Shout Outs to Whitman (In Mass Culture)

I'm a terrible procrastinator, and yet I'm doing this assignment on the first day it was officially assigned. Something must be wrong.

-ONE
        This first example comes from a blog called "Poetry & Popular Culture" by a guy named Mike Chasar. In his blog, Mike posted a clip from a show called Breaking Bad in which one of the characters recites my favorite Whitman poem, "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer":

         According to a good friend of mine, Breaking Bad and The Wire are pretty much the greatest TV shows ever, so one of these days, as I promised him, I will illegally download them, and watch. I didn't want to write about that example in this post though, since I didn't want to jack TWO posts from Mike, and I preferred to write about a different example he brought up of Whitman.
        He shows a strip from a newspaper comic called "Pearls Before Swine" by Stephan Pastis in which the characters reference Walt Whitman and Twitter:

      Click on the image! It will make it bigger! I swear!

        Mike's blog post is called "On the Twittification of Walt Whitman," which contains the image of the strip, as well as a few lines from Song of Myself that Mike "twittified":

I cLebr8 myself,
& wot I assume U shaL assume,
4 evry atom belonging 2 me az gud belongs 2 U. 

        Leaves of Grass actually is tweeted on the daily on the Twitter account @TweetsOfGrass (Shoutouts to Hanley, since I found that Twitter account after peeping who he follows on the Twitta earlier in the semester).

        From the times I've read this comic strip, a lot of them include arguments between the characters regarding what's right or wrong, with the Rat character usually playing the cool calm douchebag who supports what most people would probably find 'wrong'. Rat says Whitman should have been limited to 140 characters, as people are on Twitter, which comments on society's love of short quotes, summaries, and highlights as opposed to diving straight into the source and bathing in the full context.

        When read "twittified," Whitman's poetry, as well as the poetry and texts of many other people, could be misinterpreted and simplified to those not familiar with the source text. When Whitman lists occupations or other things in his poetry, the connection between the things on his list might be lost. Also Whitman might ride a theme, from something like a runaway slave to politicians to natural descriptions, and those lines in which he rides his themes take up much more than 140 characters... Much would be lost on the reader.

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-TWO

        Saul Williams is a poet, who sometimes raps, and sometimes sings. Half of his music annoys me and half of his music I love. No, actually I'm pretty sure I love MUCH less than half of his music... And now I sound like one of those people who reviewed Whitman :( 

        Anyway, for every song of his that I dislike, I just go back and play some of his really good stuff like "List of Demands (Reparations)" or "Wine." Good shit!

        For this example, I went to his nice collaboration with DJ Krust in the song version of his poem "Coded Language":

        At around the 2:55 mark, Williams goes into list form, not unlike Whitman, and names poets, singers, songwriters, entertainers, and activists who he feels made and impact in cultural consciousness (at around 3:09, you will hear him give the shoutout to the big homie Walt Whitman, as well as Allen Ginsberg just a few seconds after).

        I also found this interview with Saul in which the "list writing" is noticed by both Saul and the interviewer:

DJ MATT WERNER: In exploring these different esoteric religious and spiritual traditions, I found there seems to be some parallels between your poetry and that of William Butler Yeats like with his poem The Second Coming and also Walt Whitman as well, in the listing in some of your tracks like Release and Coded Language, those seem to very much have that Whitmanian quality to them.
**Note from Miguel: If you want to hear the other song mentiond, "Release," it's actually from a Blackalicious song which Saul is featured on, off of the album Blazing Arrow, which is one of the best albums ever ;]

SAUL WILLIAMS: Well Whitman is definitely very influential, and I’ve definitely read some Yeats as well. And these older poets have definitely opened a door for me to, [Saul gives a long exhale] I guess, to step beyond. And they have like me I think there is this thing that’s being so deeply entrenched in this Christian society and seeing something deep within it and something well beyond it as well, and wanting to explore and using words to do that and realizing that the writing itself and the reading of the writing in my case often is a form of ritual.

Cool. But to focus on what I feel is the main point of the song "Coded Language," near the end of the song, Saul says:

We enlist every instrument: Acoustic, electronic.
Every so-called gender, race, sexual preference,
Every per-son as beings of sound to acknowledge their responsibility to
Uplift the consciousness of the entire fucking World,
Any utterance un-aimed will be disclaimed - two rappers slain.

        In these lines, I feel we find the reason why Williams named the people he named in his list. He asks that those involved in music and sound to "acknowledge their responsibility to uplift the consciousness of the entire fucking world"... I love that. And Saul gives props to artists and entertainers who he feels did this in their lifetime when he's going down his list.

        This reminds me of a thought from Iona's post "Reviewing Reviews of Whitman." Following a related branch of thought, she imagines that one day our society might ask certain qualities of our poets:

Perhaps one day our 'cultural assumptions' will simply amount to a plea that our poets be honest, democratic people who write honest, democratic poems. Is that wishful thinking? Have I become infected with Whitman-esque happiness? Is that necessarily a bad thing? ;)

        Just like Iona might have become infected with "Whitman-esque happiness," it seems Saul has too found himself affected by the poetry of the great artists he names... His plea is that poets speak and uplift democratically on behalf of "the entire fucking world." 

Bonus clip of Saul Williams performing the poem, without that DJ Krust music behind it.

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-THREE

        This is my favorite. Because it is funny. And if I've learned anything in life, it is that a sense of humor is the most valuable thing in this world. So I love the people who made this video.
        I know for this project we were supposed to find things in popular culture, but obviously this clip isn't very popular, only grabbing 461 views in nearly 4 years. It was intended for mass culture though, so yea- A sketch comedy clip based on a visit to Walt Whitman's tomb:

Watch the clip before reading on :D

  

        From this video, I learned a lot about Whitman. I learned he was a prize-fighter who fought a mule, which explains the nickname Walt "the mule fighter" Whitman. I learned that he wrote hilarious movie reviews for Playboy Magazine. I also learned that he was also a mediocre poet.

        This video makes fun of the classic biographies of famous people in history who did extraordinary things and it paints Walt Whitman as a Teddy Roosevelt-type figure, when really, Whitman just wrote poetry. He did travel around the nation and do his share of exploring, but Whitman will definitely just be remembered for his poetry and the direction of his artistic spirit. Though the tour-guide livens up Whitman's biography, the tourists don't want to hear that. They just want to know about Whitman the poet, and maybe hear a few poems.