in general i'm attempting to divorce myself from my own historical context (impossible, i know) and imagine what it would have been like to read "Howl" when it was written, before the Fame and Importance of Ginsberg became common sensical. until then...
The Heart of the Fifties
The terror of a nation emerging from the mist of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
the horror of a planet rising form the ashes of Treblinka and Auschwitz:
Europe turned to Sartre and Camus, America turned to Madison Avenue.
How many directions can a compass face at once?
Imagine the sucking of cocks, and endless balls,
in a world unprepared even for the plagiarism of Elvis.
Imagine the scalpel of the interstate slicing across the countryside,
paving the way for suburbs and driving the railroads into oblivion.
Imagine the bovine genocide of McDonald's eastward spread from
the inland empire of San Bernardino to the global empire of billions served.
Imagine a world without rock 'n roll, with adolescent angst:
the white flight of teenagers from the academy to the Saxophone –
the beatnik forefathers of Eminem's white minstrelsy.
Imagine the benevolent despotism of Eisenhower, the Fear of Sputnik,
the mea cupla 'industrial complex' farewell serving as harbinger and acolyte
of Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq – how many years of war in the past sixty?
Imagine seeing these things in a nation self-satisfied by hubris and blinded
by the hydrogen sunrise of Bikini Atoll – what did you feel, Allen, five years
before India, five years before you decided to close your eyes?
The last gasp of anonymity, the first sight of the world to come...
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