Via Sullivan, Keljeck (nice blog template) posts the full transcript of an interview between John Lofton and Allen Ginsberg, as printed in a 1990 issue of Harper’s Bazaar (though itself apparently a reprint!):
LOFTON: When you say you suppose this could have applied to you, does this mean you don’t know if you are mad?
GINSBERG: Well, who does? I mean everybody is a little mad.
LOFTON: But I’m asking you.
GINSBERG: You are perhaps taking this a little too literally. There are several kinds of madness: divine madness—
LOFTON: But I’m talking about this in the sense you spoke of in your 1949 poem “Bop Lyrics,” when you wrote: “I’m so lucky to be nutty.”
GINSBERG: You’re misinterpreting the way I’m using the word.
LOFTON: No. I’m asking you a question. I’m not interpreting anything.
GINSBERG: I’m afraid that your linguistic presupposition is that “nutty” as you define it means insanity rather than inspiration. You are interpreting, though you say you aren’t, by choosing one definition and excluding another. So I think you’ll have to admit you are interpreting.
LOFTON: Actually, I don’t admit that.
GINSBERG: You don’t want to admit nuttin’! But you want me to admit something. Come on. Come off it. Don’t be a prig.
It’s not too long (maybe three to five minutes of reading in full), but it’s really engaging because many of their remarks are so unctuous, and many others quite dazzling. I like, for instance, the way Ginsberg includes in the passage above the clause “though you say you aren’t”, as a way of acknowleding that he understand Lofton’s first attempt to rebuff the former’s charge of misinterpretation. It’s a good rhetorical device and worth remembering. There are, of course, contentful insights to be had throughout the interview, as well.
I’d actually have to side with Lofton on this one – I’ve never heard the word “nutty” used other than ‘of, like, or containing nuts’ or ‘insane’.
Thanks, “Owen.” Appreciate your lucidity. Visit our site, please, and comment.
John Lofton, Editor
TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
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Yeah, everything’s real lucid when it has one definition. But it doesn’t. Lucidity’s a nice way to point out his simplistic rejection of any dimension of understanding beyond the first impression of a word. Then again you’re all about putting things nicely, right? Isn’t that why you asked Ginsberg to call you tenacious instead of aggressive and then went on to call him a rotten heathen?
I’m not sure I really want to be drawn into this, especially a year on, but I feel I must defend myself, having been accused of “simplistic rejection of any dimension of understanding beyond the first impression of a word”.
The English language is capable of amazing flexibility, but if you use a word that has a well-defined literal meaning (of, like or containing nuts), as well as a well-defined idiomatic meaning (insane, crazy, barmy etc)** you can’t then expect people to understand it to mean something else (in this case ‘inspired’).
Ginsberg says: “your linguistic presupposition is that “nutty” as you define it means insanity rather than inspiration.” Of course that’s his linguistic presupposition – that’s what the word means! One might as well object that someone’s linguistic presupposition is that “tiny” as they define it means excessively small rather than, say, pink and brittle.
Now, naturally, the definitions of words will evolve (whether ‘wicked’ is good or bad depends on how old you are!) but if you check Google’s Definitions of ‘Nutty’ on the web (http://www.google.com.au/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=define%3Anutty&btnG=Google+Search&meta=lr%3D&aq=f&oq=) you will find that (aside from two from Wikipedia that deal with a comic from the 80s and a cartoon character) every single one can be read as ‘insane’ or ‘of, like, or containing nuts’.
If Sarah can find me a reputable source that uses ‘nutty’ to mean ‘inspired’, then I will stand corrected. Until then, however, I will continue to reject dimensions of understanding that conflict with established definitions.
**that’s already _two_ dimensions of understanding – how many more do you want?
Thanks for the compliment. Your blog template is nice as well.
Owen, I would prefer a deeper understanding than two-dimensional understanding, I’m afraid.
If you used tiny in a context that pink and brittle would also make sense, and told me directly that you meant pink and brittle, I would accept that.
In Bop Lyrics, the stanza before the final one that has the ‘nutty’ line goes:
All the doctors think I’m crazy
The truth is really that I’m lazy
I made visions to beguile ’em
till they put me in the asylum
So, in the context of the poem, it would make sense that by nutty he meant inspired. In the context of the interview it doesn’t make sense, because Lofton took it out of context, like with everything else he used to attack Ginsberg.
There is one reputable source (to my knowledge and in my opinion) which uses nutty to mean inspired.
It’s called Bop Lyrics, by Allen Ginsberg.
Just because something hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
“If you used tiny in a context that pink and brittle would also make sense, and told me directly that you meant pink and brittle, I would accept that.”
Sure, but I then cannot blame somebody else for being confused at hearing me describe my pressed rose as ‘tiny’, when it is actually quite large. I certainly can’t accuse them of misinterpreting my words, especially if nobody else uses ‘tiny’ in that way.
Oh, and you can’t use your conclusion (that ‘nutty’ can mean ‘inspired’) as your premises (Ginsberg’s poem uses ‘nutty’ to mean ‘inspired’). Also, anything that requires the ‘in my opinion’ caveat cannot be considered a reputable source. I remain seated.
But it’s still an interpretation, and that’s all Ginsberg was saying, that Lofton was interpreting, and that the way Lofton interpreted the poem was different from the way Ginsberg had intended.
The phrase by itself “I’m so lucky to be nutty.” if someone said that to me and nothing else, I would assume they meant insane.
However, in the context of the poem it makes perfect sense that he would mean inspired.
He says, “All the doctors think I’m crazy, The truth is really that I’m lazy” which clearly implies that he does not think that he’s crazy. He says, “I made visions to beguile ‘em” Speaking about visions that were an inspiration to him. He’s saying that the doctors think he’s insane because of his visions, his inspiration, whereas he doesn’t, he simply thinks he’s inspired. So, when he uses nutty in a sort of ironic way, or meaning nutty in the eyes of the doctors and not himself, it’s pretty clear that he meant it that way after his stating that he’s not crazy one stanza before it. But, like I said, Lofton took that out of context to discredit Ginsberg.
Sarah.
“The phrase by itself “I’m so lucky to be nutty.” if someone said that to me and nothing else, I would assume they meant insane.”
This is precisely the assumption I made (based solely on the transcript of the interview above), and yet I am accused of “simplistic rejection of any dimension of understanding beyond the first impression of a word”!! Presumably it is also the assumption that Lofton made (there is of course the possibility that the words were deliberately taken out of context – I make no claim to the contrary) because, and this is the important part, that’s what the word _means_.
I am no wordsmith, so I will not directly challenge your interpretation of the poem (I can certainly follow your reasoning). But it seems to me that this interpretation is based predominantly on the preceeding stanza, and wouldn’t change if the ‘nutty’ was changed. Suppose the last word of the poem was ‘slutty’, you could make exactly the same argument that ‘slutty’ meant ‘inspired’ (persuing any and all ideas that come to him, without discrimination). Further, I would be very surprised indeed if someone else made a different interpretation of the poem and concluded that ‘nutty’ meant something else again (I have no idea what word it would be, because I’m no good at interpreting poetry, but I do not doubt that such an interpretation exists). So, if you can change the source word and get the same definition, and you can use the same source to get a different definition, how robust does that make the definition? In other words, if I claim that X means Y, and cite some source as justification, and someone else can come along and use that same source to claim that A means Y, or that X means B, it doesn’t look too good for my claim.
Poetry interpretation notwithstanding, Ginsberg claims that Lofton is “choosing one definition and excluding another”. In no case that I’ve been able to find is ‘nutty’ _defined_ as ‘inspired’. I think that part of the beauty of poetry is that words can transcend their definitions, and different people can take the same phrase to mean different things, and none of them are wrong. However, you can’t use this to berate somebody for taking a word to mean the same thing as it means every other time it is used.
Nutty is a synonym of fond.
A Topic bar- “all fecund in its nuttiness”
But, all Ginsberg said was that Lofton was interpreting his poem, by assuming he meant crazy. As, you said, people can interpret things many different ways. Ginsberg was trying to tell Lofton that the way Lofton was interpreting his poem was not the way he had intended it to be interpreted. But Lofton denied interpreting it at all.
Now, you are welcome to interpret it to mean crazy or slutty or whatever you want, really, but you won’t have a very accurate or enlightened interpretation of the poem if you only read one line of it.
Had Ginsberg put the word slutty in place of the word nutty, that would make no sense. The concept of insanity fits because the poem is about doctors thinking he’s crazy. Now, when he says he is lucky to be nutty, or what the doctors consider crazy, or nutty, or what he considers inspired, it makes sense because that’s all the poem’s about, the doctors think he’s crazy, he disagrees. The concept of Ginsberg being a slut has nothing to do with any of that. If the last word in that poem was slutty, and Lofton interpreted the poem and assumed that Ginsberg slept around a lot, and Ginsberg claimed he meant inspired, I’d be on your side. That is, unless the rest of the poem set that line up in such a way that it would make sense for slutty to mean inspired, within that poem.
Since you’re so married to definitions, let’s take a look at the definition of definition:
“the act of defining or making definite, distinct, or clear.”
Ginsberg makes it perfectly definite, distinct, and clear that he means inspired by nutty, in that poem.
Owen, Sarah,
Perhaps this will help… http://xkcd.com/386/