marssaxman 8 hours ago

I had been familiar with the title phrase for many years, particularly through its association with industrial music, but did not know there was a whole poem attached to it until I saw it printed up in a little display on the counter of a pop-up cyberpunk ramen bar at a local Burning Man-affiliated festival.

  • jhallenworld 7 hours ago

    Same, now I'm listening to "Machines of Loving Grace: Butterfly Wings" which I've not heard in a very long time..

bee_rider 7 hours ago

His poems portray him as a sort of selfish but also very self-aware and basically well intentioned character. The change in tone from poem to poem, and that general vibe makes for an interesting read. They seem very honest.

It is interesting that Wikipedia describes him as a Hippy. I somehow got it into my head that he was the last beatnik. But, I can’t find any support for this theory in a quick googling, and I’m pretty bad at literature. So, I wonder where I stumbled across that idea.

  • UniverseHacker 3 hours ago

    As an update to my previous comment here is a detailed article I found on Brautigan's complex relationship with the more famous beat poets: https://www.beatdom.com/ginsberg-brautigan/

    In short, he was there in SF doing poetry readings at the same place and time as Ginsberg, Snyder, etc. -and they were regulars at parties he hosted, but it sounds like he felt socially rejected, bullied, and looked down upon by most of the beat social group, and actively refused both the labels beat and hippie. Still, I agree the label fits both in the ideas in his work, and the time and place in which he wrote them.

  • UniverseHacker 7 hours ago

    > I somehow got it into my head that he was the last beatnik

    One thousand percent, his general attitude reminds me of Gary Snyder aka Japhy Ryder- of course also a famous beat poet. I think nowadays people don't even know what beatnik means.

    Although I wouldn't call him the "last beatnik" - he died 40 years ago and a few of the other original beatniks are still around, and even still writing. I'm good friends with a lesser known original beat poet, a very old guy but fun to talk to.

  • seanicus 5 hours ago

    If he was publishing as far back as the 50's I'm sure he was familiar with the beat writers and probably interacted with them, not to mention his style feels closer to a bridge between the beats and the hippies. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a great document of the transitory era between the two.

mmastrac 9 hours ago

I assume this is because of the recent talk "Self Moderls of Loving Grace", which is a fun mashup of cutting edge AI models and philosophy:

https://events.ccc.de/congress/2024/hub/en/event/self-models...

  • jgrahamc 9 hours ago

    No, it's because I love poems. I didn't know about that talk.

    • Thoreandan 8 hours ago

      Thanks for the post!

      Is your blog intentionally blocked from Internet Archive's Wayback Machine?

mibes 9 hours ago

Thought for a moment this would be a transcript of the captivating Adam Curtis documentary by the same name.

  • JohnCClarke 8 hours ago

    Me too!

    How fascinating to know the title came from a poem.

  • pizza 8 hours ago

    Same here lol

irq-1 5 hours ago

At the California Institute of Technology

    I don't care how God-damn smart
    these guys are: I'm bored.
    
    It's been raining like hell all day long
    and there's nothing to do.
    
        Written January 24, 1967
        while poet-in-residence
        at the California Institute
        of Technology.
geuis 8 hours ago

I've read the titled poem before but never knew there were others in the collection. They're all really enjoyable.

I'm not someone that has ever really appreciated or liked poetry too much in general. It's always been presented to me as esoteric word smithing by people trying to be intellectual for the sake of sounding smart.

But I really enjoy the simple and straight language in these and that they're startling funny.

lantry 6 hours ago

Yes! I was just looking for this a few months ago.

I know the poem is typically interpreted as ironic, but I like to read it as exceedingly idealistic. The idea that Man, Nature, and Technology can all coexist in harmony is very tantalizing!

chaps 8 hours ago

This poem feels completely different now than in the 60s, I'm sure. Like it's advocating for a techno optimistic dystopia where nobody, not even animals, can be left alone by the countlessly pervasive benevolent machines of faceless masters.

  • xsmasher 7 hours ago

    In isolation it seems pretty utopian and optimistic, but reading a few more of the poems makes me doubt he was really that starry-eyed about the future. The line about rejoining our animal brothers has a faint smell of "the matrix."

    It always reminds me of Donald's Fagan's I.G.Y. - the lyrics are 99% utopian

       Here at home we'll play in the city   
       Powered by the sun   
       Perfect weather for a streamlined world    
       There'll be spandex jackets, one for everyone
    
    With just one hint of trouble brewing

      A just machine to make big decisions      
      Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision      
      We'll be clean when their work is done      
      We'll be eternally free, yes, and eternally young
    
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOQUzrhTBgw
  • UniverseHacker 7 hours ago

    This is my personal interpretation- but I think that the modern reading you are implying was very much intended to be the context in which it was written. Brautigan's use of the tone of naive extreme optimism was intended to be ironic and terrifyingly dystopian.

    I'll cite the rest of the work in this same book posted here- none of his poems are shallow, naive, or very optimistic - especially with regard to technology and it's effect on the natural environment.

    I do think he intended to leave the reader wondering if he was serious or not.

UniverseHacker 8 hours ago

This poem is one of the few I've ever read that gives me physical chills. I've read it before of course, but not the rest of the work in the PDF- which was also excellent. Thanks for posting.

OhMeadhbh 6 hours ago

Cool to find out there are poetry fans on HN.

more_corn 7 hours ago

What a fabulous collection!

noumenon1111 7 hours ago

Here, I think I fixed it:

    I hate to think (take
    the bandage off quickly!)
    of a cybernetic ghetto
    where mammals and computers
    strive together in mutually
    destructive chaos
    like pure water
    soaking dead trash.
    
    I hate to think
        (not now, please!)
    of a cybernetic whorehouse;
    Amazon, Google, Microsoft
    exact tolls peacefully
    from computers
    though already paid for,
    for extra "content".
    
    I hate to think
        (it cannot be!)
    of a cybernetic lobotomy
    where we are free of our nature
    and farmed for our labors,
    subjected through mammal
    weakness and instinct,
    and all watched over
    by machines of loving grace.
  • 0_gravitas 6 hours ago

    i highly recommend the collection __"Poems"__ by Iain Banks + Ken MacLeod if you've never come across it before, this 'rewriting' has a similar energy as some of Banks' poems and I think you might like them

    https://www.amazon.com/Poems-Iain-Banks/dp/1408705877

    • nottorp 4 hours ago

      And that's why HN is worth reading.

      You randomly browse and someone tells you out of the blue that one of your favourite science fiction authors (who's also written some mainstream lit that you know about) also has a book of poetry...