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