America: not about the “real” but the Ideal of America—the possibility—equal daughters equal sons—true of the 1890s

Cosmic ideal/truly democratic/the idea of America—positive virtues we need to live up to—call to action/transformation

Freedom, Law and Love—three cardinal virtues for America to grow/develop (diff. than life, liberty and –pursuit of happiness—Whitman eschews/parts from the rationalist self-directed pov of the Enlightenment (Jefferson et al)

America as great mother in stone of Time—how does this differ as portrait of America?  Lady Liberty becomes the Great Mother, Goddess, Creator

Ginsberg sees poet as performer, prophet, seer, shaman, oral, writing spontaneously (we don’t need to go back and work over a poem), poet is like a jazz artist, improviser, rhythm not rhyme, sense of revealing the mind in the act of consciousness itself

Overpowering consciousness (“on the back of the fish truck that loads while my conscious explodes”)—he pushes you to brink of ordinary consciousness

“neon fruit supermarket” juxtaposition   (“Howl” – “hydrogen jukebox”—how music is blowing apart old world)

Lorca—gay poet killed during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s (republican vs fascist)

“Never passing the cashier”—all in the imagination (outside capitalist system that is killed American mother)

“absurd”—crazy, unbelievable, out of the ordinary  Existential movement—which says that the ordinary condition of “awake” humanity is a sense of the absurd which we cannot escape

In the face of absurdity, the only meaning you can get is through your own imagination/values/experience

Walt’s final glimpse of America from banks of Lethe?  Not all it’s cracked up to be.  Especially if you’re gay.  Immigrants—what’s their lot?  Façade like neon.  Half-assed dream.

“Strong, capable, fair, enduring, rich”—does America live up to Whitman’s words?

“Subterranean Homesick Blues” 

Subterranean-underground

Man in trench-coat—corrupt—bad cough—needs drugs

Look out, kid—sense of absurd, paranoia, guilt

Man in coon-skin cap in pig pen—shark, dealer, American past (Davy Crockett) absurd image

Maggie—bugs, taps, paranoia, government out to get you (not Freedom)

Plain clothes—cops, but also ordinary people—estranged from the regular American life

“You don't need a weather man/To know which way the wind blows”—your experience is a better guide than some external abstract uniform model  (Existential model)

Not a lot freedom for development (join the army if you fail)

Don't follow leaders/Watch the parkin' meters (Ginsberg-like juxtaposition)  put money in ‘em (just like politicians)—you only have so much time on the meter, so don’t waste it on superficial politics—focus on real not on false political hopes, watch where the money’s really going

Success?  Suck-cess success in traditional system sucks and also involves “sucking up”  not authentic success

Jump down manhole—go back to subterranean underground (go off the grid)—pump don’t work cause the vandals took the handle?  Meaningless chaos—destruction—that’s the upper world   if I can’t have it you can’t have it (American Dream)

Whitman’s America long gone

“All Along the Watch Tower”

Jimi Hendrix version: Joker and Thief (outside upper ground culture—subterraneans); businessmen/plowmen—exploiters—don’t know true value of things

Disintegration of society—wildcat and riders approach and wind howl—guitars  displacement