On the Road is a holy book

(c) 2014 Cat de Leon, Used with Permission
From her show, Up You Go, Little Smoke -- The Holy Hipness of Jack Kerouac
View her other pieces at http://www.catdeleon.com/

On the Road is a holy book. Why do I say that? Simply put, the book is replete with spirituality (a theme that director Walter Salles largely ignored in the movie version). As Jack himself said, it's really "a story of two Catholic buddies roaming the country in search of God. And we found him" (from a May 1961 letter to Carroll Brown; also see this Newsweek piece). In addition to its obvious spiritual quest (for IT, I would say), in On the Road we find multiple references to visions (see P.S. below), mystical figures like the Shrouded Traveler, specific references to God ("...and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear?"),  a search for one's biological father (symbol for God?), and, not the least important in making this argument, a number of usages of the word "holy."  

How many times do you think the word "holy" appears in On the Road (the classic edition)? I have a number in mind from my own research, but I thought I'd make this a scavenger hunt. Leave a comment with your answer. If we come to some agreement I will take the time to cut-and-paste all of the relevant passages into this blog post.

If "holy" means "dedicated to a religious purpose," as the dictionary tells us, then On the Road is certainly a holy book, both by design and in effect. It's about the main character's search for meaning, which, after all, is a search we all undertake -- in our own ways -- to find the God that's in each of us.

Next time you re-read On the Road, be attuned to its holy essence. Look for passages like this: "... in their eyes I would be strange and ragged and like the Prophet who has walked across the land to bring the dark Word...." Jack would dig that.

P.S.

As faithful readers will know, last March we identified all of the passages in On the Road that had the word "vision" or "visions" in them (click here). I quoted a total of 14 passages that contained either or both of those words.

Taken at the Lady of Lourdes Grotto in Lowell, MA, Kerouac's hometown
(c) 2015 by Rick Dale

Jack Kerouac 2016 Birthday Celebration in Lowell, MA

Lowell Celebrates Kerouac has planned another rollicking birthday celebration for its hometown hero, Jack Kerouac. This year it's a one-day event occurring on his birthday, March 12. It happens to be a Saturday, making it possible for working stiffs like me to attend. Click here for the schedule, but I have also posted it below for convenience.

This is literally  less than 3 weeks away, yet I have not made up my mind about attending. It's only a thought percolating in my mind right now.

FYI, the UMass Lowell Inn and Conference Center has no vacancies on that date. This has become a typical scenario during LCK events and is a major drag since it's the only option in downtown Lowell. Your next best bet is the Courtyard by Marriott in Chelmsford. It's close but not walkable to LCK events. The solution is to cab into the city or drive and park for free at the National Historical Park Visitor Center.

If I do attend, I will have a copy of my book with me and will award a signed copy to the first person who comes up to me and uses the word "lackadaddy" (stand-alone or, better yet, in a sentence). Prior winners are not eligible. If I don't attend, you can always click here and get a copy directly from Amazon.

Jack would have been 94 on his next birthday. Come celebrate with like-minded Kerouacians in beautiful downtown Lowell this coming March 12!

Schedule of Events:

2016 Jack Kerouac Birthday Celebration

March 12, 2016 

10:00 am: Downtown Walking Tour of Lowell Kerouac Sites.
Begins at the Kerouac Commemorative at Bridge and French Streets and ends at
the Pollard Memorial Library. Led by Roger Brunelle.

12:30 pm: Pollard Library Tour.
This Library played a pivotal role in shaping Kerouac’s literary consciousness, and
now houses a “Kerouac Corner.”  Led by Bill Walsh. The Pollard Library is located

2:00 pm: “Woody and Jack: Two American Icons.”
A presentation comparing the lives and legacies of Jack Kerouac and Woody Guthrie by Steve Edington. Steve is a member of the LCK Committee and the author of The Beat Face of God
and Bring Your Own God—The Spirituality of Woody Guthrie.

Books available for signing following the presentation.

Visitors Center Theater at the Lowell National Historical Park.  246 Market Street.

4:00 pm: Open Mike at The Old Worthen.
141 Worthen Street.

8:00 pm “The Moody Street Sound” at the UnchARTed Gallery. 
With Special Guest David Amram. 103 Market Street.

A $5.00 donation is requested to support Lowell Celebrates Kerouac.

Kerouac Crater on Mercury

Kerouac Crater on Mercury

Did you know they named a crater on Mercury after Jack Kerouac? Click here for the official information from the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. The crater was officially named by the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature on October 12, 2015.

I don't know if it's significant, but October was Jack's favorite month. "Everybody goes home in October."

P.S. This is the kind of thing you can learn on the Jack Kerouac Facebook page. In this case, it was a post by group member Tony Marshall. I'd never heard of it before today when I read Tony's post.

Jack Kerouac and social media and the one-inch dash

We had an interesting discussion in my class the other day about whether Kerouac would use social media if it existed during his lifetime. Opinions varied. Some thought he would eschew it in favor of live interactions. Some thought he would take advantage of its ability to facilitate such live interactions (remember, the Beats were often arranging get-togethers via mail and letters sometimes arrived after they were relevant). Some thought he would take full advantage of being able to journal electronically. What are your thoughts?

Which brings me to LiveJournal, a blog platform I used to use and which I can't seem to link to so readers can access it. To wit, one of my friends asked me to post a particular entry in The Daily Beat titled, "The one-inch dash." I posted it in LiveJournal on 10-13-06 and was prompted to revisit it by a Facebook post featuring this image:

Faithful readers know I am rethinking my vision for this blog. It may be that it will start to include musings like the below, although as per my blog's mission I will connect it to Kerouac. The connection here? Jack lived a lot in that one-inch dash (1922-1969). Will you be able to say the same?

Here you go, Kath. From LiveJournal 10-13-06...with no editing....

The One-Inch Dash

One thing is for sure, no matter what you accomplish or don't accomplish, no matter what you accumulate or don't accumulate, no matter what you learn or don't learn, no matter what behaviors you engage in or don't engage in, no matter how passionate you were or how lifeless, no matter what . . . for sure and without any question whatsoever the YOU that you are so carefully protecting and creating and fussing about WILL BE REDUCED TO A ONE-INCH DASH BETWEEN TWO DATES ON A PIECE OF GRANITE. Bill Gates. Einstein. Buddha. Brad Pitt. Osama bin Laden. Hitler. That guy in the other car you flipped off the other day. NO MATTER - they and we have one thing in common. That one-inch dash. So do you want to fuss about all the things that are wrong and all the things on your plate and how awful other people act and how your "friends" screwed you again and what a fool George Bush is and how the world let you down again and how your car let you down and how it wasn't supposed to be quite like this and some day you will be happy when [fill in the blank] happens? Or do you want to spend your life as if each second is a precious gift and just be present in THIS moment, which is all we ever have. Comparison is the mind's delusion. Comparison to others people, places, times, events, things. It's all just so much mind-made delusion. Relax into being who you are, as you are, this moment and every moment. It doesn't matter what you do or don't do. It matters HOW you do it: consciously or unconsciously. Fully in this moment or trapped in your mind, endlessly agonizing over what was and wishing for what will be.

"But you don't know what it's like! You're not me and you don't have to suffer with [fill in the person, place, thing, event, lack}!" you scream back at me. Then please feel free to suffer. With enough pain, you will eventually discover the enlightened being that is you. Maybe in this lifetime. Maybe not. My words are just pointing to a way to speed things up for this go-around. If you wish.

But remember the one-inch dash.

Jack Keroauc, On the Road, and vocabulary

The version of On the Road used for this post - see References below

There are several kinds of words that might throw off your comprehension when you read Jack Kerouac's On the Road (or any of his novels, for that matter). This post will give you examples of each and encourage you to do a little "outside" reading to boost your understanding.

First, you will run across actual English words that are not used that commonly today. For example, on p. 41 Jack uses the word, lugubriously. It means sadly, and I remember needing to look it up in the dictionary when I first ran across it in On the Road. On p. 86 he uses the word hincty, which means snobbish. On p. 105 he uses the word visage, which means face. Maybe you didn't need to look these up when you first read On the Road, and kudos to your vocabulary if that is the case. I suspect at least one of these three is not commonly known to all readers. In any event, if you come across an unfamiliar word, fire up dictionary.com and see if it's there. If not . . . .

. . . a second kind of word you will run into is a made-up word, or a neologism, and you won't find the word in the dictionary. Jack loved to invent words and, of course, he loved the sounds of words (remember, he was often "writing jazz"). One example is on p. 101 when he says goodbye to Terry, the Mexican girl: "Well, lackadaddy, I was on the road again." The word lackaday is an adjective expressing regret, so I am guessing that lackadaddy has the same meaning in this context, and Jack just jazzed it up a little. Maybe it was a popular slang phrase at the time, but I can't find evidence of that.

A third kind of word you will encounter is a literary reference. Jack was a voracious reader, and he loved to make connections to favorite authors. For example, on p. 80, talking about Fresno, CA, he says, "Yes, yes, Saroyan's town." To decipher this takes a bit more than dictionary.com. A little Googling will reveal that Jack is referencing William Saroyan, an author Jack read in his teen years. Saroyan wrote The Human Comedy, and Ithaca, CA in that novel is based on Saroyan's hometown of Fresno.

And so it goes (with apologies to Kurt Vonnegut).

As I tell my students, when you run across a word (or phrase) that's unfamiliar, look it up! You have the power of the Internet at your disposal, and it will certainly come in handy when reading Jack Kerouac.

Unfamiliar words = learning opportunities! Have fun with them!

References

Kerouac, J. (1976), On the road. New York: Penguin.

Hear what the media said about the Beats in 1959

This is five minutes well spent: http://www.cbc.ca/beta/arts/archives/on-this-day-in-1959-just-what-is-the-beat-generation-anyway-1.3446125 .

Thanks to Brian Hassett for posting it to The Beat Generation page on Facebook.

Rethinking the mission and vision of The Daily Beat

In my New Year's Kerouac-olutions for 2016 (click here for the whole list), number 2 was:

Rethink the mission and vision of this blog and act on it

I've been pondering this Kerouac-olution and realized that I wasn't sure what the mission and vision of this blog were at inception. I needed to go back to the beginning of my posts and do some research. All I really could come up with was in the "Description" of my blog, which is as follows (I don't know how readers access this description):

Rick Dale's blog, the most Kerouac-obsessed on the planet!

I would call that a mission statement because, in my view, mission statements should be short, broad, and unchanging. They provide a direction but not details. Mine is definitely short and broad, and upon review, I see no reason to change it. That's the nice thing about a good mission statement: it should be a lasting statement about one's purpose (or an organization's or blog's purpose), answering the question, "Why do I exist?"

Vision statements are different. They always support the mission but they are changeable. They may need to adapt with changing times. Vision statements are more detailed, more concrete (they paint a "vision" of the future, something you can "see"), and they answer the question, "What kind of person (or organization or blog) do I want to be?" 

I have not put time into developing a vision statement for The Daily Beat, but that is the next step. Once I develop one, I will share it with readers. In the meantime, if you have suggestions, hit me up.