Allen Ginsberg and tea

Why is it that Noam Chomsky seems to know everything?

I suppose that he doesn't know some things. I wonder what they are...

Today Dad came over to drop off my bicycle and have tea, and we discussed when he met Allen Ginsberg. It was at a poetry-and-meditation workshop in Halifax, as Ginsberg was a student of Chogyam Trungpa. So Dad was there, and during the proceedings saw a stack of well-thumbed books of poetry that Ginsberg obviously knew by heart. (They were not his own work. That should be obvious, too.) We then talked about how much Ginsberg loves poetry, and how much the average person would need to work to learn as much about it as Ginsberg has in his life, solely by loving it so much. And then we talked about how we all have an illusion that everyone can get along fine independantly, but how we could never, on our own, know everything, and about the fact that people survive much better (from the sharing-of-knowledge perspective) as a community than all on their own. Then Dad told me about a poem Ginsberg wrote all about all the things he doesn't know. (Nuclear physics, auto mechanics.)

Maybe I'll start making a list. If its interesting at all, I'll let you know.


PS Some interesting links I came across today. Consider yourself hodgepodged.

--A South African archivist fighting for social justice.
--A young American man lets you into his head.
--Slightly Retarded Boy asking out Checkout Girl