#obscenity

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MikeDunnAuthorToday in Labor History March 25, 1957: U.S. Customs seized copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" on obscenity grounds. Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and City Lights manager, Shigeyoshi Murao, were arrested on obscenity charges for publishing and distributing the poem. Howl was inspired, in part, by a terrifying peyote vision Ginsberg had in which the façade of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, in San Francisco, appeared as the monstrous face of a child-eating demon. The obscenity charges stemmed from homophobic responses to his explicit references to homosexuality. Ginsberg’s first experience with LSD, as well as Kerouac’s and Burroughs’s, was with acid provided by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson, one-time husband of and long-time collaborator with Margaret Mead. You can read more about Bateson and Mead’s early experimentation with, and promotion of, psychedelics (and their collaboration with the CIA) in the recent book, “Tripping on Utopia.”<a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/workingclass" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#workingclass</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/LaborHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#LaborHistory</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/poetry" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#poetry</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/howl" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#howl</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/lgbtq" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#lgbtq</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/allenginsburg" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#allenginsburg</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/homophobia" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#homophobia</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/lawrenceferlinghetti" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#lawrenceferlinghetti</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/citylights" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#citylights</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/obscenity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#obscenity</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/censorship" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#censorship</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/bannedbooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#bannedbooks</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/kerouac" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#kerouac</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/williamburoughs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#williamburoughs</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/lsd" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#lsd</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/peyote" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#peyote</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/margaretmead" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#margaretmead</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/gregorybateson" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gregorybateson</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/psycheldelics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#psycheldelics</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/books" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#books</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/poet" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#poet</a> @bookstadon

MikeDunnAuthorToday in Labor History March 24, 1919: Poet and activist Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born. Ferlinghetti is most well-known for his book of poetry, “A Coney Island of the Mind” (1958) and for cofounding City Lights bookstore and publishing, in San Francisco. The authorities arrested him for publishing Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” because they deemed it obscene. However, a jury acquitted him in 1957. Politically, Ferlinghetti considered himself an anarchist. His politics were influenced by Anarchist poet and IWW member Kenneth Rexroth.<a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/workingclass" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#workingclass</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/LaborHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#LaborHistory</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/anarchism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#anarchism</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/IWW" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#IWW</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/beatniks" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#beatniks</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Ferlinghetti" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Ferlinghetti</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/obscenity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#obscenity</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/CityLights" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#CityLights</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/publishing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#publishing</a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/poetry" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#poetry</a> <a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/bookstadon" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@bookstadon</a>

Jonathan RoweThere was a prudish tendency in the nineteenth and early twentieth century to avoid translating the 'smutty' bits of classical texts into English. Instead, when the translators came across an 'offensive' bit in Greek, they would publish a Latin translation of it instead. If they had to translate 'dirty' Latin passages, they'd translate into Italian. The upside to this is that if you quickly scan translations of a certain vintage, you can easily find the dirty bits. And if you're particularly resourceful, you can expand your Italian vocabulary at the same time!<a href="https://c.im/tags/Classics" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#Classics</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Obscenity" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#Obscenity</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Victorians" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#Victorians</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Translation" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#Translation</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Greek" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#Greek</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Latin" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#Latin</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Italian" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#Italian</a>

Jonathan RoweFor a much earlier generation, the 'unforgivable' swear words were the blasphemous or blasphemy-adjacent ones: G*d, d*mn, J*sus, h*ll, etc. Anything harsher than that was almost unthinkable. But the way we swear has developed and evolved. (A thread)<a href="https://c.im/tags/Swearing" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#Swearing</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Language" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#Language</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/blasphemy" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#blasphemy</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/obscenity" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#obscenity</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/SocialMores" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#SocialMores</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Racism" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#Racism</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Sexism" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#Sexism</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/homophobia" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#homophobia</a>

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