On The Road ~ On the Roll, the Run On Sentence
On the Road ~ Jack Kerouac
or "How to Write a Book in One Easy Sentence..."
A writer by the name of James Breslin who chronicled Jack Kerouac's visit to Brooklyn College in March of 1958. Curious as to whether this Breslin was the Pulitzer Prize-winner who later wrote under the byline Jimmy Breslin, I asked the Voice's Tom Robbins about it. And he put in a call to the man himself.
It's not the same Breslin. But, as you might have guessed, Jimmy had a little something to say about Jack:
"It is not me. I knew Kerouac he lived in Richmond Hill, on 134th, near 101st.... The Philadelphia Inquirer, gave him the whole roll of UPI [teletype] paper so he could just keep typing. I should've given him a fucking box of periods. Taught a whole generation how to write run-on sentences. A disgrace!"
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2008/04/jimmy_breslin_o.php
Roll Out "The Road" Across the Miles
Rolling out the scroll that is On The Road ~ Using a manual typewriter in a New York City loft, Jack Kerouac produced the original manuscript of On the Road during a three-week period in the spring of 1951. Fifty years and one month later, Colts’ owner Jim Irsay purchased the widely-acknowledged icon of the Beat Generation at a Christies auction in New York, less than a mile from where it was created. Kerouac produced the continuous scroll by taping pages of semi-translucent paper together to feed the typewriter and write without interruption. The text is single-spaced, without paragraphs, and edited in pencil by Kerouac.
On the Road Scroll Tour
http://www.ontheroad.org/
Excerpt
http://downloads.newyorker.com/mp3/071001_excerpt_kerouac.mp3
Canonization ~ Concatenating a Coherent Sentence for Victims of Society
With the publication of On the Road: The Original Scroll (Viking), Jack Kerouac takes a step beyond canonization toward beatitude itself. The scroll manuscript of this 1957 novel is one of the sacred artifacts of the Beat era, and conflicting stories about it have circulated among the acolytes for years: that rolls of drawing paper had been taped together to form the scroll (true), so that a Benzedrine- (false) and caffeine-fuelled (true) Kerouac could type at speed with no need to pause after each page; that a dog had chewed one end (true). This codex version of the scroll is prefaced by an astonishing one hundred pages of front matter, including no fewer than four separate introductions: a formidable bulwark protecting the novel from its readers. The most obvious difference between the manuscript and published versions is Kerouac’s use of actual names throughout (Neal Cassady later renamed Dean Moriarty, Allen Ginsberg becoming Carlo Marx, and so on). Sex scenes were toned down for the initial publication, and much of Kerouac’s reflexive misogyny was softened or removed. The manuscript itself was sold at auction in May 2001 for more than $2 million, to Jim Irsay (owner of the Indianapolis Colts), who promised to “give people an opportunity to enjoy it.” An exhibit featuring the scroll has been criss-crossing the usa since 2004; in fall 2007 it was on display at the New York Public Library.
On the Road: The Original Scroll By Jack Kerouac
http://www.geist.com/books/road-original-scroll
On The Road ~ Uncensored and Unplugged
Angus Hyland, with design assistant Masumi Briozzo, has designed the UK edition of On the Road: The Original Scroll, a sumptuous edition of Jack Kerouac’s seminal ‘Beat’ novel which is being released to mark the 50th anniversary of the book’s original publication on 5 September 1957. On the Road: The Original Scroll is a complete and unexpurgated transcription of Kerouac’s original manuscript, written during a marathon three-week session onto a 120-foot roll of paper, which Kerouac created by taping the individual sheets together before feeding them through his typewriter. This publication is the first time Kerouac’s unedited text has been made available to the general public. Along with the restoration of previously censored passages, the text also reveals the real-life characters, such as Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, that became the protagonists of the novel. The book is one of the top five bestsellers from Penguin’s Modern Classics series of 20th century novels and continues to sell over 35,000 copies a year in the UK alone.
New Work: ‘On the Road: The Original Scroll’ at Pentagram
http://blog.pentagram.com/2007/08/new-work-on-the-road-the-origi-1.php
On the Road ~ The Great Depression (circa 1935)
Photograph of Families on the Road With All Their Possessions During the Great Depression of 1930's
ENFORCED IDLENESS MADE MEN TAKE TO THE road;
Depressions doubled and trebled the number of homeless; industrial accidents could turn workers into street beggars. During the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, many middle-class commentators failed to understand these facts of economic life. “The labor union ‘recognizes’ the tramp as ‘the victim of our present economical [sic] system,’” the New York Times proclaimed pompously in 1886, “instead of recognizing in him, as other people do, the victim of a violent dislike to [sic] labor and a violent thirst for rum.” To those who viewed the new homelessness of the post-Civil War decades in this manner, the issue was simple: there were some people who simply did not want to work. By the 1890s some critics were beginning to acknowledge a relationship between depressions and the increase in the number of vagrants. The main point, however, John J. McCook argued, was that tramps were drunkards and poor workmen-that was why they were the first to be let go during a depression. Labor unionists, reformers, and socialists strenuously objected to these arguments. Henry George and Terrence Powderly, speaking from their own bitter personal experience, viewed tramping as a harsh necessity forced upon unwilling workers.
Farm Security Administration: Families on the road with all their possessions packed into their trucks, migrating and looking for work. (Circa 1935)
http://history1900s.about.com/library/photos/blygd42.htm
Homeless in American History
http://www.questia.com/library/book/down-and-out-on-the-road-the-homeless-in-american-history-by-kenneth-l-kusmer.jsp
On the Road Again ~ Boulder In a Land Down Under, Not Boulder Colorado
Black & White is timeless, colour tells all time...
.
or "How to Write a Book in One Easy Sentence..."
A writer by the name of James Breslin who chronicled Jack Kerouac's visit to Brooklyn College in March of 1958. Curious as to whether this Breslin was the Pulitzer Prize-winner who later wrote under the byline Jimmy Breslin, I asked the Voice's Tom Robbins about it. And he put in a call to the man himself.
It's not the same Breslin. But, as you might have guessed, Jimmy had a little something to say about Jack:
"It is not me. I knew Kerouac he lived in Richmond Hill, on 134th, near 101st.... The Philadelphia Inquirer, gave him the whole roll of UPI [teletype] paper so he could just keep typing. I should've given him a fucking box of periods. Taught a whole generation how to write run-on sentences. A disgrace!"
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2008/04/jimmy_breslin_o.php
Roll Out "The Road" Across the Miles
Rolling out the scroll that is On The Road ~ Using a manual typewriter in a New York City loft, Jack Kerouac produced the original manuscript of On the Road during a three-week period in the spring of 1951. Fifty years and one month later, Colts’ owner Jim Irsay purchased the widely-acknowledged icon of the Beat Generation at a Christies auction in New York, less than a mile from where it was created. Kerouac produced the continuous scroll by taping pages of semi-translucent paper together to feed the typewriter and write without interruption. The text is single-spaced, without paragraphs, and edited in pencil by Kerouac.
On the Road Scroll Tour
http://www.ontheroad.org/
Excerpt
http://downloads.newyorker.com/mp3/071001_excerpt_kerouac.mp3
Canonization ~ Concatenating a Coherent Sentence for Victims of Society
With the publication of On the Road: The Original Scroll (Viking), Jack Kerouac takes a step beyond canonization toward beatitude itself. The scroll manuscript of this 1957 novel is one of the sacred artifacts of the Beat era, and conflicting stories about it have circulated among the acolytes for years: that rolls of drawing paper had been taped together to form the scroll (true), so that a Benzedrine- (false) and caffeine-fuelled (true) Kerouac could type at speed with no need to pause after each page; that a dog had chewed one end (true). This codex version of the scroll is prefaced by an astonishing one hundred pages of front matter, including no fewer than four separate introductions: a formidable bulwark protecting the novel from its readers. The most obvious difference between the manuscript and published versions is Kerouac’s use of actual names throughout (Neal Cassady later renamed Dean Moriarty, Allen Ginsberg becoming Carlo Marx, and so on). Sex scenes were toned down for the initial publication, and much of Kerouac’s reflexive misogyny was softened or removed. The manuscript itself was sold at auction in May 2001 for more than $2 million, to Jim Irsay (owner of the Indianapolis Colts), who promised to “give people an opportunity to enjoy it.” An exhibit featuring the scroll has been criss-crossing the usa since 2004; in fall 2007 it was on display at the New York Public Library.
Click to viewOn the Road: The Original Scroll By Jack Kerouac
http://www.geist.com/books/road-original-scroll
On The Road ~ Uncensored and Unplugged
Angus Hyland, with design assistant Masumi Briozzo, has designed the UK edition of On the Road: The Original Scroll, a sumptuous edition of Jack Kerouac’s seminal ‘Beat’ novel which is being released to mark the 50th anniversary of the book’s original publication on 5 September 1957. On the Road: The Original Scroll is a complete and unexpurgated transcription of Kerouac’s original manuscript, written during a marathon three-week session onto a 120-foot roll of paper, which Kerouac created by taping the individual sheets together before feeding them through his typewriter. This publication is the first time Kerouac’s unedited text has been made available to the general public. Along with the restoration of previously censored passages, the text also reveals the real-life characters, such as Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, that became the protagonists of the novel. The book is one of the top five bestsellers from Penguin’s Modern Classics series of 20th century novels and continues to sell over 35,000 copies a year in the UK alone.
New Work: ‘On the Road: The Original Scroll’ at Pentagram
http://blog.pentagram.com/2007/08/new-work-on-the-road-the-origi-1.php
On the Road ~ The Great Depression (circa 1935)
Photograph of Families on the Road With All Their Possessions During the Great Depression of 1930's
ENFORCED IDLENESS MADE MEN TAKE TO THE road;
Depressions doubled and trebled the number of homeless; industrial accidents could turn workers into street beggars. During the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, many middle-class commentators failed to understand these facts of economic life. “The labor union ‘recognizes’ the tramp as ‘the victim of our present economical [sic] system,’” the New York Times proclaimed pompously in 1886, “instead of recognizing in him, as other people do, the victim of a violent dislike to [sic] labor and a violent thirst for rum.” To those who viewed the new homelessness of the post-Civil War decades in this manner, the issue was simple: there were some people who simply did not want to work. By the 1890s some critics were beginning to acknowledge a relationship between depressions and the increase in the number of vagrants. The main point, however, John J. McCook argued, was that tramps were drunkards and poor workmen-that was why they were the first to be let go during a depression. Labor unionists, reformers, and socialists strenuously objected to these arguments. Henry George and Terrence Powderly, speaking from their own bitter personal experience, viewed tramping as a harsh necessity forced upon unwilling workers.
Farm Security Administration: Families on the road with all their possessions packed into their trucks, migrating and looking for work. (Circa 1935)
http://history1900s.about.com/library/photos/blygd42.htm
Homeless in American History
http://www.questia.com/library/book/down-and-out-on-the-road-the-homeless-in-american-history-by-kenneth-l-kusmer.jsp
On the Road Again ~ Boulder In a Land Down Under, Not Boulder Colorado
Black & White is timeless, colour tells all time...
.