Jack Kerouac on eBay

If you haven't looked around on eBay for all the Kerouac-related items, you might want to do that some day when you have time. It can be both entertaining and instructive.

Just now, an eBay search for "Kerouac" brought up 1,841 items. On eBay you can list the items by relevance, price, distance, or time the sale is ending. The highest priced item I saw was a handwritten postcard from Jack to his girlfriend, Joyce Glassman (later Johnson) in 1957, asking her - among other things - to send him copies of reviews of the recently released On The Road. No bids are allowed on the item, but the Buy It Now price is $18,000. You read that right. Eighteen thousand simoleans.

Next in price is an autographed letter to Lois. It's priced at $13,000 (also with no bids allowed). The next two items are also not biddable: checks made out by Kerouac going for $6,999 each.

These first no-bid items seem to come from the same "company." I wonder about a Sampas connection there.

Then we hit an item that you can bid on: A signed first edition hardcover with dustjacket of The Town and the City. Price: $4,500. There have been some offers but they all expired. I don't know if there is a minimum. Bid a buck and find out (if you wish).

Next comes the expected slew of Kerouac books, with some curiosities like collaborations with Robert Frank mixed in.You can get Jack's blues and haikus LP for $360. You'll see a signed copy of Carolyn Cassady's Heart Beat.

A Jack Kerouac bobblehead produced for the Lowell Spinners in 2003 is available for $209.99. I wrote about this previously on The Daily Beat (click here).

You'll see Good Blonde and Others with a preface by Robert Creeley that's signed by Creeley. $174.99.

There are also Kerouac boots for sale by John Varvatos. I wonder if they paid the Sampas family for the privilege of naming their boots after Jack.

There are books by other authors about Jack. Or not, as I saw a signed first edition of Trainsong by Jan Kerouac (a highly recommended read, by the way) going for $99.

It will pain my friend John J Dorfner to see his book, Kerouac: Visions of Lowell, going for $69. He'd prefer you contact him directly for copies: johnjdorfner@gmail.com.

There's a 1976 Tom Waits LP. $46.75.

You'll see various photographs for sale. Playboys featuring short stories by Jack (I bought one a while back). A copy of Memory Babe by my friend, Gerry Nicosia (a must-read if you are a Kerouac fan). A 1957 edition of Evergreen Review featuring some piece by Jack (unidentified in the ad). T-shirts are a common listing. A 1970 newspaper article about Jack (why anyone would pay $35 for it is beyond me).

And the beat goes on. Here are some additional items that caught my eye:

• 1960 Escapade (men's magazine) featuring a Kerouac piece
• Stainless steel Thermos with On The Road Penguin Books logo
• Passport cover (same logo as above)
• Safe in Heaven Dead by Jack Kerouac (a book I never heard of - be wary of this one)
• Jack Kerouac "Pot Belly" (miniature figurines with secret compartments)
• Jack Kerouac buttons
• Dollhouse miniature replicas of various Kerouac books (who knew?)
• Baby Driver by Jan Kerouac (highly recommended, and cheap - $4.99)
• A Trivial Pursuit game card featuring a Kerouac question ($3.99 - I may bid on this).

And last on the list, a copy of On The Road for $1.58, shipping not specified.

Now you have a good idea of what's on eBay related to Jack Kerouac, and it didn't take you half an hour of scrolling because I did the work for you.

You're welcome.

Now, what's the latest bid on that Trivial Pursuit card . . . ?



P.S. I didn't see any copies of The Beat Handbook for sale, at least in the search I did. Maybe I should list signed copies for some exorbitant fee!

Beat Generation icon makes cover of The London Library Magazine

Guess who's on the cover of the current issue of The London Library Magazine?

Allen Ginsberg on that dangerous word: Should

Click here to read a short piece by Richard J.McCarthy about the time he saw Allen Ginsberg speak at UMass Amherst in 1969.

I've long railed against the word, "should." It's especially dangerous when we use it against ourselves, as in "I should be [insert various judgmental adjectives or participles]. When we should on ourselves, we are resisting "what is," which leads to suffering, and we are laying down a guilt trip, which likewise leads to no good. I wrote the following in my LiveJournal (long since abandoned) on November 13, 2006:

I think I have written about how using the word "should" - aloud or in our mental commentary - may well be a sign that we are in the land of judgment, which means resistance to what is, which leads to suffering. 

Today, listening to Eckhart [Tolle] on the trip to campus (and he was NOT discussing this point but because I was conscious my creativity emerged), I realized that "should" is a past and future word! Any time we say "should" we are either saying something about the past (what "should" have happened) or the future (what "should" happen). I just cannot figure out a way to use "should" in reference to THIS moment. Even if I say "This moment right NOW should be different," by the time I utter or think that statement, it is too late to apply it to the present moment.

I think Jack Kerouac would dig my analysis, as it aligns nicely with Buddhist teachings.


In McCarthy's article, he recounts how after repeatedly peppering Ginsberg with questions, the beat poet said:

Should. Should. Should. Should. Should. You keep making this sound, "Should." I don't think anybody "should" do anything.

McCarthy got the point.

Do you?

Force Google to search a specific website

Did you know that you can force Google to search a specific website? This can be helpful with sites that do not have built-in search features (like Blogger!).

Here's how. You simply have to type the following in the Google search window:

search term site:URL

Don't leave a space after the colon.

For example, let's say you wanted to find all the past posts on this blog, The Daily Beat, where I've reviewed a book or a movie. If you type the following in a Google search window, you will see that it returns only posts from The Daily Beat that include the word "Review."

Review site:thedailybeatblog.blogspot.com

When have I mentioned the word "zombie" on The Daily Beat? To find out, type the following in a Google search window:]

zombie site:thedailybeatblog.blogspot.com

To search my blog for posts with the word "pirate," type the following in a Google search window:

pirate site:thedailybeatblog.blogspot.com

Ninja would look like this:

ninja site:thedailybeatblog.blogspot.com

Got it?

Happy searching....

Review: Milkman's Matinee by John J Dorfner

Last night I finished Milkman's Matinee: A Boy Remembers His Father by John J Dorfner, and I experienced that familiar but too rare feeling when you finish certain books: sadness that there isn't more. I also was left with a strong motivation to write a memoir of my youth, and I would aspire to rise to Dorfner's fascinating level of detail and command of poetic prose.

The official blurb about the book is as follows, borrowed from Dorfner's Cooper Street Publications website:

Milkman's Matinee is the story of a young boy's observation of the world through the clean windshield and open doors of his father's milk truck. Hard lessons are learned and life's tough struggles are confronted as 'little john' listens to his father and watches him smoke cigars and laugh at life's simple pleasures. Using flashback mixed with delicate prose, the author takes readers on an unforgettable ride along the city streets of Kingston, New York, during summer and winter mornings of the early 1960's.  

Readers of The Daily Beat will recall that I reviewed two other books by Dorfner, Kerouac: Visions of Lowell and Kerouac: Visions of Rocky Mount. Dorfner is a real Kerouac enthusiast and collector who has met a number of Beat luminaries, and one striking feature of Milkman's Matinee is that it is very much like reading Kerouac. I say that as high praise, because just about anyone can imitate Kerouac, but Dorfner pulls it off in his own "delicate prose" and it is, like Jack's work, immensely fun to read. It's like he channeled Jack as he wrote. Being such a Kerouac-ophile, Dorfner probably has read so much Kerouac that those spontaneous bop rhythms are ingrained and the prose just comes out naturally.

Because I grew up in northern Pennsylvania at about the same time Dorfner was growing up in Kingston, NY (near Woodstock), 229 miles away, many of his memories are similar to mine, from the milk delivery stories (my grandfather was a milkman), to the culture zeitgeist of the time. Consequently, reading this book was like stepping into a time machine and visiting my own past. For me, it was eerily familiar and strangely comforting.

One technique Dorfner uses with skill is popping back-and-forth in time. He does this effortlessly and with great effect. One minute it's 1961 and you're in Kingston peering out of the milk truck at the buildings along Flatbush Avenue, the next you're on the "gray metal deck" of a destroyer in 1945 (his dad's war experience), and then it's 1963 and two of his childhood friends are killed by lightning. Early on, we learn that Dorfner's dad committed suicide "one spring dusk up at the Atwood Peak." It's an important piece of information, and Dorfner treats it respectfully, never dwelling on it as some memoirists might.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it, especially if you like memoirs and a spontaneous style. I'll be reading it again some day just because it was damn fun, and I don't say that about too many books.

I tip my hat to Dorfner on writing a memoir that is both highly descriptive and engaging. He has stated on his Twitter feed (@KerouacJack) that he will never stop writing Milkman's Matinee, and I am hoping for an expanded version at some point in the near future. In the meantime, Dorfner is adamant that readers not buy his books from Amazon and the like, but, rather, contact him directly at johnjdorfner@gmail.com. You'll save money and get an autographed copy to boot.

Being tipsy improves creativity in men

Time just published this article on a study finding that being tipsy enhances creativity (in men).

Like we didn't know that [hic]. Now go down a shot and get writing that novel!

Cheers!

Why Kerouac Matters

Do not click here expecting something about John Leland's book, Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On The Road (They're Not What You Think). Instead, you'll find an interesting little article in The Globe and Mail that starts out thusly:

A friend of mine who owns a second-hand bookstore in Toronto claims he has to keep his Jack Kerouac titles behind the counter, and not on the shelves with the rest of his stock, for fear of teenage shoplifters. Forget the Pulitzer or the Giller Prize; this is real writerly fame. 

Not that the majority of these thieving literary neophytes are attracted by the contents of the books themselves; what compels them to apply a five-finger discount to On the Road and The Dharma Bums is the author himself.

Love that picture of Jack!

Enjoy . . . .