Random Kerouac tidbits

On Friday I scored the above copy of Visions of Cody at Twice-Sold Tales, the used bookstore in Farmington, Maine. I went in there on the anniversary of Jack's death and was surprised to find several Kerouac items (in the past my visits there have been fruitless). The owner, I learned, is a Kerouac fan and typically scarfs up items before they hit the bookshelves. I turned down buying Mexico City Blues and Good Blonde & Others because I have those editions. I bought VOC because it's different from my Penguin edition: it has a more interesting cover plus it included Allen Ginsberg's introduction, "The Great Rememberer." Plus it's considered by many to be Jack's magnum opus, and I thought it was fitting to find it on October 21, 47 years to the day that Jack died at age 47. Here's a quote from page 47:

Around the poolhalls of Denver during World War II a strange looking boy began to be noticeable to the characters who frequented the places afternoon and night and even to the casual visitors who dropped in for a game of snookers after supper when all the tables were busy in an atmosphere of smoke and great excitement and a continual parade passed in the alley from the backdoor of one poolroom on Glenarm Street to the backdoor of another -- a boy called Cody Pomeray, the son of a Larimer Street wino.

While I was at the bookstore I also picked up Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. I'm embarrassed to say I've only seen the movie....

On a completely different subject (still Kerouacian), I was out and about the other night and was chatting with a casual acquaintance who turned out to know quite a bit about Kerouac. This once again proves what my Lock Haven State College physical education professor and renowned wrestling coach, Dr. Ken Cox, used to say: "You never know."

Which reminds me of a great movie quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: "You never know what's comin' for ya."

But there's something I do know that comin'. Kerouacian extraordinaire Richard Marsh has agreed to do an interview for The Daily Beat. Look for that in the near future. Richard, I teased my readers about this to put pressure on both of us to "get 'er done."

There you have it: random Kerouac tidbits for a Sunday morning....