Tripmaster Monkey and Hollow City

TripMaster Monkey and Hollow City

 

In Tripmaster Monkey :His Fake Book,  by Maxine Hong Kingston presents a more multi-cultural city filled with adventure. In the 60s in the bay- area, there were all types and ethnicities living there at the time. However, the protagonist, Wittman Ah Sing, struggles with the multi-ethnic community as he tries to find his own identity. He wants to be part of both his Chinese community, but also be able to live in the modern American city. It is hard for him to be looked at as one thing, especially when his Chinese community views him as a modern American disvaluing Chinese tradition and Vise-versa. Overall, Wittman just wants to be a solid mix of the two cultures and Kingston parallels this with the mixing of the city itself.

On the other hand, Rebecca Solnit presents San Francisco as a city that is slowly becoming deprived of culture. Hollow City is a nostalgic book that explains how San Francisco has developed over time getting rid of the past and turning it into a cosmopolitan city. The images in Solnit’s novel are mostly images of what once was and what has become of it. She documents its gentrification process and how it affects artistry and the cultural aspects of the city. She explains that housing, studios, and workplace prices raised and almost doubled in some aspects, which forced people out of their own spaces. The city has basically been “hollowed out” by the rich white yuppies coming in and taking over with their money.

Asia as part of the contado

Asia as Part of the Contado
San Francisco has influenced many cities and cultures surrounding it through business, art, culture, and politics. These neighbor cities also cities also help San Francisco grow providing industrial materials and support. However, San Francisco’s imperial contado not only includes the Bay Area, but stretches far beyond that. Even the continent of Asia is part of San Francisco’s imperial contado.
The Asian Art museum, even though it is located inside of San Francisco, expands the imperial contado because it provides the city with culture and knowledge from another part of the world. The artifacts give the historical background of a variety of Asian cultures. On the second and third floor of the building, there are always the same artifacts loaded with information and on the first, is a changing exhibition to gain a closer look at the different countries of Asia. Currently, the exhibits on display are Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul ,and Arts of the Islamic World from Turkey to Indonesia. From these titles alone, one can conclude that the contado includes all of these places which provide S.F.’s visitors and locals a chance to engage themselves with a culture they may not be familiar with, or perhaps may remind them of their own heritage.
The Asian Art Museum is has one of the largest collections in the world including more than 17,000 and throughout a 6,000 year time period. The collection provides an introduction to the major traditions of Asian art and culture which creates the grandeur of the museum through San Francisco’s contado. Because this particular museum is well endowed with important artifacts, other museums around the country then use the exhibits that San Francisco displays which then extends its contado to those cities as well.
Aside from the actual art pieces of the museum, there are educational workshops, lectures, videos, and tours at the museum for additional information about Asia. In addition to what is physically at the museum, there are other events and programs that are either sponsored by the museum or just advertised there. For example, extra engagements with San Francisco that the Asian Art Museum includes are the World Music Festival, which is performed by youth, Japanese Tea ceremonies, and theatrical readings of famous Asian author’s novels. All of these events aid the city’s expansion of knowledge of different cultures.
San Francisco and Asia’s relationship is continually growing as we not only accept Asia’s culture and art through the museum, but also we are encouraging China to visit the city to boost the tourist economy that San Francisco thrives from. For example, Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, has plans to visit Shanghai this week to launch a private business to further our relationship with China and to come together over environmental projects for both cities. As San Francisco has been Shanghai's sister city since 1979, ties are now only growing stronger. With this in mind, Newsom wishes for San Francisco to be the first city Chinese tourists would think of to visit. Ultimately, this way of thinking creates a stronger connection with Asia to the contado.

Bibliography
http://www.asianart.org/

This website is the homepage for the Asian Art Museum. Here you can browse for anything related to the museum including exhibitions, a calendar of upcoming events, admission, and pictures of some of the artifacts that are currently there.

http://www.asianart.org/performances.htm

This is a link off of the homepage to the Asian Art Museum which has upcoming cultural events and where they are going to take place in the city.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-11/11/content_7191312.htm

News article about Mayor Gavin Newsom’s launch for a new business in San Francisco’s sister city, Shanghai. This article includes why this business is being created and names of people who plan to help in this project.

http://www.chineseartnet.com/museum.htm

This website is a good one to look at if you are interested in other Asian Art Museums around the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3j_f0qUEfY

This video shows the performance a few Shaolin KungFu Masters at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. It is one of many events which is put on for the viewers at the museum to show a specific part of their culture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxasVkutZVc

This video teaches the viewer about the art of tea making, and it’s importance today. This takes place at the Asian Art Museum.

http://maps.yahoo.com/#mvt=m&lat=37.778476&lon=-122.419817&zoom=14&tt=Asian%20Art%20Museum%2C%20San%20Francisco%2C%20CA&tp=1&q1=200%20Larkin%20San%20Francisco%2C%20CA

Yahoo map of where the museum is located in present day San Francisco.

Howl

Howl
“Howl” is a poem that I will try to tackle in hopes for more clarity of the poem for myself. Ginsberg’s main character, the angelheaded hipsters, is referring to his friends and the beats of the time. He writes of their knowledge and how they “were expelled from academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull”(Ginsberg: p.9) which seems as though their knowledge surpasses the collegiate level, yet at the same time he describes as homeless. During part I of “Howl”, he constructs his character as a rebellious beat poet that represents the counter-culture of society for that time. Their use of alcohol, drugs, and sexuality helped promote this ragged sort of hap-hazard image of the beats.
Within part I, Ginsberg starts to make his imagery global and I am not sure what the significance of this is, but to perhaps convey they places these beats have either been to, think about, or have influenced themselves. Overall, the majority of part I seems to be drug induced or describing situations on drugs. That could just be my interpretation but a lot of the poem’s imagery seems to correlate to the way different drugs make people feel, think, or hallucinate.
Part II, “Moloch!”, takes a different turn and is in a scorning tone. Moloch, literally is a god/demon-like figure that requires lots of sacrifice. Ginsberg uses the word Moloch is almost every line in part II as something that we have socially constructed. However, even though the beat poets are not addressed in this section, I think it is important that he leaves them out. I think by doing this, he is excluding them from the society which has created Moloch which is corrupt and killing us.
Moloch is representing the evil that is turning the beautiful earth into a cement world. I think it is interesting that he uses Moloch “whose love is endless oil and stone” (Ginsberg: p.22) but at the same time says “Moloch whose name is the Mind!” (Ginsberg: p.22). This suggests that the Mind, is responsible for all of the destruction. He then exempts himself from this Mind when he says that he has abandoned Moloch. This part of Howl basically uses lots of imagery that representation of the take over by cityscape such as “robot apartments!”, “invisible suburbs!”, and “granite cocks!” (Ginsberg: p.22).
Also the use of exclamation points in this part is the end of every statement! (With the exception of the first line which is a question). I think he does this so that the poem reads as a yell. This emphasizes his use of the word Moloch to make it more repulsive.
Part III of “Howl” is about Rockland, which is where his mother was placed in a mental institution. This is another part of the poem where he makes it a personal anecdote. Besides always refereeing to his friends throughout the poem, here he brings it close to home with relatives. I think that he uses the third part to relate not only himself to a mental institution, but he writes, “I’m with you in Rockland” (Ginsberg: p.26) which draws the reader in to be part of the institution as well.
Last, but not least, the footnote to “Howl”, his “Holy” section is a summary of the rest of the poem. I think here, he is trying to use the word “Holy” in an offensive manner for example he says “The tongue, and cock and hand and asshole holy!” (Ginsberg: p.27). This section also reaffirms his rebellion stance against society because he states that his beat friends are holy and at the same time, uses the word holy to mock the cement type world he had written about previously.

Ferlinghetti

Ferlinghetti Response

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, San Francisco's Poet Laureate, presents a variety of concepts to portray the city of San Francisco. One portrayal is that of a paradise-like view set in Golden Gate Park. In his poem “In Golden Gate Park that Day”, Ferlinghetti romanticizes the city by referring the park as “the meadow of the world”.

The content of the poem is a description of a couple in the park eating fruit and relaxing under a tree. The poem’s tone seems somewhat dreamlike through Ferlinghetti’s portrayal of objects he identifies. Some of the physical objects in the poem are an old flute, grapes which the wife hands out to squirrels, and trees which “seemed to have been waiting thru all time for them (the couple) which creates an imagery of a sort of fantasy land. Furthering this concept, there are birds which are “calling to each other in the stilly air as if they were questioning existence”. This thought seems to be parallel to the couple who are lying beneath the tree and implies a sense of wonderment which amplifies Ferlinghetti’s portrayal of a romanticized city.

This poem also seems to have the tail of Adam and Eve present. The couple seems to be alone in this “meadow of the world” with only animals as companionship. Also the imagery of the fruit which they both eat under the tree could represent the forbidden fruit. After eating the fruit and looking up at the birds which are questioning existence, the woman looks up at nothing, possibly because it is representing the beginning of time. In the conclusion of the poem, the woman looks at her husband with an “awful look of terrible depression” which could have been prompted by and number of motivations. Yet, the ending still leaves the reader with the feeling of a romanticized situation in a paradise setting.