Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg (68 page)

And to add to all the confusion of my book coming out and all this new spate of publicity and nervousness my sister had to go and throw HER complications in making my mother babysit for a month and here I am no time to shit and the house getting dirtier every day. If you do come, you could in fact come and browse among my manuscripts and type up what you want for anthology, come with in mind not to dirty house and Peter too, like I'm really harried. I wish you would come, like right now this weekend, fuck Norman Mailer he's trying to get in the act. Why wasn't he a hipster when it counted? Why didn't he talk about God when everybody else was talking about Freud? On Friday night Nov 6 I'll be at Hunter Playhouse 68th and Park and will drive back with Dody. I still don't know what I'll say. I'll talk a little, give them their money's worth of Kerouac Beat Generation, then start reading “Bomb” I guess, unless you think of something else and new. (Because I don't really agree with “Bomb” world-apocalypse is good, I believe in people saying it won't happen at all because we've evolved now and become smart human race. I hope). (microphone in heaven). I'd rather read “Marriage”, can you bring that for me? And do I shoot you question in audience? Will I be in the enemy camp on that mad night? Do I wear Mighty Goodwills? Am I Sirdanah the Mighty Goodwiller? Do I have to be smart? Do I even have to think? Can I drink beer on the stage or shall I show up quiet wordless sober? Will I address Dean Kauffman directly? Oh yes, don't miss my interview on the editorial page of
Herald Tribune
, by Ray Price, in which I said the old hipster saw, printed for first time now, “Wouldn't it be wonderful if Ike and Dulles and Macmillan and DeGaulle and Khrushchev and Mao and Nehru should all sit around a table and smoke tea? what humor and openmindedness would result, what tender perception.” He said he would make that his lead. When the fuxx fuzz comes to my house there won't be a joint or pill in the house so never bring any you and Pete. All I have is dexhamyls by prescription from local doctor. [ . . . ] Mike Goldberg was telling me how terrible you and Pete were in the Hamptons, says Joyce [Glassman], I don't even remember, I was answering eagerly yes to everything he said (blind drunk) and Joyce said I sold you and Peter down the river and that I was a balloon and that I was always worried what the neighbors would think and etc. embarrassing her in public she added and really, now, when we went to Hecht show you remember we tried to sneak out the back way. Is she demented? I hope she doesn't shoot me before I see
Sax
in print, and
Gerard
next fall. As for new chick (new, NEW, I had no old chick) Henri says because she Indian and French she knife me if I ever kid around other girl. O boy, here goes Léon Robinson into the ends of the night.
¹⁴¹
What with being pulled apart on earth by you and my mother, in heaven by Buddha and Christ, none of whom can get together I don't know why except over my suffering carcass, wow, this will be the end of me, I always thought I was too strong to be Stephen Craned like Louis Simpson but it's almost happening and NOBODY IS RESPONSIBLE? You see Nobody is Responsible. Not even me. Not even my mother. I forgive myself first and then all of you for the origigan original ignorance of wanting to be born in the first place but we're doing alright, especially you sweetie.

Jack

 

 

Allen Ginsberg [New York, New York] to
Jack Kerouac [n.p., Northport, New York?]

170 E 2 St
NYC 9
Oct 29, '58

 

Dear Jack:

Called Don Allen. He says Grove will really put out books for Gary and Phil, and he wants to publish
Mexico City Blues
. Says Grove wouldn't want all that poetry given to Tuttle they'll print it. I wrote Gary and Phil saying, then, ask Grove to shit or get off the pot (oops excuse) and find out Grove's plans, and then do what they want, choose their publisher—or let Phil henceforth deal with Tuttle—either arrange and edit or let them know no—so they don't get confusing letters from anyone. I also wrote Tuttle that Phil would get in touch with them, that Gary and Phil might have other commitments I dunno, that their letter was sweet and that even if they didn't get the Zen book of our poems, there were still several manuscripts of yours—poetry,
Some of the Dharma
, and biography of Buddha and gave them Lord's address if they wanted to investigate more that. So now I cut out and leave it to Phil and Lord can get in touch with them, tell him, if you want to try
Some of the Dharma
—which might be great to have them publish.

Don Allen was also upset—hadn't received
Dr. Sax
and wanted to know if anything was wrong. I told him I dunno, but you were finished or near finished with work on it. My opinion—don't let Madison Avenue try water you down and make you palatable to reviewers mentality by waiting on wildbooks and putting out commissioned travelogues (however good).
Sax
is logical next book and you're in a position to do what you want now. Aesthetically
Sax
and
Visions of Neal
and
Poems
. After
Sax
they'd have to see prose beauty of Neal and also the hero's real beauty—they been shitting on that poor boy and comparing him unfavorably with nice Japhy [the
Dharma Bums
character based on Gary Snyder]. Perhaps [Sterling] Lord is impressed with that mentality.

Sent [Irving] Rosenthal all Burroughs' manuscript
Interzone
to use as much as he can next issue.

Please send me excerpts from
Visions
, and your best poems forever for the City Lights anthology. There was a long shortline poem adieu / goodby / bonsoir etc. for man in Lowell who dies, GJ's father? you showed me in Berkeley. Also in Helen Weaver's pad two years ago a poem in “long lines” about wine trickling down alley in moonlite. Would like those and choose your blues. Yes? Or not—should I get poem from manuscript at Don Allen?

Navaretta from the party wrote “At his most drunken, or rather ecstatic point, Jack continued to prove that he could take all of it and sing back. This, after all the fancy words, proclaims the poet and artist. It is a question of enduring, and Jack endures—Please tell him he writes like a brother and that I love him like a brother. And thank him for coming to our party as we also thank you, Allen Ginsberg.” And he wants to have me write a 3¢ a word an article on extreme abstraction in poetry. I dunno anything about that. Do you? Gregory's a little abstract, that's all I know. Maybe midnight might be considered abstract type prose. I'll say I don't know what it's all about to him.

Your public? Goof! how many times have you (forgotten, drunk) challenged me (and Peter and who?) in public anyway, “C'mon I'll fuck you.” Screw public relations let's be kind and truthful. Who else dare?

Love,

Allen

 

 

Allen Ginsberg [New York, New York] to
Jack Kerouac [n.p., Northport, New York?]

170 E 2 St
Mon Nov 17, 1958

 

Dear Jack:

Just brought in some furniture from Paterson so have set myself up a nice workroom and desk in the apartment. Enclosed find article from
Village Voice
I wrote. Also enclosed a letter from Robert Cummings, editor of
Isis
, the Oxford undergraduate magazine. I gave him some poems of yours while I was in Europe, so he'll publish them with some of mine and Gregory's.

Rosenthal of
Chicago Review
wired me asking me to phone him Saturday Nite. I did, and he said that the University of Chicago had forbidden him to publish Winter issue, which would have consisted of thirty-five pages select cleanish Burroughs, “Sebastian Midnite” complete, and thirty pages [Edward] Dahlberg. Also said that in future they'd forbid him to publish any of Bill, or you, maybe Dahlberg too even (he wrote a book about Priapus.) Also the University may forbid my poetry reading December 5 under
Review
auspices. So Rosenthal doesn't know what to do. I asked Don Allen and McGregor of New Directions to ask Laughlin, but they don't offer any ideas. I told Rosenthal to write Ferlinghetti and have him print it up as the banned issue
Chicago Review
, City Lights probably would. Meanwhile Rosenthal and staff not made up their mind whether to go ahead and screw the university and end the review—but they probably can't anyway as it's printed at the University of Chicago Press. He'll probably write you. Meanwhile I'm supposed to go there anyway in two weeks (December 5) and read, somewhere, except won't get no pay for it, was supposed to get $150. Want to come to Chicago and be communist hassle martyr with me? (Seems the Hearst press there is trying to bug the university, had last year got book by Maud Hutchins, ex-wife of prexy, banned; and new stink comes from Herb Caen type gossip columnists circulating news stories that filthy magazines are being sponsored by the university. So the school gave in.)

[ . . . ]

Went to Paterson and brought old letters and documents etc. including some other writings by Huncke buried in attic five years now. Have to look it over yet.

Last Friday lunch with Rosalind Constable and gave her outline of all your books chronologically, she asked for.

House looks great now, special private rooms for writing, huge Brueghel picture of children's games hung by rope from wall, used rope to frame a cardboard picture.

Guess I'll settle in to type last couple years scribbled poetry, ignus etc.

Gregory writes he's feeling fine back in Paris wants to come home, going to be on radio-TV in Berlin to read “Bomb”, they invited him. Nothing from Bill. [John] Montgomery's started to bombard me with letters.

Don Allen says [Barney] Rosset turned down separate volumes for Gary and Phil but would do a book of Gary, Phil and myself and you. However Rosset still reading
Blues
and Allen thinks he'll put that out complete.

Don Allen also said he wants to print
Dr. Sax
. Also wants to read
Visions of Neal
again and study it and see if it can be legally printed complete here. Said
Gerard
, “more sentimental” would be good later on for an Xmas book.

Sterling Lord doesn't seem to realize how good
Sax
is literarily nor how good it might be commercially, nor how good it would be for your reputation.

He (Lord) is thinking a good deal in reputation terms. He thinks
Dharma Bums
was good for your intellectual and commercial reputation. He thinks a book on Paris would be, like, new material for the
Spokesman
to deal with. All this is on Viking-Madison Avenue mental level.

I tried explain to him that nite with Deutsch that I agree it's a good thing to consider reputation, I'm in favor of it,
Sax
would be the book to do it with. He asked me did I really think so literarily? I said yes and he seemed surprised. So I gather that the reason he's shopping around with
Sax
, promoting the Viking- Paris book as the next Good Thing, is that he doesn't dig how good
Sax
is.

We talked about that. He says, Jack's next book should

I explained that
Sax
does deal with small-town myth-gothic new material, and that it does have, more than any other book, what could be called a regular recognizable classical structure. He didn't seem to understand that either of these points were relevant to his reputation plans, and that
Sax
had them.

So I say, perhaps both Viking and Lord are neglecting your good books and trying to get you to write “potboilers” according to their ideas of what your writing career should develop like.

So I say that since Grove wants to print
Sax
, as your next book, this spring, you ought to let them do it. If Viking objects and wants to print a book first (tho they had the last one)—see if they'll do
Sax
or
Gerard
or
Neal
or a book you
want
printed.

Also, says Don Allen, the
Subs
did well financially, they spent lots money advertising ($6000 he says), made money for you anyway on resale—he also said they'd probably match anybody else's financial offer. Ask Lord to try. Also says Don Allen, they've asked for and wanted the book a long time, and have already signed a contract for it (signed and handed it to Lord, he hasn't signed yet) so they wonder what he's doing. I told Don Allen to have lunch with Sterling, and talk business. So I don't know.

All I'd say, it doesn't matter who prints
Sax
really, except it should be done next, by someone. I dunno. Anyway I get the impression from Lord the basic reason for all this hang-up with Viking,
Sax
, Paris, etc. is that they don't realize how good
Sax
is, otherwise they'd just publish that next and then go on chronologically.

I told Allen you were sick of publishing hassles and wanted quiet and so were leaving all arrangements etc. to Lord, and Tao.

What's new?

As ever,

Allen

Jack Kerouac [Northport, New York] to
Allen Ginsberg [New York, New York]

November 19, 1958

 

Dear Allen:

I told Sterling that Don Allen said he would match anybody's offer for
Sax
and I'm seeing Sterling Friday night—I'll be at Dody's [Muller] loft Thursday evening at 81 Second Avenue above the bakery, will go see you unless you call first. I told Sterling I want
Sax
published this spring (for $7500 advance, why not?) and then
Gerard
by Viking in the Fall and then for 1960 my Paris book which will be alright, in fact it will be called
European Blues
and be all about Spain and Italy and Hamburg too—(me and Dody digging fishermen's wives)—or
God Over Europe
, or something—in fact I'll get the title high. I just wrote my first column for
Escapade
magazine all about Bill and Gregory and you and me and current state of American Lit being shitty because not yet published on accounts editors and writers themselves who discard their best manuscripts. Your
Village Voice
review best I ever got, of course, but
Road
was not written on benny, on coffee, and in 1951, (May), and wasn't onionskin teletype roll but Bill Cannastra's drawing paper etc. we should have consulted somehow. I thought page 34 to page 25 a real silly maneuver—(by wiseguy editors who don't believe you anyway).
¹⁴²
But you told them off. Next time you start an article say, “Now to put an end to all this cowflop.” Okay with me about Cummings in Oxford—Now that Ferling may do the rejected
Chicago Review
I guess our anthology is off for a while, anyway I had figured it out, your notes amount to thirty pages of material and then I was going to throw in the “Three Stooges” (already printed in Mike Grieg's
New Editions
, without any errors except dashes) and “Old Bull Balloon” for fairly complete picture. We can do that on a deadline, anyhow, I'm good on deadlines. Tell me this weekend. No, don't go to Chicago, what's the use, t'would be better to go nowhere and just go have long talks with LeRoi Jones or somebody or even arrange yourself a week of poetry reading at Village Vanguard or something, could be done, would be great, make a little loot ($400 a week). Or read at Half Note, or don't read, just type up your poems. Take this advice from a man who has created a masterpiece, what's the sense of traveling around to the midlands of America unless you have a car or something, I don't know. Just type up your poems. Put together a brand new book of your own stuff for Don or Ferling. If you do go to Chicago then you should go all the way to the west coast before Gary leaves. I am home alone now with my mother and still can't sleep too good and very nervous and twitchy, I going to get advance from Viking and fetch passport and go to Europe then. I hope Gregory comes back ere that. I will bring Dody so I can have companion of love and also get to know ladies as well as gentlemen of Europe, move around more and be spectacular scott fitzgerald type investigators instead of just me like a thief. Nobody trusted me when I was in Paris because they knew I was an English thief—with Dody I can go to big cocktail parties in Paris and meet fashionables and pass out and be cute, not bummy—either that or I don't go at all. I mean, maybe I won't even go. What I care about Europe? How's Peter? Has he written new notes? Tell him Lafcadio came over with his paints and a bare canvas and painted my portrait in the kitchen making me look small childlike Jake Spencer and took it home to show to his Ma, wants me to buy it but I'm going to save my money now, spent $150 last week on food and liquor for everyone, too much—I'm not William Faulkner movie writer yet. But painting is fine and he said he would not show it to you or Peter at all, so don't mention it. Dody says he is a nice boy, just shy, not crazy at all. Don't press him too much, he told me he was bugged by you and Peter pressing him to “come out.” He don't want come out. Everybody wants him come out—even strangers like Henri Cru—let him dream. My mother and I going to stay in Northport now so all's well and I see you often. Hearst-political hassles in Chicago not worthy of your time. Whow Who's Hearst in Eternity? When you see Lucien tell him I see him this weekend. Actually I don't know what's going on and don't really care, maybe I will leave everything in Lord's hands and just go on, I feel like taking sketches of Europe now, as well as Manhattan when I'm there alone in cafeteria. See you soon. (Friday or Thursday or Saturday.)