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Show life B2 MONDAY •OCTOBER 3 • 2005 Giving us something to "Howl" about of the sacredness and holiness of the cunt and asshole alike unto the holiness of life. The NY Times ran an article in Sunday's Caldiero will perform at 8:30 p.m. in the Salt Lake City library, and pre-Howl paper about these so-called dirty words that festivities will begin at 7 p.m. and go until after 9 p.m. Visit www.utahhumanities.org and follow the Great Salt Lake Book Festival every language has; they are a part of our link to find out more about other related events, and other presenters and per- common experience, they express meaning as no other type of communication canformers including Caldiero's Beat workshop the following day. these dirty words are not dirty. When you say something with passion and candor •Caldiero sat down with The College Times to share his thoughts on the poems* it becomes no longer vulgar. By saying a , significance. "dirty word" with passion and a longing to CT: Howl is a poem with an enduring legacy. It seems to have lost none of its communicate, one cleanses our language. imminence in the half century since its conception. Courtesy of Cordon Ball CT: Does this transfer to the socio-poCaldiero: The themes of Howl are still relevant 50 years after its unveiling - the litical? How do these implications of lan- Cadets reading Ginsberg's Howl. disparity between rich and poor, the machinations of war gone amuck, censor- guage bear on our political perceptions? ship, the looming danger of annihilation, the marketers are still dominant. Caldiero: When the banning of Howl reached the courts so many years ago the judge said in the case's verdict that no type of communication can be dirty in and CT: Is Howl a pessimistic voice of one crying out in the wilderness then? of itself, only our own thoughts can be dirty, and the meaning or interpretation Caldiero: This poem is not negative only: it's also an affirmation. I consider Howl we ascribe to something. So some will hear Howl and feel scandalized, others preeminently a religious poem. By that, I mean it links us to something higher. will hear the same poem and feel uplifted. Where's the difference? It's not in the Not to organized religion, but to our common humanity-without which we be- poem, it's in the listener. Changing the way we think about the obscene has important socio-political come the Morlocks of H.G Wells1 Time Machine. ramifications. We are diverted from what is actually obscene. When we focus on CT: Howl uses adult language and addresses adult themes throughout. What dirty words that we teach 4 and 5 year olds not to say, we miss the truly obscene. do you say to its detractors who decry it as 'tawdry?' This poem has a history Such as the poor living in the shadows of the rich, so many obscene and unnecessary deaths around the world. When the President says patriotism is staying 'his' of being banned, and the issue of censorship hasn't gone away in 50 years. course at any cost, without question, that'sobscene. Caldiero: Howl says the 'unsayable.' But once it's said you remember how easily it could always have been said if we were willing to say it. Many people today are CT: Proponents of censorship claim censorship in the name of 'common still not going to like what it says, and so it is still saying the unsayable. It speaks standards of decency' only aims to take out the objectionable parts of whatever is being censored, leaving a piece's redeeming qualities. Besides being forever disagreeably arbitrary and therefore impossible to reach consensus on, this argument for censorship proposes that only the pollyannaic parts of a piece convey meaning worth communicating. From HOWL - B 1 Caldiero: That would be like talking about the Holocaust without using the words gas chamber, race, superiority, extermination - your free to talk about the holocaust, just don't use 6 or 7 specific words. That's what censorship does to the ability to discuss something meaningfully. People who don't really want to know about the holocaust want a G-rated version or a PG-rated version. CT: For instance when people rent Clean Flicks versions of Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List." Spielberg has been in the news for being critical of people editing this movie. Caldiero: Then they don't want to watch a depiction of the Holocaust. "Yes, I do,1 they'll say. (It's too politically incorrect to say otherwise.) "But why do I have to see the terrible parts?' Because that's what it IS. Howl combats the apathy. Why howl? Man, we gotta howl and rage and scream. ij&Ms Courtesy of boroldcarr org Alex Caldiero performs one of his stirring readings, while lying on a pavillion floor. Caldiero received a letter in the mail from Gary Snider yesterday wishing him luck in his performance. Snyder was a friend of Ginsberg's and is considered one of the founding fathers of Beat. He was also present for Ginsberg's original performance of Howl that evening at the Six Gallery Cafe almost fifty years ago. Utah's most perfect weddings begin with Sierra-West Jewelers. The perfect wedding Mints with the perfect engjgement ring., from the world's best designers like A. laffe. Michael Beaudry. Christopher Designs. Piano, Celin & Abaci £• Simon G. And...Sierra-West con show you Utah's best selection of loose diamonds to complete her one-of-a-kind engagement ring. 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