Allen Ginsberg on Jack Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues (32nd Chorus) continues from here
AG: Does anybody else besides me like that kind of stuff? – “Monotonous monotony/of endless grape dirigible stars.” It’s so abrupt – that “grape dirigible.” It’s got a funny be-bop rhythm – “of endless grape dirigible.” Instead of “endless bemoaning dirigible stars”. it’s “endless grape dirigible stars.”
Student: Well, it’s great then (even) if you don’t understand it still feels good to read.
AG: Yeah. It’s amazing.
Student: It’s entertaining.
AG: Yeah. It’s very entertaining as language.
Student: (It’s (probably) best to) not think about it.
AG: The only thing I can’t figure out by this time is the grape, except that a grape is the shape of a dirigible. Well, actually, I know what it means – what it means is all the hard work and modern-ic scientific aluminum and witty rewards of French scientism, and all the intellectual macho German scientific calculation to make a dirigible, is a bunch of grapes – it’s nothing but grapes – soft grapes.
Student: More of the same, turning back the page the little grey fox, to the story of the Fox and the Grapes
AG: Oh yes, yes! It comes from the Fox and the Grapes, I guess. Yeah. What’s the story of the Fox and the Grapes?
Student: Well, if you think about it, it’s the “grape dirigible stars’ but every little thing is dirigible
AG: Yeah. Oh, yes. Every little thing is,,. It’s dirigibles. The stars. Even the stars are balloons , empty balloons made out of helium.
Student: Grapes look like balloons.
AG: Yeah and the grapes are like dirigibles or balloons.
Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately seventy-six-and-three-quarter minutes and concluding at approximately seventy-eight-and-a-half minutes in