Beats 4

0:01so caroak and

0:04Ginsburg took these countercultural

0:06values that the Beats believed in and

0:10ingrained them into some of their most

0:11well-known

0:13Imports herak for instance you might

0:15remember was a workingclass guy from LOL

0:17who wanted to have Big Adventures and

0:20write about them so the book He's

0:22probably best known for is called on the

0:24road published in

0:261955 it's really based on some Diaries

0:29he kept in the mid and late

0:321940s he was uh living in New Jersey

0:35with an aunt riding working ond jobs and

0:40he uh takes off with a friend of his to

0:42go on a cross country trip they they

0:45drive for a while um they ditch their

0:48car they end up hitchhiking and

0:50hoboing and along the way they they um

0:55steal from people they crash in people's

0:57houses they spend a lot of time getting

0:59Dr drunk and Rowdy they spend time you

1:03know getting high in San Francisco

1:05there's there's a lot of sex in the book

1:08it's kind of a a

1:10celebration of caroak trying to figure

1:13out who he really is and what he wants

1:16to feel in life it's his quest for an

1:18authentic life that kind of

1:20romanticized working class life as more

1:23liberated than middle class life uh you

1:26know a big part of the book revolved

1:28around the idea that kowak could just

1:31get up and and leave and go have these

1:33adventures and experiences and meet

1:35these people because he didn't have a

1:37wife and kids because he didn't have a

1:39nine-to-five job because he didn't have

1:42have a

1:43mortgage um on the road is it's one of

1:46those books that you probably if you've

1:47never read it you should read it you

1:49should probably read it a couple of

1:50times in your life you know I I read it

1:53at like 18 or so maybe senior year of

1:56high school and I thought it was cool

1:58like I loved kowak I wanted to be like

2:00kowak I wanted to go have Big Adventures

2:02and see parts of the country I had seen

2:05and and just party and have a good time

2:08and about 10 or 15 years later I

2:11actually assigned it in a class and we

2:13read it and I thought carak was just the

2:16biggest jerk in the world um because he

2:19took advantage of people on on the road

2:21he he kind of you know mooched off this

2:24poor Aunt and then stole her car to

2:26start this road trip and just never

2:28apologized for to return the car and you

2:31know somewhere in that 15 years I guess

2:34you know I became somebody who didn't

2:36necessarily romanticize the adventure

2:37and I began seeing it more as you know

2:40an adult with a mortgage would see it um

2:43so it's I I think even having said that

2:46that's important because you know what

2:48kowag did was write a book that can mean

2:51different things to different people at

2:53different points of their lives and I

2:55think that's important I think that's

2:56that's a sign of of good writing is when

2:58it can be understood in multiple ways

3:00and help the reader understand who they

3:02are at that point in their life uh so

3:05you again kowak book on the road

3:07important piece of of literature during

3:11the post-war period um important book

3:14that really expressed the Beat

3:16Generation his buddy Ginsburg uh

3:19probably most famous for a poem he wrote

3:21called how comes out in

3:231955 how's what we call like an epic

3:26poem it it takes almost an hour to read

3:29out loud

3:30um so we're not definitely not going to

3:32be be listening to that but I have put a

3:35a URL down here to a a version of

3:38Ginsburg reading it out loud and the the

3:42link for that's in the module so you can

3:44go listen to some of it if you want or

3:46listen to all of it if you want to try

3:48and try and get through it um ginsburg's

3:51poem which he again he read out loud on

3:54a regular basis like the point was he

3:56wrote this poem and then he went around

3:58giving poetry readings that's how he

4:00tried to like spread the ideas that how

4:03was represented him you know one of the

4:06most famous lines I I've printed here

4:08where he says you know I saw the best

4:10minds of my generation destroyed by

4:12Madness starving hysterical naked

4:14dragging themselves through the Negro

4:16streets at dawn looking for an angry fix

4:18and what he's writing about is this

4:20group of guys he knew at Colombia back

4:23in the 4S saying you know we were people

4:26who were smart but we had been trained

4:29to be conf formist our our minds had

4:31been destroyed and now we were driven

4:34into this like hysteria of

4:36like going out into New York City and

4:39living these experiences trying to

4:41figure out who we really are and being

4:44angry about you know having been fooled

4:47for so long into some kind of

4:49normality um the poem was

4:53electrifying uh it was outrageous in the

4:571950s it depicted both

5:00heterosexual and homosexual sex at a

5:03time when Most states in the country had

5:07sodomy laws making homosexuality illegal

5:11um how reflected ginsburg's own

5:14homosexuality in his relationships with

5:17a number of men that he depicted as

5:19passionately free um it attracted

5:23widespread publicity in 1957 when it

5:26became the subject of an obscenity trial

5:30um again he he read this poem out loud

5:32at poetry readings so he reads it in San

5:35Francisco and gets arrested for breaking

5:40obscenity laws you know there were laws

5:42in most American cities saying you

5:45couldn't perform vulgar poetry re sing

5:49vulgar songs put on vulgar plays or

5:51display vulgar art so the idea is not

5:54just exactly what it depicted but like

5:57it shouldn't just be art that

6:00shocks people to shock people like

6:02there's this perception that art should

6:04be sort of elevating and what Ginsburg

6:07is doing is saying I can Elevate people

6:10but I can do it in ways that using

6:13subjects that you might find offensive

6:15and if you find it offensive like that's

6:17the problem like I should have the

6:19freedom to do the artist's work using

6:21whatever tools I have at my disposal so

6:26a San Francisco prosecutor argued that

6:29it was filthy vulgar obscene and

6:31disgusting

6:32language um eventually a a federal court

6:36judge dismissed the case uh and said

6:39look you know the poem's gross it talks

6:43about stuff it shouldn't talk about but

6:46you know if we start arresting people

6:47for vulgarity and limiting Free Speech

6:50then we're really taking a step too far

6:54like we're going to become too much like

6:56the Soviet Union in reducing freedoms if

6:59if we arrest people for artistic

7:03Expressions that we find offensive and

7:06Define as as vulgar so ginsburg's poem

7:09was important because it really forced a

7:12lot of people to confront ideas they

7:15didn't want to confront one of the most

7:17important being the freedom of speech

7:20and he even though poem wasn't

7:22necessarily seen as a great poem serious

7:25literary people gave Ginsburg his props

7:28for forcing this issue

7:30in saying that artists needed to have

7:33the freedom to do the things they wanted

7:35to do