Carl Solomon was born March 30, 1928 in the Bronx, New York. His father died in 1939, which depressed him deeply. He graduated high school at the age of fifteen, and enrolled at the City College of New York. In 1943 he dropped out to joined the US Maritime Service. As a seaman, he traveled all over the world, seeing many notable sights such as the surrealist exposition of Andre Breton, Jean Genet's first play, and hearing Antonin Artaud read poetry. Solomon began reading a lot of Dadaist and Surrealist poetry. Then, after identifying himself with Kafka's hero, K, Solomon decided that he was insane. Just after his twenty-first birthday, he voluntarily committed himself and recieved shock treatment at the Psychiatric Insitute of New York.
As Solomon was coming up from his shock treatment one day, he mumbled "I'm Kirilov [of Dostoyevsky's The Possessed]." Allen Ginsberg, sitting in the waiting room replied, "I'm Myshkin." Indeed, Solomon said many interesting things after regaining post-shock consciousness, much of which Ginsberg put into his famous poem, "Howl," which was dedicated to Solomon. Solomon at first thought he was a new patient, though Ginsberg was only visiting his mother.
Solomon and Ginsberg soon became friends, which was Solomon's only real claim to fame. Despite his mental conditions, Solomon was very intelligent, and was able to teach ginsberg a lot about important writers and obscure geniuses.
Solomon's uncle happened to be A.A. Wyn, the publisher of Ace books. When he wasn't in the hospital, Solomon did work for his uncle. Ginsberg pleaded with him to try to publish his seemingly un-publishable friends William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. Ace books ended up signing Burroughs' Junky as part of a pulp, two-in-one thriller, but they rejected Kerouac's 120-foot long single page manuscript of On the Road.
Though Solomon was not a writer himself, pepole always thought he was. He did eventually live up to these expectations in 1996, when his first book, Mishaps, Perhaps was published. It was a collection of quaintly psychotic essays including "Pilgrim State Hospital," and "Suggestions to improve the Public Image of the Beatnik." Later, two more of his books were published: More Mishaps in 1968, and Emergency Messages in 1989.
It is most important now to change the smell of the Beatnik. Instead of using, for example, the word "shit" so ofter in their poems, I suggest that they tactfully substitute the word "roses" wherever the other word occurs.
This is a small adjustment.
It is just as AVANT GARDE so art will suffer no loss.
Instead of saying "MERDE" they will be saying "A rose is a rose is a rose." Just as AVANT GARDE, you see, with considerable improvement in the effect created.
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