Comments on: Walt Whitman!

Walt Whitman!

monju_bosatsu — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 11:11:16 -0800

Walt Whitman! [Courtesy of My Robot Friend.]

By: Outlawyr

Outlawyr — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 11:25:42 -0800

NSFW

By: gwint

gwint — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 11:40:16 -0800

Help me. Help me. I've been hypnotiz-ed.

By: rhapsodie

rhapsodie — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 11:57:47 -0800

I'm mostly confused...

By: leapfrog

leapfrog — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 12:38:46 -0800

It's like Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries meets "Gonads and Strife". Ugh.

By: Cecily

Cecily — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 13:17:12 -0800

i kinda hated it.

By: humbe

humbe — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 15:09:47 -0800

definitely hated it

By: kittyb

kittyb — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 15:54:38 -0800

Hm. I laughed, but I'm a former-English-major dork. It's a better tribute to the man than that schlocky version of "I Sing The Body Electric" from Fame, anyway. I celebrate the me yet to come indeed!

By: digaman

digaman — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 16:49:48 -0800

I suppose it's a measure of our age that a tribute to Whitman has to boil his entire being down to "you had a lot of cool thoughts" and "you had a lot of hott [sic] sex with teenage boys" to make him seem hip. I'm sure Whitman wished he'd had a lot more sex, "hott" or otherwise, with those streetcar conductors who became his friends on his late-night rides through Camden. A Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! --and you, García Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons? I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys. I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel? I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective. We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier. Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in a hour. Which way does your beard point tonight? (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.) Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely. Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage? Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe? --Berkeley, 1955

By: _sirmissalot_

_sirmissalot_ — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 19:21:48 -0800

He had an America I wish I knew.

By: kozad

kozad — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 19:41:01 -0800

I guess I can't use this with my Am Lit students, huh.

By: kliuless

kliuless — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 20:42:07 -0800

awesome! my truck driving robot friend :D [courtesy of andrew! (and the web archive :)]

By: philfromhavelock

philfromhavelock — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 20:49:03 -0800

Tangentially, a pundit of sorts preferred born-and-bred Philadelphians working the traffic reports on Philly radio because the Philly accent came through clearly when reporting on the "Wall Women" bridge.

By: Aaorn

Aaorn — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 21:56:49 -0800

Oh Captain, my captain!

By: mediareport

mediareport — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 20:34:01 -0800

He had an America I wish I knew. Stop looking backwards, sweetie. We have an America Whitman would've *loved* to have had. Make him proud.

By: mediareport

mediareport — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 20:47:10 -0800

p.s. Thanks, monju_bosatsu and digaman.

By: CBoots

CBoots — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 21:05:30 -0800

Count me among the confused.