Catholic Jack
As Kerouac aged, he reclaimed the Catholic identity he had inherited from his devout parents, although to the reader, the influence was often muffled under the Benzedrine and booze-fueled bacchanalia of his youth, especially when…
Tag: Jack Kerouac
Today’s One-Liner (#287)
And of course, for your beginning studies of Buddhism, you must listen to me carefully and implicitly as tho I was Einstein teaching you relativity or Eliot teaching the Formulas of Objective Correlation on a…
Soulwork
“One big thing is to develop a strenuous accountability (you see it’s moral, no gadgets invade man’s true necessity), and the habit, the daily labor of writing en passant, keep a vast and cosmic diary….
Find Your Book: A Summer Class in Recognizing and Embracing
Something that you feel will find its own form. Jack Kerouac I’ve shared Natalie Goldberg’s Writing down the Bones with a lot of readers, who went on to do writing practice or freewriting. But what does…
Today’s One-Liner (#171)
My life is botched-up because, at 26, I’ve yet to earn a steady income, I’ve yet to really help anyone in the world, including really taking care of myself, and I’ve yet to love a…
In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
The death-dealing Chancery! The waste of Jarndyce and Jarndyce! The magnanimity of John Jarndyce! The plain loveliness of Esther Summerson! The delusion of Richard Carson! The dignity of George Rouncewell! The lovable hater of Lady…
Today’s One-Liner (#72)
Walking on water wasn’t built in a day. –Jack Kerouac, quoted in Bill Morgan, I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg
Writing Bliss Class: Fall 2024-Winter 2025
Recently my friend Lindsay Wolff inquired if I was doing a writing class this fall. Giving it some thought, I decided to offer the following just because I thought it could be (1) a fun …
Second Thoughts on Kerouac
But, disconcertingly, Kerouac was as likable in the flesh as he was repellent in print. In contrast to the seething Ginsberg, who went at me with everything he had, Kerouac (in spite of being the…
Appreciating Jack Appreciating
Jack Kerouac, Selected Letters: 1940-1956, v. 1 As I’m convinced of the the utility of “pulling”* from my reading, I found the following gems in some of Kerouac’s letters up till he had to deal…