Monkey Freak-Out

Wittman is just weird. He’s definitely an interesting character to say the least. It’s hard to figure out exactly how to describe someone like him. I think Wittman’s true self shows in his crazy monkey freak-out with Nanci. And I think Nanci realizes how insane he is and gets out of there. Wittman goes a little psycho and starts hopping up onto tables and pretending to be a monkey. This would be a disturbing sight, especially to Nanci who has virtually just met Wittman and agrees to go up to his apartment.

Wittman is over-the-top. He’s dramatic and passionate about almost everything he speaks of, often repeating himself and raising his voice as if to emphasize whatever it is he is talking about. He is eccentric and an artist, qualities that can quite often go hand in hand, as is the case with Wittman. He is poet and just might be a bit of his rocker, if you know what I mean. I wouldn’t want to be caught in his apartment with him while he reads me his poetry and pretends to be a monkey, tasting and crumpling papers, squatting, pouncing, scratching. He picks at imaginary fleas and springs from chairs to mattresses to chests around his room.

He takes on different personas, like Superman (referring to Nanci as Lois and taking off his glasses) and the King of Monkeys, whoever or whatever that is. Wittman uses these personas to act out as he explains conversation to Nanci.

At one point Nanci even asks him not to freak out and uses the chair for protection against Wittman, as if he will wildly fling himself upon her. Wittman believes he is not freaking out, however, and that he is simply telling the “real truth.”

When Nanci leaves, she tells Wittman that he scares her. And the narrator says, “How fucked up he is.”

What is Wittman Ah Sing’s deal?

Final Paper Proposal

For my final paper, I am going to explore in depth the recurring "theme" of contado. More specifically, I want to focus upon the connectedness of everything in the San Francisco contado and the periphery it extends into from an environmental standpoint. I want to look at the aftermath of mining, logging, and the accumulation of a water supply that is all part of the San Francisco contado, which furthers this theme and begins to construct an understanding of interconnectedness of all things within this contado.
I am interested in this because I think that it is important to understand a dominant city's influence over it's surrounding area. The glory of a city (San Francisco) came at a cost not only for the building materials and the very stuff that was used to erect this great city, but at a cost to nature and the well-being of it's inhabitants and those within the contado. In a sense, the San Francisco contado effects all of us, and we are all connected, making us players each playing a role in the development and urbanization of a city such as San Francisco.
Writers, many of which we have been studying in this course, are playing the role of nature's voice. These writers are speaking for the nature that is being destroyed through the exploitation of its resources and the industrialization of San Francisco. Grey Brechin and Gary Snyder are two writers that are centered around the idea of the contado and it's effect on the environment. I have also read the works of environmentalists such as Richard Tucker, who will help in discussing the influence of environmental destrcution over the surrounding periphery.
Many of these writers migrated to San Francisco, another example of this idea of contado.
Working Thesis: The notion of interconnectedness, as portrayed by the idea of "contado," is most emphasized by the environmental damage that was caused through San Francisco's construction.
Since this proposal, mainly my thesis, is still a work in progress, I am sure to come across certain problems while I dive further into this topic. But for now, I am content with the topic I have chosen and will continue to pursue it.

What is a Dharma Bum?

Jack Kerouac’s character Japhy Ryder (the Gary Snyder representation) coined the term Dharma Bum. While Ray Smith (the Jack Kerouac representation) does not outright explain what exactly a Dharma Bum is, he drops a plethora of small details throughout the story. This is perhaps to say that a Dharma Bum cannot have just one explanation, but rather a collection of definitions and rationalizations.

Most Dharma Bums are religious, the ways of this religious wanderer are taken from Oriental scholars, practices in Zen, Buddhism, and the various mythologies of Japan, China, and India.

Kerouac, or Ray Smith, personifies the term through the use of a Bodhisattva, “meaning ‘great wise being’ or ‘great wise angel’” (Kerouac 12), that ornaments the world with his or her sincerity. This great wise being illustrates truth and the pracitce of kindness, two important values of the Dharma Bum. In the case of Kerouac’s Novel The Dharma Bums, his enlightened, angelic beings were often bohemians, a writer or artist who does not live to the conventions of society.

A so-called Dharma Bum is a “wanderer of the world in search of Truth, the True Meaning, or Dharma, to gain merit and be a Hero in paradise.” Most of this truth is found in observing the world that surrounds a Dharma Bum, and through this realization of what truth is, come inner peace and understanding.

The mindset and mentality of a Dharma Bum is “charity, humility, zeal, tranquility, wisdom, ecstasy.” One main goal of the Dharma Bum is to find happiness in solitude and freedom. Dharma Bums often feel most solitary in nature, where they can feel completely liberated from the confines of society, and achieve an inner happiness.

These wanderers live like bums, divine vagabonds, wearing old, worn-out clothing from secondhand stores like Goodwill. They are filthy dirty, but enlightened Dharma saints. Most outsiders see them as eccentrics, who drink tea, meditate, wander aimlessly through nature, and engage in adventurous sexcapades.

In relation to Jack Kerouac’s original coinage of the terms “Beat” and “beatitude,” a Dharma Bum and a Beat are synonymous with one another. Beatitude, according to Kerouac, meant a state of utmost bliss, the idea that the downtrodden are saintly, thinking in a Buddhist context.
Perhaps Kerouac’s notion of the Dharma Bum is just another type of Beat, a more earthly-centered, rural, religious Beat. Undoubtedly, a Dharma Bum also practices anti-materialism and pacifism just as a Beat would.

Kerouac’s term beatific meant happy and holy, two characteristics that can be fittingly used to describe, in short, a Dharma Bum.

Can many Beats also be classified as Dharma Bums?