Kerouac House

"Why not come to Orlando and dig the crazy Florida scene of spotlessly clean highways and fantastic supermarkets?" Kerouac wrote Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the Beat poet, in 1961. But in Orlando, as everywhere else he roamed, Kerouac never did find escape. Florida became for him, after he stopped writing, a place to drink, and ultimately a place to die. The little house at 1418 Clouser Avenue where Kerouac wrote his novel now serves as a kind of literary time-share, where writers spend three months at a stint, hoping to channel Kerouac's manic genius. Article from National Geographic about Orlando, FL.

Very few people, as they talk about the immense changes reshaping Orlando and their lives, mention another American genius who left his mark here even before Disney arrived. Jack Kerouac—guru, bad boy, the literary superstar who wrote the Beat Generation's manifesto, On The Road—came to Orlando, by bus, in December 1956. The following year, in an 11-day creative frenzy, he wrote The Dharma Bums in an apartment with a tangerine tree out back, shoveling the words through his typewriter in the heart of hot, flat Florida.

I'm a big fan of Kerouac, have driven down Cross Bay Boulevard and thought of him in the apartment over the drug store, and I've also been to Hemingway's house, Tennessee Williams' house, Walt Whitman's house. I'm still not sure why, although Whitman's house in Huntington, Long Island, was historically interesting. The Youtube video, see link above, shows it's just a house, and unlike Hemingway's palatial place, mainly goes to show you can write anywhere. If anything, Kerouac's choices indicate he needed quiet and isolation, at least for those writing marathons. Being off the beaten track (perhaps on the Beat track) is probably also a good way to save money.

To Blog or Not To Blog?

There are so many news items that I could scream volumes about, from forcing little girls to have poorly tested vaccines (thankfully abandoned for now), to theme parks that feature the illegal immigration experience. They're not writing related, so I try to limit myself to the occasional shocked mention with a minimum of ranting.

Otherwise, where would the screaming end?

Missile Shield Threatens Russia.
Fake Fur is real dog.
PBDEs in Breast Milk, Walter Reed hospital neglecting Iraq veterans, the Army denying them disability payments, claiming prior health issues. The list grows longer.

Secrets of the New York Times Book Review

Heads up from Maud Newton. At Gawker.com.

Editor Barry Gewen says, "We're thought to have agendas, we're thought to be out to get people," he said. "I hope by the end of this talk I'll have persuaded you that none of that is the case."

Egyptian Blogger Jailed for Insults to Islam

This from the BBC news. Read article. The 22-yr-old blogger and former university student -- he was expelled for criticizing the university -- has received a four-year prison term.

Visit the website set up for him: http://www.freekareem.org.

Bush Budget Cuts Medicaid, Aids Wal-Mart

"While America obsessed about Brittany's shaved head, Bush offered a budget that offers $32.7 billion in tax cuts to the Wal-Mart family alone, while cutting $28 billion from Medicaid." Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone, via Alternet.

He also says, "It's one thing to complain about paying taxes when those taxes are buying a bag of groceries once a month for some struggling single mom in eastern Kentucky. But when your taxes are buying a yacht for some asshole who hires African eight year-olds to pick cocoa beans for two cents an hour ... I sure don't remember reading an excuse for that anywhere in the Federalist Papers."

Health Insurance Fiasco

Via Alternet: A business that profits by refusing to provide the services it is paid for -- "Private Health Insurance is Not the Answer."

Greatest Living Writer

The Guardian has created some controversy around the issue of Britain's greatest living author. People are weighing in with their nominations. I'm happy to see that Doris Lessing is mentioned. She'd have my vote. One could argue that she is South Africa's greatest living author, although she has been living in England for nearly sixty years. My favorite of hers was The Four-Gated City, although I also recommend The Good Terrorist, The Sweetest Dream, her most famous book, The Golden Notebook, and many of the others. I first came across her writing in my teens somewhere. A story of hers, Not a Very Nice Story, was in Fine Lines, The Best of Ms. Magazine Fiction. Later, I borrowed The Golden Notebook from an unattended lending shelf at school and managed never to return it because I could not part with it. I have tried to rectify this crime by buying used copies of the book and giving them away whenever I have found one at a used book sale. I am a dutiful returner of borrowed books, with that one exception.

Incidentally, the popular vote in Britain is for JK Rowling, of Harry Potter fame. Here in the U.S., it would go for Stephen King. My favorite book of his might be The Long Walk. The distinction being made at The Guardian is entertainment vs. enlightenment. We crave entertainment, but we need enlightenment. In the same way that we crave sugar, but need vegetables. Which is ultimately more important? It's worth noting that The Long Walk is not a sugary treat. It's a prophetic Kafkaesque (will future readers say Kingesque?) look at where the lust for "reality" shows could lead us.

While we are on the subject of Stephen King, my favorite work of his is actually the novella Apt Pupil, from Different Seasons (which also contains Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption). Apt Pupil is a penetrating study of evil. A young boy discovers that his elderly neighbor is a former Nazi, but instead of turning him in, tries to toy with him. Unfortunately, toying with one's prey is a game at which the elderly Nazi excels. Also made into a terrifically chilling movie with Brad Renfro and Sir Ian McKellen.

Alarmism Online: But What About the Perverts?

Emily Nussbaum, in New York Magazine writes about the older generation's fears of privacy loss, while younger folks take for granted it's already gone.

Interesting article. She points out that older people invariably ask about the perverts. It is alarmist: On one level, young women blogging, posting videos and photos of themselves, can seem to encourage attention that could get dangerous, but isn't that the same argument that keeps women at home or in burqas or some variation? There is safety in numbers: if everyone is online, then who is a target of online perverts? If everyone is allowed out of doors unaccompanied, then who is a target of offline perverts? Most violence against women is still perpetrated by their so-called loved ones, anyway.

Are Bloggers Next?

Help for email addicts. Apparently, there are people who must check their email every four minutes, in between shots on the golf course, for example.

I admit that I check my email frequently, but only if I'm working at my desk anyway. I hate those electronic voices that say, "You've got mail," or even the ping-ping of the MS Outlook mail delivery. If it's that urgent, there is still the phone. Which used to be the seat of obsession. Now we can divide our obsessions among various technologies. No more sitting home by the phone -- you can carry it with you, and your Blackberry, your laptop, your Palm Pilot. There's email, text messaging, camera phones. I'm glad, though, that I live in a town with spotty cell service. There's something to be said for the ring of old-fashioned silence. And not having to listen to half of a cell phone call, which invariably goes something like, "Are you there? Hello? I think my battery is dying."

Zen of Miss Snark

When to Give Up: Never. Because "writing is a creative art and brings you joy." quoth Miss Snark.

In the same post, she also says, "You recognize that doing something difficult over and over again, and trying your utmost to improve is a worthy endeavor even if you fall short of your goal." In Zen, we say, Seven times fall down, eight times get up. This applies to martial arts as well, and pretty directly.

And, "The very act of writing is its own reward. It teaches you (if you pay attention) how to see the world through different eyes; how to wield language skilfully; how to organize a persuasive presentation." Just so, the path is the destination.

Presidents' Day - It's Not Just Shopping

Via the Daily Kos.

And this: Joshua Key's Deserter's Tale.

Age of a Reader

There's a bit of a discussion going on at my online writing group about underage readers and content -- specifically, teens reading about unusual sexual behaviors (that they haven't themselves come up with).

Opinions are flying like knives. Although I haven't so far written much (if anything) that one of today's teens would consider sexually unusual, I admit, it's crossed my mind to wonder about this. Can we/should we self-censor, or more likely, try to keep categories of work away from certain readers (as writers, I mean. Parents will have a different answer)? I'm against censorship, and at the very least, if the news is not censored, why should fiction be? I mean, what would be the point of censoring fiction when much weirder stuff is available on the news?

That said, I am sorry it's the kind of world you don't want your kids to read about. It probably always has been, however.

Roz Chast: Nerve interview. She has a new collection of cartoons out, which must be hilarious, in an anxiety-stricken kind of way.

Artificial Tears

Sex and early death. What's the connection?

Anna Nicole Smith is not the first: Many Playboy Playmates Have Died Young. And she's not on the backlist any more. From the NY Times. We know what the connection is with selling books.

Tennessee Williams' notebooks: "...in 1983 he choked on the cap of a small plastic bottle in his Manhattan hotel room. The bottle contained that most theatrical of accessories, artificial tears." At Guardian Books.