I recently watched Flicker a short film on the Canadian network Bravo. The film was about The Dream Machine which was created by Brion Gysin. Gysin was an artist, poet, and visionary. He was a member of The Beat Generation. He was a person whom I admire greatly. However, I did not know that he spent the early years of his life in Edmonton Alberta. Living close to Edmonton for the past five years I have not heard one person even utter his name. I find this a little concerning, since he shaped Post Modern culture in so many ways. Had Gysin not lived the world would be a completely different place. Edmonton can name a street after a hockey player that settled here, yet Gysin gets nothing. Here is my initial reaction to this realization.
There are no Dream Machines at West Edmonton Mall,
Image via Wikipedia
its creator another forgotten resident,
just a war widow’s son,
just a Catholic boy at an Anglican school.
There are no Dream Machines at West Edmonton Mall.
You can’t market transcendence.
Its creator created modern culture,
all forgotten in the beat.
Beat poet, artist, as forgotten,
as the meaning of beat.
Not the beat or rhythmic pulse.
Beat as in the beaten down of society.
Image via Wikipedia
There are no Dream Machines in South Edmonton Common.
You have to go to New York or Paris for them,
to a museum of forgotten relics of Post Modernism.
Wayne and Anthony have roads named after them.
What about Brion?
What about Mister Gysin?
Creator of the Post Modern world,
forgotten to his childhood home.
Everyone else still gets the credit for his vision.
Born ahead of his time,
and had he not been born,
his time would have never come.
Like DuChamp, he opened his hand,
his mouth and cultures were made manifest.
Echoes of “I AM THAT I AM THAT I AM THAT…”
ETC, ETC, ETC, ETCETERA.
Cut ups cut up the creator of cut ups,
uncredited except by the credited.
At least Will was honest about it all.
At least Will gave Gysin credit.
Image via Wikipedia
There are no Dream Machines on Whyte Avenue.
There is The Beat, both The Beat and those
pulses misconstrued as The Beat.
Maybe someone remembers Brion there.
Maybe there is a Dream Machine,
waiting in a back room,
for someone waiting for transcendence.
Don’t go searching for one after an Oilers game.
Should The Whitemud Freeway be Changed to The Brion Gysin Freeway?
R. S. Wing’s Article on Gysin’s Friend W.S. Burruoughs
The Godfather of The Beats: William S. Burroughs Part One
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