Who2 Editorial Blog
Notes and Commentary from the Editors
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Kerouac Videos
Today marks the 40th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's death (at the age of 47). For some Kerouac-related media, we recommend this archive called Digital Beats.The brief video clips include a rambling and bored Kerouac having a halfway conversation with the insufferable host of Firing Line, William F. Buckley, Jr; Allen Ginsberg talking about Kerouac (and staring at his grave marker with Bob Dylan); and CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite announcing Kerouac's untimely death.
Labels: Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, Walter Cronkite
Posted by Mr. Hehn at 10:45 AM 
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Saturday, May 16, 2009
Jack Kerouac in the Catbird Seat
Wow! Beat author Jack Kerouac played elaborate fantasy baseball games of his own devising.By 1946, when Kerouac was 24, he had devised a set of cards with precise verbal descriptions of various outcomes ("slow roller to ss," for example), depending on the skill levels of the pitcher and batter. The game could be played using cards alone, but Mr. Gewirtz thinks that more often Kerouac determined the result of a pitch by tossing some sort of projectile at a diagrammed chart on the wall.The author of On the Road also played, and wrote breathless accounts of, fantasy horse races.
The horse-racing game was played by rolling marbles and a silver ball bearing down a tilted Parcheesi board, using a starting gate made of toothpicks. Apparently, the ball bearing traveled faster than the marbles, some of which were intentionally nicked to indicate equine fragility and mortality. So the ball bearing became the nearly invincible horse Repulsion, "King of the Turf," whose legendary speed and stamina are celebrated in Kerouac's racing sheets.
Labels: Jack Kerouac
Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 5:27 AM Share on Facebook 1 comments
