Seven Score and Ten Years Ago Today

Transcript of Gettysburg Address (1863)

Executive Mansion,
Washington, , 186 .
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that "all men are created equal"
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow, this ground-- The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.
It is rather for us, the living, to stand here, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln, Draft of the Gettysburg Address: Nicolay Copy. Transcribed and annotated by the Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. Available at Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division (Washington, D.C.: American Memory Project

Much will be written and said today on the 150^th anniversary of President Lincoln’s short address at the dedication of the cemetery in which is interned the bodies of soldiers who died in the battle that took place the previous July 1^st thru 4^th, 1863. I can add little to the discussion, except perhaps that today, as our nation is under the relentless attacks from the radical political right, we are in great—critical—danger that our freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall perish from the earth.   

Related posts on Nick's Bytes:

• Gettysburg: Day 1
• Gettysburg: Day 2
• Gettysburg: Day 3
• Gettysburg After Pickett's Charge: July 3 & 4

On the Internet today related to the Gettysburg Address

For additional reading, Sometimes Saintly Nick recommends:

Albert Camus and Me

“Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure.”

~ Albert Camus, The Stranger

Those words that begin the novel, The Stranger, are the first ones written by Albert Camus that I ever read; they were far from the last.

     

I was introduced to the writings of Camus via the stranger during the second semester of my freshman year at the University of Kentucky. There were two required English courses that all freshman had to take. This was the second of those.

Nothing about the first semester English class kicks in my mind. I do have vivid memories of that second semester class. The instructor, a graduate student (whose name, I think, was McCown), sported a full, long, very red beard. He also drove a British sports car, a British racing green MGA, that was so polished that its body gleaned in the sunlight. He quickly became my ideal scholar.

McCown introduced me not only to Albert Camus, but also to Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, and John Paul Sartre—authors who have given me great pleasure and insights in the almost 50 years since I took that class.

This post is not about my second semester English class. It is about Albert Camus, French Nobel Prize winning author, journalist, and philosopher, who was born 100 years ago today. He introduced me (and the world) the concept of the absurd and, along with Sartre, the philosophical movement of Existentialism, although Camus has been reported as saying, “I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked...”

Whatever Camus may say said about existentialism, to me he was an existentialist. He was also a hero. His words clicked with me. So during my first few years at the University of Kentucky, I also read The Plague, The Fall, The Rebel, The Myth of Sisyphus, as well as one or two of his plays and several essays. Reading Camus added to my vocabulary phrases such as “the freedom of the condemned man,” “the absurd,” “with rebellion, awareness is born,” "a leap to freedom," etc.

Camus died in a car accident on January 4, 1960, at the age of 46—much, much too young. Had he lived to become a senior citizen, I wonder what else he would have shared with the world.

On this 100^th anniversary of his death, I salute the memory of Albert Camus and give thanks for his life and letters.

Jack Kerouac and The Dharma Bums

I have been reading and reading the works of Jack Kerouac for about 50 years, ever since I first read On the Road in a Freshman English class at the University of Kentucky. Through those years I have read everything the Kerouac his written, even his less known and popular works such as Maggie Cassidy.

At the moment I am reading The Dharma Bums. In the section of the book I read this morning, Kerouac's Protagonist, Smith, is in the mountains of the U.S. Northwest with his mentor—if I may use that term— Japhy. Although the majority of the novel, like most of Kerouac’s fiction, is reported as dialogue, there are sections of description and observation that touch me to the point that I really wish I were there. Here is one from The Dharma Bums

Once I opened my eyes and saw Japhy sitting there rigid was a rock and I felt like laughing he look so funny. But the mountains were mighty solemn, and so was Japhy, and for that matter so was I, and in fact laughter is solemn.

It was beautiful.  The pinkness vanished and then it was all purple dusk and the roar of the silence was like a wash of diamond waves going through the liquid porches of our ears, enough to soothe a man a thousand years. I prayed for Japhy, for his future safety and happiness and eventual Buddhahood. It was all completely serious, all completely hallucinated, all completely happy.

Yep, I really wish I had been there!

I'm reading The Dharma Bums from The Library of America edition of Kerouac's Road Novels, that also includes On the Road, The Subterraneans, Tristessa, Lonesome Traveler, and selections from  Kerouac's journals.

  

The version of The Dharma Bums in this volume is the one published by Viking  in 1958.  Kerouac sometimes had conflict with Viking editors, who required him to make changes with which he was not happy, in both On the Road and The Dharma Bums. I would love to read the original version that  Kerouac wrote. I do not believe it is available, although the original, unedited verson of On the Road was published in 2008.

If you are familiar with the "spokesman" of the Beat Generation, let me share with you a treat: Jack Kerouac reading from On the Road, with Steve Allen paying piano in the background. 

Wednesday Coffeehouse: Miles Davis & Jack Kerouac

The Beat Generation: A Cool History

Jack Kerouac & Miles Davis: Is There a Beat Generation?

Miles Davis


Move ~ Miles Davis


Budo ~ Miles Davis


Rouge ~ Miles Davis


Jack Kerouac

October in the Railroad Earth ~ Jack Kerouac

In case anyone is interested, all of the audios I post are from my own CDs.

Previous Coffeehouses featured:

Leonard Cohen

Bob Gibson & Bob Camp

The Kingston Trio

Carmen McRae, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Steve Allen, Dave Brubeck, Del Close & John Brent

Judy Collins & Arlo Guthrie

Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel

Theolonious Monk & Lenny Bruce

Carly Simon

Summer of Love (1967)

Holly Near & Ronnie Gilbert

The Kingston Trio Returns

Dancin’ Beats

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww! ~ Jack Kerouac

Again my recent reading has been centered on my exploration of the Beat Generation: you know, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, et. al. I’ve just completed re-reading Kerouac’s On the Road for the fourth (or is it the fifth?) time. But this post isn’t about the cool words of the Beats. It’s about the music of the Beats.

I’ve long been aware of the prose, poetry, and music of the Beats. One way or another, it was all blues and jazz:

Once there was Louis Armstrong blowing his beautiful top in the muds of New Orleans; before him the mad musicians who had paraded on official days and broke up their Sousa marches into ragtime. Then there was swing, and Roy Eldridge, vigorous and virile, blasting the horn for everything it had in waves of power and logic and subtlety — leaning into it with glittering eyes and a lovely smile and sending it out broadcast to rock the jazz world. ~ Jack Kerouac

A Zen History of Jazz ~ Shorty Petterstein

And then there is the dancing—a kind of dancing we seldom see these days. The kind that my mother and father danced. I understand that my dad was a great dancer; not only on the dance floor, but also on roller skates. This kind of dancing:

In can’t conceive of doing that kind of dancing on roller skates.

Miscellaneous Miscellaneous Thoughts on a Friday Afternoon

A Great Voice Is Silenced

The death of operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti at the age of 71 is a loss to the entire world. His fame went well beyond the world of Italian opera and, as such, his magnificent voice touched the lives of many. As I write these words, my CD of The Three Tenors in Concert is playing and, hearing Pavarotti voice, I am close to tears—not for the first times in the years I have listened to him. His legacy is a gift to me and to many.

A Loss to the World of Literature

Suddenly there was a great burst of light through the Darkness. The light spread out and where it touched the Darkness the Darkness disappeared. The light spread until the patch of Dark Thing had vanished, and there was only a gentle shining, and through the shining came the stars, clear and pure. Madeleine L’Engle in A Wrinkle in Time(pp. 91-92).

Madeleine L’Engle, author of children’s books, religious meditations, plays, poetry, and whimsical science fiction that transcended both genre and generation, died yesterday at the age of 88. Her children’s classic, A Wrinkle in Time, became a favorite of children and adults alike long before the Harry Potter books crossed age group lines.

The New York Times wrote of her:

"Why does anybody tell a story?” Ms. L’Engle once asked, even though she knew the answer.

“It does indeed have something to do with faith,” she said, “faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”

A New Blog of Many Gifts

Have you visited Thomas’ new blog, Quotation Desktops and Mini-Posters? If not, click on over there. Thomas is giving us gifts of wonderful quotations, with many of them formatted into lovely desktops for our computers and some that may also be printed as mini-posters for our lives in the non-cyber world. Here is a splendid example of what Thomas has created for us, The Prayer of Chief Red Cloud:

A New Dawn…

librarybrat a.k.a. lawbrat a.k.a. Dawn also has a new blog I invite you to peruse: it’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me and i’m feelin good!

The Furball’s Blog Post

Speaking of blogs, I’m amazed at the fantastic response received by Wednesday’s blog post by Alex, the cat whose human I happen to be. Perhaps I should allow the furball to write periodic posts to Nick’s Bytes in the future? (No, I will not allow him to create his own Alex’s Bytes blog; the cat has enough of a swollen ego as it is).

P.S. ~ Alex is responding to the many comments left by his admirers in the comment section of the blog post he wrote.

Blogging to Stop Abuse: Remember September 27^th

Click here for more information

“The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved”

Here is it, a week after the running of the Kentucky Derby, an event I during which I generally prefer to be somewhere else, and I seem to be still writing about it! But, hey, ya’ all, I didn’t plan to be writing about the Derby today. It just happened.

I have just re-read Hunter S. Thompson’s great story, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, in a new edition (for me) that also contains other stories by Thompson. The last story in the book is entitled The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved. After my previous cantankerous observations about the Derby, I just have to comment on what Hunter wrote.

Of course, Hunter being Hunter, what should have been a simple trip to Louisville to write an article about the 1969 Kentucky Derby turns into a perverse and uproarious adventure as he comes across characters that only he could encounter. For example, there’s the rich Texan, “just all me Jumbo,” who never misses a Derby and who Hunter convinces that 20,000 army troops are ready to come to Louisville to put down fictitious riots by Black Panthers and busloads of white crazies. Then there is Ralph Steadman, the British artist assigned to create illustrations for Hunter’s article, who draws sketches of people he meets and then gives the sketches to the subjects, who Hunter says take offense at the way they are depicted and want to “tear (Steadman’s) head off.”

The misadventures of Thompson and Steadman begin when they arrive without hotel or automobile reservations—or even press passes for Churchill Downs. They continue through less-than-blissful meetings with Hunter’s Louisville relatives, conning Derby officials to get press passes, and a lot of alcohol consumption.

The result was some real belly laughs for me as well as some discerning reflecting on the times and the event. Regarding the latter, as Hunter heads for the airport after the Derby, the radio reports the National Guard shooting students at Kent State University and that the Air Force is again bombing Cambodia. That brings back memories and not pleasant memories.

Did I learn anything? Certainly—at least I think I did. I learned that I am possibly too honest with people with whom I share a moment of time and will never see again. When some such person asks me who I am and what I do, I generally tell the truth, which is probably dreary to most people.

Conversely, Hunter arrived in Louisville carrying a bag (that he purchased from a pimp in Colorado) that had “Photog. Playboy Mag” printed on its outside. When people noticed the bag, he’d tell them he was a photographer on assignment from Playboy. Of course, that wasn’t true, but it did get conversations going and impressed the guys and enticed the girls. I’ve taken a lot of photographs in my time, but never as a Playboy photographer! (Hmmm, I wonder where I could locate a bag like that?)

Do I agree with his conclusions? Is the Kentucky Derby decadent and depraved? Sure, it was back then and possibly it still is. Of course, I rather like depravity, although I’m not too keen on decadence!