Jack Kerouac - pirate, zombie, ninja

FYI:

If you Google "Jack Kerouac pirate," the first search item returned is the blog Mean Dirty Pirate, featuring a blog post about Jack.

If you Google "Jack Kerouac zombie," the first relevant search item returned is SPD Books, featuring the book Zombie Dawn, co-authored by Anne Waldman, Director of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.

If you Google "Jack Kerouac ninja," the first relevant search item returned is the blog Idiot's Stew, whose owner presents his profile picture as a ninja.

I don't know what it all means, but a couple of days ago I promised a blog about Jack, pirates, zombies, and ninjas. And there you have it as far as Internet searching goes.

Given the dearth of information available, I guess I'll have to write a short story about Jack encountering pirates, zombies, and ninjas so that when someone searches the Internet for such connections they'll find some. Or you can! Send it along and I'll post it.

If this post just didn't give you enough of a Kerouac fix, remember you can always visit Random Jack Kerouac Quotes.

Jack Kerouac and Krazy Kat (+ pirates, ninjas, & zombies)

In doing some research for my "guest post" (see February 3), I was reading Jack's "The Origins of the Beat Generation" in A Casebook on the Beat (1961). He was listing all the many things that the Beat Generation goes back to, and one of them was "the inky ditties of old cartoons (Krazy Kat with the irrational brick)..." (p. 71).

I loved Krazy Kat when I was cartoon-watching age. Watching it now, I can't figure out why, but there is that still small Kerouac connection afoot, since he liked it, too. There were lots of Krazy Kat versions, but the one I remember is represented by this clip from YouTube.

Referring to Krazy Kat, Jack supposedly said, "An immediate progenitor of the Beat Generation and its roots could be traced back to the glee of America, the honesty of America, its wild, self-believing individuality" (Source: Quotes on Krazy).

Do you remember Krazy Kat?

P.S. In future posts, we'll be exploring Jack's connection to pirates, ninjas, and zombies. Apparently, those are search terms that get attention on-line, so we'll take advantage of them!