Not P but Beat: Lawrence Ferlinghetti Centennial Interview

[Mark Kohut]

Which is one thing behind my reading/memory of this. "why is there still [need for] pity?"    Maybe that is the correct or better translation? , Jochen, and you could tell. 

Reminds me of Brecht condemning countries which have " heroes". 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jan 9, 2019, at 12:16 PM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Don't forget that he shed tears when he saw that man beating his horse ...
> 
>> Am Mi., 9. Jan. 2019 um 17:13 Uhr schrieb Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:
>> As Nietzsche is always asking, "Why is there still pity?" 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> > On Jan 9, 2019, at 10:43 AM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > 
>> > Thank you very much, Allan: nice photograph.
>> > 
>> > I think the poem is about 12 years old, there's a clip on youtube from 2007
>> > (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKCblAJtzgE) where it is called a recent
>> > effort.
>> > 
>> > Am Mi., 9. Jan. 2019 um 14:58 Uhr schrieb Allan Balliett <
>> > allan.balliett at gmail.com>:
>> > 
>> >> Ferlinghetti has a new book coming out in March to commemorate his
>> >> hundredth birthday. He talks about it, the state of American and the state
>> >> of San Francisco, month other things here
>> >> <
>> >> http://www.documentjournal.com/2018/12/lawrence-ferlinghetti-on-the-old-san-francisco-his-new-novel-and-his-first-100-years/
>> >> .
>> >> 
>> >> Here's an old poem of his, sorry, don't have the date, but it's probably
>> >> from the Nixon-era, making it a deomonstrtion of Trump as a logical
>> >> "evolution" of American politics, not a malignancy that appeared out of
>> >> nowhere.
>> >> 
>> >> 
>> >> “Pity the Nation” (After Khalil Gibran)
>> >> 
>> >> ‘Pity the nation whose people are sheep
>> >> And whose shepherds mislead them
>> >> Pity the nation whose leaders are liars Whose sages are silenced
>> >> 
>> >> And whose bigots haunt the airwaves Pity the nation that raises not its
>> >> voice Except to praise conquerors
>> >> And acclaim the bully as hero
>> >> 
>> >> And aims to rule the world
>> >> By force and by torture
>> >> Pity the nation that knows
>> >> No other language but its own
>> >> And no other culture but its own
>> >> Pity the nation whose breath is money And sleeps the sleep of the too well
>> >> fed Pity the nation oh pity the people
>> >> 
>> >> who allow their rights to erode
>> >> and their freedoms to be washed away
>> >> My country, tears of thee
>> >> Sweet land of liberty!’
>> >> 
>> >> -Allan in WV
>> >> --
>> >> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> > --
>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l