嚎叫2010

Jeffrey Friedman - Howl
为金斯堡而作的“诗电影”，以作品的庭审贯穿，但却没有局限在那一个时代。
问题只有一个，就是我们生存的这个世界，永远背离我们的心灵。
无论任何时代、任何地方。
艺术的力量就在于穿透了自己的时代，把粗大的阴茎插进了子孙后代的咽喉，所以，不管影片再怎么忠实于历史，它的超越时代的价值都那么突兀地矗立起来。
重点是没有一个人会喜欢自己的环境，无论任何时代，任何地方。
大多数人只是假装自己的心灵已经死亡，假装自己是衣服架子，是钱包，但是再怎么假装也掩盖不住心灵的凄惨嚎叫。
所以，金斯堡写的，不是他自己的诗，是每个人的心灵史诗，不仅在那个时代，而且在我们的现在，都打中了我们最深处的隐私。
这就是艺术化性爱，粗暴插入生命的核心，那些活死人才能感到高潮。
接着的问题就变得琐碎而具体，我们可以怎么选择？路能怎么走？
世界从来就是你的敌人，你从来就被他们奴役，但是，你能怎么反抗？
从内心开始，从真诚开始，从自己最深处的尴尬和难堪开始。
从你每天惯性的言谈举止开始，从你那所有无关心灵的虚伪面具开始，把它撕掉。
你真的恐惧，你真的懦弱，你真的有很多问题，那就面对它们吧。
你真的被现实操得千疮百孔，至少你也可以承认啊。
我们都是蜂窝煤，我们都是一团破布，我们都被压榨得只剩人的皮壳。
但是在皮壳里面，在破布里面，我们自己生命的核心价值依然不死，依然嚎叫。
如果你愿意当你自己，可以嚎叫化生存，可以从这里开始。

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吸引我看下去的是 Jon Hamm。
给我印象最深的是法官的结案陈词。
There are a number of words used in "Howl" that are presently considered coarse and vulgar in some circles of the community, and in other circles, such words are in everyday use. The author of "Howl" has used those words because he believed that his portrayal required them as being in character. The People state that such words are not necessary and that others would be more palatable for good taste. The answer is that life is not encased in one formula whereby everyone acts the same and conforms to a particular pattern. No two persons think alike. We were all made from the same form but in different patterns. Would there be any freedoms of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid, innocuous euphemism? An author should be real in treating his subject and be allowed to express his thoughts and ideas in his own words. In considering material claimed to be obscene, it is well to remember the motto, "Honi soit qui mal y pense" "Evil to him who evil thinks." The freedoms of speech and press are inherent in a nation of free people. These freedoms must be protected if we are to remain free, both individually and as a nation. Therefore, I conclude that the book "Howl and OOther Poems" does have some redeeming social importance, and I find the book is not obscene. The defendant is found not guilty.

    《嚎叫》（Howl）是美国“垮掉的一代”代表人物金斯堡（Allen Ginsberg）的诗歌代表作，也是美国导演爱泼斯坦（Rob Epstein）和弗雷德曼（Jeffrey Friedman）据此拍摄的同名实验电影。该影片2010年初发行，9月底在全美各大影院公开放映，10月6日晚，耶鲁大学惠特尼人文中心小礼堂免费播放，英文系主任沃纳（Michael Warner）等三位教授现场点评。原以为一部实验电影，想必曲高和寡不会有很多观众，于是提前半个小时赶到，但现场的氛围实在让人大感意外。平时超市、商店、餐厅等公共场所内的顾客都稀稀拉拉，此刻出现在眼前的却是久违了的“排队长龙”。犹如国内当年领取托福报名表时的“盛况”，同样年龄的耶鲁学子们提前多时赶来，或三五成群窃窃私语，或一书在手席地而坐。人丛中也有头发花白的老者虔诚而安静地等待着，长长的队伍已经从华尔街的人行道拐到另一条马路坦普街上，“长龙”缓慢蠕动着，而焦急的心情仿佛置身于世博会场馆前的漫长等待中。及至电影正式放映时，仍有大批师生滞留在影院入口。因为安全问题，管理员拒绝了笔者加座或站立观赏的请求。最后在工作人员的耐心劝说下，未能入场的观众只能悻悻然离去。

    错失良机，自然懊悔不迭，但内心仍然克制不住对电影《嚎叫》的强烈兴趣和好奇。第二日即10月7日（也是金斯堡在旧金山第六画廊公开朗诵《嚎叫》55周年纪念日），我只身前往纽黑文小城的包铁院线自费观看，实地感受一下美国的电影文化。我提前一刻钟到达影院，空荡荡的大厅里只有我一人。电影开始播放时，才又陆续来了另外五位观众。稀落的景象与昨日的“叫座”形成巨大的反差。看来，所谓的“盛况”只是特殊环境中的特殊现象而已，个中原因应该有三：一是免费，二是有现场点评，三是电影在合适的地点遇到了合适的观众。仔细比较美国包铁院线正在上映的10部片子，《嚎叫》的观众人数和影院评级一直垫底。而美国同期票房冠亚军则是高投资、大制作、讲述财富故事的《社交网络》（The Social Network）和《华尔街：金钱永不眠》（Wall Street:Money Never Sleeps）。同期上映的根据当代英国小说家石黑一雄（Kazuo Ishiguro）小说改编的电影《千万别丢下我》（Never Let Me Go）因为探讨克隆人的内心世界与伦理问题，在院线的排行榜上比《嚎叫》略微靠前。2010年初，《嚎叫》曾作为圣丹斯电影节的开幕影片放映，反响并不强烈。后来参加柏林电影节，虽然它让部分专业人士津津乐道，但影视界的评价仍有褒有贬。

    《嚎叫》没有跌宕起伏、引人入胜的故事，也没有惊心动魄或惊险刺激的场面，其主要内容有：一、年轻的金斯堡在一台老式的打字机上创作《嚎叫》；二、金斯堡在旧金山的六号画廊向一批追随者朗诵《嚎叫》；三、金斯堡在一间温馨的房间内接受未曾“露脸”的记者的采访；四、《嚎叫》出版商费林盖蒂（Lawrence Ferlinghetti）因涉嫌传播淫秽出版物接受法庭的审判。影片打破情节的连续性与画面的单一性，采用多条线索和多个叙事形式，时空的断裂与跳跃性极大。它所使用的电影手法也很有特点，如多个场景快速切换拼贴，不同事件剪辑并置，黑白与彩色胶片交叉穿行，不时插入大量或写实或抽象的动画等。如果对金斯堡及其创作背景缺乏一定的了解，观看这样一部实验电影实在是一种煎熬。正因为与流行的好莱坞大片截然不同，这部影片自然将习惯于好莱坞模式的普通观众拒之门外。

    影片的主角是著名演员詹姆斯·弗兰科（James Franco）扮演的金斯堡，但严格地来说又不是金斯堡，更不是费林盖蒂或凯鲁亚克或金斯堡的同性恋伴侣。在创作、朗诵、访谈、审判中不断重复或呈现的诗句，以及对诗歌的解读、评价、“审判”，几乎成了整部电影的中心和焦点。如果说《嚎叫》是一部实验电影，那么其实验性不仅在于其反传统的电影形式与技巧，而且也在于其巧妙地使一首长诗成为特殊的“主角”。影片用摄像机的镜头和多种电影手法对美国当代史诗《嚎叫》进行了实验性的影像再现。可以说，《嚎叫》既是诗人金斯堡的人物传记片，也是一部富有特色的“诗歌电影”。英美电影界以著名诗人为素材拍摄的影片已经有很多，如以浪漫主义诗人华兹华斯和柯勒律治为题材的影片《万魔汇聚》（Pandaemonium，2000），反映当代诗人普拉斯（Sylvia Plath）和泰特·休斯（Ted Hughes）爱情故事的电影《西尔维娅》（Sylvia, 2003），还有国人耳熟能详的奥斯卡获奖影片《莎翁情史》（Shakespeare in Love, 1998）等。然而，以一首具体的诗歌为主要素材而拍摄的影片却难得一见。就题材而言，《嚎叫》所面对的挑战显然是前所未有的，其先锋实验性也由此可见一斑。

    对文学名著进行改编，在影视界是普遍现象。影视对文学的改编是一个复杂的增删取舍的艺术过程，实际上代表了一种独特的批评视角，是编剧和导演对原著的一种形象化、图像化的阐释，是一种特殊的文学批评形式。上世纪80年代，英国学者辛亚德（Neil Sinyard）曾经指出：“如同最优秀的文学批评一样，影视改编可以让原著更加澄明。”因此，电影《嚎叫》不仅是对50年代美国“披头士”文化的形象反映，而且也是从电影的角度对长诗《嚎叫》所展开的另类解读，是一次电影化或胶片化的文学批评尝试。正如美国批评家斯坦利·费什（Stanley Fish）在《纽约时报》上的影评所言：“文学批评进了电影！”作为对长诗《嚎叫》的批评解读，电影《嚎叫》不是单向度的，而是多角度的、开放式的。在多层次、多结构的电影叙事中，隐藏着多元化的文学批评模式，如传记批评模式、精神分析模式、读者反映批评模式等等。在诗人缺席的法庭审判中，控辩律师、多名专家证人以及法官都成了《嚎叫》一诗的角度不同或立场相反的阐释者。“淫秽案”的审理最终变成了探讨诗歌价值与文学批评的“专题研讨会”（seminar）。

    《嚎叫》是一部“诗歌电影”，也是一部别具一格的“诗歌批评电影”，是关于诗歌阐释与文学批评的后现代戏仿（parody）。在戏仿的过程中，影片将金斯堡长诗的不同解读途径呈现在观众面前。费什对此有详细的归纳：一、主题性解读（诗歌“连根拔除游手好闲的人”）；二、政治性解读（“对二战后世界的绝望反应”）；三、意识形态解读（“反抗资本主义的堕落”）；四、形式主义解读（“诗歌没有形式”，诗歌“所选择的词语表达了作者的意图”）；五、价值论解读（“它经得起时间的考验，会促成同类经典的产生”）；六、互文性解读（《嚎叫》与惠特曼《草叶集》之间的关系）。在这些解读之外，还有费什没有提到的、本片所独有的“漫画式”解读。影片不时插入的画外音对诗歌的大段朗诵，在音乐声中被配以快速变换的超现实的动漫画图片。这一颇为独特的表现形式有点类似电视节目中的“配乐配画诗朗诵”。如果说各种角度的解读客观反映了55年来批评界与知识界对此诗的总体理解与评价，那么“配乐配画诗朗诵”则代表了编导们对诗歌的别出心裁的“视听化”解读。它与电影中所呈现的各种角度的阐释构成了一曲复杂的“批评交响乐”。

    此外，影片中值得深入探讨的还有诗歌阐释的法学途径。作为西方后现代法律运动的分支，“法律与文学”提供了文学批评的法律视角。国内外活跃在此领域的学者大多是法律学者，他们的研究主要侧重于法学层面的探讨，文学作品只是借鸡下蛋或借酒浇愁的手段，或是探究法学问题的生动素材。例如，美国著名法学家波斯纳（Richard Posner）在《法律与文学》（Law and Literature）一书中对《威尼斯商人》的探讨，完全着眼于法庭审判过程中的技术细节与法理问题，严格地来说，是不能作为对《威尼斯商人》的一种批评解读。同样，中国学者朱苏力的《法律与文学》探讨了大量中国戏剧经典，但根底上的法学主旨决定了此书仍然是法学研究，相关文学作品只不过是探究法学问题的历史文献而已。影片《嚎叫》中的审判与当时英国轰动一时的《查特莱夫人的情人》“诲淫案”一样，都涉及到法律对文学的管制问题。也许在法学家的眼里，审判的过程与细节可以成为反思法学问题或完善法律条款的切入口；但是从文艺研究的角度来看，其中则隐含着对文学作品进行法律评价的重要内涵。例如，控辩律师对涉嫌“淫秽”的陈词或辩论，被演绎成了从正反两个维度对诗歌所进行的美学阐释。影片结尾，法官对案件的无罪宣判演说，更是基于法学视角对《嚎叫》一诗所作出的特殊批评：“此诗虽然有粗鄙与下流的语言，但这是诗歌描写所必不可少的！”这是法官对诗歌价值的肯定，也是法律向文学的致敬。

    作为中国观众，“在美国看《嚎叫》”自然也包含了一种跨文化的解读视角。长期以来，金斯堡在国内学界“名声”不佳。早年的正统观点将金斯堡、凯鲁亚克等作家称作“垮掉的一代”（来自对“Beat Generation”一词的翻译），并痛斥为“美国资产阶级道德沦亡、腐化堕落最集中、最无耻的表现”。陆建德先生后来又极为风趣地称之为“鄙德派”（“鄙德”在音、义上巧妙地对应“beat”一词）。几年前故世的文楚安先生曾对“beat”一词进行深入的考察与分析，认为将“Beat Generation”翻译成“垮掉的一代”并不贴切，因为“beat”一词的含义极为丰富而宽广，因此强烈建议用中性的“BG一代”加以取代。但十几年来，学界对此并不“买账”。“垮掉的一代”似乎早已“深入人心”，长诗《嚎叫》也因为涉及同性恋、粗言秽语、吸毒、性乱等内容，直到上个世纪90年代末才被翻译成中文。由于文化语境的不同，诗中的“诲淫”内容在中译本中都作了较大的改动或变通处理。时至今日，观看美国编导们对这部长诗的重新“解读”，不难发现，其中所表达的则是某种“深入人心”的西方理念，即“言论自由是生命自由不可或缺的重要组成部分”（法官的判词）。原诗中的粗言秽语，包括涉及性与性器的字眼，在“言论自由”的招牌下大行其道，被演员弗兰科充满激情、毫无遮掩地朗诵出来。随着时代的发展，国人对外来文化也能持越来越包容的态度，但观看这样一部影片仍然会带来观赏与审美的挑战，也会引发我们对中西文化与伦理差异的深入思考。

我第一次知道垮掉的一代（beat generation)这个名词应该是在J. D. Salinger的《麦田守望者》 (The Catcher in the Rye,1951), 然后就是在电视看到的关于Howl（1955）的预告片。那个时候我还是在大学，应该是在某个午后，慵懒的回到家中，打开电视看到的，脑海中是模糊的黑白画面和标注的美式口音的朗读。（当然，那个时候我还真心听不出这口音别扭。）

所以在我看来，垮掉的一代，是个多么著名的名词，它是一个时代的代表，整整一个群体的声音。然而，我来到美国后，跟好几个美国土生土长的人交流，他们都没有听过垮掉的一代这个名词，让我好不气馁，我以为是我的记忆力再次出差错，活生生地掰出个词儿来。所以读过HOWL的人，真的不多。

直到我走入Broadway和12th street交接的Strand书店，那一刻，一股小清新的气息迎面扑来，哈哈，桌子上摆着Howl, Infinite jest 和 Ulysses，那一刻，我知道，消费的时刻到来了。遥远的事物都会有光环，这是无可避免的。Howl, infinite jest此类书籍大概是文化人口袋中的香饽饽，在他们所谓的圈子里热炒起来的，然后以一种不可辩驳的导向性输送给群众，它到底为什么好，怎么好，为什么能摆在书店正入口的大方桌上？我其实一点儿也不知道。在那儿瞎跟文艺风的我以前觉得这些神书遥远的不可触碰，才发现到了美国，人家就摆在正门口，而且不是一本，是一堆！Infinite Jest实在太厚，Ulysses实在太晦涩，只有这本薄薄的HOWL最得我心，而且还有电影一枚，又是James Franco的，当然还是从容易的下刀啊。虽然这本小破书要7.15刀一本儿，我还是买下了。谁让我喜欢没事儿装逼呢。不过黑白色的小封面，和1955年上庭打官司的封面一模一样，真是让文艺青年欢喜。

所以，我决定先攻下诗集，再攻下电影。我觉得Allen Ginsberg应该是在Berkeley和1953年的时候受了什么刺激，所以文风才开始转变的，变的疯疯癫癫。第一句我还是挺喜欢的，I saw the best generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.他用着令人爽快的节奏，让人陌生的稀奇古怪的词汇，七七八八的拼凑了一首性与欲望的时代之歌，我读的别别扭扭的，觉得怎么说，作者都有在糊弄和卖弄玄虚的嫌疑，更多的是他自己的呓语，说实话，实在没有太多的文字的优美性。虽然说不至于没有价值，可是也实在不至于成为垮掉一代的首席诗人。倒是这个soloman，他诗歌的主体对话对象是谁，让我充满了好奇。哎，好让人失望，而且整本诗集里除了Howl，还有点儿读头以外，其他的都让人毫无印象了。

什么事情都要放回时代里来说---是永恒的真理。就像蒙娜丽莎，在今天看到实体大失所望之时，要知道在当时达芬奇发明的渐隐法，使人物面部的边缘变得柔和，而人物闲的格外逼真是多么牛逼，多么具有跨时代的意义啊。Howl也是一样的神作，看了电影才知道，它是上过法庭的，这样，想不出名都难。Allen并没有出现在法庭上，因为告的是出版社，出版传播淫秽和没有意义的文字。接下去，诗歌的意义已经不重要了，重要的是精神，美国作为一个言论自由，民主国家的精神。审判在旧金山，Allen是同性恋，进过神经病医院，soloman是他精神病医院的室友，等等等等。在官司胜利后，诗歌狂销八十万本，亦不是奇迹了。

James Franco虽然在努力模仿读者的语音语调，但我实在是不敢恭维他的朗读技巧，还不如不模仿，真心不觉得作者有他朗读的那么难听。怎么说Allen也是正宗的New Jersy人，和曼哈顿岛一河之隔，口音怎么可能那么重嘛。这是youtube上的本人朗读：http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVGoY9gom50

James Franco演完Howl，又演米尔克，在湾区的怀抱里，他是要走向同同的必然趋势了。可能因为导演以前是拍纪录片的，随意故事实在乏善可陈，就是把整首诗朗读了一遍，动画虽然加深了对诗歌本身内容的理解，可是想象力虽在，故事性全无。电影，诗，分开都不好看，合起来，你才刚开始懂得了Allen Ginsberg和那个即将到来的思想动乱的改革与时代。

如果不是讲述Allen Ginsberg，如果不是Howl引发的讨论的内容和它打破的保守，如果不是Franco的表演，我也许会对片子的拍摄手法感到无趣和乏味。但是这些都存在，所以这是一部好片子。

动画的表现是亮点，很有新意和想象力。有人说，这是导演在绑架观众的判断，刻意的给出了如小学语文般的答案。但我在看的时候并没有这种感觉。对于诗，我还是在根据字面去做自己的理解——事实上，我不觉得有任何现代诗可以人为的给出一个解读让不同的人都全盘接受，一个人如果对一首诗投入兴趣和情感，那他一定有自己的解读。对于动画，我只是纯粹的欣赏。也许对于得出“绑架论”的人，“心有杂念，万物皆恶”可以作为一个“不那么恰当”的回答。

-------------------------
一些片段和琐碎。

（16' 37'' 这之前动画中“游动”的礼花很赞）
"The problem, when it comes to literature, is this: There are many writers who have preconceived ideas about what literature is supposed to be. But their ideas seem to preclude everything that makes them most interesting in casual conversation. Their faggishness, their solitude, their neuroses, their goofiness, their campiness, or, even their masculinity at times. Because they think that they're gonna write something that sounds like something else that they've read before, instead of sounds like them, or, comes from their own life."
“讲到文学，往往遇到这么个问题：很多作家对文学抱有先入为主的成见。但这种成见似乎会排斥日常生活对话中一切最有趣的内容。比如他们疲惫时的状态，他们内心的孤独，他们神经兮兮，疯疯癫癫，忸怩作态的举止，甚至是他们的大男子气概。因为他们觉得自己要写的内容，必须跟过往已有的作品相似，而不旨在表达自我，也并非源于生活。”
"We all talk amongst ourselves: We have a common understanding. We say anything we want to say. We talk about our assholes. We talk about our cocks. We talk about who we fucked last night, or, who we're gonna fuck tomorrow, or, what kind of love affair we're in, or... I mean, everyone tells one's friends about that, right? So, the question is, what happens when you make a distinction between what you tell your friends and what you tell your Muse. The trick is to break down that distinction, to approach your Muse as frankly as you would talk to yourself or to your friends. It's the ability to commit to writing, to write the same way that you are."

（45' 49'' Allen和Peter在一起的生活。复刻了经典的靠背而坐。幸福感。）
"It was when I met Peter that everything changed for me. It was as if the heavens showered with gold. Finally somebody loved me like I loved them. And for the first time, I felt accepted in my life, completely."

达达主义的流浪汉。

（66' 08'' ,,, 67' 57''）
"The battle of censorship will not be finally settled by your Honor's decision. But you will either add to liberal, educated thinking, or by your decision, you will add fuel to the fire of ignorance."
“这场关于审查的争斗，不会因法官大人的裁决尘埃落定。但您的裁决或许会引起人们自由博雅的思考，抑或由于您的裁决，给无知火上浇油。”


（69' 29'' 庭审判决）
"There are a number of words used in Howl that are presently considered coarse and vulgar in some circles of the community. And in other circles, such words are in everyday use. The author of Howl has used those words because he believed that his portrayal required them as being in character. The people state that such words are not necessary and that others would be more palatable for good taste."

"The answer is, that life is not encased in one fomula whereby everyone acts the same and conforms to a paticular pattern. No two persons think alike. We were all made from the same form but in different patterns. Would there be any freedoms of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid, innocuous euphemism? An author should be real in treating his subject, and be allowed to express his thoughts and ideas in his own words. In considering material claimed to be obscene, it is well to remember the motto 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' —— 'Evil to him who evil thinks'. The freedoms of speech and press are inherent in a nation of free people. These freedoms must be protected if we are to remain free, both individually and as a nation."
“我的回答是，生活不能套用一个人人都步调一致的或者符合特定模式的公式。没有哪两个人的思想是一致的。我们都以人的形式存在，但是形态又不尽相同。如果我们的词典被压缩到只剩乏味的、健康的婉辞的话，那还有什么出版和言论自由可言？作者在对待自己的作品时，应该可以自己选择措辞，来表达自己的想法。在考虑这本书是不是有伤风化时，最好谨记这句格言，‘心存邪念，万物皆恶’。言论与出版自由是一个由自由的人民组成的国家中必不可少的一部分，无论是作为个人还是国家，都必须捍卫这些自由。”

"Therefore, I conclude that the book Howl and Other Poems dose have some redeeming social importance, and I find the book is not obscene. The defendant is found not guilty."


（72' 46''）
"The poem is misinterpreted as a promotion of homosexsuality. Actually, it's more like a promotion of frankness, about my subject. If you're a foot fetishist, you write about feet. If you're a stock market freak, you can write about the rising sales curve erections of the Standard Oil Chart. When a few people are frank about homosexsuality in public, it breaks the ice. Then people are free to be frank about anything and that's socialy useful."
“这首诗被误读为是宣扬同性恋的作品，其实呢，更像是在宣扬一种坦然面对自我和与我相关的一切事物的态度。...当有一小部分人开始坦然的在公共场合谈论同性恋时，就打破了那层保守的坚冰，从此人们可以坦然的谈论任何事情。而这，是有社会价值的。”

"Homosexsuality is a condition, and because it alienated me or set me apart from the beginning, it served as a catalyst for self examination, or a detailed realization of my environment and the reasons why everyone else is different and, why I am different."
“同性恋是一种状态，由于这种状态从一开始就将我同‘正常’世界异化开来或者说让我与众不同，它像是成了我进行自我反省的催化剂，或者说，它形成了我对周遭环境的详尽的认识。它使我思考并意识到为何每个人都是与众不同的，以及我为何是与众不同的。”

-------------------
对很多人来说，判决的那场戏是自然的最高潮。法官的那席关于言论自由的表述绝对是令人赞同和引起共鸣的。
但对我来说，最大的高潮是上面的最后一个片段，因为它是关于个人的，关于每一个个体。不论你是不是同性恋，不论你从事什么样的职业，不论你在大众眼中是一个正当职业的普通人，还是一个追求个人理想的流浪汉，你都是与众不同的。而当你意识到这一点后，你会更好的去理解这个世界，去理解每一个别人。然后这个世界会变的更好。


最后，Allen Ginsberg演唱的动人的Father Death Blues：To the Beat Generation

Hey Father Death, I'm flying home
Hey,poor man, you're all alone
Hey,old daddy, I know where I'm going
Father Death, don't cry any more
Mama's there, underneath the floor
Brother Death, please mind the store
Old Auntie Death, I hear your groans
Old Uncle Death, I see your bones
Oh Sister Death, how sweet your moan
Oh Children Death, go breathe your breaths
Sobbing breasts'll ease your deaths
Pain is gone, tears take the rest
Genius Death, your art is done
Lover Death, your body's gone
Father Death, I'm coming home
Guru Death, your words are true
Teacher Death, I do thank you
For inspiring me to sing this blues
Buddha Death, I wake with you
Dharma Death, you mind is new
Sangha Death, we'll work it through
Suffering is what was born
Ignorance made me forlorn
Tearful truths I cannot scorn
Father breath, once more farewell
Birth you gave was no thing ill
My heart is still
As time will tell


Jack died in 1969 at the age of 47.
Neal Cassady died in 1968 at the age of 41 while traveling in Mexico. The cause of his death remains a mystery. His autobiographical novel, The First Third was published posthumously.
Peter Orlovsky and Allen Ginsberg remained life partners from the time they met until the end of Allen's life. Peter retired to a quiet life in the State of Vermont, where he died in 2010.
Allen Ginsberg would become one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th century. Allen died peacefully in 1997 at age 70.

Howl ---Allen Ginsberg
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical *,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats
floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tene- ment roofs
illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the
scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burn- ing their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror
through the wall,
who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, al- cohol and cock and endless balls,
incomparable blind; streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada &
Paterson, illuminating all the mo- tionless world of Time between,
Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront
boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks
of Brook- lyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind,
who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of
wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of
brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,
who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford's floated out and sat through the stale beer after noon in desolate
Fugazzi's, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,
who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brook- lyn Bridge,
lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State
out of the moon,
yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of
hospitals and jails and wars,
whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the Synagogue cast on
the pavement,
who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall,
suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grind- ings and migraines of China under junk-with- drawal in
Newark's bleak furnished room,
who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no
broken hearts,
who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grand- father night,
who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telep- athy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos in- stinctively
vibrated at their feet in Kansas,
who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking vis- ionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels,
who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy,
who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Okla- homa on the impulse of winter midnight street light smalltown
rain,
who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup, and followed the brilliant Spaniard
to converse about America and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship to Africa,
who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees and the lava and
ash of poetry scattered in fire place Chicago,
who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the F.B.I. in beards and shorts with big pacifist eyes sexy in their
dark skin passing out incom- prehensible leaflets,
who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism,
who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos
wailed them down, and wailed down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed,
who broke down crying in white gymnasiums * and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons,
who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild
cooking pederasty and intoxication,
who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manu- scripts,
who let themselves be *ed in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,
who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love,
who balled in the morning in the evenings in rose gardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering
their semen freely to whomever come who may,
who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath when the blond
& * angel came to pierce them with a sword,
who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed
shrew that winks out of the womb and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass and snip the intellectual
golden threads of the craftsman's loom,
who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a can- dle and fell off
the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt
and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness,
who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning but prepared
to sweeten the snatch of the sun rise, flashing buttocks under barns and * in the lake,
who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these poems, cocksman and
Adonis of Denver-joy to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses'
rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely pet- ticoat upliftings &
especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too,
who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in dreams, woke on a sudden Manhattan, and picked themselves up
out of basements hung over with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemploy-
ment offices,
who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the East River to open
to a room full of steamheat and opium,
who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment cliff-banks of the Hudson under the wartime blue floodlight of
the moon & their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion,
who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of Bowery,
who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music,
who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in their lofts,
who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded by orange crates
of theology,
who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of
gibberish,
who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom,
who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg,
who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their
heads every day for the next decade,
who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccess- fully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores where
they thought they were growing old and cried,
who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse & the tanked-up
clatter of the iron regiments of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of
sinis- ter intelligent editors, or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality,
who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually hap- pened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the
ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alley ways & firetrucks, not even one free beer,
who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of the subway window, jumped in the filthy Pas- saic, leaped on
negroes, cried all over the street, danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed phonograph records of nostalgic
European 1930s German jazz finished the whiskey and threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears
and the blast of colossal steam whistles,
who barreled down the highways of the past journeying to each other's hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude watch or
Birmingham jazz incarnation,
who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had a vision to find
out Eternity,
who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver & waited in vain, who watched over Denver
& brooded & loned in Denver and finally went away to find out the Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,
who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other's salvation and light and breasts, until the soul
illuminated its hair for a second,
who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for impossible criminals with golden heads and the charm of reality in
their hearts who sang sweet blues to Alcatraz,
who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers to boys or Southern Pacific
to the black locomotive or Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the daisychain or grave,
who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hyp notism & were left with their insanity & their hands & a hung
jury,
who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of
the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding in- stantaneous lobotomy,
and who were given instead the concrete void of insulin Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psycho- therapy
occupational therapy pingpong & amnesia,
who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia,
returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, and tears and fingers, to the visible mad man doom of the
wards of the madtowns of the East,
Pilgrim State's Rockland's and Greystone's foetid halls, bickering with the echoes of the soul, rock- ing and rolling in
the midnight solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a night- mare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the
moon,
with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, and the last door closed at
4. A.M. and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last fur- nished room emptied down to the last
piece of mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing
but a hopeful little bit of hallucination
ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you're really in the total animal soup of time
and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed with a sudden flash of the alchemy of the use of the ellipse the
catalog the meter & the vibrat- ing plane,
who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed, and trapped the archangel of the
soul between 2 visual images and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun and dash of consciousness together
jumping with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus
to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intel- ligent and shaking
with shame, rejected yet con- fessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his * and endless head,
the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come
after death,
and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow of the band and blew the suffering of
America's * mind for love into an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to
the last radio
with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years.
II
What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagi- nation?
Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unob tainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys
sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!
Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!
Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose
buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stun- ned governments!
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies!
Moloch whose breast is a canni- bal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless
Jehovahs! Moloch whose fac- tories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smokestacks and antennae crown the
cities!
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the
specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!
Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cock*er in Moloch! Lacklove and
manless in Moloch!
Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me
out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky!
Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral
nations! invincible mad houses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!
They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pave- ments, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which
exists and is everywhere about us!
Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river!
Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!
Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! De- spairs! Ten years'
animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on the rocks of Time!
Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the
roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!
III
Carl Solomon! I'm with you in Rockland where you're madder than I am
I'm with you in Rockland where you must feel very strange
I'm with you in Rockland where you imitate the shade of my mother
I'm with you in Rockland where you've murdered your twelve secretaries
I'm with you in Rockland where you laugh at this invisible humor
I'm with you in Rockland where we are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter
I'm with you in Rockland where your condition has become serious and is reported on the radio
I'm with you in Rockland where the faculties of the skull no longer admit the worms of the senses
I'm with you in Rockland where you drink the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
I'm with you in Rockland where you pun on the bodies of your nurses the harpies of the Bronx
I'm with you in Rockland where you scream in a straightjacket that you're losing the game of the actual pingpong of
the abyss
I'm with you in Rockland where you bang on the catatonic piano the soul is innocent and immortal it should never die
ungodly in an armed madhouse
I'm with you in Rockland where fifty more shocks will never return your soul to its body again from its pilgrimage to a
cross in the void
I'm with you in Rockland where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against
the fascist national Golgotha
I'm with you in Rockland where you will split the heavens of Long Island and resurrect your living human Jesus from
the superhuman tomb
I'm with you in Rockland where there are twenty-five-thousand mad com- rades all together singing the final stanzas
of the Internationale
I'm with you in Rockland where we hug and kiss the United States under our bedsheets the United States that coughs
all night and won't let us sleep
I'm with you in Rockland where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls col- lapse O skinny legions run
outside O starry spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea- journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

对于我浅薄的阅读经验来说，《HOWL》无疑是一种全面的颠覆。因为我从来没有在一种正式的文学范本中看到这么多对性、吸毒、荒诞体验的肯定。
对于有着强大惯性的平庸日常而言，《HOWL》更是一种异质的声音：充满了愤怒、轻蔑、反叛和——癫狂！
我不得不应用这样一种体制的称谓对《HOWL》进行介定：垮掉！但我同时感到了这个词的无力。
鲁迅先生说：“当我沉默的时候，我觉得充实；我将开口，同时感到空虚。”
《HOWL》给予我的震憾恰恰如此！
《HOWL》的开篇这样写道：
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,
starving hysterical *,
dragging themselves through the Negro streets at dawn look-
ing for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly con-
nection to the starring dynamo in the
machinery of night ……
《HOWL》发表之初，在美国得到的更多是谴责。批评者认为《HOWL》是一个淫荡和不道德的作品。认为诗中描叙地“the best minds of my generation”不过是一群吸毒者、毒贩子、窃贼、酒鬼、滥交者、*者等社会渣滓；而GINSBERG的诗歌实际是吸毒产生幻觉发出的呓语，充其量是一种疯狂的自白。对于诗中的反叛精神，批评者则认为是企图以吸毒、滥交、*、流浪、犯罪来取代和谐的社会轶序和优良的传统道德观。
就像一枚金币的正面和反面，在《HOWL》对主流、社会、文化和体制的反对上，当时的赞同者也和反对者达成了惊人的共识。赞同者认为GINSBERG是一个“城市惠特曼”（urban whitman），诗中描写的性欲、吸毒、酗酒、闹事等等“劣迹”不仅是用反传统、反价值的方式向压抑人性、*自由的社会提出最强烈的抗议，也是用一种“新的身体语言”来唤醒“全体美国人民的潜意识”。
后来《HOWL》因此获罪，出版商和GINSBERG都被起诉。虽然最终被判定无罪，GINSBERG也因此一举成名。但时至今日，《HOWL》仍逃脱不了被人奉为意识形态斗争工具的命运！
而《HOWL》对存在的追问、焦虑；对所谓价值的否定，疑惑；对个人生存体验的肯定和认同却鲜有人提及甚至被逐渐遗忘！
也许日后功成名就的GINSBERG也在各种光环的掩映下逐渐失去了做为一个伟大诗人的部分勇气吧！一直以来，我总以为无论是GINSBERG后来的《加利福尼亚超市》还是他的诗集《kaddish and other poems》、《Empty mirror》等等都无法超越《HOWL》。
《加利福尼亚超市》虽然在形式上与《HOWL》有相似之处，但在语言的张力以及内容的震憾性上，似乎比《HOWL》弱很多。尽管有评论认为Gingsberg在《加利福尼亚超市》中表达了对美国自惠特曼时代以来物质极大丰裕和精神极度贫穷的悲叹，但我觉得《加利福利亚超市》在一系列感叹和疑问的形式下，比之《HOWL》少了不知多少才情和迷狂！
也许《哀悼祈祷文》是GINSBERG后期唯一可以接近《HOWL》天才绝唱的诗歌吧。我手头关于GINSBERG的评论资料中有这么一段话：《哀悼祈祷文》是“一个痛苦的呐喊，一个回忆的呼喊，一个爱的呼唤，也许是垮掉派最优秀的诗作”。虽然最后一句让人恶心，但也确实部分的道出了《哀悼祈祷文》之所以优秀的原因。
但只有《HOWL》真正让GINSBERG成为了那个狂放的、大胆的、不羁的GINSBERG！
在《HOWL》的序言中，这个天才而迷狂的GINSBERG写道：
“抓紧你们的裙子，女士们，我们开始下地狱啦。”
多年以来，这句话被反复引用，并一再被注解为：GINSBERG在诗中描写的地狱就是美国。
一个富含巨大张力的象征从此肢解，变得实际而功利。整个《HOWL》也开始被噩梦般的误读：存在的焦虑不见了，对价值的否定不见了；对生和死的追问反思，对个人极致体验的肯定认同统统化归为一个平淡而实用的目标，即对一种邪恶社会体制的嘲讽。
不知道GINSBERG有没有看过萨特的话剧《间隔》，并在其中受到启发，创造了自己的隐喻？：三个死去的人被打入地狱，但这个地狱与神话中描绘的全不一样，只是一个出不去的房间。这三个人，一个男人是报社记者、胆小鬼加尔森，两个女人分别是*者伊内丝，**、杀婴犯艾丝黛尔。他们无法避免互相冲突，互相折磨，发现自己总处在他人的注视之下，他人就是地狱。
当他在《HOWL》中真实记录了自己以及凯鲁亚特、巴勒斯、沆克、卡萨迪、所罗门的生活，并悲叹他这“一代人的精英”，却“被一种疯狂毁灭”，沦为流浪汉、瘾君子、边缘人和“垮掉的一代”时，不知道他心中的愤怒和轻蔑是否也和地狱一样无可比拟地深？
当molock凶神无所不在时，年轻的GINSBERG是否也充满了绝望呢？
也许一切都是猜测。因为真正的诗就是不能确切可指的。当我在第三节读到这样的诗句：
Carl Solomon! I’m wish you in Rackland
Where you’re madder than I am
I’m with you in Rockland
Where you must fell very strange
I’m with you in Rockland
Where you imitate the shade of my mother
I’m with you in Rockland
Where you’re murdered your twelve secretaries
……
GINSBERG 对所有叛逆斗士/牺牲者/献祭者的爱意和怜惜通过给Carl Solomon的这些语感像冰雹一样密集的诗句一下子击中了我。
也许凯鲁亚克（Jack kerouac）才是知悉青年GINSBERG伟大心灵的第一人。当1955年旅居墨西哥的凯鲁亚克收到GINSBERG寄来的长诗将此诗题名“howl”时，也许他已深深感到诗中所表达的所有思想与情感全都发自人类的心灵深处。
让我们简单回顾一下Allen Ginsberg不凡的生平：
ALLEN GINSBERG，出生于新泽西州的诺瓦克市佩特逊镇。父亲路易.金斯堡是一位中学英语教师，也是当地小有名气的诗人；母亲诺米.莱维.金斯堡曾是美**员和激进左翼组织的成员，还在金斯堡的孩提时代，就因美国政府对*人的残酷*得了精神恐惧症，住进精神病院，直至去世。母亲的不幸遭遇在金斯堡幼小的心灵里留下了巨大的创伤，并极大地影响着他后来的生活与创作。
1943年金斯堡进入纽约哥伦比亚大学，在莱昂内尔.屈林等著名文学教授影响下开始对文学发生浓厚兴趣。1945年金斯堡应征入伍，但很快因第二次世界大战结束而退伍，并重回哥伦比亚大学，同时开始练习写作。1947年1月金斯堡结识了尼尔.卡萨迪，一位对“垮掉的一代”产生重要影响的人物。两人随即发生*关系；不久他又认识了毒贩子赫伯特.沆克，从此麻烦不断。1949年4月22日沆克因涉嫌偷盗而被捕入狱，并判刑五年。金斯堡也因窝赃同谋一同被捕，后以精神障碍为由进哥伦比亚精神病院治疗。在精神病院他结识了同为病人的卡尔.所罗门。在金斯堡眼里，所罗门是一个“疯圣”，其怪诞的行为表达了对理性社会的反叛和对人类苦难的洞察。1955年10月金斯堡在旧金山的“六号美术馆”举办了一次诗歌朗诵会，并在会上朗诵了《HOWL》一诗。第二年，旧金山的“城市之光”出版社发表了诗集《Howl and Other poems》，金斯堡一举成名。
也许《HOWL》的题献者Carl Solomon只不过是Ginsberg心中所有洞察人类生存苦难的反叛者——包括Ginsberg本人——的缩影吧！
Ginsberg因《HOWL》而伟大，《HOWL》也因如此真实地表达了细微个体生命的真实存在以及为不屈的灵魂提供了一个有意义地出口而不朽，从而影响了一个时代！
在拙文的结尾，我其实更愿意用《HOWL》序言中的那句话做个了结：“抓紧你们的裙子，女士们，我们开始下地狱啦！”