(GUEST BYLINE: CHARLES KRUGER)
Last night, I attended the 2010 Barbary Coast Award presentation with 300+ friends to celebrate the life and work of Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Evan Karp has beautifully described the evening which (as of course you know) included appearances by Tom Waits, Patty Smith, Wynona Ryder, Michael McClure, Ishmael Reed, etc., etc. It was a miraculous lineup. I can't imagine improving upon or adding to Evan's loving recreation of this night. If you missed this (I hope you didn't), his careful and appreciative description will help you to feel as if you were there.
I am left to try and describe not what happened, but what it meant to me.
Born in 1956, I was too young to be a beatnik or a hippie, really, but I am the direct beneficiary of what they accomplished. And last night reminded me, fully and profoundly, that it WAS an accomplishment. Mr. Ferlinghetti and his compatriots were the heroes who stood up bravely at a time when our nation was in real danger, at least as profound as that which we face today from "terrorists" and those who would make those terrorists into bogeyman who must be fought with the dehumanizing weapons of fascism.
Ginsberg famously had the courage to call out the bastards, under the name of Moloch, and Mr. Ferlinghetti, at great personal cost, gave him the platform to do so.
It's called bravery.
Not just the bravery of standing up and speaking truth to power at the risk of prison and persecution, important as that is.
There is another kind of bravery, of which Mr. Ferlinghetti is a marvelous and inspiring examplar, and to which all of us literati are indebted. It is the bravery that openly, courageously rejects the values of a sick world in favor of deeper truths. The bravery that is willing to openly equate art and justice, that is prepared to sacrifice all to live lives outside the mainstream in the face of ridicule, humiliation and often grinding poverty because it recognizes that a life committed to art can be a life committed to justice. It is the bravery that knows the artist's life is a political and spiritual statement and stands for something and accomplishes something beyond the creation of beautiful artifacts. It is the bravery that risks all to make art for the purposes of making community and justice and human beings.
Mr. Ferlinghetti's example helps me to feel the price that I and so many of us pay to devote ourselves to a life lived in art is not a fool's sacrifice.
As we bounce around and worry about pitches and publishers and New York success and book numbers and fame and all that noise (which I do not mean to disparage—we all want to live and love and enjoy ourselves and be recognized) it is good—it is soooo good—to be reminded that there is meaning beyond all that and that without any of that what we do is good, and fine and noble and absolutely worthwhile.
Make no mistake: what we are about is becoming more human. And if that doesn't give you the tremors (LITQUAKE!), well, listen more carefully, my friend.
And have fun at all the events. If you see me, say hello!
Love.—Charles Kruger
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evan karp | the litquake blog | youtube: spoken word | past articles | qlightning | theatre
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