This short film by Franki Grigoni features John J. Dorfner, author of Kerouac: Visions of Rocky Mount and Kerouac: Visions of Lowell. It includes clips of Jack Kerouac and the road interspersed … [Read more...]
Before and After Desolation: Two Sojourns by Jack Kerouac at the Hotel Stevens
During the summer of 1956, Jack Kerouac stayed on two occasions at the Hotel Stevens in downtown Seattle. His first stay at the venerable old “skid row” hotel was in the latter part of June of that … [Read more...]
Memory Babes: The Legends of Proust and Kerouac
It was recently announced that Peter Greenaway’s upcoming art installation would be a fully functioning racetrack with real cars inspired by Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. The iconic British artist and … [Read more...]
Why Kerouac?
People say I’m obsessed with Jack Kerouac. They point to my blog, to my checked flannel shirts, to my over 140 Kerouac or Kerouac-related books (that I read, not that I wrote), to the one book I have … [Read more...]
Translating the Counterculture: The Reception of the Beats in Turkey by Erik Mortenson, reviewed by Marc Olmsted
TRANSLATING THE COUNTERCULTURE The Reception of the Beats in Turkey by Erik Mortenson / Southern Illinois University Press / 978-0809336548 / 2018 The premise is a fascinating one. Erik Mortenson … [Read more...]
a toast to ti-jean in a liverpool gloom saloon
12 March 2018 It is said that a woman haunts, she sees everything. An observer, a writer, a siren of dreams. In my heart and mind, I am always searching for slivers of paradise while being silently … [Read more...]
Jack Kerouac: Avatar of American Buddhism
"I have nothing to offer but my own confusion." -- JK It is intriguing that secular, educated Americans often have difficulty with the rituals and story of Christianity, seeing it as irrational, … [Read more...]
The Intersection of Buddhism and the Beat Generation
The 1950s in America was not a period known for its religious diversity. The spiritual consumerism that we know today had yet to be established and the post-War era was defined by adherence to … [Read more...]
Book release — I Am the Revolutionary: Young Jack Kerouac by Paul Maher Jr.
Paul Maher Jr.'s new Kerouac biography, I Am the Revolutionary: Young Jack Kerouac, takes the reader from Kerouac's childhood years in Lowell, Massachusetts through his World War II years in New York … [Read more...]
Visions of Cody, a book of martyrdom
"Time is the purest and cheapest form of doom." -- Jack Kerouac Apropos Kerouac, I think that there is nothing more important, more significant today, than reading his books and evaluate them … [Read more...]
Five poems on the Beat Generation
Jan Kerouac Baby Driver "Looking for adventure in whatever comes my way I was a true nature's child Born to be wild-----" Steppenwolf Dreams of Hawaiian island paradise home ends up in a … [Read more...]
Jack Kerouac’s Creative Birth
Excerpted from manuscript titled I Live In Two Worlds: The Literary Cosmos of Jack Kerouac to be published by Rowman & Littlefield in late 2017 We first read a hand-written time-wheel … [Read more...]
Prelude to Big Sur: Kerouac in Spring & Summer 1960
It is sunny, no humidity in the late spring of 1960. A brisk breeze blows in Northport, Long Island where Jack Kerouac has made his home with his mother for two years now. He sits in his yard … [Read more...]
This is IT: Van Gogh and Kerouac
"Dat is Het." In Vincent van Gogh’s Dutch tongue, he extolled this triumphant realization, “Dat is Het!” It lay the foundation for a rich flood of work. He was twenty-four years old. The years … [Read more...]
The sardonic pilgrimage of Jack Kerouac
The works of Jack Kerouac constitute a rich branch of the American literary tradition, which -- through the craftiness of such important writers, like Kerouac himself -- managed to escape the swamp of … [Read more...]
A Few Far-Flung Fragments of Forgotten Kerouaciana
There are still a few odd jottings and stray scribbles from the pen of Jack Kerouac – elusive bits and bobs published during the author’s lifetime – that remain unrecorded in bibliographies and/or … [Read more...]
Neal and Carolyn Cassady’s house at 29 Russell St., San Francisco
It’s been about ten years now since I saw Beat legends Neal and Carolyn Cassady’s house. It was such a thrill for me; I can remember it perfectly. My old friends Kirstin and Colin, from Alaska had … [Read more...]
For Beat’s Sake: An Interview with Carolyn Cassady
We all live inside history, and Carolyn Cassady has seen her share. Ms. Cassady was gracious and open when she sat for an interview at her home in Monte Sereno, not far from Los Gatos. Carolyn … [Read more...]
October Ghost
The smudged days of October—when my mood is hand in hand with the weather—remind me of Jack Kerouac. He died in October, on the 21st, and the anniversary of that day always comes and goes like a local … [Read more...]
Some Kind of Dharma: Photographs
“to just start at the beginning and let the truth seep out” Grant Street, San Francisco, 2009 You can quite intentionally make a Beat pilgrimage in San Francisco, soaking in the aura, the … [Read more...]
