KEROUAC'S BIG SUR

kerouac's 1962 novel of breakdown & lunatic behavior is just the right kind of thing for a summer read. i found this trailer for the film which looks pretty interesting in & of itself. the novel was a portent of all the terrible things to come & no one seemed able to prevent it, least of all kerouac. the film was released in 2008 but isn't available on netflix yet as far as i can tell. it certainly looks promising.


"Poor! I wish I was free
of that slaving meat wheel
and safe in heaven dead"

mexico city blues 211th chorus

"The only thing to do was to get out of L.A. According to my friend's instructions I stood on my head, using the wire fence to prevent me from falling over. It made my cold feel a little better. Then I walked to the bus station (through tracks and side streets) and caught a cheap bus twenty-five miles to Riverside. Cops kept looking at me suspiciously with that big bag on my back. Everything was far away from the easy purity of being with Japhy Ryder in that high rock camp under peaceful singing stars." dharma bums

"That feeling when you wake up with the delirium tremens ... with the fear of eerie death dripping from your ears like those special heavy cobwebs spiders weave in the hot countries, the feeling of being a bent back mudman monster groaning underground in hot steaming mud pulling a long hot burden nowhere, the feeling of standing ankledeep in hot boiled pork blood, ugh, of being up to your waist in a giant pan of greasy brown dishwater not a trace of suds left in it... The face of yourself you see in the mirror with its expression of unbearable anguish so haggard and awful with sorrow you cant even cry for a thing so ugly, so lost, no connection whatever with early perfection and therefore nothing to connect with tears or anything." big sur