A Kerouac anniversary of sorts

Note the author's name in the original edition

If you've never read The Town and the City, Kerouac's first published novel, it is required reading for Kerouacians. According to the Cosmic Baseball Association's Jack Kerouac Chronology, a resource I recommend and which you can visit here, on this date in 1949 The Town and the City was accepted for publication by Harcourt Brace. Jack was to receive a $1,000 advance in monthly installments. I have not triangulated this date and event, so if someone has conflicting information, let me know.

Kerouac refers to money from this book in On the Road at the very beginning of Part 4 when he says:

I came into some money from selling my book. I straightened out my aunt with rent for the rest of the year.

As my great friend Richard Marsh would say, the beginning of the The Town and the City is a beautiful start to a book:

The town is Galloway. The Merrimac River, broad and placid, flows down to it from the New Hamsphire Hills, broken at the falls to make frothy havoc on the rocks, foaming on over ancient stone toward a place where the river suddenly swings about in a wide and peaceful basin, moving on now around the flank of the town, on to places known as Lawrence and Haverhill, through a wooded valley, and on to the sea at Plum Island, where the river enters an infinity of waters and is gone. Somewhere far north of Galloway, in headwaters close to Canada, the river is continually fed and made to brim out of endless sources and unfathomable springs. 

Thanks, Harcourt Brace. Thanks, Jack.

Spontaneous prose on a lowery afternoon

Sitting here without a breath to my name it seems ludicrous to avoid any insurgent uprisings volcano-like but brown not white even so they call me by a number not a name lord lord gotta do my time song lyrics bluegrass but then who cares about it even in the middle of the oceanic gateway to the stars. So what? he said and I told him so what but he went ahead and finished anyway saying no time like the present despite your protestations to the contrary Contrarian Blues seems like a good name for a band or maybe a song. Or both. Not to wax musical in a Kerouac blog but this is my lame effort (is that politically incorrect?) to post something spontaneous in keeping my streak alive with at least one blog entry per week which I've done for a number of weeks now, inspired by Kathleen Thompson whose book The Project-Driven Life you should really buy from Amazon but then you should buy a lot of books from Amazon not the least of which is Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire, a beautiful book I am re-reading along with All the Wild That Remains by ??? about Abbey and Wallace Stegner. I can fill in those question marks later but then is it spontaneous so maybe I'll add the author's name as a post-script for those interested enough to find out. I've been reading more lately than lately than lately and one of the books I am reading isn't even a book it's a bunch of ones and zeros in my phone: You Can't Win by Jack Black 1922 or something a big influence on Burroughs but I'm also reading Victor Wooten's The Music Lesson (a birthday gift from TG) initials for confidentiality for no particular reason I don't think Tom would mind my invoking his name here on The Daily Beat perhaps it would be a good thing, I don't know, sort of like cheesecake when it goes bad and the cedar waxwings won't stick around long enough to do anything about it. I tell my students when I assign a spontaneous write to use a pen because the temptation to edit on the fly while typing gets in the way but I am typing this and yes editing on the fly for spelling because I cannot stand to let a misspelled word stay on the screen for more than the time it takes me to backspace and fix it and yes, I know there are grammatical issues afoot but I can live with them for some reason. Spelling is different. I can't abide misspelled words, even if they are in a draft and I can fix them later. I suppose there are two types of people: those who care about spelling and monsters. I saw that on a meme on Facebook about some other behavior and found it funny. That's probably enough for now and at least it keeps my streak alive and if you stayed with me throughout this ramble, I apologize, I apologize, I apologize: Deadwood was a great show and fans will get the reference. Ian McShane needs to be in more movies or maybe he is and I just need to seek them out. Richard and I learned about a film titled Next Stop: Greenwich Village that we both want to see. I need to see if it's available from the library. Wouldn't be hard to ascertain that what with the Internet and all. This hasn't seemed all that spontaneous but trust me it's the words that spewed out of my mind with as little conscious interference or interferon as possible. Don't judge me because it's not as profound as you wish or as shallow as you hoped for. Nothing is impossible if you live in a dream state and sleep outside on a ledge in a sleeping bag at least once a year. That's it I am done and done and done and plum ran out of dried prunes wait a minute I got that backwards funny what goes through the mind. Teaching about Buddhism next week a little bit in preparation for reading The Dharma Bums am I a bad person if I go back through this free write and italicize book titles? If so, let me be a bad person in that regard or any regard for that matter meter metier metronomic Kerouac riff raff Ginsbergian soliloquy amaranthine (new word my friend Vick taught me today) and a beautiful soul-stirring word it is at least to me and that's the first person to please where new words are concerned. I'm off to the races now so keep my seat warm and run the engine a little bit every day to make sure you keep the battery charged - my battery - filled with gasoline, too (spelled that gasoling and fixed it on the fly - told ya). Oh well, not every free write is a success wait a minute define success did I write endlessly for several minutes or not (the answer is yes although I forgot to consult a timepiece watch clock digital or analog or otherwise) random words are floating down the hallway like "primary care" and I don't want to know more than that but I can guess. What will you do with your one wild and precious life thanks to Mary Oliver? So be it.

P.S. David Gessner wrote that Abbey/Stegner book....

Happy 97th Birthday to Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Poet and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti turns 97 today. Co-founder of San Francisco's City Lights Books in 1953 with Peter D. Martin, Ferlinghetti was instrumental in getting Beat literature into print, not the least of which was Allen Ginsberg's Howl, over which a famous obscenity trial was held in 1957 (and the good guys won!). Click here for the website of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers.

Perhaps most notably for Kerouac fans, Ferlinghetti was Jack's publisher and friend. It was Ferlinghetti's cabin in Bixby Canyon that Jack retreated to in 1960, an experience about which he wrote his desperate 1962 novel, Big Sur, about the dark night of the soul he experienced there.

Jerry Cimino, founder of The Beat Museum (on Broadway, literally within view of City Lights Bookstore on Columbus Avenue), wrote a great piece today in honor of Ferlinghetti's birthday. It contains some essential biographical information as well as links where you can read and listen to Ferlinghetti read his poem, "Sometime During Eternity..." (click here). (A poem -- and this is very tangential -- that reminds me of what my poet friend Charlie James told me was the Beatnik trinity: Daddy-o, Laddy-o, and Spook.)

If you're ever in San Francisco, you absolutely have to visit City Lights Bookstore. While you're at it, make it a three-for-one and visit Vesuvios's across Jack Kerouac Alley and The Beat Museum across Columbus and Broadway. It's a required Beat pilgrimage.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Ferlinghetti. May you live to be a hundred and a hundred more!

Patti Smith's M Train

I just finished Patti Smith's M Train, a gift from my great friend and fellow Kerouacian, Richard Marsh. Richard has been a fan of Patti Smith for some time, I think, whereas I have never listened closely to her music nor read her work at all. Until now.

This book is delicious. There were passages that moved me to tears, memories that read like my own, descriptions that transported me to exotic places, references to writers that crept onto my to-read list, and so much more. Patti Smith is so present in these pages that I feel like I know her, that we could sit down for coffee at one of her beloved cafés and it would be like two old friends meeting after a long absence.

This book left me just about wordless. That is how moving it is. Get your own copy and devour it.


Oh, and the Kerouac connection? Smith was great friends with William S. Burroughs. Need more? Click here. Or here. And, she mentions Kerouac in the first chapter of M Train.

Aram Saroyan's Play about Beat Poet, Lew Welch: This Friday in Venice, CA

I saw the following on Aram Saroyan's Facebook page:

MICHAEL HARRIS
as Lew Welch in
A TENDER MIND
The Life and Times of Lew Welch, Beat Poet 

Written and Directed by ARAM SAROYAN
Beyond Baroque Friday, March 25, 2016, 8:00 P.M.
681 N. Venice Blvd. Venice, CA 90291 Ph: 310-822-3006

Faithful readers of this blog will know Aram as the son of William Saroyan, an author who influenced Kerouac, but Aram is an accomplished writer in his own right. Click here for a great essay he wrote titled, "Beat America." Aram participated with Ted Berrigan in the famous interview with Kerouac and his mother at their Lowell home which was published in The Paris Review in 1968 (click here).

Lew Welch, of course, was an acclaimed poet (click here for my review of his work) and friend of Kerouac who appeared as Dave Wain in Big Sur and who co-wrote Trip Trap: Haiku On the Road with Kerouac and Albert Saijo.

Here's a link for information on the setting of the performance:
 http://www.beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html

If you're a Kerouac fan and can get yourself to Venice on March 25, go go go!

Review: Gerard: The Influence of Jack Kerouac's Brother On His Life and Writing

One of my Kerouac class students is writing his research paper on the influence of Jack Kerouac's brother, Gerard, on Jack's life and writing. Last week students turned in an outline of their paper, and I asked them to provide references they were going to be using. I ask for five references in total, with three being from scholarly journals (if possible -- that is not always easy depending on the thesis, but they can at least use three scholarly sources). They already submitted a research question earlier in the semester. Next a rough draft is due, and then, finally, the final paper. I required these waystations toward a paper -- research question, outline, rough draft -- because I know that some students need such structure to make sure they don't begin their paper the night before it's due (and thus turn in something that is inevitably not very thoughtful, let alone that they probably don't learn much in the process).

Being a pragmatist, I use -- and encourage my students to use -- Google as one way of identifying sources. Granted, it is fraught with scholarly danger, but I tell them that if they find something that isn't clearly scholarly to ask me if it's at least credible. To wit, I don't think Beatdom or LitKicks or similar sites are peer-reviewed by definition in academe, but they often have credible articles that are on point and are, at the very least, good starting points. As is Wikipedia, but I daresn't say that because I will get drummed out of the academy. Naturally, I show them how to access and encourage them to use our own library's scholarly databases.

I queried Google to see what I might find (and suggest to this student). I used the phrase "Gerard influence Kerouac," and the second hit was Donald Motier's book, Gerard: The Influence of Jack Kerouac's Brother On His Life and Writing," available via Amazon, I had not heard of it before and it had no customer reviews (although it's fixing to), but I bought it anyway, thinking it serendipitous that my friend Richard and I recently did a marathon reading of Visions of Gerard. I thought that if the book came soon enough, I could lend it to the aforementioned student, given that it might take a while to get it by interlibrary loan (if he even wants to reference it). It didn't hurt that Gerald Nicosia, author of Memory Babe, wrote this blurb for the book (as it turns out, it's on the back cover):

There is no understanding Jack Kerouac without understanding the power his brother Gerard had over his heart and his imagination. Donald Motier provides the book every Kerouac student must read. This is a many-faceted flashing mirrored ball with gleams and insights into Gerard hitting you from every direction and, pervaded by the reverence and sincere love Jack and Motier himself feels for this child saint who inaugurated the Beat Generation.

I just read the book this morning, in one sitting of about half an hour or so -- it's that brief -- and I must admit that Gerry is not far off in his praise for the book. The version pictured is the one I purchased, and it has a 2010 copyright by Publish America (a self-publisher for you self-righteous academics who will now not give the book any consideration); however, a read of the introduction reveals that it first appeared in 1991 courtesy of Beaulieu Street Press (the latter has little on-line presence and I cannot ascertain whether it is a self-publisher).

This little book, 65 numbered pages, is full of Gerard's spirit just as Gerry points out. It includes a brief introduction that sketches out how the author became interested in the topic, followed by a short biographical sketch of Gerard that features quotes from Lowellians who knew Gerard: Roger Ouellette and his sister, Pauline. It also features the text of Gerard's obit from the Lowell Sun. This is followed by a creative and informative "interview" with Gerard, a piece previously published in John Montgomery's Kerouac at the Wild Boar & Other Skirmishes (1986).

This is followed by a one-page entry titled, "Gerard's Influence on Jack's Life," concluding with a powerful quote from Kerouac's Book of Sketches.

The next section is titled, "Gerard's Influence on Jack's Writing." In it we learn all of the places Kerouac mentions Gerard in his writing, and get to read a number of passages with analysis. We also find a copy of Gerard's birth certificate (with Kerouac spelled Keroack), death certificate, and various other documents as well as relevant pictures from Lowell. The author experiences several visions of Gerard during the visit, hits many Lowell Kerouac hot spots on a boozy tour with Father Spike Morissette, and even has to relieve himself in the wash basin of a chapel (at Spike's suggestion).

Next is another previously published piece which appeared in the Spring 1991 issue of The Kerouac Connection. It's titled, "Revisiting Nashua-Lowell on the 60th Anniversary of Gerard's Death." For me, this spontaneous-style journal-type entry alone justified the price of the book. It's exactly the kind of thing I love to do -- visit Kerouacian sites, meet interesting characters, and write about it.

If you are looking for an exhaustively researched and comprehensive treatise on the influence of Gerard on Kerouac's life and writing, this is not it. On the other hand, if you are looking for something on the subject that is heartfelt and contributes a few unique contributions to the topic at hand, I doubt you'd be unhappy about buying Motier's book.

Here's the Amazon link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/Gerard-Influence-Kerouacs-Brother-Writing/dp/144895519X

P.S. Below is a cover of the first edition, which Dave Moore pointed me to.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29873672@N02/sets/72157631933085625

P.S.S. Below is a letter from Motier published in The Kerouac Connection in 1992 which, again, Dave Moore alerted me to on the Kerouac Facebook page.

From The Kerouac Connection (1992)

Spontaneous human combustion, Forteanism, synchronicity, and Jack Kerouac

For pretty much as long as I can remember, I have had a fascination with unexplained ("anomalous") phenomena: ghosts, the Loch Ness Monster, UFO sightings, Bigfoot, etc. For the past few weeks I have been listening to a podcast by Micah Hanks called The Gralian Report, in which he takes up such topics from a critical but not dismissive perspective (as well as other topics in the news, psychology, culture, government secrecy, and technology -- all of which are equally interesting to me). I have lots of time to listen to podcasts as I drive an hour each way to work.

From Mr. Hanks I learned the term, Fortean, which means someone who is interested in topics such as those mentioned above. The term derives from Charles Hoy Fort, an American writer and researcher into such anomalous phenomena. But I digress....

On this morning's drive the subject was spontaneous human combustion (SHC), a fascinating topic, and it reminded me of a bluegrass song my band, North Fork, used to perform: Time Left to Wander. We learned it from Country Gazette, one of the best bluegrass bands of all time. It was on their album, Out to Lunch (and also Sunny Side of the Mountain, I think).

I tried to find a version of the song on-line but came up with nothing. I typed the first line as a Google search and found this page: http://bigsurinternet.com/Drifters/jimrichmond.htm. It's an elegy written to a guy named Paco Huch, and it features many of the lines from the song.

Below are the lyrics. If you compare it to the above article, you will see verbatim passages. I am left to wonder if the songwriter borrowed from this article or vice versa! It's a mystery I'd love readers to solve. Let me know if  you have some insight into this.

TIME LEFT TO WANDER by Bill Martin  

It was pure speculation what became of him
It was clear he disappeared from his easy chair last night
In a ball of light 

So the local TV station sent a camera crew
To his home where he lived alone
And the scientist said in the interview 

CHORUS 

Now he has time left to wander
Yes he's far away from the wind and the falling rain
Now he has time left to wander
And there's nobody left but the family dog 

And they say he was a hermit always kept to himself
Eyes of grey and far away
Always lost within his books upon the shelf 

So they offered Maharishi a professional fee
To disclose just what he knows
Of his routes and whereabouts in the galaxy

Those are the lyrics as I remember them. You can hear some of the song here: http://www.allmusic.com/album/country-gazette-live-sunny-side-of-the-mountain-what-a-way-to-make-a-living-mw0002222602. How many songs do you know about spontaneous human combustion?

Of course, regular readers are wondering by now: What is the Kerouac connection?

Well, the URL of the Paco Huch elegy contains the term Big Sur and is hosted by Big Sur Internet, and that was enough for me, although I suspect Paco was a beat character from what I've read. Besides. the topic of the song has the term "spontaneous" in it, so there's another Kerouac link. Oh, and the songwriter's name was Martin, so there's another Kerouac connection (the family name from The Town and the City).

Like I always say: everything connects to Kerouac. Everything.