Helen Weaver's The Awakener translated to Greek

I just learned that Helen Weaver's fascinating book, The Awakener: A Memoir of Jack Kerouac and the Fifties, has been translated into Greek. Click here for her interview with Greek journalist, Michalis Limnios, featuring a great picture of Helen from 1961.

Way to go, Helen!

Click here for my review of The Awakener.

Click here for my interview with Helen.

RIP to a little known but influential San Fran art scene maven

You may have never heard of Alix Geluardi, but she was influential in San Francisco's North Beach art scene over the years. Quick to help out a struggling artist in whom she saw potential, Alix at one point aided no less than Gregory Corso and Lew Welch.

Click here for a SF Chronicle story about Alix.

I bet right now she and Jack Kerouac et al. are organizing a hell of a poetry reading . . . .

Advanced instruction for watching On the Road: Slim Gaillard and Yip Roc Heresy

Not being familiar with Slim Gaillard's (in)famous song,* Yip Roc Heresy,** I was curious about it while watching On the Road and thought Daily Beat readers who haven't seen the movie yet might benefit from some advanced instruction.

From what I can piece together, Slim wrote this song about his time living in Detroit where an Armenian woman had taken him in and often cooked him Arabic food. The song, Yip Roc Heresy, is made up almost entirely of Arabic food names. "Yip roc" is actually "yabraq," stuffed grape leaves, and "heresy" is actually  "heressah," a sweet semolina dessert.

So when you watch Sal and the gang singing along with Slim in the movie, you'll now know what the hell they are saying.

You're welcome.

*Apparently, it was banned from at least one radio station.

** Lots of different spellings of this on-line.

Resources:

-http://qifanabki.com/2010/03/22/slim-gaillard-and-his-mysterious-stuffed-grape-leaves/

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slim_Gaillard

Loving and Hating Charles Bukowski by Linda King

Just received this in the mail, directly from  Linda, and I plan to read it soon and then post a review. I want to read something other than by or about Jack Kerouac for a short spell (given what lies ahead for the spring semester: teaching a Kerouac course), and this will suffice given that it's a biography (which I love) and it's about someone I'm intrigued with (I love Bukowski). 

From the back cover:

Linda King, a young, beautiful poet and sculptor in Los Angeles in the 1970's at the beginning of the women's liberation movement. She meets Charles Bukowski, an underground writer/poet and columnist of Notes of a Dirty Old Man for the Los Angeles Free Press. She offered to do a sculpture of his head. While sculpting his acne scarred face, he seduces her with his letters, writing and wit. They fall in love. This is the story of their passionate and humorous relationship of loving and hating, fighting and splitting. Ms. King doesn't hold back on the pain or the pleasure in this true life story.

Sounds promising. I'll let you know . . . .

Happy Thanksgiving

I was thinking this morning about all the things I have to be thankful for, and toward the top of my list - after family, health, and prosperity - are all of the amazing people I've met because of Jack Kerouac. That includes people who I've met in person and on-line as well as all of you who only read my words on The Daily Beat.

It's a rich life, and richer because of you.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Jack Kerouac's Daily Routine?

Click here for advice on writing routines from famous writers compiled by Maria Popova on Brain Pickings. Our boy Jack is represented, although I'm not sure it's the quote I would have culled from everything he's said on the subject.

Other authors represented include:

Ray Bradbury

Joan Didion

E.B. White

Susan Sontag

Henry Miller

Simone de Beauvoir

Ernest Hemingway

Don DeLillo

Ben Franklin

Haruki Murakami
William Gibson
Maya Angelou
Anais Nin
Kurt Vonnegut

Jack's certainly in good company, yes?

Happy Birthday to Gerald Nicosia

Today is Gerald Nicosia's 63rd birthday. Readers of The Daily Beat need no introduction to Gerry, who wrote the critically acclaimed Kerouac biography, Memory Babe. Click below for a couple of Daily Beat interviews with Gerry about his work on the On the Road film and his experience at its Cannes debut.

Memories of Cannes, June 2, 2012
The Making of On the Road, May 18, 2012


Happy Birthday, Gerry, and many more.