Notre Dame scholars weigh in on Kerouac and Lowell

You'll recall my blog from October's Lowell Celebrates Kerouac event mentioning the keynote address from a Notre Dame Kerouac scholar, Benedict Giamo. Here's a letter he co-wrote with Louis Pignatelli (who I have to assume is "Lou" from my post of October 6) to the community of Lowell about their visit, with a response from David Amram.

Click here for the letter.

Report from Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Part 3

Once again picking up where we left off, on Saturday we ate breakfast at the Radisson, got cleaned up, and drove into Lowell to attend the 11 AM "Commemorative at the Commemorative." The event was to be held at Kerouac Park in honor of the 70th anniversary of Jack's graduation from Lowell High School, 50th anniversary of the publication of Dr. Sax, and the 40th anniversary of his death on October 21, 1969 at age 47.

We finally found the Park (between the two of us Crystal and I can't navigate worth a farthing), but no one was there and Crystal spotted a paper taped to one of the memorial's pillars. It said the event was moved to the Lowell National Historic Park Visitor Center. We made our way there, late, but the event hadn't started.

Two things of significance happened there (in addition to the event itself). First, I got to talk for a while with David Amram, famous composer and Kerouac friend. David is a powerhouse of energy and talent - inspiring, and at 79 years old! He said he's writing another book, titled "David Amram: The First Eighty Years." He gave me his book, Offbeat, and wouldn't take any money for it but accepted a copy of The Beat Handbook in return (actually gave it to him at a later event). Here's a pic (that's Notre Dame prof Dr. Giamo in the background - more on him later):

About that time a young man came up and shook my hand and said, "Rick?" He proceeded to tell me that he picked up my book from the grave last year and had held onto it for an entire year and was now going to pass it along (which is what I wrote in the book that I hoped would happen). He had it all wrapped up in plastic to leave at the grave again. Here I am with Anestis from Boston:

A little later on, Anestis told me he decided not to leave the book at the grave but passed it on to a young man named Lou, who was there from Notre Dame University with one of his professors, Dr. Benedict Giamo, who was giving an afternoon lecture on Dr. Sax! Lou loved my idea of having that copy of the book pass from person to person with each one writing in it as a way of marketing. "Kerouac goes viral," he said. Who knows where it will end up next? Here's a picture of Anestis, Lou (middle), and me:

We ate lunch at Fortunato's in downtown Lowell (Greek soup and then fried pasta chips with shredded meatballs, mozzarella, and tomato sauce), and then attended Dr. Giamo's lecture back at the Visitor Center. He is a true Kerouac scholar and I was impressed with his interpretation of Dr. Sax as well as the depth of knowledge he demonstrated during a Q & A afterwards. Right before the lecture I was able to get Steve Edington, author of The Beat Face of God, to sign my copy, a gift from my friend Kath in Pennsylvania and Crystal (no, they didn't go in together on it, I got two copies for Christmas!).

After the lecture, we went on a walking tour of downtown Lowell with Roger Brunelle, another fount of Kerouac knowledge, especially the French connection (no pun intended). It rained hard most of the tour, but we persevered, getting some of Roger's insights about Lowell High School, Jack Kerouac Park, the church where the author of the Canadian national anthem was married, etc. We ate dinner in the Village Smokehouse. Ribs and beans and cornbread. Mmmm....

After dinner we attended the big event of the weekend, a concert by David Amram and his trio along with the New England Orchestra and the Lowell Youth Orchestra at the Lowell Presbyterian Church to honor Jack and his boyhood friend, Sebastian Sampas, who was killed in WWII. Several "dignitaries" did readings during the event, including members of the Sampas family, a past-President of LCK, and the list goes on. It was wonderful. I hadn't realized what an accomplished composer David Amram is, and even if that style of music isn't one's cup of tea, it is hard not to recognize the beauty involved. It was uplifting to say the least. There is good stuff in the world.

The after-concert tour was canceled - the tour guide was too pooped to do it and I don't blame him - so we headed back to the Radisson. We got an early start back to Maine on Sunday and that's pretty much the story on another LCK weekend.

If you're a Kerouac fan and haven't made it to Lowell for LCK in October, mark your calender and stay tuned. When next year's dates and schedule comes out, I'll post it here.

Report from Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Part 2

Picking up where we left off yesterday, on Friday we left the gravesite and headed to our hotel, the Radisson in Chelmsford. We ate in the hotel bar, The Independence Grille, and then we made our way via taxi for a tour of the Pollard Memorial Library, where Jack used to hang out when he skipped school. This building is simply breath-taking, and we were so mesmerized that we forgot to take pictures (the above is courtesy of the Internet).

This building cost only $174,000 new in 1889, yet renovations in recent years cost over $8 million! Inflation! A highlight was seeing the three large hanging murals of the Civil War (the building was originally a memorial to fallen soldiers as well as a library), reminiscent of the paintings in the Cyclorama at Gettysburg. There's a display of Jack's books and even a picture of his library card. Like I say in The Beat Handbook, you can learn a lot in your library, probably a hell of a lot more than in school. Jack is proof of that. Bill Walsh is a storehouse of Lowell history, and, accompanied by Roger Brunelle, made the library tour a highlight of the weekend.

From there, we headed into the heart of Lowell to the Village Smokehouse to hear Tex McNamara & the Bucking Broncos. We had a couple of margaritas and enjoyed the music and bought a pub crawl T-Shirt from Mike Wurm who led the pub crawl we missed the night before and bought Kerri an LCK T-shirt (already bought one at the library but they didn't have her size there) and talked with Roger and saw Charlie and Chris from the gravesite and finally had to taxi back out to Chelmsford before we got too tired to get up for the next day's events.

Part 3 (one of the best parts!) tomorrow....

Report from Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Part 1

I'm going to be posting about our Lowell Celebrates Kerouac weekend in parts in order to save you from some serious scrolling.

First, some background. Lowell Celebrates Kerouac sponsors Kerouac-related events in Jack's boyhood home, Lowell, MA. A number of Kerouac's books - for example, Maggie Cassidy, Visions of Gerard, and Town and the City - were about Lowell. Here's a link to Lowell Celebrates Kerouac.

This was our second year at LCK and my fourth trip to Lowell, having stopped there on the way to Maine to visit Crystal (when we were long-distance dating) in December 2005 and again on a trip we made to Pennsylvania in 2007. My first trip to Lowell was to visit Jack's grave (and his memorial: Kerouac Park). During that trip, I met a couple at the grave - on their honeymoon - and the young man said he was a writer and that if he ever published a book he was going to leave a copy on Jack's grave. That gave me the idea to leave a copy of The Beat Handbook on Jack's grave, which I did during last year's LCK October event (see At Jack's grave 2008). I left a copy and it mysteriously turned up at this year's LCK! But more on that later.

Last year, Crystal and I were alone at the grave. This year when we arrived, two men were making charcoal rubbings of the gravestone. They turned out to be a couple of cool Kerouac fans from Michigan, Charlie and Chris, who were on a pilgrimage to Lowell. Here's a picture (faithful readers of my blog have already seen them in the video we shot of me reading from Dr. Sax):

Charlie and Chris gave us a rubbing, and it's sitting on the kitchen table right now, awaiting its fate (office or home? framed or just thumbtacked?).

Charlie and Chris were drinking Dow's port, and Crystal and I were drinking 16-year-old single malt Bushmills purchased on the way from a New Hamsphire liquor store. A small amount of each was dutifully poured on the ground in front of the gravestone.

Crystal read a Ferlinghetti poem, "25":

Then Steve from Ohio with his friend Barbara from New Hampshire arrived. Here's a pic of Steve:

Corey from New Hampshire soon-to-be-Boston showed up as well, but we didn't get her pic. So that was 5 states represented if you count where Corey was fixing to move: ME, OH, NH, MA, and MI.

Charlie, Chris, and Steve all bought copies of The Beat Handbook, for which I am truly grateful. And, of course, I left a copy on the gravestone, just like last year. Maybe it will find its way into the hands of someone who will write in it and pass it on like Anestis did with last year's copy, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Part 2 tomorrow.

Video from Jack Kerouac's grave

As promised, here's a link to a video we shot at Jack's grave yesterday, where we met several other Kerouac fans (representing New Hampshire, Michigan, Ohio, and Massachusetts), including Chris and Charlie who you'll see drinking port in the video!

Watch the video.

We had a great time yesterday - more later....