Representative of the sort of mindset present in San Francisco, both of these literary works suggest a distinct and separate ideological perspective that San Francisco holds culturally. Although the two forms of prose and diction are very different, Maxine Hong Kingston's being much more beat infused, they are both very successful at reevaluating San Francisco and it's gentrified yet still racially diverse population.
What Rebecca Solnit is attempting to do with her book Hollow City is depict the urban reality of San Francisco while illustrating the ongoing injustice that has become ingrained in both the institutions and individuals in power throughout the society itself. She accurately describes the police discrimination in terms of their effect upon districts' sense's of community and togetherness. She writes extremely vivid observational prose that values the knowledge and experience of actually wandering throughout the city especially on foot, this activity being part of the reason that most people who appreciate forms of urban beauty travel around so. In such a stroll one might recognize the shifting cultural base of districts such as the Mission, which due to the influx of upper-middle class whites has lost much of it's cultural base to a more modern and trend-founded subculture. By using a series of experiences and interactions throughout the cit as the primary means for making meaningful points about this diverse and complicated society, Solnit takes an original stance on the whole development of the city. Especially poignant in this book is her critical analysis of sites that since being inadvertently tied to one race have become very multicultural such as the black soul churches, and whole districts like the Mission which has become infested with unaffordable condos and towering apartment complexes. Despite the thriving artistic community which may be itself as diverse as the city, cultural clashes result often in discriminatory acts such as the evictions that occur often with illegal immigrants and overcrowded living spaces simply for the cause of inhumane profit.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
San Francisco's Diligent European Influence
In Terms of cultural influence as it has spread from the city of San Francisco, there are innumerable sites throughout the world that have drawn upon the thriving counter-cultural ideals manifested within the city confines. There were many examples brought up by Gray Brechin that of course have monetary, and even physical connections such as Rome, Mexico and even the Philippines, but not as many of belief or thought process. The Essay “Street Subversion” written by Timmothy W. Drescher appropriately focused on the murals and graffiti art present in particular districts especially the Mission, and the relevance of installations like Balmy Street and 24th street (Precita Eyes Muralists) upon the society’s culture, and sense of connectivity. The contada that I feel relates most to Drescher’s postulations on the subconscious role that street artists play in shaping the culture of any given site is France, because of the artistic precursors to the 1968 student protests leading to De Gaulle’s downfall. Although there really hasn’t been such an uprising as that in France, the graffiti throughout San Francisco is reminiscent of revolutionary culture, and in that way can be tied to all European cities whose populations contain that sect of artistic and counter-thinkers. The ideology in San Francisco is reflected in not only its architecture and design, but also in its artistic and poetic output as we have seen through Richard Brautigan and Allen Ginsberg as well as a number of mural arts centers. The overall San Francisco culture displays influence from South America, and many European sites, Italy in particular.
The formulation of the city of San Francisco is the product of input from a vast array of cultures, ideologies and locations throughout the world, adding to it’s dimension, while at the same time predisposing itself to the subjection of gentrification and district embodiment. North Beach is the Little Italy of the Bay Area, San Francisco in particular accepts Italia as a site that can be deemed correlated enough through infrastructure to be a contado of San Francisco. The word contado itself being Italian for county, it could practically lend itself to every county in the Pacific Northwest by the standards of relation that Brechin referred to in the multifaceted text Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin. The unrelentingly distinguishable city by the Bay perhaps should have adopted boroughs like those of New York so as to recognize more thoroughly the locations closer in proximity that hold responsibility for a larger portion of San Francisco’s success like San Mateo County, or even if all the counties with original Missions in them like San Benito and Santa Cruz for instance. One thing that can and most likely will always be attributed to Santa Cruz County is the country residence that Ken Kesey had which was so vividly and intensely described in Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (Wolfe, Tom) . Lest we forget the beautiful and beatific rant poetry of Jack Kerouac without which a more transgressive depiction of SF would never have occurred, and also without which the incredible tales of lives and minds of a generation “...destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,” would have gone much less documented.
With all of the imperious and virtuosic qualities to San Francisco, and the districts most intricately developed tending to attract the more artistic individuals, it could be stated that the distribution of poetry on the parts of Ferlinghetti and Brautigan that took place in such districts of San Francisco (primarily Golden Gate Park & North Beach) drastically romanticized life in the Bay. Of course the San Francisco Bay Area encompasses all of the surrounding cities and counties tied to the Fog city either geographically or socially, there are countless areas outside of this realm that can also be attributed to Brechin’s concept of cantado. New York for example holds within its limits the great Central Park, the likes of which can be seen echoed in the petite grandeur of Golden Gate Park. Despite San Francisco’s brief history in comparison to the great City-States that it pays respect to architecturally, the awareness of that brevity may be what allowed poets like Richard Brautigan to explain the modern significance of these sites as opposed to the intended purpose, mostly monetary influxes from tourism. Even tourism is viewed as cliché in San Francisco, and often strayed from as a primary activity within the City as You Are Here (You Think): A San Francisco Bus Tour describes. By visiting areas more derelict and culturally diverse, the people in the tour group experience a sort of metatourism that transcends the regular confines of a double-decker tour. Almost simultaneously in New York, before the fall of the Twin Towers Timothy “Speed” Levich gave his tour in a away that nobody could possibly experience and forget. When tour groups go through the Mission District in San Francisco and see all of the politically charged murals and their adjoining counter-culture forgetting is just as difficult. The point being that within the context of a city like San Francisco with its rapid development, and constant linkage to ties both international and local are observed in tour groups in a way very similar to the way the same scenes are presented through the poetry in Trout fishing in America as well as San Francisco Poems. Both of which contain imagery of one of the two locations previously discussed, primarily North Beach . While Ferlinghetti mildly depicts the social scenes there in a benign beatific manner, Brautigan more vividly and sharply describes people’s attitudes and reactions to the beat wino lifestyle that existed beneath the shiny reflective surface of San Francisco’s business center. The ties to Italy exist in the depictions of “The Old Italians Dying” as well as the winos so frowned upon by financial commuters, but also they exist fluidly through the shifting mindset and the association that San Franciscans can make between themselves and those outside of this country concerning political stances, ideologies and other essential matters.
1. 1968. Hysterical Realism interwoven with experiences with Hell’s Angels, Jack Kerouac, William Boroughs, the Grateful Dead especially and Bob Dylan.
2. Allen Ginsberg, Howl (City Lights Publications, 1956)
3. Lubell, Bernie. MacCannell, Juliet/Dean. City Lights Books. 1998.
4. Timothy “Speed” Levich eccentric tour guide responsible for numerous documentaries including “The Cruise” (1998) in which he poetically describes New York on a double-decker and with a slight cynical attitude throughout.
5. Brautigan, Richard. “Trout Fishing in America”.1967.
6. Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. “A Report on A Happening in Washington Square, San Francisco”.
7. Felinghetti, Lawerence. "San Francisco Poems"
The formulation of the city of San Francisco is the product of input from a vast array of cultures, ideologies and locations throughout the world, adding to it’s dimension, while at the same time predisposing itself to the subjection of gentrification and district embodiment. North Beach is the Little Italy of the Bay Area, San Francisco in particular accepts Italia as a site that can be deemed correlated enough through infrastructure to be a contado of San Francisco. The word contado itself being Italian for county, it could practically lend itself to every county in the Pacific Northwest by the standards of relation that Brechin referred to in the multifaceted text Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin. The unrelentingly distinguishable city by the Bay perhaps should have adopted boroughs like those of New York so as to recognize more thoroughly the locations closer in proximity that hold responsibility for a larger portion of San Francisco’s success like San Mateo County, or even if all the counties with original Missions in them like San Benito and Santa Cruz for instance. One thing that can and most likely will always be attributed to Santa Cruz County is the country residence that Ken Kesey had which was so vividly and intensely described in Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (Wolfe, Tom) . Lest we forget the beautiful and beatific rant poetry of Jack Kerouac without which a more transgressive depiction of SF would never have occurred, and also without which the incredible tales of lives and minds of a generation “...destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,” would have gone much less documented.
With all of the imperious and virtuosic qualities to San Francisco, and the districts most intricately developed tending to attract the more artistic individuals, it could be stated that the distribution of poetry on the parts of Ferlinghetti and Brautigan that took place in such districts of San Francisco (primarily Golden Gate Park & North Beach) drastically romanticized life in the Bay. Of course the San Francisco Bay Area encompasses all of the surrounding cities and counties tied to the Fog city either geographically or socially, there are countless areas outside of this realm that can also be attributed to Brechin’s concept of cantado. New York for example holds within its limits the great Central Park, the likes of which can be seen echoed in the petite grandeur of Golden Gate Park. Despite San Francisco’s brief history in comparison to the great City-States that it pays respect to architecturally, the awareness of that brevity may be what allowed poets like Richard Brautigan to explain the modern significance of these sites as opposed to the intended purpose, mostly monetary influxes from tourism. Even tourism is viewed as cliché in San Francisco, and often strayed from as a primary activity within the City as You Are Here (You Think): A San Francisco Bus Tour describes. By visiting areas more derelict and culturally diverse, the people in the tour group experience a sort of metatourism that transcends the regular confines of a double-decker tour. Almost simultaneously in New York, before the fall of the Twin Towers Timothy “Speed” Levich gave his tour in a away that nobody could possibly experience and forget. When tour groups go through the Mission District in San Francisco and see all of the politically charged murals and their adjoining counter-culture forgetting is just as difficult. The point being that within the context of a city like San Francisco with its rapid development, and constant linkage to ties both international and local are observed in tour groups in a way very similar to the way the same scenes are presented through the poetry in Trout fishing in America as well as San Francisco Poems. Both of which contain imagery of one of the two locations previously discussed, primarily North Beach . While Ferlinghetti mildly depicts the social scenes there in a benign beatific manner, Brautigan more vividly and sharply describes people’s attitudes and reactions to the beat wino lifestyle that existed beneath the shiny reflective surface of San Francisco’s business center. The ties to Italy exist in the depictions of “The Old Italians Dying” as well as the winos so frowned upon by financial commuters, but also they exist fluidly through the shifting mindset and the association that San Franciscans can make between themselves and those outside of this country concerning political stances, ideologies and other essential matters.
1. 1968. Hysterical Realism interwoven with experiences with Hell’s Angels, Jack Kerouac, William Boroughs, the Grateful Dead especially and Bob Dylan.
2. Allen Ginsberg, Howl (City Lights Publications, 1956)
3. Lubell, Bernie. MacCannell, Juliet/Dean. City Lights Books. 1998.
4. Timothy “Speed” Levich eccentric tour guide responsible for numerous documentaries including “The Cruise” (1998) in which he poetically describes New York on a double-decker and with a slight cynical attitude throughout.
5. Brautigan, Richard. “Trout Fishing in America”.1967.
6. Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. “A Report on A Happening in Washington Square, San Francisco”.
7. Felinghetti, Lawerence. "San Francisco Poems"
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Brautigan's Brilliant Trout Fishing in America Springhill Mining Sugar Pill
Through expressive yet bleak imagery, Richard Brautigan successfully creates a brilliant smear of stories and poems that would seldom be seen anywhere but a San Francisco setting. The inclusion of Washington Square Park throughout the novella as well as its relevance to the cover demonstrates how influential the city’s suffering and beatific atmosphere must have been on his writings. While the flow of the poems throughout the second section of the book is sporadic and consists mostly of sharp imagery and more encompassing allusions such as in the Pill Versus the Springhill Mining Disaster, the interplay of titles with storylines in Trout Fishing in America makes it a very powerful book in relation to beat issues that were going on at that time. For the duration of the poetry section of the novel, absurdity within the prose makes every topic equal in terms of critical analysis, Baudelaire at a Tigers Yankees game smoking Opium or a beautiful woman’s body described like a trout fishing scene. His unpredictable choice of theme and setting allows for a broken, yet altogether progressive set of short stories that all in some way relate to the ridiculous idea of fishing for trout in America.
The way that Brautigan brings his poems together in some sort of meaningful way is through recurring characters such as Baudelaire and themes like San Francisco winos, which serve as the base of many poems in the Pill Versus. There are many abstract elements to his writing, and his inclusion of random characters or settings is astute enough to create a confused picture for the reader of his poetry. The way certain anachronistic images are put together, then beautifully decorated with late 60’s drug references and sex and entertainment culture is indicative of his time spent in North Beach, as well as throughout San Francisco. His form of expression seems very malleable, and exposure to a lot of the things San Francisco presents itself with seemed to make some waves in his cryptic fantasy-laden prose. From the glorification of winos resting on top of landmark hills, to Trout Fishing in America Shorty first hitting the scene in North Beach, Brautigan clearly illustrates his interest and love for the city by the Bay through multidimensional and recurring characters and settings. Washington Square Park is mentioned innumerable amounts throughout, even despite when it is being discussed as the setting of the cover picture, it is vividly included in the flow of wino stumbling stories as a crucial epicenter for old Italian wash ups. His controversial and offensive approach to poetry may hit some soft spots, but it is a necessary sacrifice for the overall good that sensitive subjects, when exploited, can do for the reader. It seems that the point behind creating
Trout Fishing in America brings about larger themes and issues because of the sheer length of the individual stories, not to mention the satirical dark humor present throughout the whole thing. Spastic and randomized humor is another quality to this book that may be a major factor in its popularity seeing as how many shows nowadays on network Television aim at random references and characters for their comical value. I laughed the hardest at some of the seemingly least humorous poems like Education, which quickly clips together images of a woman’s children as hornets in a mud nest with a Great Sparrow father dragging a red wagon between them. The hornet simile would never have made such a comical impact unless there were five hundred children that knew nothing but the red wagon and the Great Sparrow. This is a pretty unique example, but many things that were throw in as random pictures such as “The Mayor of The Twentieth Century” who dresses literally like an image of Trout Fishing in America as a disguise also held some of the most laughable aspects of the book itself. In essence, the fact that much of the writing within is a sort of glorious mocking of how the title of the book would relate to the content is successful in many ways. The reader focuses more on the diversity of content than its relationship to the title, which is why Brautigan indefinitely creates a critical, yet beautiful take on literature and poetry. Although he mocks the relevance in the title to the book itself, the poem titles intertwine in amazing ways to create a flow within the second section of the novel. . His style is advanced for its time, and poems such as (All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace) clearly demonstrate how forward thinking his content is. The larger issues present themselves in many of Brautigan’s poems, and even the abstract imagery helps throughout the ones mentioned.
In summation the politics of San Francisco culture is what Brautigan does best through the repeated use of characters like Baudelaire and Trout Fishing in America Shorty as well as amazingly vivid diction. Everything about the themes and their transitions, the metaphoric imagery and continuous references to San Francisco impose upon the reader a certain mindset that I’m sure isn’t always readily accepted. It is very educational as a transgressor of boundaries whether societal or literary, and sometimes it is necessary for there to be some original discomfort for the entire prose is gained from. Upon rereading I found many poems to contain relevancies not originally recognized, and noticed the amount that Washington Square Park is mentioned in particular as well as North Beach as the district and grounds for “old Italian” interactions. Eventually Brautigan fully established his role as a critical San Francisco writer, and Pacific Northwest thinker.
The way that Brautigan brings his poems together in some sort of meaningful way is through recurring characters such as Baudelaire and themes like San Francisco winos, which serve as the base of many poems in the Pill Versus. There are many abstract elements to his writing, and his inclusion of random characters or settings is astute enough to create a confused picture for the reader of his poetry. The way certain anachronistic images are put together, then beautifully decorated with late 60’s drug references and sex and entertainment culture is indicative of his time spent in North Beach, as well as throughout San Francisco. His form of expression seems very malleable, and exposure to a lot of the things San Francisco presents itself with seemed to make some waves in his cryptic fantasy-laden prose. From the glorification of winos resting on top of landmark hills, to Trout Fishing in America Shorty first hitting the scene in North Beach, Brautigan clearly illustrates his interest and love for the city by the Bay through multidimensional and recurring characters and settings. Washington Square Park is mentioned innumerable amounts throughout, even despite when it is being discussed as the setting of the cover picture, it is vividly included in the flow of wino stumbling stories as a crucial epicenter for old Italian wash ups. His controversial and offensive approach to poetry may hit some soft spots, but it is a necessary sacrifice for the overall good that sensitive subjects, when exploited, can do for the reader. It seems that the point behind creating
Trout Fishing in America brings about larger themes and issues because of the sheer length of the individual stories, not to mention the satirical dark humor present throughout the whole thing. Spastic and randomized humor is another quality to this book that may be a major factor in its popularity seeing as how many shows nowadays on network Television aim at random references and characters for their comical value. I laughed the hardest at some of the seemingly least humorous poems like Education, which quickly clips together images of a woman’s children as hornets in a mud nest with a Great Sparrow father dragging a red wagon between them. The hornet simile would never have made such a comical impact unless there were five hundred children that knew nothing but the red wagon and the Great Sparrow. This is a pretty unique example, but many things that were throw in as random pictures such as “The Mayor of The Twentieth Century” who dresses literally like an image of Trout Fishing in America as a disguise also held some of the most laughable aspects of the book itself. In essence, the fact that much of the writing within is a sort of glorious mocking of how the title of the book would relate to the content is successful in many ways. The reader focuses more on the diversity of content than its relationship to the title, which is why Brautigan indefinitely creates a critical, yet beautiful take on literature and poetry. Although he mocks the relevance in the title to the book itself, the poem titles intertwine in amazing ways to create a flow within the second section of the novel. . His style is advanced for its time, and poems such as (All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace) clearly demonstrate how forward thinking his content is. The larger issues present themselves in many of Brautigan’s poems, and even the abstract imagery helps throughout the ones mentioned.
In summation the politics of San Francisco culture is what Brautigan does best through the repeated use of characters like Baudelaire and Trout Fishing in America Shorty as well as amazingly vivid diction. Everything about the themes and their transitions, the metaphoric imagery and continuous references to San Francisco impose upon the reader a certain mindset that I’m sure isn’t always readily accepted. It is very educational as a transgressor of boundaries whether societal or literary, and sometimes it is necessary for there to be some original discomfort for the entire prose is gained from. Upon rereading I found many poems to contain relevancies not originally recognized, and noticed the amount that Washington Square Park is mentioned in particular as well as North Beach as the district and grounds for “old Italian” interactions. Eventually Brautigan fully established his role as a critical San Francisco writer, and Pacific Northwest thinker.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
In the novella San Francisco Poems by Ferlinghetti, I found that most of his works, while fondly reminiscent in nature, do in fact focus on political and social issues such as class separation and the cultural partitioning in terms of districts. Golden Gate Park in particular certainly carries with it some sort of cultural baggage especially with the state it is in today in comparison to the sixties and seventies. Ferlinghetti's poems span over a long enough period of time to have a more encompassed perception of San Francisco's drastic social changes. Although he tended to focus on North Beach more than any other district, the slow digression of San Fransisco's revolutionary culture is apparent in many works like the Poetic City That Was, or the Artist in which Ferlinghetti clearly recognizes the routines that destroyed so many artistic minds. Materialism for example as it is in relation to the work Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes is a more obvious yet still detrimental aspect of modern thought that has definitely played a role in the lack of artistic recognition.
The reason that I enjoy the poems Dog and A North Beach Scene so thoroughly is because of how much referential imagery there is throughout both. If Ferlinghetti isn't painting a picture of Washington Square Park in North Beach, then he is connecting the character's perception to some record label icon like that of Victor Records. By focusing on the homeless population in the city, he again relates his prose to the disintegrating subculture in San Francisco, and how it's artistic base has transformed into one of sloth, decay, and addiction. This is not in every case of course, but in that way Ferlinghetti and Brautigan share many characteristics, not to mention their similar interest in the Italian district in San Francisco and Washington Square Park in particular. Wherever Ferlinghetti would be blunt and straightforward with his imagery, Brautigan would weigh the same images down with intense metaphors to trout fishing scenes and drunken winos stumbling into districts for sex. The statue in Washington Square is an example of an object relevant in both artist's work.
The reason that I enjoy the poems Dog and A North Beach Scene so thoroughly is because of how much referential imagery there is throughout both. If Ferlinghetti isn't painting a picture of Washington Square Park in North Beach, then he is connecting the character's perception to some record label icon like that of Victor Records. By focusing on the homeless population in the city, he again relates his prose to the disintegrating subculture in San Francisco, and how it's artistic base has transformed into one of sloth, decay, and addiction. This is not in every case of course, but in that way Ferlinghetti and Brautigan share many characteristics, not to mention their similar interest in the Italian district in San Francisco and Washington Square Park in particular. Wherever Ferlinghetti would be blunt and straightforward with his imagery, Brautigan would weigh the same images down with intense metaphors to trout fishing scenes and drunken winos stumbling into districts for sex. The statue in Washington Square is an example of an object relevant in both artist's work.
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