Allen Ginsberg on Jack Kerouac continues from here
AG: Old Angel Midnight – So it was Kerouac’s Lucien-esque gibberish, a Joycean Finnegans Wake–style unconscious language, really pretty, based mainly on Lucien’s language (in) which he seemed to hear Shakespeare through Lucien Carr’s speech)
and there’s a real interesting Mexico City Blues which maybe is, like, a summary of all that). I’ll see if I can find that..give me a second.
It begins “Soledad smarty pines came prappin down/My line of least regard last Prapopooty/ And whattaya think Old Father Time/made him? a western sponnet/ Without no false on bonnet,/ Trap in the cock adus time of the Nigh..”. – It’s just sort of like.. t’s just some mixture of Shakespeare, Lucien Carr and W.C.Fields! – here it is (217th Chorus. – Oh that’s where ““Wrack my hand with labor of nada” comes from)
Allen proceeds to read the whole chorus:
“Sooladat smarty pines came prappin down/My line of least regard last Prapopooty/ And whattaya think Old Father Time/made him? a western sponnet/ Without no false on bonnet,/ Trap in the cock adus time of the Nigh/ Slight the leak of recompense being/ hermasodized/ by fine wild trap hoods in all their estapular/glories/ Gleaming their shining- rising spears against the High Thap All Thup – So I aim my gazoota always/ to the God. remembering the origin/ Of all beasts and cod, Bostoninan/ By nature with no mind my own,/ Could write about railroads, quietus/ These blues, hurt my hand more,/ Rack my hand with labor of nada/ – Run 100 yard dash/ in Ole Ensanada -/ S what’ll have to do/ this gin and tonics/ Perss o monnix/ twab/ twab/ twabble/ all day.'”
I don’t know if that makes sense to you. I’ve heard it so often that its’ clear as.. clear as a bell, but – Old soldier smartypants – (“Sooladat smarty pines”) came farting down (“came prappin down”) (came farting down) – “My line of least regard last Prapopooty” (last Friday). Soldie smarty-pants, egotistical smarty-pants came parading “my line of least regard” (my line of fire, my line of indifference – last Friday (Prapapooty). So soldier “smartypines” came parading himself down my view last Sunday and what do. you think Time made out of him?- “a western sponnet/ Without no false on bonnet” – (a western..well, whatever “sponnet” is – a western skeketon? – a western..sparrow? …a western sonnet? – “Without no false on.” – (cleans his brain away. or emptied it out) – “western..” – What do you think Old Father Time made him? – ” a western sponnet/ Without no false on bonnet” – How? – he was trapped – ” Trap in the cock adus time of the Nigh” – a-d-u-s – “trap(ped) in the cock a-d-u-s time of the Nigh” – “Trap in the cock adus time of the Nigh” – he’s just imitating a Shakespeare sonnet and writing anything that comes in his mind, but what comes out is “trap in the cock” this time, trap with his.. trap in his.. , trapped in his body, trapped in his cock (with “adus” this time), “at the time of the Nigh” – (at the time of apocalypse, resurrection, or at the time of judgment – “”Trap in the cock adus time of the Nigh”
“Slight the leak of recompense being/ hermasodized/ by fine wild trap hoods in all.their estapular/glories..” – (Slight the leak of recompensatory pleasure, or compensatory pleasure in being a hero, being hermaphrodited or homogenized by all these fine wild heroic karmic trap hoods in all their bloody glories (“in all.their estapular/glories..” ) – “estapular” – whatever “estapular” means – “estapular”? – puling estates? I don’t know –
Is all of this making sense? I mean is everyone understanding what this this is about? – or not? – raise you’re hand if not – raise your hand if it’s making some osmosis of sense – yeah, ok, an osmosis of sense
(it’s attitudinal, partly, but also there are hints in puns – he’s talking, actually, about Lucien Carr, and saying, “Old Lucien Carr came parading down my line of least regard the other Prapapooty, a beautiful wild hero with all his fine wild trap hood and all his glory and what do you think Old Father Time made of him? – just knocked his brains out, cleaned out his ego and down! – trap(ped) in his cock at the time the judgement, very little.. very little pleasure, bliss, compensation spread out in his fine trap hood and all that glory” – “Slight the leak of recompense being/ hermasodized/ by fine wild trap hoods in all their estapular/glories/ Gleaming their shining- rising spears against the High Thap All Thup” – (any individual gleaming his individual sword, prick-sword, against the vagina of the great void.. well, no, no, I guess the “High Thap All Thup”, against the great “gazoota”, against old Nobodaddy. against God – bleak, against bleak-God, bleak-Heaven) – “Gleaming their shining-rising spears against the High Thap All Thup” – (the vast academies of Kerouwackos, trying to interpret Beat literature in the void!) – “Gleaming their shining-rising spears against the High Thap All Thup/ So I..” (Kerouac) – ” aim my gazoota always/ to the God. remembering the origin/ Of all beasts and cod” – “my gazoota”, I don’t know what – his pen? his prick? his “gazoota”? – prayer? – gazoo.. has.. no” mind (of) my own” –
(So, okay, there being no recompense, a very slight legal recompense, for being hermaphrodized for all this fine wild literary trap hood karma, what’s it all about, since there is no glory, no individuality, and they all get… everything .everybody must get stoned and torn down, what am I supposed to do? “write about railroad, quietus/ These blues, hurt my hand more,/ Rack my hand with labor of nada” – (“Write my.. “Rack, “rack” is “pain” – pain my hand with labor, on labor of nothing – “nada”, Spanish, nada, nothing – “Rack” -packing the vowels – “Rack my hand with labor of nada” – “Run (the) 100 yard dash/ in Ole Ensanada”. – It’s like that vanity- fantasy he already did, like, he got to be the fastest runner in the world and biggest novelist , and then finally wound up, the fantasy-bubble burst and he was sitting back home – “S what’ll have to do/ this gin and tonics” – (Well, drinking gin and tonics,”twab/ twab/ twabble/ all day” – (finally reduces all that poetry to “twab/ twab/ twabble/ all day” (or just Soldier smarty pines is just twab twab twabbling all day)
Student; He sounds like he’s a jazz vocalist
AG: Very much. Plus its a mixture of all the bop stuff. This is specifically Lucien Carr’s speech that he is parodying. I chose this because I”ll be a sample of what you will meet if you try and read there prose of Old Angel Midnight It’s really good, it’s funny. It’s just hearing a drunk’s talk, but all the sounds of talk, so you don’t have to know what it means, (but it’s got all sorts of suggestions in the syllables and in the associations and in the puns). It’s just about… What it is is, Sunday afternoon in the universe with all the sounds… (Editorial note – Friday afternoon, actually) Sunday afternoon in the universe with all the sounds in the universe coming in the window, of the mind, or of the ear, it’s all the sounds of the universe coming in the ear (“Friday Afternoon in the Universe, in all directions in & out you got your men women dogs children horses pones tics perts parts pans pools palls pails parturiences and petty Thieveries that turn into heavenly Buddha..”)- that’s from the first page of Old Angel Midnight, like I say, originally Old Lucien Midnight. It was Lucien’s sound that he was interested in.
Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately sixty two minutes in and concluding at approximately seventy-one-and-a-quarter in