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- 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006
Monday, June 28, 2004
It might smell
I just finished Tristessa. Jack Kerouac's book about a young hooker living in Mexico in the mid 50s. He describes her as beautiful although she is a "morfina" addict full of cysts with a head swathed in dirty bandages from bouncing into walls and furniture when she goes into convulsions and lives in squalor with animals and 2' of crap on the floor. It seemed like he was attracted to her exoticness, otherness, kinda like gawking at a train wreck, feeling empathy and wanting to help the damaged but not sure how to do it since it is so far from his experience, yet he wants to be the hero.
In the end he just goes home leaving her with Bull, an old American junkie. "For only a junkie can be with another junkie." Old Bull and Tristessa tell Jack.
The book is short, done in Jack's spontaneous bop proseity.
Contact
In the end he just goes home leaving her with Bull, an old American junkie. "For only a junkie can be with another junkie." Old Bull and Tristessa tell Jack.
The book is short, done in Jack's spontaneous bop proseity.
Contact
Hey Jack
Jack Kerouac’s been good to me. Whenever I need some cash I do a painting of him and sell it and get some much-needed moolah. Jack “I’m just a bum, a dharma bum.” would appreciate my efforts.
To do a portrait I need to look at a picture of the person. So I grabbed a book, “Door Wide Open” out of my to-read stack and used the picture on the cover as my model. It turned out okay. Half of his face is in shadow; the other half in the brilliant fluorescent light of an all-night café.
Later in the week when I finished the painting, the book was still lying on the couch so it was a choice of teevee or book. I chose the book.
I liked it very much because it is an exchange of letters between Jack and Joyce Glassman his part-time year-and-a-half girlfriend 1957-58. She was a New Yorker, 21, who worked as a secretary at a publishing house. Her curious streak lead her to the all-night cafes and what would become called The Beat Generation. She met him right before “On the Road” was published and functioned as “my little secretary in black stockings.”
Allen Ginsberg, a lover of her friend Elise Gowen, introduced her to Jack out of more of a need to find a place to crash than a romantic liaison although it did become that…she swooned at the thought of meeting this mythic figure named Jack Kerouac, a literary badboy, with dark skin, black hair and the bluest of eyes.
I like private correspondence (have a site on just that subject myself although I never put up the lover’s letters as a sort of protection) and through the letters you really get a feel for the constrictiveness of the conservative 50s. Men had a defined role to play out and woman had a much more corseted path.
Jack wrote like he talked (if you like an author try to get some of their spoken-word stuff,, you will be able to reproduce the rhythm and cadence and inflections when you read and heighten your experience.) using lots of dashes and spelling things phonetically and getting the beat in there.
When I finished I was telling a friend about the book and he handed me a 1980 copy of “Minor Characters” by the same author. This was the same territory covered in-depth as a coming-of-age novel. It blew my mind. It was about New York (the Village), the 50s, Mexico (dysentery & no money), San Francisco (“Howl” was just banned), beats & fake beatniks and beatnik parties, and the action art movement, and about drugs and road trips and Memere (Jack’s mother) all in a very detailed way.
Here are some things I found interesting or profound or just goofy:
“Self-destruction can be viewed as the opposite of apathy, the final proof that one can function.”
“Real Life was sexual. Or rather it seemed to take the form of sex. This was the area of ultimate adventure, where you would dare or not dare. It was much less a question of desire.”
Jack Kerouac did not drive. He didn’t know how and was afraid to do it. He took buses and planes. Crazy!
Contact
To do a portrait I need to look at a picture of the person. So I grabbed a book, “Door Wide Open” out of my to-read stack and used the picture on the cover as my model. It turned out okay. Half of his face is in shadow; the other half in the brilliant fluorescent light of an all-night café.
Later in the week when I finished the painting, the book was still lying on the couch so it was a choice of teevee or book. I chose the book.
I liked it very much because it is an exchange of letters between Jack and Joyce Glassman his part-time year-and-a-half girlfriend 1957-58. She was a New Yorker, 21, who worked as a secretary at a publishing house. Her curious streak lead her to the all-night cafes and what would become called The Beat Generation. She met him right before “On the Road” was published and functioned as “my little secretary in black stockings.”
Allen Ginsberg, a lover of her friend Elise Gowen, introduced her to Jack out of more of a need to find a place to crash than a romantic liaison although it did become that…she swooned at the thought of meeting this mythic figure named Jack Kerouac, a literary badboy, with dark skin, black hair and the bluest of eyes.
I like private correspondence (have a site on just that subject myself although I never put up the lover’s letters as a sort of protection) and through the letters you really get a feel for the constrictiveness of the conservative 50s. Men had a defined role to play out and woman had a much more corseted path.
Jack wrote like he talked (if you like an author try to get some of their spoken-word stuff,, you will be able to reproduce the rhythm and cadence and inflections when you read and heighten your experience.) using lots of dashes and spelling things phonetically and getting the beat in there.
When I finished I was telling a friend about the book and he handed me a 1980 copy of “Minor Characters” by the same author. This was the same territory covered in-depth as a coming-of-age novel. It blew my mind. It was about New York (the Village), the 50s, Mexico (dysentery & no money), San Francisco (“Howl” was just banned), beats & fake beatniks and beatnik parties, and the action art movement, and about drugs and road trips and Memere (Jack’s mother) all in a very detailed way.
Here are some things I found interesting or profound or just goofy:
“Self-destruction can be viewed as the opposite of apathy, the final proof that one can function.”
“Real Life was sexual. Or rather it seemed to take the form of sex. This was the area of ultimate adventure, where you would dare or not dare. It was much less a question of desire.”
Jack Kerouac did not drive. He didn’t know how and was afraid to do it. He took buses and planes. Crazy!
Contact
Hang On...to anything, even the Flag
This morning there was a 4,5 earthquake 8 miles northwest of Ottawa ILLINOIS. Yep, there are earthquakes in the midwest too. Just not all of the time, like in California. No damage, no one hurt.
I never explained the name of this blog.
If you were to take the train from Chicago to Bloomington for an interview on you to be in an upcoming book, after a couple of hours when the conductor comes through he says...10 minutes to Normal...that's a town, a real town and if you aren't from Normal it strikes your ear in a funny postmodern way.
Contact
I never explained the name of this blog.
If you were to take the train from Chicago to Bloomington for an interview on you to be in an upcoming book, after a couple of hours when the conductor comes through he says...10 minutes to Normal...that's a town, a real town and if you aren't from Normal it strikes your ear in a funny postmodern way.
Contact
On My OWN Road
I just finished Tristessa. Jack Kerouac's book about a young hooker living in Mexico in the mid 50s. He describes her as beautiful although she is a "morfina" addict full of cysts with a head swathed in dirty bandages from bouncing into walls and furniture when she goes into convulsions and lives in squalor with animals and 2' of crap on the floor. It seemed like he was attracted to her exoticness, otherness, kinda like gawking at a train wreck, feeling empathy and wanting to help the damaged but not sure how to do it since it is so far from his experience, yet he wants to be the hero.
In the end he just goes home leaving her with Bull, an old American junkie. "For only a junkie can be with another junkie." Old Bull and Tristessa tell Jack.
The book is short, done in Jack's spontaneous bop proseity.
Contact
In the end he just goes home leaving her with Bull, an old American junkie. "For only a junkie can be with another junkie." Old Bull and Tristessa tell Jack.
The book is short, done in Jack's spontaneous bop proseity.
Contact
Friday, June 25, 2004
Ding Dong It's Not Avon Calling
When a close friend dies the deathknell takes root inside of you and you not only mourn their passing, the brash slap in the face, but in your sorrow you begin to think of your own end.
So today, 4 months after M flew away, I am contacting Lance, the graveyard man. I need to have him stake out my exact plot so on Saturday, with the help of three strong men, I can place the Infinity bench, the one I made with M (we were concretegirls together!).
I love my spot. I picked it for many reasons. It is on the highest part of the cemetery, up on the edge of the woods. Turn in one direction and you can see all of the way to the Catholic Church that dominates Hallmill Heights. In the spring when the leaves are not yet on the trees, you can see all of the way to the lake, my beloved lake. Whew! I have a plot with a view!
I will be at the front of one of the little pathways so no one can block me with some colossal gravestone. I do want to be easy to find.
And there I will be nestled between two massive oaks. I will be cremated and am leaving instructions to be scattered all sorts of places so I won’t actually have an urn stuck in a concrete box under the ground. Good God I’ve had claustrophobia all of my life and I certainly don’t want eternity one loooong suffocation too.
Some of my ashes will be scattered at the bases of the two trees. Rain will fall and snow will come and I will be absorbed into the tree roots and become part of the trees. I LOVE THAT! When the tree shimmies in the wind I will be dancing and when the wind whistles through the limbs I will be singing my song. Beautiful.
I like this cemetery too because it is one that allows you to decorate the graves anyway you like. The graves have baskets of flowers swinging on shepherd’s hooks and fancy urns and wind chimes and mobiles and special rocks and pictures and right near me is the grave of a little boy 3 years old and he has two big Tonka toys on his grave, another couple have a separate brass plate for their dog Trixie. It is a marvelous place with beautiful ancient crypts and professional sculptures and war dead and a whole section of children who died of smallpox and a more modern baby section for still borns and people who lived past 100 years, couples forever, and townies I have known. It is all on tickle-belly rolling hills, verdant, neatly trimmed with narrow asphalt roadways snaking throughout. And water taps jutting out of the ground here and there so you can take care of the flowers and whatever else you want to plant.
I’m doing this now because I want to doodad mine up. The bench will be the hardscaping with periwinkle that blooms purple stars in the early spring and I do like wind chimes. I have a lot of blue glass in my garden and would like to take rebar and stake out my corners with blue bottles dangling in the wind so I don’t encroach in my enthusiasm for décor.
I don’t know what the actual “stone” with name and dates will be yet. Maybe something I make in the future or perhaps one of those small brass plates that they give to veterans. I rather like those.
So for now, while still sucking oxygen, I will plan for the inevitable end, and I probably won’t think of it again until someone stuck in my heart gives up the ghost.
Contact
So today, 4 months after M flew away, I am contacting Lance, the graveyard man. I need to have him stake out my exact plot so on Saturday, with the help of three strong men, I can place the Infinity bench, the one I made with M (we were concretegirls together!).
I love my spot. I picked it for many reasons. It is on the highest part of the cemetery, up on the edge of the woods. Turn in one direction and you can see all of the way to the Catholic Church that dominates Hallmill Heights. In the spring when the leaves are not yet on the trees, you can see all of the way to the lake, my beloved lake. Whew! I have a plot with a view!
I will be at the front of one of the little pathways so no one can block me with some colossal gravestone. I do want to be easy to find.
And there I will be nestled between two massive oaks. I will be cremated and am leaving instructions to be scattered all sorts of places so I won’t actually have an urn stuck in a concrete box under the ground. Good God I’ve had claustrophobia all of my life and I certainly don’t want eternity one loooong suffocation too.
Some of my ashes will be scattered at the bases of the two trees. Rain will fall and snow will come and I will be absorbed into the tree roots and become part of the trees. I LOVE THAT! When the tree shimmies in the wind I will be dancing and when the wind whistles through the limbs I will be singing my song. Beautiful.
I like this cemetery too because it is one that allows you to decorate the graves anyway you like. The graves have baskets of flowers swinging on shepherd’s hooks and fancy urns and wind chimes and mobiles and special rocks and pictures and right near me is the grave of a little boy 3 years old and he has two big Tonka toys on his grave, another couple have a separate brass plate for their dog Trixie. It is a marvelous place with beautiful ancient crypts and professional sculptures and war dead and a whole section of children who died of smallpox and a more modern baby section for still borns and people who lived past 100 years, couples forever, and townies I have known. It is all on tickle-belly rolling hills, verdant, neatly trimmed with narrow asphalt roadways snaking throughout. And water taps jutting out of the ground here and there so you can take care of the flowers and whatever else you want to plant.
I’m doing this now because I want to doodad mine up. The bench will be the hardscaping with periwinkle that blooms purple stars in the early spring and I do like wind chimes. I have a lot of blue glass in my garden and would like to take rebar and stake out my corners with blue bottles dangling in the wind so I don’t encroach in my enthusiasm for décor.
I don’t know what the actual “stone” with name and dates will be yet. Maybe something I make in the future or perhaps one of those small brass plates that they give to veterans. I rather like those.
So for now, while still sucking oxygen, I will plan for the inevitable end, and I probably won’t think of it again until someone stuck in my heart gives up the ghost.
Contact
"If you were a 50s woman,
Monday, June 21, 2004
Don't get mouthy
I, Robot
Sunday, June 06, 2004
snap!
testing...1....2.....3
