While they aren’t dealing with identical thematic choices, the renditions of San Francisco in Tripmaster Monkey and Hollow City actually enjoy a very convenient interaction, in that one serves as a passable microcosm or exemplum of the other. Hollow City establishes a general world, and the problems that plague it, while Tripmaster Monkey supplies a specific character, struggling under the limitations of the world Hollow City has displayed.
If there’s one thing Hollow City condemns, it’s the cost of living in San Francisco. I’m sure there is any number of factors that led to the ridiculously disproportionate cost of living in the City; Hollow City suggests technology money. That is, people that went into tech fields and came out sickeningly well paid and began to idolize and romanticize San Francisco’s urban spaces may be the cause. The sheer funding they can direct toward living in The City would drive up costs anywhere, if such large numbers were to converge at once as they did. Not to say there is anything wrong with the tech industry or its employees, but the economic transformation that they have saddled San Francisco with endangers the artistic, beat, and counter-cultural identity that it historically championed. Quite simply, it’s pretty impossible for an artist to live in The City at today’s rent prices.
It is on that note that Tripmaster Monkey gladly provides an example of the conflict Hollow City broaches. The work’s character is exactly what Hollow City’s San Francisco can no longer support, and the character is shown appropriately suffering for it. Tripmaster Monkey represents a specific story of a character that simply cannot survive in the for-the-rich-only world that The City has become.
So, while these works may not obviously match on the surface, there is plenty to be reconciled between their depictions of San Francisco.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Silicon Francisco
Ask anyone about what we have on the West Coast and you’ll get a long list of things, but high on the list you’ll see technology. We’re known for being technologically advanced here, even beyond other urban locations like the East. The more specific you go, the closer you get to San Francisco. But why does The City have such a reputation for tech? We’ve discussed and read about how the imperial metropolis absorbs and claims responsibility for the accomplishments that surround it. In this case, the obvious reason is that the Silicon Valley, which contains ten of the oft considered top twenty most inventive cities in the world, is a wholly controlled member of the San Francisco Contado.
The connections between San Francisco and Silicon Valley are numerous. In fact, the magazine that originally published and popularized the term “Silicon Valley,” did so from its San Francisco office. The two locations are intertwined in economic history, as many of the major companies there were funded by San Francisco entrepreneurs. Anyone who’s ever been to the Metreon can tell you that it’s a center for technological entertainment, and while it was created by Sony, it sports many of the advancements either directly created or made possible by the innovators in the valley. As a center of gaming culture alone, it is a celebration of concepts like the GUI and, obviously, microchip tech that were created in Silicon Valley. It’s kind of the closest thing to an honorary museum the Valley has, yet it’s located in the depths of the Valley’s geographic emperor, San Francisco. Speaking of geography, Silicon Valley’s northern most city is considered to be San Mateo, which, on a macro level, runs almost right up to the City. San Francisco not only claims Silicon Valley, it borders it.
In addition to The City claiming spoils, it also provides the Valley with workers. Huge numbers of Silicon Valley employees live in San Francisco. It could be said, in fact, that the city takes on an interesting thematic interaction with Silicon Valley in this way, becoming the urban, residential, liberal, entertaining yin to the Valley’s conservative, work-based, no-nonsense yang. While The City is a place to go out to parties, have a fancy meal, or go to a park, Silicon Valley is a place to work; a center of capitalism under the shadow of a leftist heaven. It is for these qualities that people use these two separate worlds, and thus the two locations become reactions to each other. In what way could they be more linked?
Beyond all the hard evidence, though, the most important way in which the Valley earns its place in the Contado is the simple feel of it. San Francisco feels like a place where technology thrives. If you don’t know what I mean, stop by the Apple Store on Stockton. That technology comes from the Silicon Valley. That’s all there is to it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley
Jumping off point or not, this has to be mentioned as a great source of information about the history and identity of the Silicon Valley.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115352188346314087.html
An interesting article about the spirit of invention in recent history, this piece contributes to the “feel” of tech that I discussed above, as well as supplying the list of the top twenty most inventive cities.
http://www.siliconvalleyonline.org/cities.html#santacruz
This website supplies a canonical idea of the geography of the Valley, both specifying which cities belong, and communicating the proximity to San Francisco.
http://westfield.com/metreon/
Information can be found here on the sort of, to continue the museum metaphor broached above, exhibits the Metreon contains. It’s easy to trace these things back to the Valley.
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/sfghetto
The most interesting linking piece I found on this subject, this blog entry discusses the mutual reliance these two locations have on each other due their opposing human identities.
The connections between San Francisco and Silicon Valley are numerous. In fact, the magazine that originally published and popularized the term “Silicon Valley,” did so from its San Francisco office. The two locations are intertwined in economic history, as many of the major companies there were funded by San Francisco entrepreneurs. Anyone who’s ever been to the Metreon can tell you that it’s a center for technological entertainment, and while it was created by Sony, it sports many of the advancements either directly created or made possible by the innovators in the valley. As a center of gaming culture alone, it is a celebration of concepts like the GUI and, obviously, microchip tech that were created in Silicon Valley. It’s kind of the closest thing to an honorary museum the Valley has, yet it’s located in the depths of the Valley’s geographic emperor, San Francisco. Speaking of geography, Silicon Valley’s northern most city is considered to be San Mateo, which, on a macro level, runs almost right up to the City. San Francisco not only claims Silicon Valley, it borders it.
In addition to The City claiming spoils, it also provides the Valley with workers. Huge numbers of Silicon Valley employees live in San Francisco. It could be said, in fact, that the city takes on an interesting thematic interaction with Silicon Valley in this way, becoming the urban, residential, liberal, entertaining yin to the Valley’s conservative, work-based, no-nonsense yang. While The City is a place to go out to parties, have a fancy meal, or go to a park, Silicon Valley is a place to work; a center of capitalism under the shadow of a leftist heaven. It is for these qualities that people use these two separate worlds, and thus the two locations become reactions to each other. In what way could they be more linked?
Beyond all the hard evidence, though, the most important way in which the Valley earns its place in the Contado is the simple feel of it. San Francisco feels like a place where technology thrives. If you don’t know what I mean, stop by the Apple Store on Stockton. That technology comes from the Silicon Valley. That’s all there is to it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley
Jumping off point or not, this has to be mentioned as a great source of information about the history and identity of the Silicon Valley.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115352188346314087.html
An interesting article about the spirit of invention in recent history, this piece contributes to the “feel” of tech that I discussed above, as well as supplying the list of the top twenty most inventive cities.
http://www.siliconvalleyonline.org/cities.html#santacruz
This website supplies a canonical idea of the geography of the Valley, both specifying which cities belong, and communicating the proximity to San Francisco.
http://westfield.com/metreon/
Information can be found here on the sort of, to continue the museum metaphor broached above, exhibits the Metreon contains. It’s easy to trace these things back to the Valley.
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/sfghetto
The most interesting linking piece I found on this subject, this blog entry discusses the mutual reliance these two locations have on each other due their opposing human identities.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Playing Moloch’s Advocate
There is a fairly accepted theory of literary analysis that it is possible for a text to have a thematic effect apart from the goals of its creator. Hermeneutics aside, authorial intent cannot feasibly be fully reconstructed in most cases, because the interpreter doesn’t possess a totality of knowledge concerning the author. It’s with this in mind that I’ll start this by making a stand about Part I that runs in direct opposition to what Ginsberg likely intended, before I discuss the other parts. Part I was pretty clearly meant to celebrate “The best minds of [Ginsberg’s] generation” as being the dissidents and rebels that the conservative elements of his society labeled as the worst. I think that the text read a different way can completely contradict that. To elaborate, this section of Howl seems to me to be dripping with an odd irony or sarcasm. Amidst Ginsberg’s celebration of all things counter-culture, he makes frequent reference to his great minds’ depravations (a fact that the cynic in me insists is included simply to make this thing edgy, but that my rational side insures me is deeper). That’s not what I’m talking about. But when I read lines referring to these characters like, “Who studied…bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,” I can’t help but sense a wave of accusation from the text. For lack of a better term, these characters seem like poseurs. They come from Kansas because they felt an arrogant centrality and gathered to The City to have that feeling pandered to by philosophies and by the people with the talent, by Ginsberg and so forth. No lack of drug references in this part of the poem further suggests that this feeling is drug induced, not genuine. I’ll counter the response that this generation celebrated drug use as enlightening rather than debilitating by saying that I realize that this interpretation views the poem through a modern lens and I’ll ask: why shouldn’t it be viewed that way?
Of course, this interpretation suffers when the poetic ambiguity of Part I is clarified (or castrated) by the Footnote. I can’t find any way to interpret Ginsberg’s cacophonic “Holy’s” as anything but worship of his companions and himself. That fact actually makes me wonder whether the sections inclusion is partly intended to ensure that those misinterpreting Part I, where things are less explicit, are set straight (or to destroy the possibility of the very interpretation I’m positing). The popular wisdom suggests that the footnote answers Part II, and admittedly, the parallelism is pretty obvious, but I think that it interacts with Part I as well. Its list, “Holy Kerouac holy Huncke Holy Burroughs Holy Cassady,” and so on is clearly exonerating the same people that are called best minds. Still, the sectionalism itself could be viewed as a thematic suggestion of viewing. Why are these things broken into sections, and why is the footnote separate (excluding the obvious literal reason of it being written later, I’m talking purely about theme here). Why is the footnote so far from Part I, where the interpretation it needs to debunk can be formed? If you come to the footnote with the cynical sense of irony that the interpretation I’m taking about breeds, even the Footnote itself can seem ironic. Like a sad little mockery of the “Holy” philosophies, those ones that above caused the poseur to continue his charade. That interpretation wouldn’t be possible if these texts weren’t sectioned off and presented in precisely the order they are.
If this darker interpretation is accepted, than these two parts become a condemnation of a false enlightenment, an accusation against the untruth of the whole movement. Coupled with Part II, which essentially attacks everything else, the whole piece becomes somewhat nihilistic. I don’t know if that’s in tone for a Beat poet, but I don’t think it is.
Of course, this interpretation suffers when the poetic ambiguity of Part I is clarified (or castrated) by the Footnote. I can’t find any way to interpret Ginsberg’s cacophonic “Holy’s” as anything but worship of his companions and himself. That fact actually makes me wonder whether the sections inclusion is partly intended to ensure that those misinterpreting Part I, where things are less explicit, are set straight (or to destroy the possibility of the very interpretation I’m positing). The popular wisdom suggests that the footnote answers Part II, and admittedly, the parallelism is pretty obvious, but I think that it interacts with Part I as well. Its list, “Holy Kerouac holy Huncke Holy Burroughs Holy Cassady,” and so on is clearly exonerating the same people that are called best minds. Still, the sectionalism itself could be viewed as a thematic suggestion of viewing. Why are these things broken into sections, and why is the footnote separate (excluding the obvious literal reason of it being written later, I’m talking purely about theme here). Why is the footnote so far from Part I, where the interpretation it needs to debunk can be formed? If you come to the footnote with the cynical sense of irony that the interpretation I’m taking about breeds, even the Footnote itself can seem ironic. Like a sad little mockery of the “Holy” philosophies, those ones that above caused the poseur to continue his charade. That interpretation wouldn’t be possible if these texts weren’t sectioned off and presented in precisely the order they are.
If this darker interpretation is accepted, than these two parts become a condemnation of a false enlightenment, an accusation against the untruth of the whole movement. Coupled with Part II, which essentially attacks everything else, the whole piece becomes somewhat nihilistic. I don’t know if that’s in tone for a Beat poet, but I don’t think it is.
Ferlinghetti on San Francisco
It’s so easy, with the jaded attitudes of the modern day, to write off some of the things that Ferlinghetti says about San Francisco (in his essays, but sub-textually in some of his poems) as a sort of naiveté. Not the ignorance of youth or lack of experience, but the naiveté of someone who has seen a great time and thinks that it is possible for such a time to exist again. His railing against automobiles and tourism for instance; it’s hard for someone who never witnessed what I guess could be called the beat age to imagine the City like that, and even harder to imagine it ever being like that again. It’s in that vein then that I’ll say what the most profound effect of Ferlinghetti’s poetry was on me. It was the way it represented the city with such light as to banish, if even just for a moment, those thoughts and inspire a vision of San Francisco not as a place with a frighteningly bad ratio of income to living cost, but as, well, his “far-out city on the left side of the world.”
Without going into too much detail on any particular work, I think there is one major accomplishment throughout all these poems that helps to bring them home. You could call it accessibility, but I want to risk disagreement and call it simplicity. One could argue that these poems are anything but simple, and I wouldn’t say they’re not thematically complex, but the colloquial dressings of language that they employ I think represent a literal, textural resistance against the cars and tourism, against postmodern convolutedness. And yet, within what would seem to be the limitation of his simple language, the words themselves are beautiful. A North Beach Scene, which is my favorite poem in this compilation, is dripping with imagery of aesthetic loveliness, yet its artistry is still found in simplicity. I can only describe it as elegance.
If there is one way these poems describe San Francisco, it is with hope. They suggest that there is still hope for the City to go back to the way Ferlinghetti clearly remembers it. Even if they weren’t also great poems, that would be enough to justify their writing.
Without going into too much detail on any particular work, I think there is one major accomplishment throughout all these poems that helps to bring them home. You could call it accessibility, but I want to risk disagreement and call it simplicity. One could argue that these poems are anything but simple, and I wouldn’t say they’re not thematically complex, but the colloquial dressings of language that they employ I think represent a literal, textural resistance against the cars and tourism, against postmodern convolutedness. And yet, within what would seem to be the limitation of his simple language, the words themselves are beautiful. A North Beach Scene, which is my favorite poem in this compilation, is dripping with imagery of aesthetic loveliness, yet its artistry is still found in simplicity. I can only describe it as elegance.
If there is one way these poems describe San Francisco, it is with hope. They suggest that there is still hope for the City to go back to the way Ferlinghetti clearly remembers it. Even if they weren’t also great poems, that would be enough to justify their writing.
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