The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

ck12 — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:23:24 +0000

I. Picking the Work

Mr. Kreinbring and my friend Olivia first introduced me to this book. We were discussing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in AP English one day, and Mr. K happened to mention The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. My attention was caught right away. I actually looked up the Merry Pranksters and Ken Kesey and found some pretty interesting information. this is a picture of the bus which Ken Kesey and the Pranksters traveled across America on. As you can see, they stood on top of the bus while driving down the roads, singing and yelling into microphones, tripping their asses off.

http://www.coolnurse.com/lsd.htm (a short history of LSD)

http://www.last.fm/music/Grateful+Dead (listen to the Grateful Dead.. free! members of this popular 1960’s band were a part of Kesey and the Prankster’s many Acid Tests throughout the story)

II. Reading the Work

This book was not a very easy read, however, it was not necessarily difficult. Wolfe writes using chopped and screwed prose, run-on sentences, and confusing diction and syntax. It takes a little time to get used to, and it seemed as though he jumped around from event to event; it was hard to keep track of what was happening. However, as confusing as it was, it did enable me to feel as if I was tripping along with the Pranksters. At first I was frustrated with how Wolfe wrote the book because some parts are really just that confusing, but now I am glad he wrote like that because it made my experience reading the book more beneficial for myself and more interesting.

http://www.tomwolfe.com/KoolAidExcerpt.html (excerpt from the book so you can see the style of writing Wolfe used)

III. Research and Writing

The research for this book was not that bad, actually. There was a lot of information about it, since it was an actual event that happened. There are tons of information out there about the 1960’s and when you have an outrageous event such as the Pranksters touring across America all doped up, it tends to get a lot of attention. I was very frustrated while writing the annotations because most of the passages and messages which Wolfe was trying to convey were all similar and it was difficult to explain different themes in each passage. This book allowed my creative side to come out, so I actually enjoyed most of the project overall. I should have spent a little more time on certain aspects of the whole thing, but overall, I felt as if it was pretty successful. One major let-down was my in capability to find an online version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in order to use as a background source. Also, it was very frustrating and annoying to look for critical articles because there were not many on this particular book.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

ck12 — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 02:09:00 +0000

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

	S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
	A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
	Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
	Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
	Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
	Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.


LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats	5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …	10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,	15
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,	20
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;	25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;	30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go	35
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—	40
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare	45
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,	50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—	55
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?	60
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress	65
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin? . . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets	70
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. . . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!	75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?	80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,	85
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,	90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—	95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,	100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:	105
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.” . . . . .	110
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,	115
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …	120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.	125

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown	130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Analysis: T.S. Eliot is trying to take the reader back to times [personal or not] to where you have felt so low and embarassed and just pure craziness is happening where no one knows what is going on inside your head besides yourself. He is reminding the reader that everyone must suffer those embarassing and confusing times; and that you will remember those wretched eyes watching you and analyzing everything tiny thing you seem to do with your life.

[[Peace, Love, CK]]

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock