Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Take care comparing the King


Delighted as I am that Martin Luther king Jnr is being resurrected, at least philosophically, some comparisons tend to jar heavily. The mural/street art/graffiti above is from the last great main street in Australia, the bohemian heart of Sydney, an urban village called Newtown.

Newtown has been bohemian for most of existence, since the mid 1840s. I’ve had the privilege of living in the area for nearly two decades, over two separate periods. The first and longest was through most of the 1960s into the early 70s.

The magnificent mural depicted didn’t exist then, it was a working class area with an historically strong artistic leaning: Mainly literature and poetry, some important theatre and of course music, complimented by some fairly rugged physical pursuits like boxing.

I recall discovering jazz in some of the local pubs, and the poets and writers who seemed to go along with the music, the SF beats in particular. But we also share mimeographed copies of tracts and speeches. Those of MLK were devoured with the same passions as the Kerouac and Corso, Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti.

But those ideas contrasted dramatically, in 1966, with the visit of Lyndon Baines Johnson promoting his Asian war. The memories and myth of that period have travelled down to future generations with the reputation of LBJ being the precise inverse of the adoration for King.

The second sojourn in Newtown was from the mid 90’s and the place had become visually as well as intellectually exciting. As one visitor from Seattle noted to me, “it’s like Halloween everyday!” The street art was incredibly striking and moving. (Newtown graffiti and street art )

Not a day went by when I wasn’t bought to a stop by the enormous, inspiring MLK mural. As Newtown’s King Street is part of a major national highway, thousands of others, local and transient, are also confronted by this magnificent reminder of real values. Johnson’s name and image don’t conjure anything positive here.

Coincidently, a book I’m currently reading reminded my of a Gary Snyder poem of the earlier period - A Curse On The Men In Washington, Pentagon. I seem to recall it was published outside the US first because even the ultra liberal US media were crippled by their own self censorship. It makes this post very long, but is too good to avoid.

I should add that this is not a ‘Yankee’ bash, as I believe we Australian’s are inclusive in the rights and wrongs of western economies. As the poem offends I have replaced the text with a link.

A CURSE ON THE MEN IN WASHINGTON, PENTAGON

Gary Snyder 1968

4 comments:

D.K. Raed said...

Cartledge, I love most of the Newtown Street art depicted in your link. Some of it was a bit angry, but all so vibrant, what a great place to be able to live & walk through every day!

I agree there wasn't much about LBJ to admire. He was a very hated president for people my age facing the draft. His one redeaming legacy, the Civil Rights Act, was made possible by MLK. Not the other way around, as Hillary has implied. Not at all. I would go so far as to say that without MLK, LBJ's only legacy would be one of wholesale death.

Now, about that "poem" ... it made me very sad, it evoked rage & frustration & of course extreme shock value. No mean feat to bring out so many strong feelings in so few lines. I don't endorse it or what it advocates, but I recognize where the current of hate & wish for death & retribution originates. Myself, I work for peace & reconciliation. Hope the book you're reading that reminded you of this poem isn't all so violent.

Cartledge said...

d.k. no the book isn’t violent, it just feels that way. A straight telling of history tends to rattle some cages. The poem stood out for me as not so much violent as reflecting the frustration I felt then and now. My beat mentors tended to be over the top to raise some sort of consciousness.
The street art of Newtown is truly amazing. I love walking and never tired of walking that area, my open air gallery. The wonderfully amazing thing about that place is the layers of history are all there and visible; one element clearly seen on top of, or beside another.
The other amazing thing, to me, is that it is one of the densest multi-cultural villages on Erath – around 400 language groups, and young people are feeding off it and creating. The sad part, as with my early days there, they are also killing themselves. I’ve hated the drug scene from that first time round, but I didn’t select Ginsberg’s Howl in place of Snyder.

enigma4ever said...

The art is beautiful....and truly a gift to have it where you live.....I am glad that you can be there and it brings joy....

These are very Dark Times here...
and have been for awhile...
and now sadly...
the Clintons have ruined a Time in Our History...
where we thought there was a light at the end of the tunnel.....and many of us need to Believe that...

I found the poem too disturbing...
for me..
I can not read things like that right now...
I can not see the beauty in it....

I am a buddhist...
and violence is not something I embrace, or really understand...
never have...
it also has an angst and agony that is too much right now...

I don't think you totally understand...
that for many of us here...
We are in agony...
we are "Homeless"
"rudderless"...vulnerable and leaderless...
adrift in a very dark sea...
full of greedy , hatemongering , fearmongering heartless , soulless, evil morass..

At this point we need to be able to See Light ....
Feel it...and Share it....and spread the Hope...
even if it were to fit in a Thimble....

In Many ways this could sooo easily be 1930's Germany......
and we only have ONE chance to get it right....
one chance....
and only one.

*****************
The "beats" I knew of the BeatNik era in the states in the Sixties were friends of my Aunt....they were artists and poets...and lousy musicians....but they wrote and sang of Peace....they in the States were in many ways the pre-cursors to the Hippy Movement......they were part of setting the Path of Consciousness for the 1960's....

namaste...

Cartledge said...

I found the poem too disturbing... for me..
I think that is part of why I appended it – not you of course, but the fact that the American left could not see through to what Snyder was saying first time around. Yes it is confronting, but Snyder was a Buddhist as well, and wrote it after he returned from Japan and the East. There is no beauty in the poem, and perhaps that is part of the point.
I was a pacifist then, and I remain one to this day. I also feel the agony, then and now. I don’t think you really understand that we – the others out there – believe a rudderless country is determining our own journey “in a very dark sea... full of greedy, hatemongering , fearmongering heartless , soulless, evil morass..”
I get angry with my own bunch – Aussies, Canadians, Brits et al. I get angry that so many people continue to ignore the reality and continue to buy that other dream. Not MLK’s wonderful dream, but the “I can be filthy rich too” dream. I get angry about the blind, bland acceptance of pure bullshit.
The message is not new, but still seems to be either offensive or non-existent to the majority. Buddhism is far deeper and richer than ‘feel good’, just like Christianity or any number of beliefs.
Perhaps it is not enough to just feel, we are talking about the world here, our rowboat! Perhaps if we destroy it there is no real harm done, but I don’t want it destroyed by the US electoral system or those it selects. I want people to become aware of the power they have to effect change, if only they would realise it. I’m hard, but with a deep love for my world I hope.