what sphinx of cement and aluminium bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination
Interpretation
This quote critiques the dehumanizing effects of modernity and the loss of creativity.
Allen Ginsberg's provocative quote reflects on the destructive impact of industrialization and modern society on human thought and creativity. By using vivid imagery to describe the 'sphinx of cement and aluminium,' he symbolizes the cold, mechanistic nature of contemporary life that stifles the imagination and leads to a loss of individuality. It challenges us to reconsider the values of society that prioritize materialism over artistic expression and genuine human experience.
In practice
In a discussion about the impacts of urbanization on human creativity.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night.
Marijuana is a useful catalyst for specific optical and aural aesthetic perceptions. I apprehended the structure of certain pieces of jazz and classical music in a new manner under the influence of marijuana, and these apprehensions have remained valid in years of normal consciousness.
Many seek and never see, anyone can tell them why. O they weep and O they cry and never take until they try unless they try it in their sleep and never some until they die. I ask many, they ask me. This is a great mystery.
What if someone gave a war and Nobody came?
Fortunately art is a community effort - a small but select community living in a spiritualized world endeavoring to interpret the wars and the solitudes of the flesh.
Sometime Iβll lay down my wrath, As I lay my body down Between the ache of breath and breath, Golden slumber in the bone.
If you could really see that tree over there," Merlin said, "you would be so astounded that you'd fall over." "Really? But why?" asked Arthur. "It's just a tree." "No," Merlin said, "It's just a tree in your mind. To another mind it is an expression of infinite spirit and beauty. In God's mind it is a dear child, sweeter than anything you can imagine.
My long struggles as a soldier of the Chinese Revolution have forced me to realize the necessity of facing hard facts. There will be neither peace, nor hope, nor future for any of us unless we honestly aim at political, social and economic justice for all peoples of the world, great and small.
All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures.
There is an ancient saying, famous among men, that thou shouldst not judge fully of a man's life before he dieth, whether it should be called blest or wretched.
I think it was Milosz, the Polish poet, who when he lay in a doorway and watched the bullets lifting the cobbles out of the street beside him realised that most poetry is not equipped for life in a world where people actually die. But some is.
The human body is always treated as an image of society.
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