Tropical ginsberg

The arts – cinema, fine arts, theatre, literature, and music –
appeared to be converging one into the other, trespassing academic
boundaries. The films directed by Glauber Rocha, Jean-Luc Godard, and
Michelangelo Antonioni were sometimes made with almost no script,
but, instead, with a poem which the actors read and acted out as best as
they could. The exhibits of Hélio Oiticica, the events of Andy Warhol,
and Marcel Duchamp’s Etant Donnés 207 made it seem that the creation
of art was finally being removed from the hands of artists. Theatre
companies like Teatro Oficina, Living Theatre, and Open Theatre argued
that the boundaries between stage and audience were to be at once
eliminated. Books like José Agrippino de Paula’s “PanAmérica,” Julio
Cortázar’s “Hopscotch,” 208 and Tom Wolfe’s “Electric Kool-Aid Acid
Test,” 209 presented the reader to a whole new different literary scope,
with different ways of reading the same book, and blurring the already
invisible limit between fiction and reality. Musicians, and bands, like
John Cage, 210 The Beatles, and The Doors, 211 whether through live
performances, video-clips, or albums, brought musicians one step closer
to the audience.
Ginsberg and the tropicalistas were very much “in tune” with
what was going on in the art world, creating poems and songs which
depicted these explosive and chaotic times. Reality had been ransacked
so savagely by the modernists that it was reduced to nothing more than
splinters for the 1950s and 1960s. Such splinters are very well portrayed
by Ginsberg and the tropicalistas, especially in their juxtaposition of
unrelated words. In both cases the juxtaposition is made between
conflicting images, which represent diverging ideas and ideals. In
Ginsberg’s case the juxtaposition is between the words “hydrogen” and
“jukebox,” found in the poem “Howl.” As with the tropicalistas, the
juxtaposition can be seen in the song written by Caetano Veloso, and
Gilberto Gil, “Batmacumba,” between the words “batman” and
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A massive wooden door with two peep holes, which invite the observer to become
participant.
208
Which invites the reader to read the book through several different forms, i.e. only odd
numbered chapters.
209
Wolfe’s account of the journey of the bus Furthur across the United States. The bus’ pilot,
Ken Kesey, along with the crew, Merry Pranksters, distributed LSD during their trip, and
promoted probably the first raves ever. A pioneering work of the New Journalism.
210
Famous for his 1952 composition in three movements called “4,33”, in which no notes are
played. The noise of the audience is what constitutes the composition.
211
Famous for live performances that grew out of control. Sometimes the lead singer of the
band, Jim Morrison, went off stage to sing and dance with the audience, or wailed from the
limelight: “what are you going to do about it?”
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