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Kerouac, Ginsberg, Lucian Carr, and others in New York 1959/ Cat Power
Nice tune (new to me).
6 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
On August 13, 1944, Carr and Kerouac attempted, and failed, to ship out of New York to France on a merchant ship – aiming to fulfill a fantasy of walking across France in character as a Frenchman (Kerouac) and his deaf-mute friend (Carr), and hoping to be in Paris in time for the Allied liberation. Kicked off the ship by the first mate at the last minute, the two men drank together at the Beats’ regular bar, the West End. Kerouac left first, and bumped into Kammerer, who asked where Carr was. Kerouac told him.[22]
Kammerer caught up with Carr at the West End, and the two men went for a walk, ending up in Riverside Park on Manhattan's Upper West Side.[23]
According to Carr's version of the night, he and Kammerer were resting near West 115th Street when Kammerer made yet another sexual advance. When Carr rejected it, he said, Kammerer assaulted him physically, and being larger, gained the upper hand. In desperation and panic, Carr said, he stabbed the older man, using a Boy Scout knife from his St. Louis childhood. Carr then tied his assailant's hands and feet, wrapped Kammerer's belt around his arms, weighted the body with rocks, and dumped it in the nearby Hudson River.[20]
Next, Carr went to the apartment of William Burroughs, gave him Kammerer's bloodied pack of cigarettes, and explained the incident. Burroughs flushed the cigarettes down the toilet, and told Carr to get a lawyer and turn himself in. Instead, Carr sought out Kerouac, who with the aid of Herbert Huncke protegee Abe Green, helped him dispose of the knife and some of Kammerer's belongings before the two went to a movie and the Museum of Modern Art to look at paintings.[24] Finally, Carr went to his mother’s house and then to the office of the New York District Attorney, where he confessed. The prosecutors, uncertain whether the story was true – or whether a crime had even been committed – kept him in custody until they had recovered Kammerer's body. Carr identified the corpse, and then led police to where he had buried Kammerer's eyeglasses in Morningside Park.[20]
Kerouac (who was identified in The New York Times coverage of the crime as a "23-year-old seaman"
was arrested as a material witness, as was Burroughs. Burroughs' father posted bail, but in a famous Beat side-story, Kerouac’s father refused to post the hundred-dollar bond to bail him out. In the end, Edie Parker’s parents agreed to post the money if Kerouac would marry their daughter. With detectives serving as witnesses, Edie and Jack were married at the Municipal Building,[25] and after his release, he moved to Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, Parker’s hometown. Their marriage was annulled within a year[citation needed].
Carr was charged with second-degree murder. The story was closely followed in the press, involving as it did a well-liked, gifted student from a prominent family, New York's premier university, and the scandalous whiff of homosexuality.[18] The newspaper coverage embraced Carr's story of an obsessed homosexual preying on an appealing heterosexual younger man, who finally lashed out in self-defense.[23] The Daily News called the killing an "honor slaying".[26] If there were subtler shadings to the tale of Carr’s five-year saga with Kammerer, the newspapers ignored them.[27] Carr pled guilty to first-degree manslaughter, and his mother testified at a sentencing hearing about Kammerer's predatory habits. Carr was sentenced to a term of one-to-twenty years in prison; he served two years in the Elmira Correctional Facility in Upstate New York and was released.[18]
Carr's Beat crowd (which Ginsberg called "the Libertine Circle" was, for a time, shattered by the killing. Several members sought to write about the events. Kerouac's The Town and the City is a fictional retelling, in which Carr is represented by the character "Kenneth Wood"; a more literal depiction of events appears in Kerouac’s later Vanity of Duluoz. Soon after the killing, Allen Ginsberg began a novel about the crime which he called The Bloodsong, but his English instructor at Columbia, seeking to preclude more negative publicity for Carr or the university, persuaded Ginsberg to abandon it.[28] According to author Bill Morgan in his book, The Beat Generation in New York, the Carr incident also inspired Kerouac and Burroughs to collaborate in 1945 on a novel entitled And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, which was published for the first time in its entirety in November 2008.[29]
Kammerer caught up with Carr at the West End, and the two men went for a walk, ending up in Riverside Park on Manhattan's Upper West Side.[23]
According to Carr's version of the night, he and Kammerer were resting near West 115th Street when Kammerer made yet another sexual advance. When Carr rejected it, he said, Kammerer assaulted him physically, and being larger, gained the upper hand. In desperation and panic, Carr said, he stabbed the older man, using a Boy Scout knife from his St. Louis childhood. Carr then tied his assailant's hands and feet, wrapped Kammerer's belt around his arms, weighted the body with rocks, and dumped it in the nearby Hudson River.[20]
Next, Carr went to the apartment of William Burroughs, gave him Kammerer's bloodied pack of cigarettes, and explained the incident. Burroughs flushed the cigarettes down the toilet, and told Carr to get a lawyer and turn himself in. Instead, Carr sought out Kerouac, who with the aid of Herbert Huncke protegee Abe Green, helped him dispose of the knife and some of Kammerer's belongings before the two went to a movie and the Museum of Modern Art to look at paintings.[24] Finally, Carr went to his mother’s house and then to the office of the New York District Attorney, where he confessed. The prosecutors, uncertain whether the story was true – or whether a crime had even been committed – kept him in custody until they had recovered Kammerer's body. Carr identified the corpse, and then led police to where he had buried Kammerer's eyeglasses in Morningside Park.[20]
Kerouac (who was identified in The New York Times coverage of the crime as a "23-year-old seaman"
was arrested as a material witness, as was Burroughs. Burroughs' father posted bail, but in a famous Beat side-story, Kerouac’s father refused to post the hundred-dollar bond to bail him out. In the end, Edie Parker’s parents agreed to post the money if Kerouac would marry their daughter. With detectives serving as witnesses, Edie and Jack were married at the Municipal Building,[25] and after his release, he moved to Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, Parker’s hometown. Their marriage was annulled within a year[citation needed].
Carr was charged with second-degree murder. The story was closely followed in the press, involving as it did a well-liked, gifted student from a prominent family, New York's premier university, and the scandalous whiff of homosexuality.[18] The newspaper coverage embraced Carr's story of an obsessed homosexual preying on an appealing heterosexual younger man, who finally lashed out in self-defense.[23] The Daily News called the killing an "honor slaying".[26] If there were subtler shadings to the tale of Carr’s five-year saga with Kammerer, the newspapers ignored them.[27] Carr pled guilty to first-degree manslaughter, and his mother testified at a sentencing hearing about Kammerer's predatory habits. Carr was sentenced to a term of one-to-twenty years in prison; he served two years in the Elmira Correctional Facility in Upstate New York and was released.[18]
Carr's Beat crowd (which Ginsberg called "the Libertine Circle"
was, for a time, shattered by the killing. Several members sought to write about the events. Kerouac's The Town and the City is a fictional retelling, in which Carr is represented by the character "Kenneth Wood"; a more literal depiction of events appears in Kerouac’s later Vanity of Duluoz. Soon after the killing, Allen Ginsberg began a novel about the crime which he called The Bloodsong, but his English instructor at Columbia, seeking to preclude more negative publicity for Carr or the university, persuaded Ginsberg to abandon it.[28] According to author Bill Morgan in his book, The Beat Generation in New York, the Carr incident also inspired Kerouac and Burroughs to collaborate in 1945 on a novel entitled And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, which was published for the first time in its entirety in November 2008.[29]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kammerer
