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Today in Labor History March 25, 1957: U.S. Customs seized copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" on obscenity grounds. Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and City Lights manager, Shigeyoshi Murao, were arrested on obscenity charges for publishing and distributing the poem. Howl was inspired, in part, by a terrifying peyote vision Ginsberg had in which the façade of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, in San Francisco, appeared as the monstrous face of a child-eating demon. The obscenity charges stemmed from homophobic responses to his explicit references to homosexuality. Ginsberg’s first experience with LSD, as well as Kerouac’s and Burroughs’s, was with acid provided by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson, one-time husband of and long-time collaborator with Margaret Mead. You can read more about Bateson and Mead’s early experimentation with, and promotion of, psychedelics (and their collaboration with the CIA) in the recent book, “Tripping on Utopia.”

#workingclass #LaborHistory #poetry #howl #lgbtq #allenginsburg #homophobia #lawrenceferlinghetti #citylights #obscenity #censorship #bannedbooks #kerouac #williamburoughs #lsd #peyote #margaretmead #gregorybateson #psycheldelics #books #writer #author #poet @bookstadon

JACK KEROUAC & STEVE ALLEN
Poetry For The Beat Generation
2023 U.S. Ltd. Ed. Reissue
Milky Clear #vinyl

What turned me into the Kerouac freak I am today was THIS record. When I was young, probably 6 or 7, we used to get records from the library.
I never knew what I was grabbing half the time, mostly choosing based on the cover.
This was from one of those visits.
Opened up a whole new beautiful odd language for me, one I was too young to understand.
#vinyl #vinylrecords #art #poetry #kerouac

Today in Labor History March 5, 1917: Members of the IWW went on trial in Everett, Washington for the Everett Massacre, which occurred on November 5, 1916. In reality, they were the victims of an assault by a mob of drunken, vigilantes, led by Sheriff McRae. The IWW members had come to support the 5-month long strike by shingle workers. When their boat, the Verona, arrived, the Sheriff asked who their leader was. They replied, “We are all leaders.” Then the vigilantes began firing at their boat. They killed 12 IWW members and 2 of their own, who they accidentally shot in the back. Before the killings, 40 IWW street speakers had been taken by deputies to Beverly Park, where they were brutally beaten and run out of town. In his “USA” trilogy, John Dos Passos mentions Everett as “no place for the working man.” And Jack Kerouac references the Everett Massacre in his novel, “Dharma Bums.”

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #everett #massacre #policebrutality #vigilante #strike #union #police #policemurder #FreeSpeech #kerouac #dosassos #hisfic #novel #literature #writer #author #books @bookstadon

Now in College, #LudditeTeens Still Don’t Want Your Likes

Three years after starting a club meant to fight #SocialMedia’s grip on young people, many original members are holding firm and gaining new converts.

By Alex Vadukul
Jan. 30, 2025

"Biruk Watling, a college sophomore wearing a baggy coat and purple fingerless gloves, walked the chilly campus of Temple University in #Philadelphia on a recent afternoon to recruit new members to her club.
She taped a flier to a pole: '#JoinTheLudditeClub For #MeaningfulConnections.' Down the block, she posted another one: 'Do You Desire a Healthier Relationship With Technology, Especially Social Media? The Luddite Club Welcomes You and Your Ideas.'

"When a student approached, Ms. Watling dove into her pitch.

"'Our club promotes #ConsciousConsumption of #technology,' she said. 'We’re for #HumanConnection. I’m one of the first members of the original Luddite Club in #Brooklyn. Now I’m trying to start it in #Philly.

"She pulled out a #FlipPhone, mystifying her recruit.

"'We use these,' she said. 'This has been the most freeing experience of my life.'
If Ms. Watling had a missionary’s zeal, it was because she wasn’t just promoting a student club, but an approach to modern life that profoundly changed her two years ago, when she helped form the Luddite Club as a high school student in New York.

"But that was then, back when things were simpler, before she had embarked on the more independent life of a college student and found herself having to navigate QR codes, two-factor-identification logins, dating apps and other digital staples of campus life.

"The #LudditeClub was the subject of an article I wrote in 2022 — a story that, ironically, went viral. It told of how a group of teenage tech skeptics from Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn and a few other schools in the city gathered on weekends in Prospect Park to enjoy some time together away from the machine.

"They #sketched and #painted side by side. They read quietly, favoring works by #Dostoyevsky, #Kerouac and #Vonnegut. They sat on logs and groused about how #TikTok was dumbing down their generation. Their flip phones were decorated with stickers and nail polish.

"Readers inspired by their message responded in hundreds of emails and comments. Reporters from Germany, Brazil, Japan and elsewhere flooded my inbox, asking me how to reach these students who were so hard to track down online. Snarky Reddit threads and think pieces sprouted. #RalphNader endorsed the club in an opinion essay, writing: 'This is a rebellion that needs support and diffusion.'"

Read more:
nytimes.com/2025/01/30/style/l

Archived version:
archive.ph/
#SolarPunkSunday #Nature #NeoLuddite #Luddites #LessScreenTime #MoreBoardGames #MoreGreenTime #MoreOutdoorTime #FlipPhones #MoreBooks #ResistTheMachine

The New York Times · Luddite Teens Still Don’t Want Your LikesBy Alex Vadukul

#Kerouac sent one such letter to his first wife, Edie Kerouac Parker, in late January of 1957, a decade after their marriage had been annulled. Found in The Portable Jack Kerouac (public library) — an altogether terrific treasure trove of his stories, poems, letters, and essays on Buddhism — the missive is nothing short of exquisite.

A magnificent cinematic adaptation here: vimeo.com/60827020

The letter here: indieweb.social/@mariapopova/1

Continued thread

Should have put a #kerouac hashtag in there too. Oh well.

This one spurred a household discussion about frosty childhood mornings in Wanganui, but really, the long-ago I had in mind was Reservoir and Richmond in the late 80's, when I spent several years working as a postie to keep a roof between me and the cold, dank night.

Today in Labor History March 25, 1957: U.S. Customs seized copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" on obscenity grounds. Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and City Lights manager, Shigeyoshi Murao, were arrested on obscenity charges for publishing and distributing the poem. Howl was inspired, in part, by a terrifying peyote vision Ginsberg had in which the façade of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, in San Francisco, appeared as the monstrous face of a child-eating demon. The obscenity charges stemmed from homophobic responses to his explicit references to homosexuality. Ginsberg’s first experience with LSD, as well as Kerouac’s and Burroughs’s, was with acid provided by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson, one-time husband of and long-time collaborator with Margaret Mead.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #poetry #howl #lgbtq #allenginsburg #homophobia #lawrenceferlinghetti #citylights #obscenity #censorship #bannedbooks #kerouac #williamburoughs #lsd #peyote #margaretmead #gregorybateson @bookstadon

Today in Labor History March 5, 1917: Members of the IWW went on trial in Everett, Washington for the Everett Massacre, which occurred on November 5, 1916. In reality, they were the victims of an assault by a mob of drunken, vigilantes, led by Sheriff McRae. The IWW members had come to support the 5-month long strike by shingle workers. When their boat, the Verona, arrived, the Sheriff asked who their leader was. They replied, “We are all leaders.” Then the vigilantes began firing at their boat. They killed 12 IWW members and 2 of their own, who they accidentally shot in the back. Before the killings, 40 IWW street speakers had been taken by deputies to Beverly Park, where they were brutally beaten and run out of town. In his “USA” trilogy, John Dos Passos mentions Everett as “no place for the working man.” And Jack Kerouac references the Everett Massacre in his novel, “Dharma Bums.”

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #everett #massacre #policebrutality #vigilante #strike #union #police #policemurder #FreeSpeech #kerouac #DosPassos #hisfic #novel #literature #writer #author #books @bookstadon

Jack Kerouac's reminiscence of Christmas:
“In the general uproar of gifts and unwinding of wrappers it was always a delight to me to step out on the porch or even go up the street a ways at 1:00 in the morning and listen to the silent hum of heaven diamond stars, watch the red and green windows of homes, consider the trees that seemed frozen in sudden devotion, and think over the events of another year passed."
#christmas #Kerouac

#1962Club – “…best thing to do is not be false” – returning to an early favourite! #Kerouac #bigsur

My final read for the #1962Club is by an author who's meant an awful lot to me over the years - Jack Kerouac. I've talked before about how I first discovered the Beat writers in my teens, devouring all of their books, and although I've drifted away from their work for periods I still love their writing and get much out of it when I come back to the texts.

kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpr

Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings · #1962Club – “…best thing to do is not be false” – returning to an early favourite! #Kerouac #bigsurMy final read for the #1962Club is by an author who’s meant an awful lot to me over the years – Jack Kerouac. I’ve talked before about how I first discovered the Beat writers in m…

@stevesilberman, author of the brilliant #NeuroTribes, has a list of book recommendations (everything from #books about #autism to the #GratefulDead to #Kerouac and the #Beats -- pretty much covers the bases!), and I'm so honored to see that the book I wrote with #neurologist Bruce Miller of #UCSF, is on it. Bruce and I wrote this dual #memoir so I could share my #grief about my father's #early-onset Alzheimer's and Bruce could share his knowledge bout the #brain. #EndAlz readthistwice.com/person/steve

www.readthistwice.com24 books Steve Silberman recommended(Updated 2022) The most up to date and comprehensive list of 24 verified book recommendations from Steve Silberman. Includes quotes and sources.