New Year's Kerouac-olutions

Below are my New Year's Kerouac-olutions for 2009 A.D.:

1. Read The Subterraneans
2. Blog every day
3. Attend Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! 2009
4. Read Ann Charters' Kerouac biography
5. Publish Charlie's book of poetry
6. Increase my blog traffic to 50+ visits per day
7. Continue the monthly free book giveaway
8. See my book reviewed in a "legit" newspaper or magazine
9. Send a copy of my book to David Amram
10. Accomplish at least 20 additional Kerouactions from The Beat Handbook

The newest Kerouac novel

Kerouac fans are probably aware of the most recently published Kerouac novel, the one he co-wrote with William Burroughs: And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks. Sitting in the Philadelphia airport on Sunday afternoon, I happened upon a copy of the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer someone had left behind and saw this review of the book: Hippos review. The review contains a concise beat history of Kerouac meeting Carr and Ginsberg and Kammerer and it's fairly positive about the novel.

I do plan to read Hippos, but it's low on my priority list. First I want to finish The Beat Face of God. Then it's on to Empty Phantoms: Interviews and Encounters with Jack Kerouac.

Beat travelogue from my trip to Philly

Here are a couple of highlights from my whirlwind trip to Philadelphia to present at the American Philosophical Association conference.

Air travel to Philadelphia from Portland was straightforward enough. We had a slight delay, and were completely boarded, seated, and waiting at the jetway. All cabin lights were on, the air was running, etc. Noisy. The captain came on and said "Good morning from the flight deck. This is Captain Joe Something-or-other. Our first mate is going to fly us to Philadelphia this morning. I apologize for the slight delay. It's a busy day in Philly and air traffic control has us waiting just a bit. We have a departure time now of 12:45, so we are going to taxi out and wait on the runway for the go-ahead. It's a good thing we've boarded because that gets us into the system and ...." Power loss. Lights off. Air stops.

We hear him say, "Oh, Jesus!"

Silence.

A few nervous twitters.

Several minutes later power comes back on and the captain says that these new planes are kind of like laptops and he fixed it with Control-Alt-Delete.

Those of us aboard hoped that Control-Alt-Delete would work very very quickly in case we lost power at 20,000 feet.

U.S Airways. You gotta love it.

Anyway, I got to PHL safely. I was traveling light and only had a carry on, so it was right to ground transportation and I caught a taxi to the downtown Marriott where the conference was located and where I was staying. $28.50! Jack would have hitchhiked.

Checked in. Grabbed some food and a couple of Yuenglings at Thirteen, the restaurant at the hotel. Started reading The Beat Face of God: The Beat Generation Writers as Spirit Guides by Steve Edlington. I got two copies for Christmas - one from Crystal and one from Kath. When someone buys you something from your Amazon wish list, take it off.

Caught a nap in the super-comfy bed in my sixteenth floor room.

Later caught up with Adrianne and Joe. Waiting in the hotel lobby bar for her to park the car I heard someone call my name. It was Elliott from UMF. I had just said to Joe that I would probably see someone I knew before too long, having been a lifelong resident of Pennslvania until 2006 and doing a bunch of work in Philly. I didn't expect to see someone from my university in Maine!

Ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe with Adrianne and Joe. Had twisted mac & cheese with chicken and a Stella. Yummy.

We adjourned to the hotel lobby bar and I downed a few Yuenglings and we discussed the presentation the next day and people watched and just generally hung out. Gave Adrianne a copy of The Beat Handbook for Christmas.

Up early. Showered. Grabbed coffee and a donut at the Starbucks in the hotel lobby.

On the way to the presentation I saw Cornel West coming out of the elevator. Cool!

Presentation went well. 9-11 AM. Early for a Sunday morning and yet there were 13 attendees. Our topic was assessment. My specific topic was self-assessment a la Carl Rogers' freedom to learn. One articulate attendee made a comment after I spoke that said everything that needed to be said because he railed against self-assessment arguing with all the un-questioned assumptions one would expect from someone conditioned by traditional schooling.

One of the presenters was from Alverno College in Wisconsin. They do not use letter grades, campus-wide. They use ability-based assessment and self-assessment. Pretty interesting. Every professor on campus uses the same writing feedback rubric. She said she wished I could teach there. I said I wished her college was in the southwest. If I ever leave Maine, it ain't gonna be for Wisconsin winters.

After the presentation I cleared out the room and took the hotel shuttle (Tropiana) back to the airport. 10 bucks. Should have done that the other direction. I was the only passenger and the driver gave me a guided tour of every important landmark along the way. The Roman Catholic high school, the U.S. Constitution (fastest steamship crossing of the Atlantic), Ben Franklin Bridge, Philadelphia Sports Complex, where the new casino is going, etc. Very interesting and I tipped him well and told him why.

Skye, my friend who used to live in Mansfield, was manning the TSA security checkpoint when I went through and we got to chat across the baggage belt for a minute. Nothing extraordinary on the rest of the way home to Crystal and Maine except they changed my gate somewhere during my two-hour wait and if I weren't a seasoned air traveler I would have sat right there at B10 waiting and waiting while my plane left out of B16. Knowing that there should have been some boarding activity by a certain time, I re-checked the monitors and, sure enough, there'd been a gate change. They probably announced it on the public address system, but if you've ever flown you know how futile that is.

While waiting I had deep-fried pulled pork-filled ravioli and a couple of Yuenglings (can't get it in Maine) at Friday's.

The drive home was very foggy. Crystal had baked tortellini casserole and wine by candlelight waiting for me. Sweet!

By the way, Jack would be proud of me for flying under the radar and not paying the conference attendance fee. Hey, I was a presenter and I flew at my own expense from Maine. Adding a conference fee to that is adding insult to injury.

Anyway, glad I did the thing. Glad it's done.

To "stink of Zen"

Those who know do not speak;
Those who speak do not know.
~Lao-tzu

In studying or practicing Zen it is of no help to think about Zen. To remain caught up in ideas and words about Zen is, as the old masters say, to "stink of Zen."
~Alan Watts, The Way of Zen, 1989, p. 127

When it's time to get dressed, put on your clothes. When you must walk, then walk. When you must sit, then sit. Don't have a single thought in your mind about seeking for Buddhahood.... You talk about being perfectly disciplined in your six senses and in all your actions, but in my view all this is making karma. To seek the Buddha (nature) and to seek the Dharma is at once to make karma which leads to the hells. To seek (to be) Bodhisattvas is also making karma, and likewise studying the sutras and commentaries. Buddhas and Patriarchs are people without such artificialities.... It is said everywhere that there is a Tao which must be cultivated and a Dharma which must be realized. What Dharma do you say must be realized, and what Tao cultivated? What do you lack in the way you are functioning right now? What will you add to where you are?
~Lin-chi
as cited in Watts, The Way of Zen, 1989, p. 151

Enlightenment is for sissies. Living ethically and morally is what really matters.
~Brad Warner
Daily Zen Calendar reading for December 26, 2008

The Roberts

I've in the past year or so befriended two different Roberts. One in the bar. One in the coffee shop. Both older than I. Both artistic. One with an established track record as an artist. The other a PTSD-tortured Vietnam vet. Both married. Both with good souls. They're not perfect - not politically correct. They both have long hair (like me - yair!). And they mostly say what they think without too much filtering.

They are beat characters. I love them. They seem to live that simple beatific life Kerouac extolled (and lived at times). The "mad ones...," you know?

I don't know why they perk up to see me. Maybe because I listen to their stories. (How couldn't you listen?) Maybe I have something to offer on occasion when we talk. I'm pretty sure my "college professor" title lends some aura of credibility to my words, but that is just so much utter bullshit. Having a doctorate, being a college professor - who cares? It's just meaningless noise. Neither of the Roberts have doctorates. Neither of the Roberts is a college professor. And either of them is routinely way more interesting than I (although I aspire to it - I would love to someday hold court in a coffee shop corner spinning tales and having someone hanging on my words).

Life experience! GO GO GO! That's what makes for having something to say. Been places! The jungles of southeast Asia. Denver. Texas. Chicago. Mexico. New Orleans. Denmark. San Francisco (North Beach - City Lights Bookstore - Sausalito). Done things! Lived in a tepee. Posed naked for aspiring artists in D.C. Greeted the southwestern sunrise tripping on peyote, naked and wrapped in a blanket with a beautiful woman. Survived combat. Protested (in real protests, not the namby-pamby excuses for protests that happen today).

And more. Much more. That I hope to hear about until the story and the stories end. As they all do. So listen now. And weave them, too, as you can.

A Jack Kerouac breakfast

I just made pancakes for Crystal and me with real Maine maple syrup ($25 per quart!) and it got me thinking about Jack's description in "Railroad Earth" of Lonesome Traveler (1960) about making his breakfast in the tiny San Francisco flophouse room he rented when he was a brakeman on the Southern Pacific:

...make my raisin toast by sitting it on a little wire I'd especially bent to place over the hotplate, the toast crackled up, there, I spread the margarine on the still red hot toast and it too would crackle and sink in golden, among burnt raisins and this was my toast.-- Then two eggs gently slowly fried in soft margarine in my little skidrow frying pan about half as thick as a dime in fact less, a little piece of tiny tin you could bring on a camp trip -- the eggs slowly fluffled in there and swelled from butter steams and I threw garlic salt on them, and when they were ready the yellow of them had been slightly filmed with a cooked white at the top from the tin cover I'd put over the frying pan, so now they were ready, and out they came, I spread them out on top of my already prepared potatoes which had been boiled in small pieces and then mixed with the bacon I'd already fried in small pieces, kind of raggely mashed bacon potatoes, with eggs on top steaming, and on the side lettuce, with peanut butter dab nearby on side (p. 48).

Makes you wanna go cook breakfast, doesn't it?

Compassion and materialism

Today is a tradition in this country when we come together as families and communities and spend some time rising above our differences and practicing compassion for others. It's also a day when we spend exorbitant amounts of money on "stuff." Thinking about those two issues - compassion and materialism - reminded me of the following entry from The Beat Handbook:

Day 11
Today’s Kerouaction: On Compassion
Kerouac would advise being careful about judging others for how they live. That is, while he would advocate forsaking “white kitchen machinery” (a metaphor for the materialism he saw growing in America), he would also caution against judging those who aspire to that kind of life. A paradox? No. As he points out, compassion is the heart of Buddhism.


Suggested Kerouactivity:
Find a definition for compassion from a Buddhist source and write it here.

I hope this day is everything you wish for, and that everything you wish for is this day.