Surprise for me! I Found the Postcard!

The Idea That is Alcatraz

I remember stepping onto the dock of Alcatraz. It was cold and the wind was sharp and crisp. I latched onto my big sis for warmth. I was thinking of Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage and that one gangster from Chicago. Al Pacino? Al Paso? I was thinking of that 70s movie I saw once about the three prisoners that escaped, wondering how they did it.

The first thing we saw was a big white crumbling building that didn’t look like much. And as we passed the visitors center and entered the gift shop I found a peculiar object. It was a simple postcard with a picture of a Native America tipi and the Golden Gate in the background. At the time the image seemed so out of place, so random. What were Indians doing on Alcatraz? What a cool idea… I never thought about it again. And it didn’t come up on the guided tour, so I figured it was something miscellaneous. Little did I know…

Five Years later, I now know what Indians where doing on Alcatraz. We go to school to learn and become less ignorant; I now know that the image I saw was a snapshot of a Native America demonstration.

The film we saw in class was not only entertaining but inspiring. It was an example of how a group of dedicated students with a noble cause can actually make a difference, cause commotion, and get in the hair of the government. The film was rich in portraying the experiences of the occupiers, before, during, and after the take over. It opened our eyes the continuous struggle that Native Americans have to deal with. A few things really stuck with me after watching it:

1.One occupier during the film, an old man with feathers in his hair, was holding up a sign to the camera that read: “I am not a mascot” (referring to the Washington Redskins). It made me laugh.

2.The befitting irony of the occupier’s demands of purchasing Alcatraz for 24 dollars in cloth and beads, the price that Manhattan Island was purchased for. And then adjusting prices to because of retail increases.

3.The comparison of Alcatraz’s poor condition to Indian reservations. As Fortune Eagle put it: “It's removed from society, and there's no running water, and unemployment will be very great. There's not enough game to support the population. And all of these things are just typical of any Indian reservation in the country, so it was a good kind of satire, if you will, to use all of that to say.” Life on Alcatraz will be no better than the life on any reservation.

4.It was very inspiring to me that a forgotten group of individuals, like Native Americans, to stand up and tell their oppressing government that “We want our freedom. We want to be made a people. We want the right to self-determination."

5.I enjoyed the symbolic idea of when boats come in from all over the world to see Indian land first as a remind of the great heritage of the United States.

The idea of converting an abandoned decaying prison into a university/cultural center/ etc, seems utopian. 19 months of occupation…That’s a long time. It hard to image anything but a prison on that island. But as the film said… it’s not an island… it’s an idea. An idea that one day, all the Native Americans of North America, will have their own gathering spot to promote and remember their heritage.

Questions: When I visited Alcatraz 5 or 6 years ago, their was no genuine mention of the occupation. Why do you think that is? Has any body been their recently? Have they changed the tour in any way? Could it have been a result from this PBS program?

On Brechin

Brechin’s book is a myth buster that shows the true origins of such things as the Skyscraper, the cable cars, and how San Francisco was able to flourish into the city that it now is only by the decimation of the Sierra Nevada.
We all know and understand that the human mind is susceptible to billboards, magazine ads, TV commercials, and all other forms of advertisements. The media has always played a determinate role in public opinion and is therefore a powerful entity. In order to give the read a better understanding, Brechin included many news paper cartoons, pictures, and maps with his text.
One of his accompanying images, “Bonanza Veterans” (Pg. 42), is a satirical cartoon from the news paper The Wasp. It illustrates “A few wealthy insiders making fortunes battling among themselves.” The wealthy men are dressed as imperial Roman soldiers combating each other, while ragged men below them wander the streets. The rich men are clashing in front of the Greco-Roman style “SF Stock Exchange” building. This cartoon was designed to convey how the “bank crowd” of San Francisco or “Ralston’s Ring” have take over the mining stock exchange and are raking in the profits. Ralston and his associates have placed there own members as directors of the exchange and through insider trading are cornering the market. These men are the embodiment of Imperialism. Their clothes and the style of exchange building clearly allude to the imperial nature of their acts. They are rich men quibbling for more and more capital in order to expand their holding even further. They build their empire on the backs of cheap exploitable labor and are in a unending conquest for development. While the poor are trying to just scavenge a meal, the rich men are pushing out the competition and monopolizing the mining market.
Another provocative image the Brechin includes in his discourse is “Man’s Great Storehouse of Wealth” (Pg. 18). The idea that this image provokes is that the earth is destined to serve man. As a man towers over earth with a pick in hand, ready to strike her, and remove the treasure from her insides. But this was the popular though back then. Earth is here to enrich us. We are allowed to gain wealth at her expense. Hearst glorifies the ravishing of natural recourses and sums up his perspective with the “Beautiful Planet Devoted to his Use.”


Questions:
The motto “Gold in Peace, Iron in War” seems to fit the origins of SF perfectly, due to the mining history that we are now aware of. However any suggestions for an up dated motto?

I will never look at a dam or skyscraper the same way ever again…

On a side note: Derren Brown, a magician, mentalist, psychologist, and whole lot of other things, has this great video on subliminal advertisement, worth the watch, but I warn you, you might end up watching his other video for hours. To YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg

Brautigan’s Worsewick

Brautigan is a provocative poet that likes to push the limits and throw our minds a curve ball. He rouses us all with images of raunchy pornographic scenes but on other pages surprises us with sweet and gentle love poems such as, “Map Shower” and “The Horse That Had a Flat Tire.” He enjoys misleading us with titles such as “Love Poem” and the “Beautiful poem” that are good examples of how we all jump to conclusions. One of the raunchiest passages of Brautigan’s, one that scared me a bit, is “Worsewick.”

The image is a young couple with a baby that decide to go skinny dipping in a polluted, murky water hot spring that is full of green slime and dead floating fish. Sounds like a terrible porno, I know. The father/husband is describing the events from his perspective. The passage is against the cookie-cutter conventional idea of a beautiful hideaway spring in the wilderness with singing birds and clean rejuvenating water. Worsewick is “nothing fancy.” The passage is an anti-pastoral, anti-puritanical, but none the less about an almost romantic scene. All though some images are terribly upsetting, such as when the man ejaculates, and a dead fish with stiff, glaring iron eyes stares at him as it bobs along in his semen. The general idea is quixotic and “tender”: Two lovers, isolated in a moment giving themselves to one another submitting to their ardent passions. The woman is portrayed as a sexual entity that is present for his taking, “the deerflies were at her, and then it was my turn.” This perspectives reappears in Brautigan’s other works.

I believe that this couple represents most of man kind. They are surrounded by pollution, desolation, and filth, but they are comfortable with it. “We played and relaxed in the water. The green slime and the dead fish played and relaxed with us…” Most people are aware of the destruction of nature all around them, but generally most individuals are at easy. They are not out raged nor disgusted. They simple keep living their lives and adapt to the tainted environment that is around them. The world is going down the toilet and people are ok with it. As long as they may still fornicate.

Thanks to Brautigan I no longer believe that a poem with a nice title like “Love Poem” will be about love until I read it.


Question:
It has come to my attention that dead fish is a common occurrence and agenda in “Trout Fishing in America.” For me, they represent a form of ruined nature and balance. What do you believe they represent?

On Ferlinghetti’s The Changing Light

Lawrence Ferlinghetti illustrates many dimensions of San Francisco in his poetry. His collection of poems investigates a wide range of topics that include San Francisco’s cultural diversity, the expansive social-economical rifts that exist, he is critical of the Imperial United States of America, and articulates on other elements that are unique to San Francisco.

The poem, The Changing Light, in particular is a depiction of the awesome phenomenon that is San Francisco’s brilliant light. San Francisco has its own splendid, radiant gleam that is unique to this earth. It is “none of your East Coast light...none of your pearly light of Paris,” Ferlinghetti says. The light of San Francisco is distinctive, similar to the Mediterranean perhaps, but without comparison. The poem describes the cycle of San Francisco’s light stages. The foggy mornings, the lambent afternoons, the sweeping wing, the casing sunset, and the new fabric of fog that floats in every night.

As our professor suggested, it might be attributed to the combination of the reflection of the ocean, the golden gate, the misty luminous fog, the refulgent glass from the skyline, the harbor light, that truly creates such an awe- inspiring light. Notice it is “Light” not “Lights,” as if San Francisco was a single island of light; A beacon. A drifting island of light is the main image constructed by Ferlinghetti; “an island light.” This might allude to the idea that San Francisco is its own island apart for the rest of the United States, an exceptional metropolis or hub of progress. Structurally, the lines and stanzas seems to be floating, almost drifting, off the page, just as if they were “anchorless upon the ocean,” as the last line of the poem suggest.

We're all beautiful golden sun flowers inside

Have a nice day.

Questions:

Serious: Ferlinghetti employs the element of water thru out many of his poems, what effect does this have on his poems and how would they differ if the water element was removed?

Unserious: “Wake up and pee, the world is one fire” was our advice from Mr. Ferlinghetti… is this Freud reading sexist pig being misogynistic?

LTEL 155b