz!
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Sometimes I feel in command
when I'm writing.
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When I'm in the heat
of some truthful tears, yes.
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Other times...
most of the time, not.
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You know, just diddling around...
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woodcarving, you know,
finding a pretty shape,
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like most of my poetry.
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There's only been a few times
when I've reached a state of...
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complete control...
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Probably a piece of "Howl,"
and...
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one or two moments
in other poems.
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The beginning
of the fear for me was
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what would my father think
of something that I would write.
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00:04:54,585 --> 00:04:56,815
At the time, writing "Howl,"
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I assumed when writing it that
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it was not something
that would be published,
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because...
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I wouldn't want my daddy
to see what was in there.
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So, I assumed it wouldn't be
published, therefore, I could
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write anything that I wanted to.
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00:06:05,055 --> 00:06:07,922
I saw the best minds
of my generation
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00:06:08,058 --> 00:06:09,958
destroyed by madness,
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starving hysterical naked,
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00:06:14,298 --> 00:06:17,096
draggling themselves through
the negro streets at dawn
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00:06:17,234 --> 00:06:19,668
looking for an angry fix,
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00:06:22,406 --> 00:06:24,601
angel headed hipsters
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burning for the
ancient heavenly connection
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to the starry dynamo
in the machinery of night,
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who poverty and tatters
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00:06:36,120 --> 00:06:38,054
and hollow eyed and high
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00:06:38,188 --> 00:06:40,622
sat up smoking
in the supernatural darkness
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00:06:40,758 --> 00:06:42,749
of cold water flats
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00:06:42,893 --> 00:06:47,227
floating across the tops of
cities, contemplating jazz,
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who passed through universities
with radiant cool eyes
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hallucinating Arkansas and
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Blake-light tragedy
among the scholars of war,
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who were expelled
from the academies for crazy
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& publishing obscene odes
on the windows of the skull,
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00:07:06,650 --> 00:07:09,813
who cowered in
unshaven rooms in underwear,
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00:07:09,953 --> 00:07:12,080
burning their money
in wastebaskets
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and listening to the Terror
through the wall,
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who got busted
in their pubic beards
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returning through Laredo with a
belt of marijuana for New York,
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who ate fire
in paint hotels or drank
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turpentine in Paradise Alley,
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death
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or purgatoried their torsos
night after night with dreams,
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with drugs,
with waking nightmares,
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alcohol and cock
and endless balls,
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What I wanted to read into
the record, Your Honor, is
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not very much,
but it is pertinent to our case.
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Why aren't you at the trial?
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'Cause...
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the trial's not about me.
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As much as I have to thank them
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completely for my fame...
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it's the publisher,
Lawrence Ferlinghetti that was
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busted for selling
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obscene materials.
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What I want to show is on
the first page inside of "Howl."
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it says, "All these books
are published in Heaven."
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And...
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I don't quite understand that,
but anyway,
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let the record show, Your Honor,
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it's published by
the City Lights Pocketbook Shop.
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Mr. Ferlinghetti could go
to jail if convicted?
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I hope not.
That would be terrible.
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May I have your name, please?
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Gail Potter.
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And have you done
any writing yourself?
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Yes, I have done considerable.
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I was on an NBC station for
10 years while I was teaching.
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I was
community service director,
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educational coordinator...
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I have rewritten "Faust."
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it took me three years
to do that, but I did it.
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I rewrote "Everyman."
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That isn't as funny
as you might think.
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Pardon me, madam.
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Ladies and gentlemen,
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this is a trial
that involves serious issues.
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Now kindly accord the witness
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the courtesy you would want
to be accorded.
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Alright.
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00:09:38,835 --> 00:09:41,963
And did you form an opinion as
to whether or not the book called
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"Howl and Other Poems"
has any literary merit?
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I think it has
no literary merit.
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Go ahead.
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in order to have literary style,
you must have
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form, diction,
fluidity, clarity.
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Now, I am speaking
only of style.
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00:10:02,025 --> 00:10:04,357
And in content,
every great piece of literature,
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anything that can really be
classified as literature, is...
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of some moral greatness,
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and I think this fails
to the nth degree.
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I see.
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Can you think of
any other reasons?
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00:10:15,505 --> 00:10:16,335
Yes...
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Use of language.
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in regards to the figures
of speech he uses,
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he fails in rhetoric,
of course,
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for one thing, because
his figures of speech are
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crude, and you feel like
you are going through the gutter
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when you read that stuff.
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I didn't linger on it long,
I assure you.
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You may cross examine.
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Step down.
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There's something more you want?
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Step down.
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Mr. Ehrlich doesn't want
to cross examine.
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You're through with me?
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Step down.
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What is "The Beat Generation"?
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There is no Beat Generation.
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it's just a bunch of guys,
trying to get published.
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Why don't you tell me
how you started writing poetry?
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I started writing poetry
because I was a dope,
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and my father wrote poetry.
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So I began writing
rhymes like him.
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And then I went to Columbia
University and I fell in love
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with Jack Kerouac.
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Until I was 18, I was a virgin.
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I was unable to reach out
to anybody's body.
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To reach out to desire.
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I just felt...
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Chained.
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Jack gave me permission
to open up.
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He's a romantic poet.
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And he taught me that
writing is personal,
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that it comes from
the writer's own person.
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His body,
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00:12:12,622 --> 00:12:14,055
his breathing rhythm,
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his actual talk.
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Eventually I developed a much
deeper sense of confession.
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I needed to...
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express my feelings to him,
but he didn't want to hear them.
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So I had to find a new way
of expressing them...
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a way that would entrance him.
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This is good here.
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"I was offered refreshments
which I accepted.
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"I ate a sandwich of pure meat.
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"Enormous sandwich of
human flesh, I noticed,
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"while I was chewing on it.
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"it also included
a dirty asshole!"
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That's good!
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That's good!
The meat and the asshole.
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Allen, alright.
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And then I realized
that if I actually
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admitted and confessed
the secret tenderness
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of my soul in my writing,
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he would understand nakedly
who I was. And so...
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00:13:08,845 --> 00:13:11,405
that sincere talk
replaced the earlier
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imitative rhyming
that I was doing for my father.
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Jack was the first person
I really opened up to and said,
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"I'm a homosexual."
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I very soon realized that nobody
was really shocked by anything.
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Unless you're out
murdering people, you know,
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00:13:34,938 --> 00:13:38,965
People would never
really be shocked by
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an expression of feeling.
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Really I wrote "Howl" for Jack.
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Who chained themselves to
subways for the endless ride
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from Battery to holy Bronx
on benzedrine
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until the noise of wheels
and children brought them down
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00:14:02,332 --> 00:14:05,859
shuddering mouth wracked
and battered bleak of brain
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00:14:06,002 --> 00:14:10,564
all drained of brilliance
in the drear light of Zoo,
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00:14:10,807 --> 00:14:13,037
Who talked continuously 70 hours
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00:14:13,176 --> 00:14:16,145
from park to pad
to bar to Bellevue
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00:14:16,279 --> 00:14:18,839
to museum
to the Brooklyn Bridge,
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00:14:21,184 --> 00:14:24,381
A lost battalion of
platonic conversationalists
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00:14:24,521 --> 00:14:26,045
jumping down the stoops,
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00:14:26,189 --> 00:14:29,352
off fire escapes,
off windowsills,
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00:14:29,492 --> 00:14:31,016
off Empire State,
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00:14:31,161 --> 00:14:32,890
out of the moon,
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00:14:35,465 --> 00:14:38,628
yacketayakking
screaming vomiting
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00:14:38,768 --> 00:14:42,295
whispering facts and memories
and anecdotes and
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00:14:42,439 --> 00:14:47,376
eyeball kicks and shocks
of hospitals and jails and wars
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00:14:51,248 --> 00:14:54,581
who lit cigarettes
in boxcars boxcars boxcars
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00:14:54,718 --> 00:14:59,553
racketing through snow toward
lonesome farms in grand father night
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00:15:00,190 --> 00:15:03,250
who studied Plotinus
Poe St. John of the Cross,
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00:15:03,493 --> 00:15:05,723
telepathy and bop kabbalah
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00:15:05,862 --> 00:15:10,458
because the cosmos instinctively
vibrated at their feet in Kansas,
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00:15:11,501 --> 00:15:13,492
who loned it
through the streets of Idaho
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00:15:13,637 --> 00:15:16,071
seeking visionary Indian angels
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00:15:16,206 --> 00:15:19,232
who were
visionary Indian angels,
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00:15:19,843 --> 00:15:23,006
who jumped in limousines
with the Chinaman of Oklahoma
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00:15:23,146 --> 00:15:27,742
on the Impulse of winter midnight
streetlight small town ran,
200
00:15:28,952 --> 00:15:31,045
who reappeared on the West Coast
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00:15:31,187 --> 00:15:34,850
investigating the FBI
in beards and shorts
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00:15:34,991 --> 00:15:37,221
with big pacifist eyes
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00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:39,294
sexy in their dark skin
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00:15:39,429 --> 00:15:42,887
passing out
incomprehensible leaflets,
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00:15:44,567 --> 00:15:46,762
who burned cigarette holes
in their arms
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00:15:46,903 --> 00:15:50,737
protesting the narcotic
tobacco haze of Capitalism,
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00:15:53,576 --> 00:15:57,307
who distributed Super Communist
pamphlets in Union Square
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00:15:57,447 --> 00:16:00,416
weeping and undressing
while the sirens of Los Alamos
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00:16:00,550 --> 00:16:03,348
walled them down
and walled down Wall,
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00:16:03,486 --> 00:16:06,546
and the Staten Island Ferry
also walled,
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00:16:08,625 --> 00:16:13,528
who let themselves be fucked in
the ass by saintly motorcyclists
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00:16:13,663 --> 00:16:16,154
and screamed with joy,
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00:16:19,436 --> 00:16:24,601
who blew and were blown by those
human seraphim, the sailors,
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00:16:24,741 --> 00:16:28,609
caresses of Atlantic
and Caribbean love.
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00:16:37,721 --> 00:16:40,588
The problem, when it
comes to literature, is this:
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00:16:41,391 --> 00:16:44,554
There are many writers
who have preconceived ideas
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00:16:44,694 --> 00:16:46,286
about what literature
is supposed to be,
218
00:16:46,429 --> 00:16:50,490
but their ideas seem to preclude
219
00:16:50,633 --> 00:16:52,999
everything that makes them
most interesting
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00:16:53,136 --> 00:16:55,127
in casual conversation.
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00:16:55,538 --> 00:16:56,470
Their faggishness,
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00:16:56,706 --> 00:16:58,105
their solitude,
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00:16:58,241 --> 00:16:59,299
their neuroses,
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00:16:59,442 --> 00:17:01,603
their goofiness,
225
00:17:01,745 --> 00:17:02,973
their campiness,
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00:17:03,113 --> 00:17:06,776
or, even
their masculinity at times.
227
00:17:06,916 --> 00:17:09,578
Because they think that
they're gonna write something
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00:17:09,719 --> 00:17:11,983
that sounds like something else
that they've read before,
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00:17:12,122 --> 00:17:13,350
instead of
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00:17:13,490 --> 00:17:14,616
sounds like them.
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00:17:14,758 --> 00:17:17,158
Or, comes from their own life.
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00:17:18,361 --> 00:17:19,419
We all talk amongst ourselves;
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00:17:19,562 --> 00:17:21,496
we have a common understanding,
234
00:17:21,631 --> 00:17:25,260
we say anything we want to say.
We talk about our assholes,
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00:17:25,402 --> 00:17:26,767
we talk about our cocks,
236
00:17:26,903 --> 00:17:29,701
we talk about
who we fucked last night,
237
00:17:29,839 --> 00:17:31,932
or who we're gonna
fuck tomorrow,
238
00:17:32,075 --> 00:17:34,805
or what kind of
love affair we're in, or
239
00:17:34,944 --> 00:17:38,539
when we got drunk and had a broom
stick shoved up our ass in the
240
00:17:38,681 --> 00:17:40,444
Hotel Ambassador in Prague...
241
00:17:40,583 --> 00:17:45,350
I mean, everyone tells
one's friends about that! Right?
242
00:17:45,522 --> 00:17:46,386
So...
243
00:17:46,923 --> 00:17:50,450
the question is, what happens
when you make a distinction
244
00:17:50,593 --> 00:17:53,653
between what you tell your friends
and what you tell your Muse?
245
00:17:53,930 --> 00:17:56,694
The trick is to break down
that distinction,
246
00:17:56,833 --> 00:17:59,199
to approach your Muse as
247
00:17:59,335 --> 00:18:02,930
frankly as you would talk
to yourself or to your friends.
248
00:18:03,239 --> 00:18:10,907
it's the ability
to commit to writing to write
249
00:18:11,347 --> 00:18:12,974
the same way that
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00:18:13,116 --> 00:18:14,276
you are.
251
00:18:15,718 --> 00:18:19,245
Who balled in the morning
in the evenings
252
00:18:19,389 --> 00:18:24,588
in rose gardens and the grass
of public parks and cemeteries
253
00:18:24,727 --> 00:18:29,926
scattering their semen freely
to whomever come who may,
254
00:18:30,233 --> 00:18:33,498
Who hiccupped endlessly
trying to giggle
255
00:18:33,636 --> 00:18:38,096
but wound up with a sob behind
a partition in a Turkish bath
256
00:18:38,241 --> 00:18:43,144
with a blonde and naked angel
came to pierce them with a sword,
257
00:18:43,279 --> 00:18:46,874
The act of writing becomes,
like, a meditation exercise.
258
00:18:49,652 --> 00:18:52,621
If you walk down the street
in New York for a few blocks,
259
00:18:52,755 --> 00:18:56,589
you'll get this
gargantuan feeling of buildings.
260
00:18:56,726 --> 00:19:00,992
And, if you walk all day,
you'll be on the verge of tears.
261
00:19:01,431 --> 00:19:04,992
But, you have to walk all day
before you get that sensation.
262
00:19:06,336 --> 00:19:09,828
What I mean is, if you write
all day, you'll get into it.
263
00:19:09,973 --> 00:19:13,431
Into your body, into your feelings,
into your consciousness...
264
00:19:16,479 --> 00:19:19,073
I don't write enough
in that way.
265
00:19:31,294 --> 00:19:35,788
Who lost their loveboys to
the three old shrews of fate
266
00:19:36,065 --> 00:19:40,126
the one eyed shrew
of the heterosexual dollar
267
00:19:40,403 --> 00:19:43,497
the one eyed shrew
that winks out of the womb
268
00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:47,167
and the one eyed shrew that
does nothing but sit on her ass
269
00:19:47,310 --> 00:19:51,906
and snip the Intellectual golden
threads of the craftsman's loom
270
00:19:52,916 --> 00:19:56,750
who copulated ecstatic and
Insatiate with a bottle of beer,
271
00:19:56,886 --> 00:19:59,411
a sweetheart,
a package of cigarettes,
272
00:19:59,556 --> 00:20:01,820
a candle and fell off the bed
273
00:20:01,958 --> 00:20:05,052
and continued along the floor
and down the hall
274
00:20:05,195 --> 00:20:07,322
and ended fainting on the wall
275
00:20:07,463 --> 00:20:09,488
with a vision of
ultimate cunt and come
276
00:20:09,632 --> 00:20:12,499
eluding the last gyzym
of consclousness,
277
00:20:17,707 --> 00:20:20,801
who faded out
in vast sordid movies,
278
00:20:20,944 --> 00:20:22,775
were shifted in dreams,
279
00:20:22,912 --> 00:20:26,507
woke on a sudden Manhattan,
and picked themselves up
280
00:20:26,649 --> 00:20:30,415
out of basements
hungover with heartless Tokay
281
00:20:30,553 --> 00:20:33,681
and horrors of
Third Avenue Iron dreams
282
00:20:33,823 --> 00:20:36,849
and stumbled to
unemployment offices,
283
00:20:40,663 --> 00:20:43,461
who created
great suicidal dramas
284
00:20:43,600 --> 00:20:46,000
on the apartment cliff banks
of the Hudson
285
00:20:46,135 --> 00:20:49,593
under the wartime blue
floodlight of the moon
286
00:20:49,739 --> 00:20:53,675
and their heads shall be crowned
with laurel in oblivion,
287
00:20:54,377 --> 00:20:56,470
who wept at the romance
of the streets
288
00:20:56,613 --> 00:21:00,310
with their pushcarts
full of onions and bad music,
289
00:21:01,050 --> 00:21:04,486
who sat in boxes breathing
in the darkness under the bridge,
290
00:21:04,821 --> 00:21:08,917
and rose up to build
harpsichords in their lofts,
291
00:21:14,998 --> 00:21:18,934
who scribbled all night rocking
and rolling over lofty incantations
292
00:21:19,068 --> 00:21:22,765
which in the yellow morning
were stanzas of gibberish,
293
00:21:23,740 --> 00:21:26,937
who were burned alive
in their Innocent flannel suits
294
00:21:27,076 --> 00:21:28,168
on Madison Avenue
295
00:21:28,311 --> 00:21:30,472
amid blasts of leaden verse
296
00:21:30,613 --> 00:21:34,549
and the tanked up clatter
of the Iron regiments of fashion
297
00:21:34,917 --> 00:21:39,445
and the nitroglycerine shrieks
of the fairies of advertising
298
00:21:39,589 --> 00:21:43,184
and the mustard gas
of sinister intelligent editors,
299
00:21:43,326 --> 00:21:48,229
or were run down by the drunken
taxicabs of Absolute Reality.
300
00:21:52,769 --> 00:21:56,364
Would you say that
"Howl" has any literary merit?
301
00:21:56,506 --> 00:21:57,632
Yes.
302
00:21:57,774 --> 00:22:01,904
And I presume you understand
the whole thing, is that right?
303
00:22:02,145 --> 00:22:03,442
I hope so.
304
00:22:04,113 --> 00:22:06,274
it's not always easy
to know that one
305
00:22:06,416 --> 00:22:09,510
understands exactly what
a contemporary poet is saying,
306
00:22:09,652 --> 00:22:10,880
but I think I do.
307
00:22:11,254 --> 00:22:14,223
Well, let's go
into some of this.
308
00:22:15,958 --> 00:22:19,894
"With dreams, with drugs,
with waking nightmares,
309
00:22:20,029 --> 00:22:24,329
"alcohol and cock
and endless balls."
310
00:22:25,401 --> 00:22:27,699
What significance
does that have to you?
311
00:22:28,571 --> 00:22:29,560
Well...
312
00:22:30,807 --> 00:22:34,709
there are uprooted people
wandering around the United States,
313
00:22:34,944 --> 00:22:36,002
dreaming,
314
00:22:36,713 --> 00:22:37,975
drugged...
315
00:22:38,414 --> 00:22:39,972
That's clear isn't it?
316
00:22:40,116 --> 00:22:42,710
Even their waking hours
like nightmares,
317
00:22:43,353 --> 00:22:45,480
loaded with liquor and...
318
00:22:45,621 --> 00:22:48,351
enjoying, I take it,
319
00:22:48,491 --> 00:22:52,325
a variety of indiscriminate
sexual experience.
320
00:22:52,595 --> 00:22:55,928
You understand what
"angelheaded hipsters
321
00:22:56,065 --> 00:22:58,829
"burning for the ancient
heavenly connection
322
00:22:58,968 --> 00:23:02,597
"to the starry dynamo in the
machinery of night" means?
323
00:23:03,773 --> 00:23:07,504
Sir, you can't translate
poetry into prose.
324
00:23:07,944 --> 00:23:09,571
That's why it is poetry.
325
00:23:09,712 --> 00:23:12,306
But what are
"angelheaded hipsters"?
326
00:23:29,465 --> 00:23:32,559
I was working as a copyboy
at Associated Press,
327
00:23:32,702 --> 00:23:35,899
and I was able to manage things.
328
00:23:36,038 --> 00:23:39,030
Except that I was living in a
$13 a month, cold water apartment
329
00:23:39,175 --> 00:23:41,700
filled with junkies and thieves.
330
00:23:42,812 --> 00:23:46,509
So the place was being filled
with stolen silverware and
331
00:23:46,649 --> 00:23:48,480
beautiful oaken furniture
332
00:23:48,618 --> 00:23:51,485
taken from the lobbies
of apartment buildings.
333
00:23:53,823 --> 00:23:55,586
At a certain point,
334
00:23:55,858 --> 00:23:58,793
I figured that things were
getting too hot, and that...
335
00:23:58,928 --> 00:24:00,896
I'd better get out of there.
You know, get out from under.
336
00:24:01,030 --> 00:24:01,758
So...
337
00:24:01,898 --> 00:24:04,492
I piled myself
and all my manuscripts
338
00:24:04,634 --> 00:24:06,226
into the back of some guy's car
339
00:24:06,369 --> 00:24:08,599
that turned out to be stolen.
340
00:24:08,905 --> 00:24:10,463
You know, he had in the back,
341
00:24:10,606 --> 00:24:13,769
all these stolen suits
and suitcases and silverware,
342
00:24:13,910 --> 00:24:16,378
and he turned the wrong way
up a one way street,
343
00:24:16,512 --> 00:24:18,878
at the end of which
there was a police car.
344
00:24:19,015 --> 00:24:21,575
So he swerves his car
to take a side road out,
345
00:24:21,884 --> 00:24:24,978
and skidded and smashed
and papers flying...
346
00:24:25,121 --> 00:24:27,851
my eyeglasses lost,
all the clothes upside down.
347
00:24:28,791 --> 00:24:30,725
I jumped out, looked around, and
348
00:24:30,860 --> 00:24:33,328
went back in the car
to find my notebooks, but
349
00:24:33,463 --> 00:24:36,864
I couldn't find my eyeglasses,
so I couldn't find my papers.
350
00:24:37,500 --> 00:24:39,229
The crowd was gathering around.
351
00:24:39,368 --> 00:24:40,630
Chaos.
352
00:24:40,770 --> 00:24:42,101
Chaos.
353
00:24:45,007 --> 00:24:47,635
The easiest way
to get out of the whole thing,
354
00:24:47,777 --> 00:24:49,176
as it turns out, was
355
00:24:49,312 --> 00:24:53,476
to just go to the Psychiatric
Institute on 168th Street.
356
00:24:57,086 --> 00:25:01,523
I was in the looney bin
for eight months.
357
00:25:03,159 --> 00:25:04,683
I met Carl Solomon there.
358
00:25:06,162 --> 00:25:08,596
He was thinking
about the void, also
359
00:25:08,731 --> 00:25:10,198
and such problems, and...
360
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:14,401
We spent months sitting around
asking ourselves whether the
361
00:25:14,537 --> 00:25:16,835
authority of the doctors
362
00:25:16,973 --> 00:25:19,373
and their sense of reality
was right for us
363
00:25:19,509 --> 00:25:22,706
or whether we were right,
or you know what was happening.
364
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:26,680
And Carl was having problems
365
00:25:26,816 --> 00:25:29,751
because he was receiving
shock treatment.
366
00:25:30,786 --> 00:25:34,278
I didn't have any of that,
no medication, no shock.
367
00:25:35,925 --> 00:25:40,726
'Cause I'd promised the doctor
that I would be heterosexual.
368
00:25:41,230 --> 00:25:43,130
And that's how I got out.
369
00:25:45,067 --> 00:25:49,003
Your mother was
institutionalized, wasn't she?
370
00:25:53,876 --> 00:25:57,642
The concrete void
of Insulin Metrazol
371
00:25:57,780 --> 00:26:00,749
electricity hydrotherapy
psychotherapy
372
00:26:00,883 --> 00:26:04,512
occupational therapy
pingpong and amnesia,
373
00:26:04,654 --> 00:26:06,554
who in humorless protest,
374
00:26:06,689 --> 00:26:10,056
overturned only one
symbolic pingpong table,
375
00:26:10,192 --> 00:26:13,389
resting briefly in catatonia,
376
00:26:13,763 --> 00:26:18,132
returning years later truly bald
except for a wig of blood,
377
00:26:18,267 --> 00:26:20,201
and tears and fingers,
378
00:26:20,336 --> 00:26:22,861
to the visible madman doom
of the wards
379
00:26:23,005 --> 00:26:24,734
of the madtowns of the East,
380
00:26:24,874 --> 00:26:30,608
Pilgrim State's Rockland's
and Greystone's foetid halls...
381
00:26:30,746 --> 00:26:32,577
My mother Naomi was...
382
00:26:32,715 --> 00:26:34,706
in and out of
mental institutions
383
00:26:34,850 --> 00:26:36,613
from the time I was 6.
384
00:26:37,019 --> 00:26:42,184
When I was 21, I had to sign
the papers for her lobotomy.
385
00:26:42,458 --> 00:26:45,325
She died
at Pilgrim State Hospital.
386
00:26:47,463 --> 00:26:49,897
... bickering with
the echoes of the soul,
387
00:26:50,032 --> 00:26:52,023
rocking and rolling
in the midnight
388
00:26:52,168 --> 00:26:55,331
solitude bench
dolmen realms of love,
389
00:26:55,471 --> 00:26:58,406
dream of life a nightmare,
390
00:26:59,041 --> 00:27:03,603
bodies turned to stone
as heavy as the moon,
391
00:27:04,146 --> 00:27:05,636
with mother
392
00:27:05,781 --> 00:27:07,715
finally fucked,
393
00:27:08,184 --> 00:27:10,482
and the last fantastic book
394
00:27:10,620 --> 00:27:13,646
flung out of the
tenement wlndow,
395
00:27:14,156 --> 00:27:17,387
and the last door closed at 4 am
396
00:27:17,526 --> 00:27:22,361
and the last telephone
slammed at the wall in reply
397
00:27:22,498 --> 00:27:25,990
and the last furnished room
emptied down to the last piece
398
00:27:26,135 --> 00:27:27,602
of mental furniture,
399
00:27:27,737 --> 00:27:32,572
a yellow paper rose twisted
on a wire hanger in the closet,
400
00:27:32,708 --> 00:27:35,404
and even that imaginary,
401
00:27:35,544 --> 00:27:40,481
nothing but a hopeful little bit
of hallucination
402
00:27:41,517 --> 00:27:43,144
Ah, Carl,
403
00:27:43,552 --> 00:27:45,713
while you are not safe
404
00:27:45,855 --> 00:27:47,789
I am not safe,
405
00:27:48,224 --> 00:27:54,185
and now you're really in
the total animal soup of time...
406
00:28:51,654 --> 00:28:53,918
After I got out of
the mental hospital,
407
00:28:54,056 --> 00:28:56,581
I had a period of fear where...
408
00:28:57,093 --> 00:28:59,027
I felt I had to
get out of New York.
409
00:29:01,530 --> 00:29:04,624
I was questioning
my sense of reality versus the
410
00:29:04,767 --> 00:29:07,497
social sense
that was being imposed on me.
411
00:29:07,770 --> 00:29:09,237
it was a position that...
412
00:29:09,672 --> 00:29:12,436
Many people in the hospital
came out with, you know,
413
00:29:12,575 --> 00:29:14,702
a total self rejection,
414
00:29:15,077 --> 00:29:17,944
a rejection of, you know,
their own universe.
415
00:29:18,814 --> 00:29:21,146
Lip service, actually, to...
416
00:29:22,284 --> 00:29:25,014
supposedly acceptable
social patterns.
417
00:29:26,489 --> 00:29:28,389
But I was falling in love
over and over again,
418
00:29:28,524 --> 00:29:30,492
and I kept writing
my poetry about
419
00:29:30,626 --> 00:29:32,321
the people
I was falling in love with.
420
00:29:32,461 --> 00:29:33,792
All straight men.
421
00:29:34,897 --> 00:29:37,695
And I hitch hiked cross country
422
00:29:37,833 --> 00:29:40,597
from Denver
with my friend, Neal Cassady.
423
00:29:40,736 --> 00:29:43,705
And Neal was very frenetic,
424
00:29:43,839 --> 00:29:45,272
very charming,
425
00:29:45,407 --> 00:29:47,875
and he had six thousand
426
00:29:48,010 --> 00:29:51,138
girls across the continent
that were keeping him very busy.
427
00:29:51,814 --> 00:29:56,547
Ok... um... no. Um...
428
00:29:57,753 --> 00:29:58,583
Kiss!
429
00:30:00,623 --> 00:30:02,784
Wait, wait, you have something...
430
00:30:03,359 --> 00:30:04,553
I'll get that.
431
00:30:05,327 --> 00:30:06,191
Better?
Yeah.
432
00:30:13,602 --> 00:30:15,763
Get it?
I got it.
433
00:30:19,441 --> 00:30:23,172
One day, Neal and I were
thrown together in bed, at 4 am
434
00:30:23,312 --> 00:30:24,540
By circumstance...
435
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:27,308
with no place else to go
and no place else to sleep.
436
00:30:28,484 --> 00:30:31,078
And I remember
being a little scared,
437
00:30:31,687 --> 00:30:34,053
and not quite sure
what to do, so...
438
00:30:34,623 --> 00:30:37,751
I sort of like turned over and
439
00:30:37,893 --> 00:30:40,862
stiffened my body
and got on the edge of the bed.
440
00:30:42,064 --> 00:30:44,032
And he saw that I was shy.
441
00:30:45,067 --> 00:30:46,830
At the time I was still...
442
00:30:46,969 --> 00:30:50,564
scared of feeling
with another person.
443
00:30:54,677 --> 00:30:56,474
So he put his arm around me,
444
00:30:56,612 --> 00:30:59,206
and pulled me, and
445
00:30:59,515 --> 00:31:02,678
put my head on his breast, and
446
00:31:02,818 --> 00:31:05,082
gave me love, actually.
447
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:40,111
And then one day,
I got a letter
448
00:31:40,256 --> 00:31:42,156
saying, finally,
449
00:31:42,291 --> 00:31:44,589
"We shouldn't consider
ourselves lovers...
450
00:31:44,727 --> 00:31:47,093
"I'm distracted with the wife,
451
00:31:48,597 --> 00:31:50,224
"as much as I love you."
452
00:31:51,567 --> 00:31:54,434
So my heart was broken.
453
00:32:00,409 --> 00:32:01,467
"Dear Allen,
454
00:32:02,144 --> 00:32:04,612
"What you say is honestly
what I've been doing
455
00:32:04,747 --> 00:32:07,272
"or striving for all my life.
456
00:32:07,416 --> 00:32:09,247
"Therein lies our,
457
00:32:09,385 --> 00:32:12,149
"or my confused sense
of closeness.
458
00:32:12,454 --> 00:32:16,322
"Also I fear therein lies our
strength of tie to each other.
459
00:32:16,458 --> 00:32:17,550
"I say, 'I fear,'
460
00:32:17,693 --> 00:32:21,390
"for I really don't know how much
I can be satisfied to love you.
461
00:32:21,530 --> 00:32:22,656
"I mean 'bodily.'
462
00:32:22,798 --> 00:32:26,256
"You know, I sometimes dislike
pricks and men and before you
463
00:32:26,402 --> 00:32:29,701
"had consciously forced myself
to be homosexual.
464
00:32:30,673 --> 00:32:32,402
"You meant so much to me.
465
00:32:33,108 --> 00:32:35,975
"I now feel I was forcing
a desire for you bodily
466
00:32:36,111 --> 00:32:37,806
"as a compensation to you
467
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:39,775
"for all you were giving me.
468
00:32:40,149 --> 00:32:41,776
"Allen, this is straight.
469
00:32:42,051 --> 00:32:45,646
"What I truly want is to live
with you from September to June,
470
00:32:45,788 --> 00:32:49,019
"have an apartment,
a girl, go to college,
471
00:32:49,158 --> 00:32:50,819
"see all and do all,
472
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:54,327
"and become truly straight,
so please, Allen,
473
00:32:54,463 --> 00:32:56,829
"give this
a good deal of thought."
474
00:33:07,276 --> 00:33:11,303
Who drove cross country 72 hours
to find out If I had a vision
475
00:33:11,447 --> 00:33:12,709
or you had a vision
476
00:33:12,848 --> 00:33:15,942
or he had a vision
to find out Eternity,
477
00:33:17,419 --> 00:33:19,011
who journeyed to Denver,
478
00:33:19,154 --> 00:33:20,519
who died in Denver,
479
00:33:21,090 --> 00:33:24,287
who came back to Denver
and waited in vain,
480
00:33:24,426 --> 00:33:28,522
who watched over Denver
and brooded and loned in Denver
481
00:33:28,664 --> 00:33:31,656
and finally went away
to find out the Time,
482
00:33:32,034 --> 00:33:34,798
and now Denver
is lonesome for her heroes,
483
00:33:39,775 --> 00:33:42,266
who fell on their knees
in hopeless cathedrals
484
00:33:42,411 --> 00:33:46,142
praying for each other's
salvation and light and breasts,
485
00:33:46,281 --> 00:33:49,944
until the soul illuminated
Its hair for a second,
486
00:33:50,486 --> 00:33:53,011
who sweetened the snatches
of a million girls
487
00:33:53,155 --> 00:33:55,020
trembling in the sunset,
488
00:33:55,324 --> 00:33:57,292
and were red eyed in the morning
but prepared
489
00:33:57,426 --> 00:33:59,860
to sweeten
the snatch of the sunrise,
490
00:33:59,995 --> 00:34:03,658
flashing buttocks under barns
and naked in the lake,
491
00:34:05,067 --> 00:34:09,401
who went out whoring through Colorado
in myriad stolen night cars,
492
00:34:09,538 --> 00:34:13,531
Neal Cassady,
secret hero of these poems,
493
00:34:13,842 --> 00:34:16,242
cocksman and Adonis of Denver,
494
00:34:16,378 --> 00:34:20,075
joy to the memory
of his Innumerable lays of girls
495
00:34:20,215 --> 00:34:23,184
in empty lots
and diner backyards,
496
00:34:23,318 --> 00:34:27,982
Moviehouses' rickety rows,
on mountaintops in caves
497
00:34:28,290 --> 00:34:30,918
or with gaunt waitresses
in familiar roadside
498
00:34:31,193 --> 00:34:34,492
lonely petticoat upliftings.
499
00:34:35,064 --> 00:34:37,589
I think it's a howl of pain.
500
00:34:38,100 --> 00:34:40,193
Figuratively speaking,
his toes have been stepped on.
501
00:34:40,335 --> 00:34:43,361
He's poetically putting
his cry of pain and
502
00:34:43,505 --> 00:34:45,132
protest into this book, "Howl."
503
00:34:45,274 --> 00:34:48,471
And do you think this book
has definite literary value?
504
00:34:48,744 --> 00:34:49,608
I do.
505
00:34:49,878 --> 00:34:52,039
As a matter of fact,
I think in a way
506
00:34:52,181 --> 00:34:55,207
he is employing
the jazz phraseology here
507
00:34:55,350 --> 00:34:57,443
and, may I say, I...
508
00:34:57,586 --> 00:35:02,717
I think he's also employing
the words he heard
509
00:35:02,858 --> 00:35:06,294
in his life on the road
and in his various experiences.
510
00:35:07,396 --> 00:35:08,488
Thank you.
511
00:35:08,630 --> 00:35:12,225
Now, do you understand
most of the words in this book?
512
00:35:12,501 --> 00:35:14,662
I think
I understand their significance
513
00:35:14,803 --> 00:35:16,668
and the general context of it.
514
00:35:17,039 --> 00:35:18,063
I see.
515
00:35:20,576 --> 00:35:23,875
Taking on page 13,
516
00:35:24,012 --> 00:35:25,070
the 14th line:
517
00:35:26,582 --> 00:35:29,050
"Who howled on their knees
in the subway
518
00:35:29,184 --> 00:35:34,212
"and were dragged off the roof
waving genitals and manuscripts."
519
00:35:34,556 --> 00:35:37,684
Now, do you understand what
that paragraph is trying to say,
520
00:35:37,826 --> 00:35:40,386
as a part of the "Howl"?
521
00:35:40,662 --> 00:35:42,095
Not explicitly.
522
00:35:43,499 --> 00:35:46,263
I would say
he was attempting to show the...
523
00:35:46,401 --> 00:35:49,632
lack of inhibition
in the persons he's talking of,
524
00:35:50,706 --> 00:35:53,197
post World War II generation...
525
00:35:53,976 --> 00:35:56,171
those who returned,
526
00:35:56,311 --> 00:36:00,213
went into college or went into
work immediately after WW II
527
00:36:00,883 --> 00:36:05,513
perhaps were somewhat displaced
by the chaos of the war and
528
00:36:05,654 --> 00:36:07,849
didn't immediately settle down.
529
00:36:08,390 --> 00:36:11,518
Now, the next paragraph:
530
00:36:16,064 --> 00:36:19,261
"Who blew and were blown
531
00:36:19,401 --> 00:36:23,269
"by those human seraphim,
the sailors,
532
00:36:23,405 --> 00:36:27,136
"caresses of Atlantic
and Caribbean love."
533
00:36:27,276 --> 00:36:31,178
Now, you understand what
"blew" and "blown" mean?
534
00:36:31,747 --> 00:36:34,079
Well, I think they are words
that have several meanings.
535
00:36:34,650 --> 00:36:37,881
What meanings do you attribute
to the words in this paragraph?
536
00:36:38,020 --> 00:36:41,285
it can at one level mean...
that they were vagabonds,
537
00:36:41,423 --> 00:36:45,826
that they were being blown about
by natural, literal winds.
538
00:36:45,961 --> 00:36:49,089
On the other hand, perhaps it
does have a sexual connotation.
539
00:36:50,232 --> 00:36:52,928
in reference
to oral copulation, right?
540
00:36:53,235 --> 00:36:54,497
Yes, possibly.
541
00:36:54,836 --> 00:36:56,531
Now then, do you find
that those words
542
00:36:56,672 --> 00:36:58,435
are necessary to the context
543
00:36:58,574 --> 00:37:00,303
to make it a work
of literary value?
544
00:37:00,442 --> 00:37:02,137
I thought we had settled this,
Your Honor.
545
00:37:02,277 --> 00:37:04,802
Yes, Mr. McIntosh,
if you will recall,
546
00:37:04,947 --> 00:37:08,110
I said that I would not allow
the use of the word "necessary."
547
00:37:08,550 --> 00:37:10,950
But you may ask the question,
"Are they relevant?"
548
00:37:11,587 --> 00:37:15,182
Are they relevant to make
this a work of literary value?
549
00:37:15,324 --> 00:37:16,848
Yes, I would say so.
550
00:37:16,992 --> 00:37:19,654
Now then if you took
those words out of there,
551
00:37:20,028 --> 00:37:21,825
Would that spoil the portrayal?
552
00:37:21,964 --> 00:37:24,933
That's doing indirectly what Your Honor
won't permit him to do directly.
553
00:37:25,067 --> 00:37:27,126
This man is an expert.
554
00:37:27,402 --> 00:37:28,869
He has to speculate.
555
00:37:29,004 --> 00:37:33,373
No, Mr. McIntosh, I'm afraid
I can't go along with you on that.
556
00:37:33,508 --> 00:37:37,239
Whether the author might
have used other or different words,
557
00:37:37,379 --> 00:37:40,007
you're getting into
the realm of speculation there.
558
00:37:40,148 --> 00:37:41,638
Objection sustained.
559
00:37:42,884 --> 00:37:44,511
Going down a little further...
560
00:37:47,689 --> 00:37:51,318
"who sweetened the snatches
of a million girls
561
00:37:51,460 --> 00:37:55,419
"trembling in the sunset,
and were red eyed in the morning
562
00:37:55,564 --> 00:37:59,523
"but prepared to sweeten
the snatch of the sunrise,
563
00:37:59,668 --> 00:38:04,401
"flashing buttocks under barns
and naked in the lake."
564
00:38:08,510 --> 00:38:10,171
What's your question?
565
00:38:10,545 --> 00:38:13,207
is that word "snatches"
in there...
566
00:38:13,348 --> 00:38:14,747
is that...
567
00:38:14,883 --> 00:38:18,148
relevant to Mr. Ginsberg's
literary endeavor?
568
00:38:18,287 --> 00:38:22,690
Yes. I think to use euphemisms
in describing this would...
569
00:38:23,892 --> 00:38:26,360
seem dishonest to Mr. Ginsberg.
570
00:38:27,062 --> 00:38:30,589
You also said, I believe,
literary value sometimes
571
00:38:30,732 --> 00:38:34,395
is a book which will survive
any test of time.
572
00:38:34,536 --> 00:38:37,300
Do you think Mr. Ginsberg's work
will survive the test of time?
573
00:38:37,439 --> 00:38:39,430
He has no way of knowing,
574
00:38:39,574 --> 00:38:42,441
no more than some people thought
"Leaves of Grass" would survive.
575
00:38:42,577 --> 00:38:45,410
I'm asking him for his opinion,
to give us an opinion on that book.
576
00:38:45,547 --> 00:38:47,481
He says that literary value
577
00:38:47,616 --> 00:38:49,550
depends on surviving
the test of time.
578
00:38:49,685 --> 00:38:50,913
I want to know if it will.
579
00:38:51,053 --> 00:38:52,452
If Luther Nichols
could answer that,
580
00:38:52,587 --> 00:38:55,522
then the Good Lord could use a
helper and he ought to be up there.
581
00:38:55,657 --> 00:38:56,589
How can he tell?
582
00:38:56,725 --> 00:38:59,159
I'm asking
for his opinion as an expert.
583
00:38:59,294 --> 00:39:00,090
I'll ask him.
584
00:39:01,196 --> 00:39:03,187
Can you answer the question?
585
00:39:05,267 --> 00:39:07,599
it calls for a prediction.
586
00:39:09,171 --> 00:39:11,867
I think that this trial
will draw attention to it.
587
00:39:12,007 --> 00:39:15,704
"Howl" will have a wider readership
than it might otherwise have had,
588
00:39:15,844 --> 00:39:19,746
and may go down in history as
a stepping stone along the way
589
00:39:19,881 --> 00:39:21,940
to greater or lesser liberality
590
00:39:22,084 --> 00:39:23,813
in the permitting
of poems of its type.
591
00:39:38,467 --> 00:39:41,300
Poetry, generally, is a...
592
00:39:41,436 --> 00:39:44,132
rhythmic articulation of feeling
593
00:39:45,140 --> 00:39:47,165
And the feeling is
594
00:39:47,309 --> 00:39:50,039
an impulse that begins inside.
595
00:39:50,846 --> 00:39:54,646
Like a sexual impulse, you know.
Almost as definite as that. it's
596
00:39:55,550 --> 00:39:58,917
it's a feeling that begins, in
the pit of the stomach, right?
597
00:39:59,621 --> 00:40:03,557
And rises up
through the breast, and...
598
00:40:03,692 --> 00:40:06,422
out the mouth and ears, right?
599
00:40:08,029 --> 00:40:08,996
And...
600
00:40:09,131 --> 00:40:12,862
it comes forth as a croon
or a groan or a sigh, right?
601
00:40:13,201 --> 00:40:15,499
So if you try
to put words to that
602
00:40:15,637 --> 00:40:18,162
by looking around you and
603
00:40:18,306 --> 00:40:21,298
trying to describe
what's making you sigh,
604
00:40:21,443 --> 00:40:23,138
just sigh in words,
605
00:40:23,845 --> 00:40:26,143
you simply articulate
what you're feeling.
606
00:40:26,681 --> 00:40:29,878
Who bit detectives in the neck
and shrieked with delight
607
00:40:30,018 --> 00:40:32,953
in police cars
for committing no crime,
608
00:40:33,088 --> 00:40:37,218
but their own wild cooking
pederasty and intoxication.
609
00:40:38,193 --> 00:40:41,685
Who howled
on their knees in the subway
610
00:40:41,830 --> 00:40:44,128
and were dragged off the roof
611
00:40:44,266 --> 00:40:48,066
waving genitals and manuscripts.
612
00:40:53,175 --> 00:40:54,904
in the moment of composition,
613
00:40:55,177 --> 00:40:57,441
I don't necessarily
know what it means.
614
00:40:58,313 --> 00:41:00,110
it comes to mean
something later,
615
00:41:00,248 --> 00:41:01,840
after a year or two,
I come to realize
616
00:41:01,983 --> 00:41:03,143
it meant something clear,
617
00:41:03,285 --> 00:41:04,616
unconsciously.
618
00:41:05,387 --> 00:41:08,049
Which takes on meaning in time,
you know like...
619
00:41:08,356 --> 00:41:10,085
a photograph developing slowly.
620
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:13,957
If it's at all spontaneous,
621
00:41:15,397 --> 00:41:18,195
I don't know whether it even
makes sense sometimes.
622
00:41:18,667 --> 00:41:21,966
And other times, I do know
it makes complete sense,
623
00:41:23,338 --> 00:41:25,101
I start crying.
624
00:41:26,441 --> 00:41:28,170
'Cause I realize that I'm...
625
00:41:29,511 --> 00:41:31,604
I'm hitting on an area that's...
626
00:41:32,013 --> 00:41:33,446
absolutely true.
627
00:41:33,815 --> 00:41:37,376
in that sense, able to be
read by someone
628
00:41:37,519 --> 00:41:40,545
and wept to,
maybe, centuries later.
629
00:41:40,956 --> 00:41:43,254
in that sense, prophecy,
630
00:41:44,226 --> 00:41:46,524
because it touches a common key.
631
00:41:47,162 --> 00:41:48,026
I mean,
632
00:41:49,197 --> 00:41:51,427
what prophecy actually is,
633
00:41:51,967 --> 00:41:55,403
is not knowing whether...
634
00:41:56,004 --> 00:41:57,972
the bomb will fall in 1942.
635
00:41:58,406 --> 00:42:00,966
it's knowing
and feeling something
636
00:42:01,109 --> 00:42:03,134
which someone knows and feels
637
00:42:03,979 --> 00:42:05,742
in a hundred years. Hmm?
638
00:42:08,049 --> 00:42:10,540
And maybe articulating it
in a hint that
639
00:42:10,685 --> 00:42:13,347
they will pick up on
in a 100 years.
640
00:42:33,275 --> 00:42:35,368
Who crashed through
their minds in jail
641
00:42:35,510 --> 00:42:37,273
waiting for impossible criminals
642
00:42:37,412 --> 00:42:39,073
with golden heads
643
00:42:39,214 --> 00:42:42,342
and the charm
of reality in their hearts
644
00:42:44,753 --> 00:42:47,813
who sang sweet blues
to Alcatraz,
645
00:42:49,024 --> 00:42:52,687
who demanded sanity trials
accusing the radio of hypnotism
646
00:42:52,827 --> 00:42:54,692
and were left
with their insanity
647
00:42:54,829 --> 00:42:57,024
and their hands and a hung jury
648
00:42:59,734 --> 00:43:03,670
who threw potato salad
at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism
649
00:43:03,805 --> 00:43:05,636
and subsequently
presented themselves
650
00:43:05,774 --> 00:43:07,708
on the granite steps
of the madhouse
651
00:43:07,842 --> 00:43:11,073
with shaven heads
and harlequin speech of suicide,
652
00:43:11,212 --> 00:43:14,238
demandlng
Instantaneous lobotomy,
653
00:43:16,518 --> 00:43:18,145
and who were given Instead
654
00:43:18,286 --> 00:43:20,516
the concrete void
of Insulin Metrazol
655
00:43:20,655 --> 00:43:23,590
electricity hydrotherapy
psychotherapy
656
00:43:23,725 --> 00:43:27,126
occupational therapy
pingpong and amnesia,
657
00:43:31,833 --> 00:43:34,165
and who therefore
ran through the Icy streets
658
00:43:34,302 --> 00:43:35,997
obsessed with a sudden flash
659
00:43:36,137 --> 00:43:38,071
of the alchemy
of the use of the ellipse
660
00:43:38,206 --> 00:43:42,006
the catalog the meter
and the vibrating plane,
661
00:43:46,181 --> 00:43:50,447
who dreamt and made
Incarnate gaps in Time and Space
662
00:43:50,585 --> 00:43:52,746
through Images juxtaposed,
663
00:43:52,887 --> 00:43:55,117
and trapped the archangel
of the soul
664
00:43:55,256 --> 00:43:57,121
between 2 visual Images
665
00:43:57,258 --> 00:44:01,251
to recreate the syntax
and measure of poor human prose
666
00:44:01,396 --> 00:44:04,763
and stand before you
speechless and intelligent
667
00:44:04,899 --> 00:44:07,060
and shaking with shame,
668
00:44:07,769 --> 00:44:09,964
rejected yet confessing
out the soul
669
00:44:10,105 --> 00:44:12,039
to conform to the rhythm of thought
670
00:44:12,173 --> 00:44:14,437
in his naked and endless head,
671
00:44:17,078 --> 00:44:20,605
the madman bum
and angel beat in Time,
672
00:44:20,749 --> 00:44:23,013
unknown, yet putting down here
673
00:44:23,151 --> 00:44:26,746
what might be left to say
in time come after death,
674
00:44:28,289 --> 00:44:32,817
and rose reincarnate
in the ghostly clothes of jazz
675
00:44:32,961 --> 00:44:35,486
in the goldhorn shadow
of the band
676
00:44:35,630 --> 00:44:40,067
and blew the suffering of
America’s naked mind for love
677
00:44:40,201 --> 00:44:42,726
Into an ell ell lamma lamma
678
00:44:42,871 --> 00:44:45,738
sabacthanl saxophone cry
679
00:44:45,874 --> 00:44:49,469
That shivered the cities
down to the last radio
680
00:44:49,611 --> 00:44:52,512
with the absolute heart
of the poem of life
681
00:44:52,647 --> 00:44:55,047
butchered out
of their own bodies
682
00:44:55,183 --> 00:44:58,550
good to eat a thousand years.
683
00:45:17,072 --> 00:45:18,061
After I left New York,
684
00:45:18,606 --> 00:45:20,767
I spent a year in San Francisco.
685
00:45:21,042 --> 00:45:24,239
I had an apartment on Nob Hill,
686
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:27,612
the tie and suit,
687
00:45:27,749 --> 00:45:30,843
a job with several
secretaries which was...
688
00:45:30,985 --> 00:45:32,577
beginning to give me pleasure,
689
00:45:33,421 --> 00:45:35,446
the pleasure
of knowing I could do it
690
00:45:35,590 --> 00:45:38,582
and was no longer intimidated
by the social forms,
691
00:45:38,727 --> 00:45:42,163
to be able to make it
in the very dry, business world
692
00:45:44,899 --> 00:45:46,093
And that's when I met Peter.
693
00:46:16,030 --> 00:46:17,861
it was when I met Peter
694
00:46:17,999 --> 00:46:20,058
that everything changed for me.
695
00:46:23,505 --> 00:46:26,736
it was as if the heavens
showered with gold.
696
00:46:28,076 --> 00:46:32,570
Finally somebody loved me
like I loved them,
697
00:46:33,548 --> 00:46:37,075
and for the first time,
I felt accepted in my life.
698
00:46:37,218 --> 00:46:38,617
Completely.
699
00:46:48,863 --> 00:46:50,296
in San Francisco,
700
00:46:50,431 --> 00:46:53,628
I had a year of psychotherapy
with Dr. Hicks.
701
00:46:55,036 --> 00:46:57,197
I was blocked,
I couldn't write...
702
00:46:58,406 --> 00:47:00,237
I was still trying
to act normal.
703
00:47:00,375 --> 00:47:02,366
I was afraid I was crazy.
704
00:47:02,510 --> 00:47:05,377
I was sure that I was
supposed to be heterosexual
705
00:47:05,513 --> 00:47:07,845
and that something
was wrong with me.
706
00:47:09,951 --> 00:47:12,010
And Dr. Hicks kept saying,
707
00:47:12,153 --> 00:47:14,417
"What do you want to do?
708
00:47:14,556 --> 00:47:17,548
"What is your heart's desire?"
709
00:47:17,692 --> 00:47:19,819
Finally I said...
710
00:47:19,961 --> 00:47:22,122
what I'd really like to do is to
711
00:47:22,263 --> 00:47:24,527
just quit all this
712
00:47:24,766 --> 00:47:25,562
and...
713
00:47:25,700 --> 00:47:27,565
get a small room with Peter
714
00:47:27,702 --> 00:47:30,296
and devote myself
to my writing and
715
00:47:30,738 --> 00:47:34,606
contemplation and fucking
and smoking pot and...
716
00:47:34,742 --> 00:47:36,733
doing whatever I want.
717
00:47:37,779 --> 00:47:40,543
And he said,
"Why don't you do it, then?"
718
00:47:43,017 --> 00:47:46,418
I mean, what will happen
if I grow old...
719
00:47:46,554 --> 00:47:48,522
and I have pee stains
in my underwear
720
00:47:48,656 --> 00:47:51,022
and I'm living
in some furnished room
721
00:47:51,159 --> 00:47:53,184
and nobody loves me and I'm...
722
00:47:53,328 --> 00:47:54,625
white haired and...
723
00:47:54,762 --> 00:47:57,196
I have no money, bread crumbs
are falling on the floor?"
724
00:47:57,332 --> 00:47:58,731
And he said,
725
00:47:59,834 --> 00:48:01,392
"Don't worry about that,
726
00:48:01,536 --> 00:48:05,495
"you're very charming and lovable
and people will always love you."
727
00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:07,870
What a relief to hear that!
728
00:48:09,043 --> 00:48:11,534
I very soon realized that
it was all...
729
00:48:12,046 --> 00:48:13,308
a fear trap...
730
00:48:14,616 --> 00:48:15,913
Illusory!
731
00:48:18,753 --> 00:48:21,779
What sphinx
of cement and aluminum
732
00:48:21,923 --> 00:48:24,289
bashed open their skulls
733
00:48:24,425 --> 00:48:27,292
and ate up
their brains and imagination?
734
00:48:27,929 --> 00:48:32,423
Moloch! Solitude! Filth!
735
00:48:32,567 --> 00:48:36,765
Ugliness! Ashcans and
unobtalnable dollarsl
736
00:48:37,372 --> 00:48:40,068
Children screaming
under stairways!
737
00:48:40,208 --> 00:48:42,699
Boys sobbing in armies!
738
00:48:42,844 --> 00:48:45,472
Old men weeping in the parks!
739
00:48:45,613 --> 00:48:48,377
Moloch! Moloch!
740
00:48:48,516 --> 00:48:53,078
Nightmare of Moloch!
Moloch the loveless!
741
00:48:53,554 --> 00:48:55,385
Mental Moloch!
742
00:48:55,523 --> 00:48:59,118
Moloch the heavy judger of men!
743
00:49:02,497 --> 00:49:05,830
Peter and I saw Moloch one day
when we took peyote
744
00:49:05,967 --> 00:49:08,868
and were wandering around
downtown streets.
745
00:49:09,570 --> 00:49:13,062
it's a god that you make
fire sacrifices to.
746
00:49:13,708 --> 00:49:14,606
But...
747
00:49:14,976 --> 00:49:18,707
in my mind, it was what
drove my mother to madness.
748
00:49:20,148 --> 00:49:22,639
So, I had the line
749
00:49:22,984 --> 00:49:27,250
Moloch whose eyes are
a thousand blind windows.
750
00:49:27,622 --> 00:49:29,146
I had this word,
751
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:33,325
And... I also had the feeling
752
00:49:33,461 --> 00:49:35,895
DA de de DA de de DA
de de DA DA. Hmm?
753
00:49:36,030 --> 00:49:40,967
So then all I had to do was look
up and see a lot of windows,
754
00:49:41,102 --> 00:49:43,127
and say,
"Oh, windows, of course,"
755
00:49:43,404 --> 00:49:45,838
But what kind of windows? Right?
And...
756
00:49:45,974 --> 00:49:47,839
Not only that...
757
00:49:47,976 --> 00:49:50,274
"Moloch whose eyes"...Right?
758
00:49:50,411 --> 00:49:53,574
"Moloch whose eyes" which
is beautiful in itself but...
759
00:49:54,315 --> 00:49:55,646
You know, what about it?
760
00:49:55,783 --> 00:49:56,875
"Moloch whose eyes" what?
761
00:49:57,018 --> 00:49:59,179
"Moloch whose eyes"...
762
00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:02,448
Then the next thing
I thought was probably...
763
00:50:02,590 --> 00:50:03,147
"Thousands."
764
00:50:03,291 --> 00:50:04,952
OK, but "thousands" what?
765
00:50:05,093 --> 00:50:06,720
"Thousands blind"...
766
00:50:06,861 --> 00:50:09,796
And then I had to
finish it somehow. So...
767
00:50:09,931 --> 00:50:11,228
I had to say "windows."
768
00:50:16,904 --> 00:50:21,773
Moloch whose eyes are
a thousand blind windows!
769
00:50:23,978 --> 00:50:26,071
Moloch whose skyscrapers
770
00:50:26,214 --> 00:50:29,706
stand in the long streets
Like endless Jehovahs!
771
00:50:31,386 --> 00:50:35,447
Moloch whose factories
dream and croak in the fog!
772
00:50:38,259 --> 00:50:42,355
Moloch whose love
is endless oil and stone!
773
00:50:44,198 --> 00:50:47,565
Moloch whose soul
is electricity and banks!
774
00:50:48,336 --> 00:50:53,035
Moloch whose fate is a cloud
of sexless hydrogen!
775
00:50:54,876 --> 00:50:57,572
Moloch in whom I sit lonely!
776
00:50:58,513 --> 00:51:01,914
Moloch in whom I dream Angels!
777
00:51:04,285 --> 00:51:06,048
Crazy in Moloch!
778
00:51:06,354 --> 00:51:08,481
Cocksucker in Moloch!
779
00:51:09,157 --> 00:51:12,217
Lacklove and manless in Moloch!
780
00:51:13,227 --> 00:51:16,321
Moloch who entered
my soul early!
781
00:51:17,098 --> 00:51:21,467
Moloch who frightened me
out of my natural ecstasy!
782
00:51:22,036 --> 00:51:24,095
Moloch whom I abandon!
783
00:51:25,239 --> 00:51:26,831
Wake up in Moloch!
784
00:51:27,208 --> 00:51:29,938
Light streaming out of the sky!
785
00:51:32,113 --> 00:51:34,047
Moloch! Moloch!
786
00:51:34,182 --> 00:51:35,672
Robot apartments!
787
00:51:35,817 --> 00:51:37,546
Invisible suburbs!
788
00:51:37,852 --> 00:51:39,752
Skeleton treasuries!
789
00:51:39,887 --> 00:51:41,479
Blind capitals!
790
00:51:41,622 --> 00:51:43,089
Demonic Industries!
791
00:51:43,224 --> 00:51:44,987
Spectral natlonsl
792
00:51:45,126 --> 00:51:47,686
Invincible mad houses!
793
00:51:47,829 --> 00:51:49,421
Granite cocks!
794
00:51:49,730 --> 00:51:51,595
Monstrous bombs!
795
00:51:52,733 --> 00:51:56,499
They broke their backs
lifting Moloch to Heaven!
796
00:51:57,872 --> 00:51:59,965
Pavements, treesl
797
00:52:00,108 --> 00:52:02,099
lifting the city to Heaven
798
00:52:02,243 --> 00:52:05,235
which exists
and is everywhere about us!
799
00:52:06,214 --> 00:52:07,238
Dreams!
800
00:52:07,381 --> 00:52:08,678
Adorations!
801
00:52:08,816 --> 00:52:10,306
Illuminations!
802
00:52:10,585 --> 00:52:11,916
Religions!
803
00:52:12,053 --> 00:52:14,851
The whole boatload
of sensitive bullshit!
804
00:52:15,356 --> 00:52:16,948
Breakthroughsl
805
00:52:17,425 --> 00:52:18,892
Over the river!
806
00:52:19,193 --> 00:52:21,252
Flips and crucifixions!
807
00:52:21,395 --> 00:52:23,295
Gone down the flood!
808
00:52:23,564 --> 00:52:25,623
Highs! Epiphanies!
809
00:52:25,766 --> 00:52:26,824
Despairs!
810
00:52:26,968 --> 00:52:31,337
Ten years' animal screams
and sulcldesl
811
00:52:31,472 --> 00:52:34,999
Minds! New loves!
Mad generation!
812
00:52:35,143 --> 00:52:37,611
Down on the rocks of Time!
813
00:52:37,745 --> 00:52:40,737
Real holy laughter in the river!
814
00:52:40,882 --> 00:52:42,543
They saw it all!
815
00:52:42,917 --> 00:52:46,148
The wild eyes! The holy yells!
816
00:52:46,287 --> 00:52:47,879
They bade farewell!
817
00:52:48,022 --> 00:52:51,150
They jumped off the roof!
To solitude!
818
00:52:51,292 --> 00:52:52,316
Waving!
819
00:52:52,460 --> 00:52:54,360
Carrylng flowersl
820
00:52:54,495 --> 00:52:56,360
Down to the river!
821
00:52:56,797 --> 00:52:58,162
Into the street!
822
00:52:59,734 --> 00:53:02,760
it is my opinion that if it has
any literary value,
823
00:53:02,904 --> 00:53:04,667
it's negligible.
824
00:53:04,805 --> 00:53:07,501
I endeavored to arrive
at my opinion
825
00:53:07,642 --> 00:53:08,802
on an objective basis.
826
00:53:08,943 --> 00:53:09,875
For example,
827
00:53:10,011 --> 00:53:14,175
a great literary work, or even
a fairly great literary work,
828
00:53:14,315 --> 00:53:17,751
would obviously be
exceedingly successful in form,
829
00:53:18,219 --> 00:53:20,779
but this poem is really
just a weak imitation
830
00:53:20,922 --> 00:53:24,255
of a form that was used 80
to 90 years ago by Walt Whitman.
831
00:53:24,392 --> 00:53:26,917
And do you recall
the name of that poem?
832
00:53:27,061 --> 00:53:30,121
"Leaves of Grass" was
the name of the poem.
833
00:53:30,264 --> 00:53:32,824
Literary value
could also reside in theme,
834
00:53:33,768 --> 00:53:36,396
and what little literary value
there is in "Howl,"
835
00:53:36,537 --> 00:53:38,061
it seems to me
does come in theme.
836
00:53:38,706 --> 00:53:42,198
The statement of the idea of
the poem was relatively clear,
837
00:53:42,343 --> 00:53:45,335
but it has little validity,
and, therefore, the theme
838
00:53:45,479 --> 00:53:46,946
has a negative value.
839
00:53:47,081 --> 00:53:48,207
No value at all.
840
00:53:48,349 --> 00:53:49,373
Thank you.
841
00:53:50,785 --> 00:53:52,753
Did I understand you to say that
842
00:53:52,887 --> 00:53:55,788
Ginsberg used
Walt Whitman's style?
843
00:53:55,923 --> 00:53:56,855
The form.
844
00:53:56,991 --> 00:53:59,289
The form of the book
"Leaves of Grass."
845
00:53:59,427 --> 00:54:01,759
And because of
Ginsberg's using this format,
846
00:54:01,896 --> 00:54:04,330
it is your opinion
that the poem "Howl"
847
00:54:04,465 --> 00:54:06,296
has no literary value or...
848
00:54:06,434 --> 00:54:08,061
merit, is that true?
849
00:54:08,336 --> 00:54:10,395
On the basis of form,
that's correct,
850
00:54:10,538 --> 00:54:12,938
because great literature
always creates
851
00:54:13,074 --> 00:54:15,201
its own form for
each significant occasion.
852
00:54:15,343 --> 00:54:17,573
By that, you do not mean that
853
00:54:17,712 --> 00:54:20,613
Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass"
doesn't quite qualify?
854
00:54:20,748 --> 00:54:22,773
That is great literature.
855
00:54:22,917 --> 00:54:25,078
The form was created
by Walt Whitman.
856
00:54:25,219 --> 00:54:26,948
And at the same time,
you say, because
857
00:54:27,088 --> 00:54:29,056
Ginsberg copied that format,
858
00:54:29,190 --> 00:54:32,387
"Howl" has no
value or merit, am I correct?
859
00:54:32,526 --> 00:54:33,550
That is correct.
860
00:54:33,694 --> 00:54:36,993
An imitation never does
have the value of the original.
861
00:54:37,131 --> 00:54:38,758
Who did Walt Whitman copy?
862
00:54:39,367 --> 00:54:41,130
To my knowledge, no one.
863
00:54:41,435 --> 00:54:42,424
But you don't know,
864
00:54:42,570 --> 00:54:45,061
isn't that your answer,
you don't know, sir?
865
00:54:46,574 --> 00:54:47,666
That's right.
866
00:54:48,009 --> 00:54:49,704
As I understand,
your next signpost
867
00:54:49,844 --> 00:54:51,368
is that the idea
868
00:54:51,512 --> 00:54:54,242
of "Howl" is clear,
but has little validity.
869
00:54:54,382 --> 00:54:56,145
Am I quoting you correctly?
870
00:54:56,617 --> 00:54:58,642
That's the general conclusion,
yes...
871
00:54:58,786 --> 00:55:00,845
the idea of "Howl"
is clear in theme.
872
00:55:00,988 --> 00:55:02,250
The idea is clear?
Yes.
873
00:55:03,524 --> 00:55:06,049
What idea
does Ginsberg have in "Howl"?
874
00:55:06,193 --> 00:55:09,651
Well, he celebrates
the unfortunate life of...
875
00:55:11,932 --> 00:55:13,661
I can't remember the man's name,
Solomon...
876
00:55:13,801 --> 00:55:16,361
the unfortunate life
of the man, Solomon,
877
00:55:16,504 --> 00:55:18,972
who is a drifter
of Dadaist persuasion.
878
00:55:19,607 --> 00:55:20,665
A drift what?
879
00:55:21,075 --> 00:55:23,100
Drifter of Dadaist persuasion.
880
00:55:24,211 --> 00:55:25,371
He portrays that?
881
00:55:25,713 --> 00:55:27,010
That's correct.
882
00:55:27,348 --> 00:55:29,942
And does that portrayal
have any validity?
883
00:55:30,084 --> 00:55:32,211
Not as literature, no.
884
00:55:32,520 --> 00:55:34,112
Carl Solomon!
885
00:55:34,689 --> 00:55:38,921
I'm with you in Rockland
where you're madder than I am.
886
00:55:39,960 --> 00:55:44,590
I'm with you in Rockland where
you must feel very strange.
887
00:55:45,599 --> 00:55:50,263
I'm with you in Rockland where you
imitate the shade of my mother.
888
00:55:52,907 --> 00:55:56,809
I'm with you in Rockland where
you pun on the bodies of your nurses,
889
00:55:56,944 --> 00:55:59,344
the harpies of the Bronx.
890
00:56:00,014 --> 00:56:01,914
I'm with you in Rockland
891
00:56:02,049 --> 00:56:04,517
where you bang on
the catatonic piano
892
00:56:04,652 --> 00:56:06,813
the soul is
Innocent and Immortal
893
00:56:06,954 --> 00:56:10,583
it should never die ungodly
in an armed madhouse.
894
00:56:11,359 --> 00:56:12,917
I'm with you in Rockland
895
00:56:13,060 --> 00:56:14,857
where fifty more shocks
will never return
896
00:56:14,995 --> 00:56:16,963
your soul to Its body again
897
00:56:17,098 --> 00:56:20,499
from Its pilgrimage
to a cross in the void.
898
00:56:21,602 --> 00:56:22,864
I'm with you in Rockland
899
00:56:23,003 --> 00:56:24,800
where you accuse
your doctors of insanity
900
00:56:24,939 --> 00:56:27,567
and plot
the Hebrew socialist revolution
901
00:56:27,708 --> 00:56:30,768
against
the fascist national Golgotha
902
00:56:31,846 --> 00:56:33,507
I'm with you in Rockland
903
00:56:33,647 --> 00:56:35,842
where you will split
the heavens of Long Island
904
00:56:35,983 --> 00:56:38,417
and resurrect
your living human Jesus
905
00:56:38,552 --> 00:56:40,577
from the superhuman tomb
906
00:56:41,355 --> 00:56:44,222
I'm with you in Rockland
where there are 25,000
907
00:56:44,358 --> 00:56:46,918
mad comrades
all together singing
908
00:56:47,061 --> 00:56:49,621
the final stanzas
of the Internationale.
909
00:56:50,831 --> 00:56:52,196
I'm with you in Rockland
910
00:56:52,333 --> 00:56:54,733
where we wake up
electrified out of the coma
911
00:56:54,869 --> 00:56:58,532
by our own souls' airplanes
roaring over the roof.
912
00:56:59,039 --> 00:57:01,769
They've come to drop
angellc bombs
913
00:57:01,909 --> 00:57:04,503
the hospital illuminates itself
914
00:57:05,446 --> 00:57:08,176
imaginary walls collapse
915
00:57:09,049 --> 00:57:12,212
O skinny legions run outside
916
00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:18,786
O starry spangled shock of mercy
the eternal war is here
917
00:57:21,729 --> 00:57:25,893
O vlctory
forget your underwear we're free
918
00:57:27,668 --> 00:57:29,966
I'm with you in Rockland
919
00:57:30,104 --> 00:57:31,628
in my dreams
920
00:57:31,772 --> 00:57:34,502
you walk dripping
from a sea journey
921
00:57:34,642 --> 00:57:37,008
on the highway across America
922
00:57:37,344 --> 00:57:40,507
in tears to the door
of my cottage
923
00:57:40,648 --> 00:57:42,445
in the Western night.
924
00:57:45,252 --> 00:57:50,155
What is your impression
of the third portion of "Howl"?
925
00:57:50,291 --> 00:57:53,317
My understanding there would be
that the poet expresses
926
00:57:53,461 --> 00:57:55,554
the usual Dadaist line that
927
00:57:55,696 --> 00:57:58,563
everything is created
for man's despair,
928
00:57:58,699 --> 00:58:01,566
that everything must be
forgotten and destroyed, and
929
00:58:01,702 --> 00:58:04,262
that Solomon's life apparently
has had this kind of rhythm.
930
00:58:04,405 --> 00:58:06,305
Therefore,
there is some validity
931
00:58:06,440 --> 00:58:08,840
of theme, in that area.
932
00:58:09,109 --> 00:58:11,168
So, there is
validity of theme there?
933
00:58:12,213 --> 00:58:15,842
I am afraid I got my tongue
tripped up there... this...
934
00:58:15,983 --> 00:58:18,474
I should have said "clarity"
instead of "validity."
935
00:58:18,619 --> 00:58:20,883
But you've been using
the term "validity"
936
00:58:21,021 --> 00:58:23,012
the entire time
you've been on the stand.
937
00:58:23,691 --> 00:58:25,886
By the way, Mr. Kirk,
have you read the Holy Bible?
938
00:58:26,794 --> 00:58:27,954
I have.
939
00:58:28,529 --> 00:58:30,156
Tell me, did you read Job?
940
00:58:30,297 --> 00:58:31,321
I have.
941
00:58:31,899 --> 00:58:35,027
Isn't Job crying the same cry
as Ginsberg's "Howl"?
942
00:58:35,169 --> 00:58:36,397
Not at all.
943
00:58:36,537 --> 00:58:40,303
Do you agree with me
that Job does condemn life?
944
00:58:41,141 --> 00:58:43,769
Job condemns
man's condition, yes,
945
00:58:43,911 --> 00:58:47,472
but he does not go on then,
as the Dadaist goes on, to...
946
00:58:47,615 --> 00:58:49,480
desire to wipe out
all human memory
947
00:58:49,617 --> 00:58:51,380
of everything the human race
has ever done
948
00:58:51,519 --> 00:58:54,352
so that there can be
a fresh start made
949
00:58:54,488 --> 00:58:55,921
as the Dadaist does.
950
00:58:56,056 --> 00:58:57,387
And you don't believe
in that philosophy?
951
00:58:57,525 --> 00:58:57,957
Not at all.
952
00:58:58,225 --> 00:59:01,456
No, it's been dead
since about 1922 or '23.
953
00:59:01,595 --> 00:59:03,085
But that doesn't
necessarily mean that
954
00:59:03,230 --> 00:59:05,027
someone who does
believe that is...
955
00:59:05,266 --> 00:59:06,096
wrong, does it?
956
00:59:06,233 --> 00:59:09,100
No, but that does not
create literature.
957
00:59:09,236 --> 00:59:10,533
Well, what...
958
00:59:11,272 --> 00:59:13,103
What creates
literature, Mr. Kirk?
959
00:59:13,374 --> 00:59:16,537
I'd have to return to my three
bases of objective criticism:
960
00:59:16,677 --> 00:59:18,736
Form, theme and opportunity.
961
00:59:18,879 --> 00:59:19,937
Well...
962
00:59:20,080 --> 00:59:22,571
Do you feel that
Ginsberg had the
963
00:59:22,716 --> 00:59:24,616
opportunity in his travels
964
00:59:24,752 --> 00:59:26,549
to observe life
and to write about it?
965
00:59:26,687 --> 00:59:28,382
A small segment, yes.
966
00:59:28,522 --> 00:59:30,217
And this is the segment that
he's writing about,
967
00:59:30,357 --> 00:59:31,051
isn't that right?
968
00:59:31,191 --> 00:59:32,158
One thing...
969
00:59:32,293 --> 00:59:34,887
Answer that question,
please, "Yes" or "No."
970
00:59:35,796 --> 00:59:39,288
Uh... I'm... I'm confused.
971
00:59:40,267 --> 00:59:42,428
This is the segment that
he is writing about,
972
00:59:42,570 --> 00:59:43,229
isn't that true?
973
00:59:43,370 --> 00:59:45,304
I can't answer that
either "Yes" or "No."
974
00:59:45,439 --> 00:59:47,066
But you said in his travels,
975
00:59:47,207 --> 00:59:49,300
he wrote about a small segment
of the community.
976
00:59:49,843 --> 00:59:51,572
Here's where
the confusion comes in:
977
00:59:51,712 --> 00:59:54,704
I believe the travels
are Solomon's, not Ginsberg's.
978
00:59:54,848 --> 00:59:56,372
That's the basis
of my confusion.
979
00:59:56,650 --> 00:59:59,414
Yes, well, Ginsberg is writing
it about Solomon...
980
00:59:59,553 --> 01:00:01,180
it's his own observations.
981
01:00:01,322 --> 01:00:02,380
You have read that, haven't you?
982
01:00:02,723 --> 01:00:04,714
I am unable to know
whether he has
983
01:00:04,858 --> 01:00:06,348
an acquaintance with Solomon.
984
01:00:06,493 --> 01:00:08,927
That is the thing that is
beyond my experience,
985
01:00:09,063 --> 01:00:10,360
beyond my knowledge.
986
01:00:10,497 --> 01:00:13,159
Do you evaluate a work
by whether the writer knew
987
01:00:13,300 --> 01:00:14,460
the person he was talking about?
988
01:00:14,768 --> 01:00:16,099
Absolutely.
989
01:00:16,236 --> 01:00:19,262
Are you certain that
Carl Solomon ever lived?
990
01:00:19,406 --> 01:00:20,031
No.
991
01:00:20,608 --> 01:00:21,905
Then you don't know, do you?
992
01:00:22,376 --> 01:00:22,899
Not at all.
993
01:00:24,411 --> 01:00:26,879
Have you ever read... Voltaire?
994
01:00:27,848 --> 01:00:28,780
I've read one work,
995
01:00:29,083 --> 01:00:29,811
"Candide."
996
01:00:29,950 --> 01:00:31,508
And what is your opinion
of "Candide"?
997
01:00:31,652 --> 01:00:34,052
As literature?
it's great literature.
998
01:00:34,321 --> 01:00:36,482
And whose style
did Voltaire copy?
999
01:00:36,624 --> 01:00:37,249
Oh!
1000
01:00:37,391 --> 01:00:37,982
Your Honor!
1001
01:00:38,125 --> 01:00:38,614
Please!
1002
01:00:38,892 --> 01:00:40,689
Counsel is allowed
to make an objection.
1003
01:00:40,828 --> 01:00:42,352
If he objects.
1004
01:00:42,930 --> 01:00:44,989
Well, I would like to...
1005
01:00:46,567 --> 01:00:49,001
I don't want to box with him.
1006
01:00:49,136 --> 01:00:50,831
He's disturbing me.
1007
01:00:51,739 --> 01:00:54,606
I get my mouth open
and out fly fists.
1008
01:01:01,548 --> 01:01:04,517
How long have you
reflected on "Howl"?
1009
01:01:05,686 --> 01:01:06,948
I believe two weeks.
1010
01:01:07,087 --> 01:01:08,145
Two weeks?
1011
01:01:08,288 --> 01:01:10,381
Two weeks would be
the limit of my opportunity.
1012
01:01:10,524 --> 01:01:12,822
However, I made my mind up
after 5 minutes.
1013
01:01:12,960 --> 01:01:15,258
And you reflected
a long, long time
1014
01:01:15,396 --> 01:01:17,296
on Voltaire's "Candide,"
is that right?
1015
01:01:17,431 --> 01:01:18,523
Exactly.
1016
01:01:18,666 --> 01:01:20,725
Well, do you think that
if you had another
1017
01:01:20,868 --> 01:01:22,665
ten years to reflect on "Howl,"
1018
01:01:22,803 --> 01:01:24,498
you might change your opinion?
1019
01:01:24,638 --> 01:01:26,902
I am quite certain I would not.
1020
01:01:29,643 --> 01:01:30,632
That is all.
1021
01:01:32,312 --> 01:01:34,644
... where you accuse
your doctors of insanity
1022
01:01:34,782 --> 01:01:37,182
and plot the Hebrew
socialist revolution
1023
01:01:37,317 --> 01:01:40,252
against the fascist
national Golgotha.
1024
01:01:40,387 --> 01:01:42,048
I'm with you in Rockland
1025
01:01:42,189 --> 01:01:44,749
where you will spilt
the heavens of Long Island
1026
01:01:44,892 --> 01:01:49,852
and resurrect your living human
Jesus from the superhuman tomb
1027
01:01:50,731 --> 01:01:52,528
I'm with you in Rockland
1028
01:01:52,666 --> 01:01:56,534
where there are
25,000 mad comrades all together
1029
01:01:56,670 --> 01:02:00,162
singing the final stanzas
of the Internationale
1030
01:02:01,041 --> 01:02:02,975
I'm with you in Rockland
1031
01:02:03,110 --> 01:02:05,135
where we hug and kiss
1032
01:02:05,279 --> 01:02:08,146
the United States
under our bedsheets.
1033
01:02:08,415 --> 01:02:09,973
The United States
1034
01:02:10,117 --> 01:02:13,553
that coughs all night
and won't let us sleep.
1035
01:02:14,354 --> 01:02:15,787
I'm with you in Rockland
1036
01:02:16,457 --> 01:02:20,086
where we wake up electrified
out of the coma
1037
01:02:20,227 --> 01:02:23,856
by our own souls'
airplanes roaring over the roof
1038
01:02:23,997 --> 01:02:27,763
they've come to drop
angelic bombs
1039
01:02:28,035 --> 01:02:30,868
the hospital illuminates Itself
1040
01:02:31,004 --> 01:02:34,371
imaginary walls collapse
1041
01:02:34,641 --> 01:02:38,338
O skinny legions run outside
1042
01:02:38,612 --> 01:02:41,809
O starry spangled shock of mercy
1043
01:02:41,949 --> 01:02:44,611
the eternal war is here!
1044
01:02:44,752 --> 01:02:46,379
O vlctoryl
1045
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:48,415
Forget your underwear!
1046
01:02:48,555 --> 01:02:50,022
We're free!
1047
01:02:51,058 --> 01:02:53,390
I'm with you in Rockland
1048
01:02:53,927 --> 01:02:55,690
in my dreams
1049
01:02:55,829 --> 01:02:58,389
you walk dripping
from a sea journey
1050
01:02:58,532 --> 01:03:00,830
on the highway across America
1051
01:03:00,968 --> 01:03:04,961
in tears to the door
of my cottage
1052
01:03:05,105 --> 01:03:07,164
in the Western night.
1053
01:03:18,252 --> 01:03:20,345
"Howl" contains words,
1054
01:03:20,487 --> 01:03:22,978
taken just by themselves,
Your Honor,
1055
01:03:23,123 --> 01:03:25,387
that are definitely obscene.
1056
01:03:25,626 --> 01:03:28,686
And we have had different
literary experts testify that
1057
01:03:28,829 --> 01:03:32,663
the books have literary merit,
and that the words
1058
01:03:32,800 --> 01:03:35,496
are necessary to that
so called merit.
1059
01:03:37,437 --> 01:03:40,201
But it's funny in our law,
1060
01:03:40,340 --> 01:03:41,898
we are allowed to use
1061
01:03:42,042 --> 01:03:44,738
expert witnesses
to testify as to literary merit,
1062
01:03:44,878 --> 01:03:47,506
but we are not allowed
to bring in,
1063
01:03:47,648 --> 01:03:49,878
we will say, the average man
1064
01:03:50,017 --> 01:03:52,542
to testify that when
he reads the book,
1065
01:03:52,686 --> 01:03:54,278
he doesn't understand it.
1066
01:03:54,421 --> 01:03:57,015
He doesn't know
what it's all about.
1067
01:03:57,624 --> 01:03:59,683
Perhaps it's over his head.
1068
01:04:00,227 --> 01:04:02,354
Take, for example...
1069
01:04:04,565 --> 01:04:08,399
Frankly, and I made the comment
in open court that I'd read it,
1070
01:04:09,236 --> 01:04:11,295
I don't understand it very well.
1071
01:04:11,438 --> 01:04:13,668
in fact, looking it all over,
1072
01:04:13,807 --> 01:04:16,537
I think it's a lot of
sensitive bullshit,
1073
01:04:16,677 --> 01:04:19,043
using the language
of Mr. Ginsberg.
1074
01:04:20,080 --> 01:04:20,739
So then,
1075
01:04:21,481 --> 01:04:24,973
If the sale of a book
is not being limited to just
1076
01:04:25,118 --> 01:04:26,449
modern book reviewers
1077
01:04:26,587 --> 01:04:28,521
and experts on modern poetry,
1078
01:04:28,655 --> 01:04:30,987
but falls into the hands
of the general public,
1079
01:04:31,124 --> 01:04:33,820
that is to say,
the average reader,
1080
01:04:34,828 --> 01:04:36,955
this court should take that
into consideration
1081
01:04:37,097 --> 01:04:40,260
in determining whether or not
"Howl" is obscene.
1082
01:04:40,968 --> 01:04:42,435
Thank you, Your Honor
1083
01:04:43,904 --> 01:04:44,700
Alright...
1084
01:04:44,838 --> 01:04:46,328
I will hear from the defense.
1085
01:04:52,179 --> 01:04:55,842
The United States Supreme Court
has said that obscenity
1086
01:04:56,783 --> 01:04:58,341
is construed to mean
1087
01:04:58,986 --> 01:05:01,853
"having a
substantial tendency to corrupt
1088
01:05:01,989 --> 01:05:04,583
"by arousing lustful desires."
1089
01:05:07,661 --> 01:05:11,529
is the word relevant to what
the author is trying to say,
1090
01:05:12,065 --> 01:05:15,296
or did he just use it
to be dirty and filthy?
1091
01:05:15,936 --> 01:05:19,235
He sees what he terms as
1092
01:05:19,706 --> 01:05:22,800
"an Adonis of Denver,
joy to the memory
1093
01:05:22,943 --> 01:05:25,377
"of his innumerable conquests.
1094
01:05:25,512 --> 01:05:28,174
Who went out
whoring through Colorado
1095
01:05:28,315 --> 01:05:31,341
in myriad stolen night cars
1096
01:05:31,485 --> 01:05:36,388
Neal Cassady,
secret hero of this poem,
1097
01:05:36,523 --> 01:05:39,151
cocksman and Adonis of Denver,
1098
01:05:39,593 --> 01:05:43,893
joy to the memory
of his Innumerable lays of girls
1099
01:05:44,031 --> 01:05:47,467
in empty lots
and diner backyards,
1100
01:05:47,601 --> 01:05:50,195
moviehouses' rickety rows,
1101
01:05:50,337 --> 01:05:55,206
on mountaintops in caves
or with gaunt waitresses
1102
01:05:55,342 --> 01:05:59,745
in familiar roadside
lonely petticoat upliftings
1103
01:05:59,880 --> 01:06:05,011
and especially secret
gas station solipsisms of johns,
1104
01:06:05,152 --> 01:06:07,382
and hometown alleys too.
1105
01:06:07,788 --> 01:06:10,848
Now, I suppose
he could have said that,
1106
01:06:10,991 --> 01:06:13,084
the secret hero of these poems,
1107
01:06:13,226 --> 01:06:16,684
this "cocksman,"
this "Adonis of Denver,"
1108
01:06:16,830 --> 01:06:20,459
joy to memory
of his innumerable conquests
1109
01:06:20,600 --> 01:06:21,897
at the Waldorf Astoria...
1110
01:06:22,736 --> 01:06:25,330
or at dinner at Chasen's,
or after one or two drinks,
1111
01:06:25,472 --> 01:06:27,804
in going to bed
at the Stork Club.
1112
01:06:28,608 --> 01:06:30,701
I presume
he could have said that...
1113
01:06:30,844 --> 01:06:32,744
but that isn't
the kind of person
1114
01:06:32,879 --> 01:06:34,710
he is writing about.
1115
01:06:35,182 --> 01:06:37,742
it is not for us
to choose the words.
1116
01:06:38,352 --> 01:06:40,582
Mr. Ginsberg,
in telling his story,
1117
01:06:40,721 --> 01:06:42,484
is telling the story
as he sees it.
1118
01:06:42,622 --> 01:06:44,385
He is using his words.
1119
01:06:45,058 --> 01:06:47,049
There are books that
have the power to change
1120
01:06:47,194 --> 01:06:48,559
men's minds,
1121
01:06:48,895 --> 01:06:51,295
and call attention
to situations that...
1122
01:06:51,765 --> 01:06:52,823
are visible but
1123
01:06:53,166 --> 01:06:53,996
unseen.
1124
01:06:55,502 --> 01:06:58,665
Now whether "Howl" is
or is not "obscene" is of
1125
01:06:59,172 --> 01:07:02,505
little importance to our world,
faced as it is with the threat
1126
01:07:02,642 --> 01:07:04,371
of physical survival,
1127
01:07:05,245 --> 01:07:05,904
but...
1128
01:07:06,646 --> 01:07:08,944
the problem of what is
legally permissible
1129
01:07:09,082 --> 01:07:12,017
in the description of
sexual acts or feelings
1130
01:07:12,152 --> 01:07:15,087
in arts and literature
is of the greatest importance
1131
01:07:15,222 --> 01:07:17,156
to a free society.
1132
01:07:17,958 --> 01:07:19,755
What is "prurient"?
1133
01:07:20,227 --> 01:07:21,819
And to whom?
1134
01:07:22,329 --> 01:07:25,298
And the material so described
is dangerous to some
1135
01:07:25,432 --> 01:07:27,457
unspecified, susceptible reader.
1136
01:07:28,135 --> 01:07:29,363
it is interesting that
1137
01:07:29,503 --> 01:07:31,869
the person applying
such standards of censorship
1138
01:07:32,005 --> 01:07:34,371
rarely feels as if their own
1139
01:07:34,508 --> 01:07:36,999
physical or moral health
is in jeopardy.
1140
01:07:37,811 --> 01:07:39,438
The desire to censor is...
1141
01:07:39,946 --> 01:07:42,574
not limited, however,
to crackpots and bigots.
1142
01:07:42,716 --> 01:07:43,910
There is...
1143
01:07:44,351 --> 01:07:46,444
in most of us, a desire to
1144
01:07:46,953 --> 01:07:49,615
make the world conform
to our own views.
1145
01:07:49,756 --> 01:07:52,748
And it takes all of the force
of our own reason as well as
1146
01:07:52,893 --> 01:07:56,420
our legal institutions
to defy so human an urge.
1147
01:07:57,230 --> 01:07:59,198
The battle of censorship
will not be
1148
01:07:59,332 --> 01:08:01,766
finally settled by
Your Honor's decision,
1149
01:08:02,369 --> 01:08:06,032
but you will either add
to liberal, educated thinking,
1150
01:08:06,306 --> 01:08:08,831
or by your decision,
you will add fuel
1151
01:08:08,975 --> 01:08:10,909
to the fire of ignorance.
1152
01:08:12,979 --> 01:08:14,640
Let there be light.
1153
01:08:16,116 --> 01:08:18,175
Let there be honesty.
1154
01:08:19,119 --> 01:08:20,814
Let there be no running from
1155
01:08:20,954 --> 01:08:24,481
non existent
destroyers of morals.
1156
01:08:25,792 --> 01:08:28,784
Let there be
honest understanding.
1157
01:08:33,133 --> 01:08:35,533
Gentleman,
is the matter submitted?
1158
01:08:36,803 --> 01:08:38,464
it is submitted, Your Honor.
1159
01:08:40,140 --> 01:08:41,402
it is so submitted.
1160
01:09:13,006 --> 01:09:14,371
All rise.
1161
01:09:20,013 --> 01:09:21,207
Be seated.
1162
01:09:29,322 --> 01:09:32,951
There are a number of words
used in "Howl"
1163
01:09:33,093 --> 01:09:36,119
that are presently considered
coarse and vulgar
1164
01:09:36,263 --> 01:09:38,231
in some circles
of the community,
1165
01:09:38,365 --> 01:09:41,801
and in other circles,
such words are in everyday use.
1166
01:09:42,202 --> 01:09:44,227
The author of "Howl"
1167
01:09:44,371 --> 01:09:46,498
has used those words
because he believed that
1168
01:09:46,640 --> 01:09:50,007
his portrayal required them
as being in character.
1169
01:09:50,143 --> 01:09:53,943
The People state that such words
are not necessary
1170
01:09:54,080 --> 01:09:58,574
and that others would be
more palatable for good taste.
1171
01:09:59,186 --> 01:10:03,850
The answer is that life is not
encased in one formula
1172
01:10:03,990 --> 01:10:05,924
whereby everyone acts the same
1173
01:10:06,059 --> 01:10:08,687
and conforms
to a particular pattern.
1174
01:10:10,030 --> 01:10:11,930
No two persons think alike.
1175
01:10:12,065 --> 01:10:14,363
We were all made
from the same form
1176
01:10:14,701 --> 01:10:16,760
but in different patterns.
1177
01:10:17,103 --> 01:10:19,594
Would there be any freedoms
of press or speech
1178
01:10:19,739 --> 01:10:22,003
if one must reduce
his vocabulary
1179
01:10:22,142 --> 01:10:24,337
to vapid, innocuous euphemism?
1180
01:10:24,477 --> 01:10:28,208
An author should be real
in treating his subject
1181
01:10:28,348 --> 01:10:30,578
and be allowed to express
his thoughts
1182
01:10:30,717 --> 01:10:32,947
and ideas in his own words.
1183
01:10:33,587 --> 01:10:36,283
in considering material
claimed to be obscene,
1184
01:10:36,423 --> 01:10:38,482
it is well
to remember the motto,
1185
01:10:38,625 --> 01:10:40,616
"Honi soit qui mal y pense"
1186
01:10:40,860 --> 01:10:43,988
"Evil to him who evil thinks."
1187
01:10:44,130 --> 01:10:46,758
The freedoms of speech and press
1188
01:10:46,900 --> 01:10:49,198
are inherent
in a nation of free people.
1189
01:10:49,336 --> 01:10:53,432
These freedoms must be protected
if we are to remain free,
1190
01:10:53,573 --> 01:10:56,303
both individually
and as a nation.
1191
01:10:57,477 --> 01:11:00,674
Therefore, I conclude that
the book "Howl and Other Poems"
1192
01:11:00,814 --> 01:11:04,045
does have some redeeming
social importance,
1193
01:11:04,417 --> 01:11:06,908
and I find the book
is not obscene.
1194
01:11:07,287 --> 01:11:09,517
The defendant
is found not guilty.
1195
01:11:34,648 --> 01:11:37,708
The crucial moment
of breakthrough came when
1196
01:11:38,418 --> 01:11:40,613
I realized
how funny it would be,
1197
01:11:40,754 --> 01:11:42,585
in the middle of a long poem,
1198
01:11:42,722 --> 01:11:44,485
if I said:
1199
01:11:45,191 --> 01:11:47,182
"Who let themselves
be fucked in the ass
1200
01:11:47,327 --> 01:11:49,022
"and screamed with joy!"
1201
01:11:49,162 --> 01:11:51,289
Instead of
"and screamed with pain."
1202
01:11:51,431 --> 01:11:53,365
That's the contradiction
in that line.
1203
01:11:53,500 --> 01:11:56,264
An American audience would
expect it to be pain and,
1204
01:11:56,403 --> 01:11:58,098
instead,
it's "screamed with joy!"
1205
01:11:58,238 --> 01:12:00,433
Which is really true.
1206
01:12:00,573 --> 01:12:02,234
Absolutely, 100%.
1207
01:12:03,276 --> 01:12:06,040
And, again, I have a line, like
1208
01:12:07,881 --> 01:12:10,748
"Who blew and were blown
by those human seraphim,
1209
01:12:10,884 --> 01:12:12,545
the sailors, caresses of
1210
01:12:12,686 --> 01:12:14,551
"Atlantic and Caribbean love."
1211
01:12:16,923 --> 01:12:18,322
it was
an acknowledgement of the
1212
01:12:18,458 --> 01:12:21,393
basic reality of homosexual joy.
1213
01:12:22,696 --> 01:12:25,290
That was a breakthrough
in the sense of
1214
01:12:25,932 --> 01:12:27,559
public statements about
1215
01:12:27,701 --> 01:12:30,534
feelings, emotions,
attitudes, you know,
1216
01:12:31,071 --> 01:12:32,095
that...
1217
01:12:33,506 --> 01:12:37,465
I wouldn't have wanted
my father or my family to see,
1218
01:12:37,711 --> 01:12:41,078
and that I even
hesitated to make public.
1219
01:12:47,287 --> 01:12:49,312
The poem is misinterpreted as...
1220
01:12:49,656 --> 01:12:51,886
a promotion of homosexuality.
1221
01:12:52,258 --> 01:12:55,352
Actually, it's...
more like a promotion of
1222
01:12:55,495 --> 01:12:58,259
frankness, about any subject.
1223
01:12:59,833 --> 01:13:03,269
If you're a foot fetishist,
you write about feet.
1224
01:13:03,403 --> 01:13:06,133
If you're a stock market freak,
1225
01:13:06,272 --> 01:13:09,833
you can write about
the rising sales curve erections
1226
01:13:09,976 --> 01:13:12,035
of the Standard Oil chart.
1227
01:13:13,546 --> 01:13:16,845
When a few people are...
1228
01:13:16,983 --> 01:13:18,814
frank about
homosexuality in public,
1229
01:13:18,952 --> 01:13:20,283
it breaks the ice.
1230
01:13:21,087 --> 01:13:24,750
Then people are free
to be frank about anything and...
1231
01:13:26,559 --> 01:13:28,618
That's socially useful.
1232
01:13:37,504 --> 01:13:39,529
Homosexuality is a condition,
1233
01:13:40,440 --> 01:13:42,840
and because it alienated me
1234
01:13:42,976 --> 01:13:44,705
or set me apart
from the beginning,
1235
01:13:44,844 --> 01:13:48,974
it served as a catalyst
for self examination,
1236
01:13:49,115 --> 01:13:50,377
or...
1237
01:13:51,217 --> 01:13:54,812
a detailed realization
of my environment and...
1238
01:13:55,588 --> 01:14:00,753
the reasons why
everyone else is different and
1239
01:14:02,862 --> 01:14:04,693
why I am different.
1240
01:14:23,016 --> 01:14:26,577
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
1241
01:14:26,719 --> 01:14:30,177
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
1242
01:14:30,323 --> 01:14:34,157
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
1243
01:14:34,828 --> 01:14:37,160
The world is holy!
1244
01:14:37,630 --> 01:14:39,996
The soul is holy!
1245
01:14:40,133 --> 01:14:41,930
The skin is holy!
1246
01:14:42,302 --> 01:14:44,099
The nose is holy!
1247
01:14:44,571 --> 01:14:48,530
The tongue and cock
and hand and asshole, holy!
1248
01:14:48,675 --> 01:14:50,199
Everything is holy!
1249
01:14:50,443 --> 01:14:52,172
Everybody's holy!
1250
01:14:52,412 --> 01:14:54,073
Everywhere is holy!
1251
01:14:54,314 --> 01:14:56,748
Everyday is an eternity!
1252
01:14:56,883 --> 01:14:58,908
Everyman's an angel!
1253
01:14:59,185 --> 01:15:01,745
The bum's as holy
as the seraphim!
1254
01:15:01,888 --> 01:15:07,622
The madman is holy
as you my soul are holy!
1255
01:15:07,861 --> 01:15:09,351
The typewriter is holy!
1256
01:15:09,496 --> 01:15:11,088
The poem is holy!
1257
01:15:11,231 --> 01:15:12,698
The vole is holy!
1258
01:15:12,832 --> 01:15:14,561
The hearers are holy!
1259
01:15:14,701 --> 01:15:16,931
The ecstasy is holy!
1260
01:15:17,604 --> 01:15:18,696
Holy Peter!
1261
01:15:18,838 --> 01:15:19,862
Holy Allen!
1262
01:15:20,206 --> 01:15:21,104
Holy Solomon!
1263
01:15:21,474 --> 01:15:22,463
Holy Lucien!
1264
01:15:22,876 --> 01:15:24,138
Holy Kerouacl
1265
01:15:24,477 --> 01:15:27,241
Holy Huncke
holy Burroughs holy Cassady!
1266
01:15:28,014 --> 01:15:31,575
Holy the unknown buggered
and suffering beggars!
1267
01:15:31,985 --> 01:15:35,045
Holy the hideous human angels!
1268
01:15:36,422 --> 01:15:39,220
Holy my mother
in the Insane asylum!
1269
01:15:40,360 --> 01:15:44,057
Holy the cocks
of the grandfathers of Kansas!
1270
01:15:45,231 --> 01:15:47,461
Holy the groaning saxophone!
1271
01:15:47,834 --> 01:15:50,166
Holy the bop apocalypse!
1272
01:15:50,703 --> 01:15:54,161
Holy the jazzbands
marljuana hlpsters
1273
01:15:54,307 --> 01:15:56,969
peace and junk and drums!
1274
01:15:57,710 --> 01:15:59,371
Holy time in eternity!
1275
01:15:59,879 --> 01:16:01,676
Holy eternity in time!
1276
01:16:02,382 --> 01:16:04,077
Holy the clocks in space!
1277
01:16:04,717 --> 01:16:06,480
Holy the fourth dimension!
1278
01:16:06,920 --> 01:16:09,320
Holy the Fifth Internationale!
1279
01:16:09,789 --> 01:16:11,950
Holy the Angel in Moloch!
1280
01:16:12,792 --> 01:16:14,123
Holy the seal
1281
01:16:14,460 --> 01:16:15,757
Holy the desert!
1282
01:16:16,462 --> 01:16:19,090
Holy the railroad,
holy the locomotive
1283
01:16:19,465 --> 01:16:20,625
Holy the visions!
1284
01:16:20,767 --> 01:16:22,792
Holy the hallucinations!
1285
01:16:23,336 --> 01:16:24,769
Holy the miracles!
1286
01:16:25,405 --> 01:16:27,100
Holy the eyeball!
1287
01:16:27,240 --> 01:16:28,229
Holy the abyss!
1288
01:16:30,343 --> 01:16:31,503
Holy forgiveness!
1289
01:16:33,279 --> 01:16:34,371
Mercy!
1290
01:16:35,014 --> 01:16:36,242
Charity!
1291
01:16:36,816 --> 01:16:37,908
Faith!
1292
01:16:38,284 --> 01:16:39,046
Holy!
1293
01:16:39,352 --> 01:16:40,410
Ours!
1294
01:16:40,887 --> 01:16:41,945
Bodies!
1295
01:16:42,622 --> 01:16:43,589
Suffering!
1296
01:16:44,357 --> 01:16:45,449
Magnanlmltyl
1297
01:16:46,960 --> 01:16:52,557
Holy the supernatural extra
brilliant intelligent kindness
1298
01:16:52,699 --> 01:16:55,259
of the soul.
1299
01:17:07,614 --> 01:17:12,142
Hey Father Death,
I'm flying home
1300
01:17:12,652 --> 01:17:16,713
Hey, poor man,
you're all alone
1301
01:17:17,123 --> 01:17:22,652
Hey, old daddy,
I know where I'm going.
1302
01:17:22,895 --> 01:17:27,195
Father Death,
don't cry any more.
1303
01:17:27,367 --> 01:17:31,701
Mama's there,
underneath the floor.
1304
01:17:31,838 --> 01:17:36,104
Brother Death,
please mind the store.
1305
01:17:36,242 --> 01:17:40,770
Old Auntie Death,
I hear your groans.
1306
01:17:40,947 --> 01:17:45,441
Old Uncle Death,
I see your bones.
1307
01:17:45,585 --> 01:17:51,080
Oh Sister Death,
how sweet your moan
1308
01:17:51,624 --> 01:17:56,721
Oh Children Death,
go breathe your breaths.
1309
01:17:57,397 --> 01:18:00,833
Sobbing breasts'll ease
your deaths.
1310
01:18:00,967 --> 01:18:06,166
Pain is gone,
tears take the rest.
1311
01:18:06,606 --> 01:18:10,975
Genius Death,
your art is done
1312
01:18:11,110 --> 01:18:14,307
Lover Death,
your body's gone
1313
01:18:14,447 --> 01:18:18,781
Father Death,
I'm coming home
1314
01:18:18,951 --> 01:18:23,388
Guru Death,
your words are true
1315
01:18:23,656 --> 01:18:27,922
Teacher Death,
I do thank you
1316
01:18:28,061 --> 01:18:32,430
For inspiring me
to sing this Blues
1317
01:18:32,565 --> 01:18:35,432
Buddha Death,
I wake with you
1318
01:18:35,568 --> 01:18:38,833
Dharma Death,
your mind is new
1319
01:18:39,405 --> 01:18:42,806
Sangha Death,
we'll work it through
1320
01:18:43,109 --> 01:18:45,737
Suffering is what was born
1321
01:18:46,212 --> 01:18:49,113
Ignorance made me forlorn
1322
01:18:49,749 --> 01:18:54,152
Tearful truths I cannot scorn
1323
01:18:54,320 --> 01:18:58,757
Father Breath,
once more farewell
1324
01:18:59,025 --> 01:19:02,688
Birth you gave
was no thing ill
1325
01:19:03,429 --> 01:19:05,863
My heart is still,
1326
01:19:05,998 --> 01:19:09,365
as time will tell.
1327
01:24:22,181 --> 01:24:24,149
Subtitling: LVT New York
1328
01:24:25,305 --> 01:25:25,887
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