Ah, how wonderful, to stumble upon lost Kerouac like this, tucked away not in some Yale archive but in the collection of Paul Castellano of all people, as if the road had detoured briefly through the Five Families. That it reads like a missing chapter from On the Road makes the find all the more mythic, like a Polaroid from a dream you forgot you had.
But this, for some reason, reminds me that Kerouac was also a devoted baseball mind. Not just a fan, but a proto-fantasy league commissioner before the term existed, meticulously tracking invented teams and players in private box scores. Kerouac, a fantasy baseball writer.
And he wasn't alone: Corso batted lines like fastballs, Ferlinghetti cheered from the dugout of City Lights, and Ginsberg, ever the cosmic catcher, enjoyed the sport. Baseball wasn't a pastime but a parallel Beat narrative, complete with innings, errors, and the occasional poetic balk and haiku.
movie pitch: Kerouac has some debt that falls on Castellono's people to collect. Kerouac tries to get out of it by convincing them to take a story instead of cash. They lock him up in a room somewhere until he writes the story. Movie is basically two or more people talking in a room, or just Kerouac seen talking with whoever is in the room, off screen.
Very cool! You lived down the street! And yes, Kerouac's turn toward health mainly counteracted the booze.
Oh, and another fun fact:
Kerouac once befriended a former minor league baseball player who'd also played college football. He encouraged the guy to try acting. In a roundabout way, we have Jack Kerouac to thank for Paul Gleason, one of the '80s movies' most memorable villains. (An interesting man in his own right.)
(There are enough quotes and parentheses in this reply to resemble a LISP program, sorry about that.)
Why your comment is being dragged down I think is best described by staring at The Torment of Saint Anthony. The creatures you see are the creatures here, fondling the arrows that point in the only direction they know.
Not far beyond. I'm old, so second-hand it seems that the entire reason he toured to do readings (at least in the 80s and 90s) was to stay with locals who had young male children. I know two horror stories myself.
It was sort of a hippie/counterculture/futurist/Berkeley thing to let pedophiles openly operate and attack anyone as nosy lame perverts who would accuse them of being a problem, even after multiple arrests. See the Breendoggle.
There was a similar attitude in some French intellectual circles in the seventies and eighties.
For example I know Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre were involved.
Having known several victims of CSA and some of their abusers, I think many people would be surprised at the amount of effort and planning that goes into ensuring access to a pool of potential victims. Abstractly it's a supply chain problem and is treated as such by the abusers.
> The signatories to the January 1977 petition included Gabriel Matzneff (the petition's author), Jean-Louis Bory, Pierre Hahn [eo; fr; ia; pt], Jean-Luc Hennig [ar; fr; ru], Guy Hocquenghem, Françoise d'Eaubonne, René Schérer, Pierre Guyotat, Louis Aragon, Francis Ponge, Roland Barthes, Simone de Beauvoir, Philippe Sollers, Patrice Chéreau, Bernard Kouchner, François Châtelet, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Jean-François Lyotard.[6]
> Notably, the signatories did not include Michel Foucault,[6]: 16 Marguerite Duras, Hélène Cixous, or Xavière Gauthier [fr; sv], who all refused to sign the January petition.[5]
When I was a physics student at Oxford in 1983-86 I was a voracious reader and the Beats figured in that. Ginsberg travelled through Oxford for a day or two and gave some street performances. His nephew (Vincent?) was travelling with him, playing guitar IIRC. I must admit, I had my concerns at the time.
German Wikipedia conveniently left that part out and in the english Wikipedia you have to scroll quite a bit to read it mentioned.
"I said I've had many young affairs, [with those who were] 16, 17, or 18."
Still, it matters a bit to me, whether we are talking about consensual things or not. 16 year olds might be naive, but they are also not small children and usually capable of saying no. (Body language no, is also a no). So do those horror stories involve ignoring a "no" from Ginsberg towards a minor?
16 year olds might be naive, but they are also not small children and usually capable of saying no.
You can't generalize the ability to say no to 16 year olds. You also can't ignore the position of power a famous person might be in, or what grooming might have occurred (which is being alleged up thread). Morally, I hope this is obvious. Even legally, many jurisdictions have laws that recognize these nonviolent sexual offenses as illegal.
If a 16 year old cannot say no to unwanted advances, I would say education failed him very much in the first place.
"You also can't ignore the position of power a famous person might be in"
And no, I don't. I am also not a fan of grownup men going after boys in general.
Still, I do see a difference in men going after 16 year or 8 year old boys and how they approached them.
"horror story" is pretty strong language and implies certain things to me.
Precise use of language matters. Case in point, I am at a unconventional gathering right now and things happened, that were communicated as rape... so people wanted to take drastic action quickly. What happened? A "tantra" teacher giving massages and "solving blockages" of young (adult) women in their genital areas.
So they said yes to a massage and "healing" in general, but never said no afterwards, they just didn't realized what was happening. They met later and shared their stories and then things came to light.
So, definitely sexual abuse, but rape?
Well their body was raped in a way as sexual things happened that they did not consent to. But the right term here is rather sexual abuse I believe. Because to me and most others, rape implies penetrating with the penis against their will. If you use the most strong word for everything, what word will you use for actual violent forced sex? That just creates confusion that can has drastic consequences.
(As it did, with people wanting to take drastic violent action assuming something way worse. In the end the guy was banished, but no criminal charges were brought up as that would have required the victims going to police which they didn't wanted to).
> Still, I do see a difference in men going after 16 year or 8 year old boys and how they approached them.
Agreed.
> If a 16 year old cannot say no to unwanted advances, I would say education failed him very much in the first place.
It's not a matter of education. Mature adults have trouble saying no (to all sorts of things) depending on the social situation, and the power relationship is a significant factor, which weighs against 16 year olds who not only have little power but are raised to trust and obey adults. Look at all the people who couldn't say 'no' to their institution supporting rapists. Consider adult female soldiers, for whom sexual assault is a relatively widespread problem (at least in the US military).
Can we please not advocate in defense of statutory rape of minors here. Your discussion is consideration of defense of a predator's documented acts. He gets plenty of whitewashing support already.
This is a disingenuous request. We can point to any sentence we think illustrates it and you will simply say “no that is not what it means” and we’re right back where we started.
The other person (and I) believe what you wrote whitewashes the issue. You obviously think it does not. There is nothing we can point to that would make you go “oh damn you’re right.“
This is the difference between being attracted to prepubescents, and being attracted to minors who have undergone puberty:
Prepubescents do not have the physical sexual maturity that human beings should be attracted to. By definition. Being attracted to them shows a profound disturbance in normal brain function.
Being attracted to a 16 or 17 year old shows much, much less deviation from normal human sexual behaviour. Again, by definition. Going through puberty = becoming sexually mature. Now, notice how i said “being attracted to” not “hanging around the local school trying to pick up minors.” It’s illegal for a reason. Kids need to be protected from much older adults who know how to exploit and abuse them.
Maybe if you only look at them, but once you hear them speak you know they're kids and any attraction goes away. Same with university students.
Just listen to them talk for a minute and you won't attracted to them. Even better, let them have a presentation about maths or some project they've done. You can sit there and attempt to keep a polite face and not cover your eyes. It doesn't matter how smart they are, at least usually: even the smarts ones are still kids and therefore completely crazy.
Oh, I certainly don‘t want to debate what counts as abuse. I just like to form an opinion on Ginsberg, so some clarification what exactly "horror stories" mean here, would be helpful.
>16 year olds might be naive, but they are also not small children and usually capable of saying no. (Body language no, is also a no). So do those horror stories involve ignoring a "no" from Ginsberg towards a minor?
Bruh you're justifying statutory rape due to a highly unjust power imbalance.
Also have you met a 16-year-old in real life? They are children.
I am not justifying anything, I merely said there is a difference to me and I like to know more before forming a final opinion, see my shared anecdota as for why.
The post above where I replied literally said:
"young male children"
But are 16 year olds really "young male children"?
I don't think so, but stating it like this makes it a much, much worse accusation against Ginsberg in my eyes.
16 is the age of consent in most of the US (by land area at least). Not that US laws around sex are necessarily good policy, but it reflects that there is no broad societal consensus on whether or not the 16-year-olds have the ability to consent.
If I -- someone in their mid 40's -- had a friend my age who had a string of sex partners that were are 16, 17, 18 and gained access to those individuals through a network constructed from fame and friends, they would cease to be my friend because that is pretty disgusting, laws be-damned.
(and you seem to not factor in that many statutory rape laws have age gap determinants)
I'm quite sympathetic to what you're saying, what he did was very creepy regardless of legality. I merely take issue with the idea that 16 year olds cannot consent - most people seem to think they can if the legal standards is to be used a rough indicator of societal consensus, and I can also remember being 16. That doesn't mean I think it's OK for people to molest children or that adults structuring their lives around access to teenagers or children isn't likely criminal predatory behavior.
This is such a worthless and pedantic hill to die on, and one that seems to reveal a profound lack of empathy. Not everyone comes from the same background, not everyone had a good start free from abuse, and some 16 year olds are far more vulnerable legally, societally, and mentally than even their slightly older peers.
With the benefit of being quite a bit older I’m increasingly struck by just how young and frankly childlike teens are. The age of consent isn’t perfect, it’s a compromise and an exercise in drawing lines, but that doesn’t make it worthless or indicate that you should “well actually” people who are abusing them.
Why not read Virginia Giuffre’s book about her experiences for more insight into something you should frankly listen and learn about a lot more before you lecture.
Then what are we debating? Should we debate if 3 murders is as bad as 5 murders while we’re at it? Or if stabbing someone to death is better/worse than shooting someone to death?
You’re treating this like some cold academic exercise or game of “what if” when it is a very real thing that happens to people literally every day. We are talking about a person who actually did this - an act that you yourself consider “bad.”
Missunderstandings it seems. My goal was to find out what exactly he did.
"We are talking about a person who actually did this"
Because I still don't know what he did exactly. To me approaching a 16 year old is in a very different ballpark than approaching 8 year olds, but if it is the same to you, we should indeed stop right here.
You are really going to regret having this comment history one day I guarantee it.
As for your question in the other comment chain: Whitewashing/downplaying =/= justifying. We didn’t say you “justified” it. Though neither is a great look.
Have a good one dude. I’ve stomached all I can of this thread.
"You might have underestimated the degree to which defending child abusers might upset people?"
I underestimated how quickly people even here will engage in dishonest tactics like this. Anyone requesting fair trial for the witch is automatically a witch itself that should be burned as well.
That is not a climate where you can find out truth, but activly preventing it through invoking fear.
The fact that Ginsberg was involved with NAMBLA is creepy enough for me, to not wanting to engage with his works btw. and I did not so much defended him, but the concept that 16 year olds are not small children anymore. Still children, yes, but not "young children". There are 16 year olds who started a family already. Not ideal, sure, but putting all those in the same bucket as 8 year olds?
Unless you're OK with 16 year olds having sex with 50 year olds who have been given access to them because of their fame an accolades, as well as personal connections?
Yes, of course I’m okay with that. The power dynamic imbalance probably makes it even more interesting for the 50 year old. It’s legal, I’m not going to judge what some old man is getting off on.
Even the most conservative societies on earth still have the legal age of consent be post puberty. Frankly I don’t think any group could successfully lobby for no age of consent.
I've been re-reading Kerouac lately (LOA has a nice collection of novels in a single volume). His prose is jumps from bebop riffs (On the Road) to elegiac praise of hiking in the woods/mountains (Dharma Bums). The characters (like them or not) are well drawn and always interesting. My hitchhiking days are long gone and I don't suppose this mode of transportation obtains much in the US anymore, which I think is unfortunate as it is (or was) a great way to see the country and meet a lot of people.
Biking across the country is a thing though. You'll meet people in the small towns along the way. I've only done a few well-established routes (Katy trail, for example) but I have, and full of vicarity, watched many YouTubers crossing the U.S. by bicyle.
Too much empty space. I spent six weeks doing a solo ride in France -- Versailles, Chartres, Loire Valley rivers and castles, eastern Brittany, St. Malo, Cherbourg, St. Mont Michel, Honfleur, D-Day beaches, Bayoux, Chantilly, Paris (where I caught the Tour de France finishing at the Champs-Elysées) ... amazing experience.
I am a life long fan of Jack Kerouac and thought will the biographies written about him every significant fact about his life was known and I am a bit gobsmacked.
Massachusetts, the state of his birth claims Kerouac as their own and Florida where he lived at the time of his death claims him as well. Never seen San Francisco claim him as one of their own before. I think Paris would have the better claim if they were to make one.
“If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare me a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.” -- Einstein
SF seems to claim the Beat movement as a whole. There’s a museum dedicated to it and the area around it has multiple landmarks which play into that as well (City Lights, Vesuvio). I never really considered before if that was fair.
I read On The Road but really, truly came to hate the characters. Dean Moriarty is so evil and Sal is so stupid and I feel like this never comes full circle.
The characters are seen from Sal's perspective, and I will admit he is not the sharpest pencil in the box (I think Kerouac, who was quite smart, realises this). I wonder what OTR written from Dean's point of view would be like?
Dean Moriarty physically abuses multiple women, and impregnates and abandons multiple women in terrible circumstances with no regard for his children's welfare. And many other crimes. Sal glosses over them and still idolizes him.
If retweets aren’t endorsements, artistic/literary depictions aren’t meant to promote the person or personages being so portrayed.
The map is not the territory anymore than the mapmaker is God. Holding a mirror up to society does not make one Narcissus.
For what it’s worth, Socrates wasn’t very popular in polite society of his time and place either, but rather reviled and given an ultimatum: repudiate your interrogatory work of our society, or die in exile. He chose the latter on his own terms via quaffing hemlock, and he went down in infamy.
> Duration of copyright: Works created but not published or copyrighted before January 1, 1978
> (a) Copyright in a work created before January 1, 1978, but not theretofore in the public domain or copyrighted, subsists from January 1, 1978, and endures for the term provided by section 302. In no case, however, shall the term of copyright in such a work expire before December 31, 2002; and, if the work is published on or before December 31, 2002, the term of copyright shall not expire before December 31, 2047
So you're right in that it was retroactively protected by copyright the moment it was written, but, without more information than this, it seems at least possible that the copyright on this work has now expired.
It says that it should follow 302 as if it was published in 1978 if it was not heretofore copyrighted, and it wasn't, and it should follow section 302 which starts with
"Copyright in a work created on or after January 1, 1978, subsists from its creation and, except as provided by the following subsections, endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and 70 years after the author’s death."
Am I the only one who thought On the Road was a completely awful, poorly written book? I also hated Catcher too so maybe the 'American Greats' just aren't for me..
Ah, how wonderful, to stumble upon lost Kerouac like this, tucked away not in some Yale archive but in the collection of Paul Castellano of all people, as if the road had detoured briefly through the Five Families. That it reads like a missing chapter from On the Road makes the find all the more mythic, like a Polaroid from a dream you forgot you had.
But this, for some reason, reminds me that Kerouac was also a devoted baseball mind. Not just a fan, but a proto-fantasy league commissioner before the term existed, meticulously tracking invented teams and players in private box scores. Kerouac, a fantasy baseball writer.
And he wasn't alone: Corso batted lines like fastballs, Ferlinghetti cheered from the dugout of City Lights, and Ginsberg, ever the cosmic catcher, enjoyed the sport. Baseball wasn't a pastime but a parallel Beat narrative, complete with innings, errors, and the occasional poetic balk and haiku.
movie pitch: Kerouac has some debt that falls on Castellono's people to collect. Kerouac tries to get out of it by convincing them to take a story instead of cash. They lock him up in a room somewhere until he writes the story. Movie is basically two or more people talking in a room, or just Kerouac seen talking with whoever is in the room, off screen.
I really enjoyed this take. Awesome!
I lived right down the street from the bar where he died, in Saint Pete FL.
I don't remember what or if the property is / still is.
Perforated ulcer hit critical mass after the daily round of whiskey. I wonder if hpylori made it worse or it was just the suds.
Edit: found this while searching for the bar
https://stpetekerouachouse.com/
Very cool! You lived down the street! And yes, Kerouac's turn toward health mainly counteracted the booze.
Oh, and another fun fact:
Kerouac once befriended a former minor league baseball player who'd also played college football. He encouraged the guy to try acting. In a roundabout way, we have Jack Kerouac to thank for Paul Gleason, one of the '80s movies' most memorable villains. (An interesting man in his own right.)
(There are enough quotes and parentheses in this reply to resemble a LISP program, sorry about that.)
Why your comment is being dragged down I think is best described by staring at The Torment of Saint Anthony. The creatures you see are the creatures here, fondling the arrows that point in the only direction they know.
Do not be discouraged.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/Mi...
[dead]
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Not far beyond. I'm old, so second-hand it seems that the entire reason he toured to do readings (at least in the 80s and 90s) was to stay with locals who had young male children. I know two horror stories myself.
It was sort of a hippie/counterculture/futurist/Berkeley thing to let pedophiles openly operate and attack anyone as nosy lame perverts who would accuse them of being a problem, even after multiple arrests. See the Breendoggle.
There was a similar attitude in some French intellectual circles in the seventies and eighties.
For example I know Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre were involved.
Having known several victims of CSA and some of their abusers, I think many people would be surprised at the amount of effort and planning that goes into ensuring access to a pool of potential victims. Abstractly it's a supply chain problem and is treated as such by the abusers.
Similar to an addict, you need to know you have your supply at hand…
> For example I know Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre were involved.
Most famously, Michel Foucault.
Any link to Simone and Sartre?
> The signatories to the January 1977 petition included Gabriel Matzneff (the petition's author), Jean-Louis Bory, Pierre Hahn [eo; fr; ia; pt], Jean-Luc Hennig [ar; fr; ru], Guy Hocquenghem, Françoise d'Eaubonne, René Schérer, Pierre Guyotat, Louis Aragon, Francis Ponge, Roland Barthes, Simone de Beauvoir, Philippe Sollers, Patrice Chéreau, Bernard Kouchner, François Châtelet, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Jean-François Lyotard.[6]
> Notably, the signatories did not include Michel Foucault,[6]: 16 Marguerite Duras, Hélène Cixous, or Xavière Gauthier [fr; sv], who all refused to sign the January petition.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petitions_against_age-o...
This was in defense of people arrested for sexual abuse of children 12-13.
When I was a physics student at Oxford in 1983-86 I was a voracious reader and the Beats figured in that. Ginsberg travelled through Oxford for a day or two and gave some street performances. His nephew (Vincent?) was travelling with him, playing guitar IIRC. I must admit, I had my concerns at the time.
German Wikipedia conveniently left that part out and in the english Wikipedia you have to scroll quite a bit to read it mentioned.
"I said I've had many young affairs, [with those who were] 16, 17, or 18."
Still, it matters a bit to me, whether we are talking about consensual things or not. 16 year olds might be naive, but they are also not small children and usually capable of saying no. (Body language no, is also a no). So do those horror stories involve ignoring a "no" from Ginsberg towards a minor?
16 year olds might be naive, but they are also not small children and usually capable of saying no.
You can't generalize the ability to say no to 16 year olds. You also can't ignore the position of power a famous person might be in, or what grooming might have occurred (which is being alleged up thread). Morally, I hope this is obvious. Even legally, many jurisdictions have laws that recognize these nonviolent sexual offenses as illegal.
If a 16 year old cannot say no to unwanted advances, I would say education failed him very much in the first place.
"You also can't ignore the position of power a famous person might be in"
And no, I don't. I am also not a fan of grownup men going after boys in general.
Still, I do see a difference in men going after 16 year or 8 year old boys and how they approached them.
"horror story" is pretty strong language and implies certain things to me.
Precise use of language matters. Case in point, I am at a unconventional gathering right now and things happened, that were communicated as rape... so people wanted to take drastic action quickly. What happened? A "tantra" teacher giving massages and "solving blockages" of young (adult) women in their genital areas.
So they said yes to a massage and "healing" in general, but never said no afterwards, they just didn't realized what was happening. They met later and shared their stories and then things came to light.
So, definitely sexual abuse, but rape?
Well their body was raped in a way as sexual things happened that they did not consent to. But the right term here is rather sexual abuse I believe. Because to me and most others, rape implies penetrating with the penis against their will. If you use the most strong word for everything, what word will you use for actual violent forced sex? That just creates confusion that can has drastic consequences.
(As it did, with people wanting to take drastic violent action assuming something way worse. In the end the guy was banished, but no criminal charges were brought up as that would have required the victims going to police which they didn't wanted to).
> Still, I do see a difference in men going after 16 year or 8 year old boys and how they approached them.
Agreed.
> If a 16 year old cannot say no to unwanted advances, I would say education failed him very much in the first place.
It's not a matter of education. Mature adults have trouble saying no (to all sorts of things) depending on the social situation, and the power relationship is a significant factor, which weighs against 16 year olds who not only have little power but are raised to trust and obey adults. Look at all the people who couldn't say 'no' to their institution supporting rapists. Consider adult female soldiers, for whom sexual assault is a relatively widespread problem (at least in the US military).
Can we please not advocate in defense of statutory rape of minors here. Your discussion is consideration of defense of a predator's documented acts. He gets plenty of whitewashing support already.
Can you show, where exactly I supposedly did that?
Otherwise please don't make such a claim about me.
This is a disingenuous request. We can point to any sentence we think illustrates it and you will simply say “no that is not what it means” and we’re right back where we started.
The other person (and I) believe what you wrote whitewashes the issue. You obviously think it does not. There is nothing we can point to that would make you go “oh damn you’re right.“
So I should just accept the defamation that I justified child abuse?
Because I did not.
My whole point the whole time was and is, that there is a big difference to me between grown men going after 16 year olds and 8 year olds.
Is it the same to you?
This is the difference between being attracted to prepubescents, and being attracted to minors who have undergone puberty:
Prepubescents do not have the physical sexual maturity that human beings should be attracted to. By definition. Being attracted to them shows a profound disturbance in normal brain function.
Being attracted to a 16 or 17 year old shows much, much less deviation from normal human sexual behaviour. Again, by definition. Going through puberty = becoming sexually mature. Now, notice how i said “being attracted to” not “hanging around the local school trying to pick up minors.” It’s illegal for a reason. Kids need to be protected from much older adults who know how to exploit and abuse them.
Maybe if you only look at them, but once you hear them speak you know they're kids and any attraction goes away. Same with university students.
Just listen to them talk for a minute and you won't attracted to them. Even better, let them have a presentation about maths or some project they've done. You can sit there and attempt to keep a polite face and not cover your eyes. It doesn't matter how smart they are, at least usually: even the smarts ones are still kids and therefore completely crazy.
I’m not sure this is the kind of debate you want to have.
Oh, I certainly don‘t want to debate what counts as abuse. I just like to form an opinion on Ginsberg, so some clarification what exactly "horror stories" mean here, would be helpful.
[flagged]
Ginsberg was a member of the North American Man/BOY Love Association.
Why are you defending this man? What if we said he sexually exploited teenagers when he was in his 50's -- is that better?
i’m not! you are immediately accusing people of supporting child abuse based on literally nothing.
I am not debating what counts as child sexual abuse with you. I also doubt this is a hill you want to die on.
who said i’m debating anything? there are actual terms for these things you know.
>16 year olds might be naive, but they are also not small children and usually capable of saying no. (Body language no, is also a no). So do those horror stories involve ignoring a "no" from Ginsberg towards a minor?
Bruh you're justifying statutory rape due to a highly unjust power imbalance.
Also have you met a 16-year-old in real life? They are children.
I am not justifying anything, I merely said there is a difference to me and I like to know more before forming a final opinion, see my shared anecdota as for why.
The post above where I replied literally said: "young male children"
But are 16 year olds really "young male children"?
I don't think so, but stating it like this makes it a much, much worse accusation against Ginsberg in my eyes.
I can’t believe what I’m reading in this thread.
It's disgusting
16 is the age of consent in most of the US (by land area at least). Not that US laws around sex are necessarily good policy, but it reflects that there is no broad societal consensus on whether or not the 16-year-olds have the ability to consent.
If I -- someone in their mid 40's -- had a friend my age who had a string of sex partners that were are 16, 17, 18 and gained access to those individuals through a network constructed from fame and friends, they would cease to be my friend because that is pretty disgusting, laws be-damned.
(and you seem to not factor in that many statutory rape laws have age gap determinants)
But I see that you are different.
I'm quite sympathetic to what you're saying, what he did was very creepy regardless of legality. I merely take issue with the idea that 16 year olds cannot consent - most people seem to think they can if the legal standards is to be used a rough indicator of societal consensus, and I can also remember being 16. That doesn't mean I think it's OK for people to molest children or that adults structuring their lives around access to teenagers or children isn't likely criminal predatory behavior.
This is such a worthless and pedantic hill to die on, and one that seems to reveal a profound lack of empathy. Not everyone comes from the same background, not everyone had a good start free from abuse, and some 16 year olds are far more vulnerable legally, societally, and mentally than even their slightly older peers.
With the benefit of being quite a bit older I’m increasingly struck by just how young and frankly childlike teens are. The age of consent isn’t perfect, it’s a compromise and an exercise in drawing lines, but that doesn’t make it worthless or indicate that you should “well actually” people who are abusing them.
Why not read Virginia Giuffre’s book about her experiences for more insight into something you should frankly listen and learn about a lot more before you lecture.
I might have underestimated the trigger potential here, but can you state, where I did "lecture" anything or anyone here?
The original claim was, Ginsberg went after "young male children".
Sounds very, very bad.
Wikipedia said so far the youngest was 16.
Still bad, but not as bad in my opinion. So, to form my opinion after the initial accusation I requested more information.
Nothing more, nothing less. It is not all the same to me.
>still bad
Then what are we debating? Should we debate if 3 murders is as bad as 5 murders while we’re at it? Or if stabbing someone to death is better/worse than shooting someone to death?
You’re treating this like some cold academic exercise or game of “what if” when it is a very real thing that happens to people literally every day. We are talking about a person who actually did this - an act that you yourself consider “bad.”
"Then what are we debating?"
Missunderstandings it seems. My goal was to find out what exactly he did.
"We are talking about a person who actually did this"
Because I still don't know what he did exactly. To me approaching a 16 year old is in a very different ballpark than approaching 8 year olds, but if it is the same to you, we should indeed stop right here.
You are really going to regret having this comment history one day I guarantee it.
As for your question in the other comment chain: Whitewashing/downplaying =/= justifying. We didn’t say you “justified” it. Though neither is a great look.
Have a good one dude. I’ve stomached all I can of this thread.
"We didn’t say you “justified” it."
"Bruh you're justifying statutory rape"
??
Also ..
"You are really going to regret having this comment history one day I guarantee it."
.. was that a threat? In case people like you take the power?
Anyway, I do recommend to reread what I wrote in a non engaged state of mind one day.
>"Bruh you're justifying statutory rape"
Different person in a different comment chain. Not me or the other person on this one.
You might have underestimated the degree to which defending child abusers might upset people?
That strikes me as remarkable, given that it’s arguably the most famously flammable topic short of intrareligious conflict.
"You might have underestimated the degree to which defending child abusers might upset people?"
I underestimated how quickly people even here will engage in dishonest tactics like this. Anyone requesting fair trial for the witch is automatically a witch itself that should be burned as well.
That is not a climate where you can find out truth, but activly preventing it through invoking fear.
The fact that Ginsberg was involved with NAMBLA is creepy enough for me, to not wanting to engage with his works btw. and I did not so much defended him, but the concept that 16 year olds are not small children anymore. Still children, yes, but not "young children". There are 16 year olds who started a family already. Not ideal, sure, but putting all those in the same bucket as 8 year olds?
16 is the age of consent in most parts of Europe. I refuse to vilify someone for doing something completely legal.
The age gap makes it predatorial.
Unless you're OK with 16 year olds having sex with 50 year olds who have been given access to them because of their fame an accolades, as well as personal connections?
Yes, of course I’m okay with that. The power dynamic imbalance probably makes it even more interesting for the 50 year old. It’s legal, I’m not going to judge what some old man is getting off on.
The pro-pedophilia group Ginsberg was vocally involved with worked to abolish age of consent laws.
As in literally no age of consent.
Even the most conservative societies on earth still have the legal age of consent be post puberty. Frankly I don’t think any group could successfully lobby for no age of consent.
Finding out about that whole NAMBLA thing was very disappointing
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Beat culture seems riddled with abusers and sociopaths.
Could be why they rebelled against the society they were raised in. But still fell victim.
I've been re-reading Kerouac lately (LOA has a nice collection of novels in a single volume). His prose is jumps from bebop riffs (On the Road) to elegiac praise of hiking in the woods/mountains (Dharma Bums). The characters (like them or not) are well drawn and always interesting. My hitchhiking days are long gone and I don't suppose this mode of transportation obtains much in the US anymore, which I think is unfortunate as it is (or was) a great way to see the country and meet a lot of people.
Biking across the country is a thing though. You'll meet people in the small towns along the way. I've only done a few well-established routes (Katy trail, for example) but I have, and full of vicarity, watched many YouTubers crossing the U.S. by bicyle.
Too much empty space. I spent six weeks doing a solo ride in France -- Versailles, Chartres, Loire Valley rivers and castles, eastern Brittany, St. Malo, Cherbourg, St. Mont Michel, Honfleur, D-Day beaches, Bayoux, Chantilly, Paris (where I caught the Tour de France finishing at the Champs-Elysées) ... amazing experience.
I am a life long fan of Jack Kerouac and thought will the biographies written about him every significant fact about his life was known and I am a bit gobsmacked.
Massachusetts, the state of his birth claims Kerouac as their own and Florida where he lived at the time of his death claims him as well. Never seen San Francisco claim him as one of their own before. I think Paris would have the better claim if they were to make one.
“If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare me a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.” -- Einstein
SF seems to claim the Beat movement as a whole. There’s a museum dedicated to it and the area around it has multiple landmarks which play into that as well (City Lights, Vesuvio). I never really considered before if that was fair.
I read On The Road but really, truly came to hate the characters. Dean Moriarty is so evil and Sal is so stupid and I feel like this never comes full circle.
The characters are seen from Sal's perspective, and I will admit he is not the sharpest pencil in the box (I think Kerouac, who was quite smart, realises this). I wonder what OTR written from Dean's point of view would be like?
Apparently Neal Cassady was not a very good husband or father either — judging by some of the retrospectives/interviews I've seen on YouTube.
They’re interesting because of it though. Let’s just say they’re “evil” in the ways I don’t care about.
Dean Moriarty physically abuses multiple women, and impregnates and abandons multiple women in terrible circumstances with no regard for his children's welfare. And many other crimes. Sal glosses over them and still idolizes him.
Well call me evil but I don’t really care about that. Honestly it serves to make him even more intriguing.
If retweets aren’t endorsements, artistic/literary depictions aren’t meant to promote the person or personages being so portrayed.
The map is not the territory anymore than the mapmaker is God. Holding a mirror up to society does not make one Narcissus.
For what it’s worth, Socrates wasn’t very popular in polite society of his time and place either, but rather reviled and given an ultimatum: repudiate your interrogatory work of our society, or die in exile. He chose the latter on his own terms via quaffing hemlock, and he went down in infamy.
Since this was written before 1978 and never published, it's not protected by copyright, yes?
Writing is protected by copyright the instant it's written.
That's true now. It wasn't true when this was written. Back then, US copyright depended on publication and registration.
I'll leave this for you to parse.
> § 303
> Duration of copyright: Works created but not published or copyrighted before January 1, 1978
> (a) Copyright in a work created before January 1, 1978, but not theretofore in the public domain or copyrighted, subsists from January 1, 1978, and endures for the term provided by section 302. In no case, however, shall the term of copyright in such a work expire before December 31, 2002; and, if the work is published on or before December 31, 2002, the term of copyright shall not expire before December 31, 2047
So you're right in that it was retroactively protected by copyright the moment it was written, but, without more information than this, it seems at least possible that the copyright on this work has now expired.
doesn't seem possible.
It says that it should follow 302 as if it was published in 1978 if it was not heretofore copyrighted, and it wasn't, and it should follow section 302 which starts with
"Copyright in a work created on or after January 1, 1978, subsists from its creation and, except as provided by the following subsections, endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and 70 years after the author’s death."
seems like it should be out of copyright in 2039.
That's useful, thanks.
Am I the only one who thought On the Road was a completely awful, poorly written book? I also hated Catcher too so maybe the 'American Greats' just aren't for me..
Not being refined and well written is part of its charm. It's the raw unfiltered passion that's as much of the message as the story is.