[Despondent]

DJa?tely, it's the forces (or the force, if you will) of nature at work.

I have an ant problem in my kitchen right now. I didn't invite them in, and had been too busy to deal with them initially. Now (sigh) I have to deal with the problem, which I'd rather do than eat said ice cream at least. Bitching about it won't help. Neither will suggesting it was Lucas who sent the ants.

[civilian_number_two]

Joe McCarthy was born 20 years before the members of the Beat generation, so your use of the name in that retort can ONLY be seen as an attack on me. Sorry, Hoffmarn, but a spade is a spade. I make a crack about beat poets, and I am a Nazi. Fucking sad.

Not to mention that the sort of replacement offered "You don't believe A, therefore you must believe B" is one of the simplest argumentative fallacies (the "false dichotomy"), and also the easiest to refute.

To wit:

In my personal opinion, the "best minds of the beat generation" (arbitrarily defined by me as those born 1917-1928) include but are not limited to: Martin Luther King Jr, John Kennedy, Thomas Kuhn, Henry Kissinger, Betty Friedan, Andrei Sakharov, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, James Lawson, Christiaan Barnard, both Watson AND Crick, Richard Feynman, Desmond Morris, Michel Foucault, Paul Kurtz, Noam Chomsky and Nelson Mandela.

Along with various other physicists, geneticists, theoretical mathematicians, neurobiologists, geologists, politicians, philosophers and chemists of unsung status.

And of course I'd be cheating if I also said J D Salinger, Isaac Asimov, Kubrick, Bergman, Fellini, and Orson Welles.

PS: Cassady? He never wrote a single book in his life!

[J m HofMarN]

Civilian- I definately think you misinterpreted my intentions. I used McCarthy as an absurdity, not as a suggestion that you in any way supported him. McCarthy was on the scene around the time of the beat poets and noone considers him a good person. It was really supposed to be a joke. The equivalent of that would be:

"I surely don't consider Quentin Tarantino the best film maker of our time"

"Well then who is, George Lucas?"

I have great respect for many of the names you put forth. Admitedly I do not recognize some of them and others I only vaguely recognize. I do however think it a bit unfair to use statesmen, actors and scientists as examples. We could debate endlessly whether the services of writer/pilosopher/druggies such as the beats are more or less important than the services of scientists or leaders.

I could debate Henry Kissinger's right to exist endlessly but I'll save that for the forum in which such topics belong.

Anyhow my point is that I meant you no insult with that post. I hold the beats to be the greatest writers and philosophers of their generation even if I don't agree with some of the choices they made. And though Cassady never wrote a book you have to admit that he WAS the beat generation embodied in a human form. He was a very cool guy.

[civilian_number_two]

Civilian- I definately think you misinterpreted my intentions. I used McCarthy as an absurdity, not as a suggestion that you in any way supported him. McCarthy was on the scene around the time of the beat poets and noone considers him a good person. It was really supposed to be a joke. The equivalent of that would be:

"I surely don't consider Quentin Tarantino the best film maker of our time"

"Well then who is, George Lucas?"

I don't honestly think I misinterpreted your intention. I thought you were making a joke. Given that I had proposed a serious comment about Gisberg's outlandish claim that the people he went to college with were the "best minds" of his generation, and your reply was meant to belittle my comment and to make a joke out of it ("I used McCarthy as an absurdity"), I was right to send the response that I had. The appropriate thing for you to do is NOT to tell me I misunderstood (I did not misunderstand) but to apologize (you did not apologize).

Back to basics: saying Joe McCarty was "around" at the time of the Beat poets and is therefore of that generation is like saying that David Bowie and U2 are a part of, say, the current hip hop movement. It's that far off. He was born in 1908, 18 years before Alan Ginsberg. It's safe to say Ginsberg didn't even have McCarthy on his radar when he wrote the opening clause of Howl.

The above example, the Tarantino/Lucas, would be another case of the "false dichotomy." A respectful answer would be to consider what your audience ACTUALLY felt, and then to suggest THAT, rather than to make a knee-jerk attempt at reducing his point to silliness by pretending there is no alternative.

eg:

"I surely don't consider Quentin Tarantino the best film maker of our time"

"Well, you're a big Aronofski fan, am I right?"

Incidentally, Lucas was making films more than 10 years before Taranmtino, so they're not so much contemporaries, either. The better false dichotomy might have subbed Lucas for Kevin Smith, or Scorsese for Lucas.

So, yeah, don't worry; no insult perceived. I understood all along it was my ideas and opinions you were attempting to belittle and to steamroll over, not me myself. You weren't saying *I* am ridiculous, just the things I believe and say. Who could be insulted by that?

[civilian_number_two]

I have great respect for many of the names you put forth. Admitedly I do not recognize some of them and others I only vaguely recognize. I do however think it a bit unfair to use statesmen, actors and scientists as examples.

Uh, care to tell us why?


"The BEST MINDS of my generation .... "

and the best you can come up with are two poets and a junkie who LITERALLY did not have the sense to come in out of the rain.


Jesus, I suppose the greatest minds of my generation include Shannon Hoon, Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Manson and River Phoenix.

[J m HofMarN]

Civilian- I think you're making entirely too much out of this. I have a romantic idea of the beats and I consider Ginsburg's words to be one hundred percent true. You're right, I shouldn't have just passed over your point like that and I do appologize but I think most people will agree that you're right. However I'm not one of them.

Cassady may have died drunk and penniless on a mexican railroad track but think of the glorious freedom of it. He was the subject of poetry, novels, even songs. He was a famous person and yet he died largely unknown and little different than when he came into the world. Cassady above all the Beats was a prophet, a messiah even. Of freedom, of individuality, of gleeful defiance of authority, and of general good will to all mankind. You think I'm nuts I'm sure.

You also have to remember when Ginsburg wrote this poem that some of the people you pointed out had not yet come into the public, or Ginsburg's knowledge yet. And, my god, think of the humility of the man. He did not say *he* was the best mind of his generation, he said his friends were. That represents an especially admirable lack of egotism to be able to identify genius, even (as Kerouac put it) holiness, in ones own midst.

And also consider that what we see today is not "the best minds" of his generation, but the product of those minds

"destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix"

Now that dosn't sound quite as haughty when the next lines are taken into consideration. The beats were angelic (even Burroughs who I dislike as a writer and a person) had his admirable qualities (you gotta love a guy who spent time naked in a box covered in leaves trying to absorb positive particles) but they were fallen angels. They all faced monumental hardships (ginsburg's homosexuality and need for money, Kerouac's balancing of his double life, Cassady's lack of any parental figure or positive aspect to his life aside from his freedom, Burroughs' savage intellect and severe drug addiction, Solomon's madness, and a slew of other hardships.

These men were many things to me, and while you might raise scientists or leaders onto their pedistol and I will surely respect and understand your opinion, I will continue to hail these angel-headed hipsters as the greatest minds of their generation.


As for why writers, statesmen and scientists should be seperated and not brought into this debate I believe that they all do an equal amount of good. However trying to decide between a great writer, a great leader and a great man of science is like trying to decide between firemen, policemen and paramedics. They all deserve their own categories and individual respect. It would be vastly unfair to have to choose between Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln.

This post has been edited by J m HofMarN: 30 November 2004 - 02:47 AM

[civilian_number_two]

So nobody gets me wrong, I like "Howl" a lot; who couldn't?

But it's sophomoric to assume that anyone who dies penniless was somehow more free than anyone who struggled with two jobs and the duties of fatherhood and still managed to be the leader of a civil rights movement. I see penniless people every day; are you asking me to assume they are all tortured souls, great minds trapped in bad circumstance? That the requirement for greatness is to leave behind an idea of your potential, rather than any real body of work?

I appreciate that you like these guys. Fine, even the one who is famous only for having been written about, not for anything he ever wrote. I know guys as free and open-minded as Cassady in my own circle of friends. None of them are junkies, so I suppose they don't qualify, but I think I have some pretty clever friends all the same. So, yeah. You like these guys. Ginsberg did as well. Talking about their "potential greatness" is what makes "Howl" a great poem. It isn't actually a legitimate claim about these folks; it can't be. These guys are not the "Lost Generation" of a little before; their body of work is just not as strong. I know you disagree. Fine by me.


Don't get me entirely wrong: If I were to make a list of the most important and influential people born in the early 19th century, Whitman and Lincoln would both be on it. If I made a list of the most important and influential people born right after WWI, well, you saw most of it, but I'd add Alan Ginsbergh to it, for "Howl" alone. But I'd also have added all those other people, along with Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Kingsley Amis. To leave fewer stones unturned, I'd have added maybe Yitzak Rabin, Alan Greenspan, Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, Shah Muhammed Pahlavi, Anwar Sadat, and Pierre Trudeau.

I'm not saying these people are all equals to one another, but more than many their contributions infuenced the shape of the world. Several of these folks were no good with words, some of them are arrogant thugs. But the point of the exercise, for me, was not to say "here are some people I liked from this period of history." Or worse, "these are people I thnk I would have liked had I met them in the day." Because, hell, if that's what we're doing, I'll throw in Gene Roddenberry and the entire cast of the original STAR TREK.


-----------------------


Back on topic, I think it's funny to speak of STAR WARS nerds as casulties of Lucas, as though Lucas and STAR WARS were junk and these poeple could have been great otherwise. I guess that's all there is to say about the origins of this thread, which maybe should be moved to some literary thread or dropped altogether.

Pax.

[Hannibal]

"Back on topic, I think it's funny to speak of STAR WARS nerds as casulties of Lucas, as though Lucas and STAR WARS were junk and these poeple could have been great otherwise. I guess that's all there is to say about the origins of this thread, which maybe should be moved to some literary thread or dropped altogether"


Finally, somebody on to the real point of this thread. (Get it Hoffie?)

The entire purpose here was not to discuss the Beat Generation, but the Star Wars generation. The po-em is a parody, but not exactly. Its intended to be funny and ironic.

Anyway, now that all discredit attempts have been typed away into oblivion, the thread is back on track.

As I see it, the Star Wars Generation, as I am calling it, is full of wonderful creative people. People with minds that could have achieved more if they hadn't been smoked away by Lucas and his surrogate enlightenment. His crap resonated with the audience, there can be no doubt of this, however, it also stunted and choked the audience. We grew up with a tainted view of the things we actually were drawn to star wars for in the first place. He got us with the hook, and we went for it, and all the stuff we were supposedly inspired by in Lucas films was poisoned "bad shit."

The ideas of Kurosawa were watered down and poisoned by Lucas, now people see Kurosawa films and think of Star Wars. Kurosawa's ideas were brilliant and should not be ignored because "Lucas did it better with special effects and droids."

But this is hardly the core of it. Yoda, Jedi-ism and Star Wars truisms and fantasy philosophy is a muddy and tainted version of Taoism, Chi Gung, Feng Shui, including sordid elements of buddhism and dark christianity, also known as Templarism. The muddled mixture of various philosophies in Star Wars has polluted minds which might have gone on to study traditional martial arts, Taoism or whatever religious or philosophical ideas that appealed to them, without the giddy and pop-culture poison of Obiwan and Yoda speaking in their ears.

They wasted time and money collecting toys and comics and books(which even George Lucas says should not be considered official star wars story), and endless amounts of energy involved in Star Wars surrogate activities. Rather than go on in reality and grow and act and involve themselves in life in ways that are genuine and not based upon a movie franchise. Star Wars inspired people, but then the inspiration contains a seed of mandatory consumerism which stunts that inspiration.

Rather than come up with their own individual paths, find their own ways and figure out what they should do about what they believe in, they dreamed of becoming Jedis or Siths(there are still people out there obsessing on this as well).

Without exact or essential knowledge of what a Jedi was, they hung on to the Lucas franchise, waiting for more info, searching for more knowledge...reading the EU novels, searching out RPGs, comics, the backs of every star wars figure package, every detail of the films examined with a microscope. And finally, once the latest chapter of their Bible is handed down, they learn that midichlorians infect your bloodstream to become Jedis, and tons of other rediculous things they eventually rejected. It was all a rouse. A scam. It played upon the subconscious, appealed to those who sought out certain things, and hooked them into a merchandising system to fund the whims of Lucas for 20-30 years, and had no intention of assisting people in some kind of enlightenment. Those who in their unconscious saw star wars as some kind of metaphor for a life that could have been, or a world that could be, or some sort of parallel, politically or religiously, to modern life here and now, were shocked to see Lucas' vision turn rancid.

Imagine how many souls hooked on Star Wars who would have naturally gone on to discover themselves, spiritually awaken, and fight revolutions of their own were stunted and stifled because of the vast spectacle of a series of films which almost suggested that these kind of adventures can only exist when Lucas churns out another film.

The eye candy, the collectible dolls, the endless comic adventures and franchise of various idols of your choice, Boba Fett, Obiwan Kenobi, Darth Maul, Luke Skywalker...choose your idol and build your shrine and stunt your growth.

When these very people might have actually gone on to be more of who they thought they were without star wars. Somebody reminded me here on this very forum "less is more." It applies to this point I am making here, with star wars, and its fans, less would have been more, in other words when people have less they often find more all on their own. Star Wars offered "A New Hope" which was really a "New Dope" for the masses. It offered an entire cosmology with quotable proverbs, a devil, a messiah and heaven and hell, and thousands of idols to decorate your house with, but severely lacked in any sort of real payoff, any convincing miracles. It distorted reality in the minds of its followers (I don't exclude myself here I might add by any means), and acted as not only a new drug, but a replacement for any real activity of true worth for any of its followers.
Don't go out and fight your rebellion in the world, play Jedi Battle Ping Pong and CCG, and role play until your mind is fully numb. Don't go out and learn martial arts, roll your dice and gain skill points, buy posters of Ewan McGregor and Yoda and dream of inner balance. Don't go up against the real star wars, or evil empire, stay home and watch it on tv, play with your dolls, adorn your computer desktop with anti-imperial icons and pretend you are a Jedi.

At the very worst, join the fake Jedis of the world, fanclubs "training" jedis via Role-play, or much worse, become enamored with the useless and surrogate pseudomystical societies such as the Masons, the Shriners, Theosophy or Scientology and be opiated by their menopausal and constipated iniations and pomp and circumstance.

The real message of Star Wars is: Do nothing, there is no try, buy more stuff, dream more delusions, do not rebel, do not learn about Chi, do not learn about anything which might change the world, get the DVDs, go back to sleep, support your local fascist regime and behave like junkees addicted to the vast pantheon of idols manufactured by Hasbro and plagiarised by George Lucas.

"Its a trap!"

You can now discredit this post if you like.

[jariten]

well, since thats why you come here, i'll be the first to oblige.

The ideas of Kurosawa were watered down and poisoned by Lucas

anyone who thinks that knows nothing about Kurosawa. the Kurosawa-Lucas connection is largely a media and Lucas (presumably trying to up up up the intellectual ante of his popcorn flicks) exaggeration. and even the little he took from Kurasawa was infact faithful, and best of all (until Lucas hammed it up) subtle.

besides, anyone who allowed SW to influence them to any large degree wasnt headed for any booker prize lists anyway. so no loses there.

[Hannibal]

anyone who thinks that knows nothing about Kurosawa.

the Kurosawa-Lucas connection is largely a media and Lucas (presumably trying to up up up the intellectual ante of his popcorn flicks) exaggeration. and even the little he took from Kurasawa was infact faithful, and best of all (until Lucas hammed it up) subtle.

besides, anyone who allowed SW to influence them to any large degree wasnt headed for any booker prize lists anyway. so no loses there.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Anyone who knows Kurosawa and has seen all but three of his films knows that George Lucas films are nothing like them, in content, philosophy or sensibility.

See. I can make a broad statement as well. The Kurosawa-Lucas connection is not a media exaggeration, try watching more than a couple Kurosawa films, and though gushers usually suggest that its all "homage" Lucas plagiarised Hidden Fortess. Thats more than media hype. Faithful? Explain that. Your opinion? Site me some examples.

I stated my opinion, if you wish to counter it and prove it incorrect or unfounded, then you should do more than make empty declarations as if that by itself will discredit any and all of what I said.

What I come here for?

No losses on star wars losers eh?

There's a lot of attitude in your post, but not much substance I'm afraid, you'll have to elaborate. Otherwise its nothing but contrary absolutes and stale babble.

Is there any specific point you'd like to address, and counter, or do you really have nothing to say, but the usual, "hannibal leave this forum."

If you don't have anything to say, why say anything?

I'll wait for the usual name-calling, childish dismissals and convenient selective quotes of my posts in order to cast dispersions...or you never know I could be suprised one day.

[Vwing]

besides, anyone who allowed SW to influence them to any large degree wasnt headed for any booker prize lists anyway. so no loses there.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, that's actually what I was going to say. Anyone who let Star Wars so completely take over their lives probably wasn't going to do anything in their lives. Also, do you know any examples like that, who had great talent and aspirations, then saw Star Wars and did nothing the rest of their lives?

[J m HofMarN]

-In the style of one of those horrid anti drug commercials-

I was an honor student headed for university. I had straight As in all my classes and was burgeoning on a theory to end world hunger and AIDs. then I saw Star Wars.

Now I suck dick in an alley hoping to get enough money to buy the next DVD hit and yelling at passers by that Yoda is the one true messiah. I blame Star Wars... And heroine... but mostly Star wars



and heroin.

[jariten]

Hannibal youre taking this board far too seriosuly. I personally dont really have anything against you, expect that I wish you'd stop derailing threads with random pictures and so on.

I clearly made that post in about 5 minutes without the time or the inclination to cover my back from every angle. tell you what though, give me 30 minutes and i'm sure i can find a bunch of other peoples ideas and cut and paste them into my post to substantiate my 'argument'. then, incase anyone dares fire back with something I cant deal with, I can have a bunch of COUNTER ARGUMENTS i've stolen from somewhere and someone else, numbered like the tablets of Moses cos that looks SO IMPORTANT, and its just too hard to come up with anything myself so i'd rather just press 'Ctrl' and 'V' and let someone else do it. sound familiar? thought not.

ok, so where were we? oh yeah, my gross generalisations. here they are again.

1. the Lucas-Kurasawa connection is feeble at best, with Kurasawas main body of work remaining largely untapped.

2. if anyones life was knocked off course by a few films aimed at 14 year old boys, they wernt heading for much anyway. you made entirely too much of this.

[J m HofMarN]

Jariten- I think it's pretty well recognized that most people who create something do not do it without having been influenced by those who created before them, and so on and so forth. However this does not make them copy-cats. I believe it was on this very board that I saw the line put thusly-

Lucas from Kurosawa, Kurosawa from Shakespeare, Shakespeare from there's too many theories to consider it.

So yeah, Lucas copied Kurosawa as much as (this is topical) Ginsburg copied Whitman. He may have felt Kurosawa's influence but the OT wasn't even entirely produced by Lucas so even if he had it couldn't be blamed on him.

And besides, we all know that Kurosawa didn't make films about Nazis, and so Lucas couldn't have possibly copied his work seeing as SW is CLEARLY about Nazis.

[Madam Corvax]

I come I bit late to the discussion, really, I did not expect to find anything so interesting in SW forums these days.

I have a few commetns too.

Firstly "cast DISPERSIONS?" Is that a new barendism, or what?

Secondly, kudos to Civilian for bringing up Walt Whitman. Ginsberg stole from Whitman as much as he could. Honestly, I suggest looking up some Whitman's poems, and you'll see for yourself.

And then finally, to Hannibal.
I grew up on Star Wars.

But I never saw any toys, merchanise, lightsabers, princess Leia shampoos, erasers etc. Hell, I did not eevn have SW comics or novels. I had to write my own.
And why I didn't have any - because they were not available in my sodden country back then in the 70s and 80s. Actually, my very first post in SW formum was in the "nostalgia" thread, more or less on the same subject.

And maybe I am naive, but I think SW actually contributed to my spiritual development at the tender and influential age of 12. I just didn't spend any money on it. I do not consider myself a lost generation.

And finally, for heaven's sake please stop speaking like a doomsday Cassandra. In case you forget, this is entertainment.