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U-M AMCULT 208 - Continuing the Beats
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Amcult 208 1st Edition Lecture 10Outline of Last Lecture I. Who Were the Beats Part IIOutline of Current Lecture II. The Kammerer FiascoIII. Buddhist TeachingsIV. HowlCurrent LectureThe Kammerer Fiasco- August 14th, 1944: Lucien Carr stabs David Kammerer, to death. Kerouac and Burroughs are arrested as materiel witnesses.o Jack helped Carr destroy the murder weapon and in order to be bailed out of jail by Ed Parker, agrees to marry her and move to Grosse Pointe1945: Neal Cassady marries 15 year oldLuAnne Henderson- Ginsberg is suspended from Columbia for one year for writing crude things in dust on hiswindowsill. He moves in with Joan Volmer.o Have many latenight discussions about literature, the room becomes a sort of salon.- William Burroughs gets Huncke stuck on morphine and bad other drugs.- Allen joins the Merchant Marines. He graduates from training and experiments with marijuana and homosexual experience with some Puerto Rican sailors1946: Kerouac’s father is dying and Jack starts writing his first novel “The Town and the City”- The “scene” temporarily splits:o Burroughs is sent back to St. Louiso Ginsberg is in Merchant Marineso Kerouac is at his family homeo Vollmer suffers from delusions as a result of speed and morphine- Kerouac and Neal Cassady meet at Columbia. - Burroughs gets Joan out of the Bellevue Hospital and they conceive a child and decide to marry and move to Mexico to raise marijuana.These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.1947: Neal Cassady is having an affair with Allen, LuAnne and Caroline Robinson who is his girlfriend.- Neal leaves LuAnne, he and Ginsberg decide to go to Mexico to grow weed.o They screw up the harvesting and the entire crop is lost.- Mildred Brady in Harper’s magazine writes the first real article about the Beatso She tapped into the real essence of what the beats were trying to be about These newcomers are a different crowd Different than the lost generation because it is “decidedly unlike young bohemia to turn hermit or to take it upon itself the disciplined demands of self sufficiency” Their poetry readings are solemn occasions Poetry transcends logic and invades the realm where unreason reigns and where relations between ideas are sympathetic and mysterious Their lifestyle is a combination of anarchism and certain concepts related to psychoanalysis which yield together a philosophy in which one mist- Abandon the church, state and family- Offer sex as a source of individual salvation in a collective world that is going to hell1948: The “William Blake Vision” experience; influences Allen for the rest of his life, performs William Blake poems before reading his own poetry, intense spiritual experience- Holmes writes the first book about the beats “Go”- Neal gets an annulment from LuAnne and marries Caroline1949: Marriage, the Road and the Bughouseo Kerouac and Cassady set off in a ’49 Hudson on the cross-country trip on which “On the Road” is largely basedo Reflects the reconstructive time of America after WWIIo Kerouac’s first novel “the Town and the City” is accepted by Harcourt, Brace and he is given an advance of $1,000o They cut it down from 2,000 pages to like 300o Uses the term “beat generation” for the first time in a conversation with John Clellon Holmes As time passes, jack changes the meaning of “beat”o Joan and Burroughs move to Mexico City, Burroughs writes “Junkie”o Allen Ginsberg meets GergoryCorso, Kerouac marries Joan Haverty, Neal marriesDiane Hansen while married to Caroline1951: Burroughs goes to Ecuador to search for yage, a powerful psychedelic drugo He shoots Joan in the forehead while trying to shoot an apple off her head, he serves for 13 days and is released, “But I really thought I could do it.”- Kerouac arrives to stay with the Cassadys and has an affair with Carolyn Cassady, Ginsberg first tries peyote, Kerouac writes his novel “Dr. Sax” while smoking weed in Burroughs’s bathroom- Holmes publishes “This is the Beat Generation” in the New York TimesThis is the Beat Generation- First article written by an insidero This really is a beat generationo This generation is not “lost” because they are not as naive as the lost generation: they take destruction of life and morals frighteningly for granted.o To them, “how” to live is much more important that “why.” Living rather than existing = how to live What the hipster is looking for in his coolness (withdrawal) or flipness (ecstasy) is a feeling of “somewhereness”1953: Ferlenghetti opens City Lights- America’s first paperback bookstore in San FranciscoBuddhist teachings would become seminal to Kerouac and among its tenets were the especially important three main ideas1. Impermanencea. You can trace anything you were ever upset to an attachment to somethingb. Everything is impermanent2. There is no creator or savior…you have to save yourself3. The way of the Bodhisattva: peace, love, patience, generositya. Helps him get rid of his Catholic guilt“Howl” reading ay Six Gallery October 13, 1955- Single event that catapults the Beats into the


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