Well, I'm back from an incredibly busy summer. Busy, busy, busy. Nothing but things to do, people to see, and universes to save. I'm wiped out.
All right. That first part was a lie. I've done (for the most part) nothing. Things I've done this summer:
1.) Finished the Harry Potter books
2.) Worked
3.) Started a bit of an internship at a Christian publishing office (unpaid)
4.) Saw Incubus live (finally)
5.) Went on a float trip down the drunken river of destruction (Yes, that is an exaggeration. But did you know that there are more drunk people in southern Missouri than sober people? It's insane.)
That's about it for the high points. Pretty slow summer (first in awhile). Now the weather is finally beginning to settle down so that autum can be given a proper welcome. We do welcome you autum. You're very beautiful and we wish nothing for the best while you're here, but I can't help but think about winter slowly walking behind you, brining the cold and plans to wipe out what beauty you've dressed the world with. These days are in fact getting shorter as well. Too soon, I say. 2011, you've hardly had time to really sit and speak. You've been pacing the room, looking at your watch, and kicking back drinks, anticipating only to leave us. You were rather quiet. I hope only to make small talk before it's time for you to leave. Create a couple memories. Take a photograph. Post it on Facebook. If you'll only grant us that much.
Just to keep my loyal fans in the know, I've been thinking of making another blog. One with a bit more "focus". This is just a scatterbrained mess that I keep around to help prevent writer atrophy (has it helped?). I've thought about a blog of mini-stories (shorter than short stories) or a blog based around tea, or some other thing I'm obsessed with (Time Travel, Audrey Hepburn, etc. etc.). So if there is ever a day when this blog "vanishes" or mutates into some altogether different, you'll know the reason. But until I buckle down and decide what to do, you can read this to your leisure. And I'll continue to write throw away material every couple of months.
Recently I've been considering buying a typewriter. My mom used to have one that I used in my amatuer writing days. Ah, fine days those were. I started out as a horror writer. You know, Steven King stuff. I was only about 9 at the time, but I wrote some really creepy stuff. Short, disturbing stories with titles like, "The Poltergeist" and "The Gremlins". Then about seventh grade I moved to sci-fi. I began a novel called "Sight From the Eagle's Eye". Wrote it at night during the summer of 2000 by hand on sheets of notebook paper. I got to about chapter four and then quit. It's lost foever now.
Tangent.
Anyway, my point being, I want a typewriter and I want it to be rather small. Travel sized if possible. Something Kerouac or Ginsberg would have toted around. So, just donate to my typewriter fund, or send me the old typewriter and I'll get started on my sci-fi time travel epic, "The Universe Is Ordinary". You'll get an advanced copy for your troubles, and by advanced copy I mean that you'll recieve a copy of the original manuscript when it reaches completion. Also, I'll sign it. And you can also come with me on my five city midwest tour, and if you're really qualified and trustworthy, you can be my agent. Yes, the agent to "Mike Lee the Extraordinary". Think about it. We'll grab lunch, hang out. Become best friends.
That's all. Nothing more. It's 2:22pm CST. I'm still in my pajama-jams, listening to that song from The Matrix when Morpheus and Neo are walking down the street during the agent training program. Life is considerably simple and boring (Which is why I need you to invest in me and become my trusted agent). And to answer your question: Harper Collins is a fine for publishing my book. I'm okay with that.
Hope everyone had a great summer, a fantastic labor day. Enjoy your week (call me).
Showing posts with label Jack Kerouac. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jack Kerouac. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Letter Writing, Impertinence, and a Couple Other Things.
This next post will be mostly an extension of the last one, but only in the sense that I'll be following up in the subject of "I have a difficult time relating to the present times" (No Harry Potter in this post). I think that's partially because I missed out on pretty much every time period that preceded my own life. I realized this a long time ago, but only recently decided to lament the fact.
There's one thing specifically that I wish could have continued strongly through my own lifetime. Letter writing.
Personally, I think strong, critical writing in general has gone the way side. It's only used by those who write professionally or by a student needing to write a solid, thought out paper for class (even then mediocre writing is prevalent. I would know. I produced a lot of it no more that a year and a half ago). Currently we, as a society, have countless ways to publically publish everything we write, from Facebook to Twitter, to internet blogging. This unfortunately, doesn't mean every person who types something onto the computer and posts it online really took the time to really craft or, much less, really think about what they're saying.
That was another subject I planned to blog about earlier this week, but never really pulled it together: Impertinance. I suppose I have some time to touch on it in this blog.
Social networking has undoubtedly given us unlimited means of communication with those both far and near, but this doesn't mean all that communication is useful or important. As a matter of fact, I think it has fed our egos a little more (arguably the ultimate of human vices). Think about it: People can say (post) whatever they want and have the whole world (more specifically their world: friends, family) read about it, believing that people will care. And we end up caring because we comment with our own brand of meaninglessness and click the "Like" button.
Now, understand, I'm not calling everyone spending his or her free time on this sites a bean brained individual. But it's given people an opportunity to say what they want, but it nurses in our minds an impulsive, shallow way of doing so. For example, Twitter. Twitter gives the user up to 140 characters to say something, anything. It's like some sort of mini challenge: "What can you say in 140 characters?" You could say a lot of things. All of it is simple and to the point. Not a bad thing, but still the limitation involved doesn't always give the user an opportunity for a complete thought. An uterance. Maybe a joke, a quip, a shout out. A small quotation. Not a full, well rounded means of expression.
I guess my point in all this is, the current culture (myself included) has unlimited opportunity with writing but limited capabilities for growth in the writing. Simply, it's reduced. Therefore, people don't like to write anymore. I've NEVER heard a college student say, "We have a twenty page paper due in a month? Oh boy! I'm so excited to get started on that!" (well, maybe in a sarcastic tone. But NEVER seriously). Writing (and especially good writing) is somewhat obsolete in the day to day (read comments in a forum some time).
Which brings me to my initial point: letter writing.
This afternoon I went to the Borders in Ballwin, MO. The store is closing, so I decided to stop by and pick up a few books for cheap. I bought Billy Collins' "Sailing Alone Around the Room", Allen Ginsberg's "Howl", and a published collection of letters between Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. When I saw the book of letters I was ecstatic. If you're new to the blog, then you probably don't quite understand my love for Kerouac and the Beat Generation. It's actually quite inexplicable and I wish I could understand the reason for it myself, but all I know is that it's clearly there and it isn't going away. I digress. So I end up paying for the books and returning home. After I read "Howl" aloud to myself in my room (no one else was home to think me mad) I cracked open the letters book and began where most people don't: The introduction. Immediately I see that my sentiments about letter writing are reflected in the introduction:
"It is now common to lament the gradual demise of the handwritten or handtyped letter over the past decades. Significant blame is often placed, and rightly so, on the radical lowering of phone rates. Up through the mid-1960's, for many people calling long-distance across country was a rare and costly luxury, only to be indulged in for an emergency or to share news of a birth or death. But as technology improved, people could increasingly afford to pick up the telephone and talk through details of their lives with friends and loved ones, instead of taking the time to sit down and write. More recently, the advent of e-mail has further diminished the flow of snail mail correspondence." - Jack Kerouac And Allen Ginsberg: The Letters, xxi
I believe the last generation to truly enjoy and make use of letter writing was the Baby Boomers. My parents both came quite late into the baby boom. My mother was born in the 1958 and my father in 1961 (If I'm not mistaken. I'm never very sure). Still, I do remember a time, when I was much younger, when my mother would sit down and write out these long letters to her sisters and parents. Now most conversation between her and her side of the family is made with phone calls and, more than likely, emails (although my Aunt Sue does write rather lengthy notes in her Christmas cards).
As much as I don't want to admit to it, I don't think my generation, or the one before it, has much use for letter writing. Things are faster and easier now with the internet. We can say what we want and be done with it. Then there's that (possibly) personal sense of fame every time something is posted. I know when I make an exceptional status update I like to have everyone remark upon it. Of course, that is my ego (and yes, I do blame Facebook for making larger than it actually should be).
I'm getting off track.
Letter writing is a lost art unfortunately and I offer my lamentation (this is where refusing to live in my own time comes in). I believe, although maybe not firmly, that the internet has made the community of people sloppy writers. Everyone should have a good sense of speech, communication, and it's usefulness. I would love to see a letter in my mailbox randomly. Truthfully, though, it's a tough thing to constantly do. It takes time. It takes thought. There's sort of this big expectation that the recipient is going to really READ the letter. It's not like an email where one click of a button could make it disappear as if it never existed at all. It's there, it's real. You can touch it. Every pen stroke is visible. Every scratched out mistake. With that sort of pressure, it takes even more time to really make a letter. It is, in my personal opinion, art. From whomever it may be, it is a piece of art. Maybe I'm over romanticizing the letter. But let's be honest, if you recieved a letter tomorrow, how excited would you be? Especially if it was written by someone you really cared about?
I value the aniquity and the simplicity of it, I suppose. Say what you will, I think people would be better writers if they hand wrote or even typed letters to one another. Real letters. Not just email. A piece of writing in a stamped envelope. They'd at least value it more.
That's all I've got. Until next time.
There's one thing specifically that I wish could have continued strongly through my own lifetime. Letter writing.
Personally, I think strong, critical writing in general has gone the way side. It's only used by those who write professionally or by a student needing to write a solid, thought out paper for class (even then mediocre writing is prevalent. I would know. I produced a lot of it no more that a year and a half ago). Currently we, as a society, have countless ways to publically publish everything we write, from Facebook to Twitter, to internet blogging. This unfortunately, doesn't mean every person who types something onto the computer and posts it online really took the time to really craft or, much less, really think about what they're saying.
That was another subject I planned to blog about earlier this week, but never really pulled it together: Impertinance. I suppose I have some time to touch on it in this blog.
Social networking has undoubtedly given us unlimited means of communication with those both far and near, but this doesn't mean all that communication is useful or important. As a matter of fact, I think it has fed our egos a little more (arguably the ultimate of human vices). Think about it: People can say (post) whatever they want and have the whole world (more specifically their world: friends, family) read about it, believing that people will care. And we end up caring because we comment with our own brand of meaninglessness and click the "Like" button.
Now, understand, I'm not calling everyone spending his or her free time on this sites a bean brained individual. But it's given people an opportunity to say what they want, but it nurses in our minds an impulsive, shallow way of doing so. For example, Twitter. Twitter gives the user up to 140 characters to say something, anything. It's like some sort of mini challenge: "What can you say in 140 characters?" You could say a lot of things. All of it is simple and to the point. Not a bad thing, but still the limitation involved doesn't always give the user an opportunity for a complete thought. An uterance. Maybe a joke, a quip, a shout out. A small quotation. Not a full, well rounded means of expression.
I guess my point in all this is, the current culture (myself included) has unlimited opportunity with writing but limited capabilities for growth in the writing. Simply, it's reduced. Therefore, people don't like to write anymore. I've NEVER heard a college student say, "We have a twenty page paper due in a month? Oh boy! I'm so excited to get started on that!" (well, maybe in a sarcastic tone. But NEVER seriously). Writing (and especially good writing) is somewhat obsolete in the day to day (read comments in a forum some time).
Which brings me to my initial point: letter writing.
This afternoon I went to the Borders in Ballwin, MO. The store is closing, so I decided to stop by and pick up a few books for cheap. I bought Billy Collins' "Sailing Alone Around the Room", Allen Ginsberg's "Howl", and a published collection of letters between Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. When I saw the book of letters I was ecstatic. If you're new to the blog, then you probably don't quite understand my love for Kerouac and the Beat Generation. It's actually quite inexplicable and I wish I could understand the reason for it myself, but all I know is that it's clearly there and it isn't going away. I digress. So I end up paying for the books and returning home. After I read "Howl" aloud to myself in my room (no one else was home to think me mad) I cracked open the letters book and began where most people don't: The introduction. Immediately I see that my sentiments about letter writing are reflected in the introduction:
"It is now common to lament the gradual demise of the handwritten or handtyped letter over the past decades. Significant blame is often placed, and rightly so, on the radical lowering of phone rates. Up through the mid-1960's, for many people calling long-distance across country was a rare and costly luxury, only to be indulged in for an emergency or to share news of a birth or death. But as technology improved, people could increasingly afford to pick up the telephone and talk through details of their lives with friends and loved ones, instead of taking the time to sit down and write. More recently, the advent of e-mail has further diminished the flow of snail mail correspondence." - Jack Kerouac And Allen Ginsberg: The Letters, xxi
I believe the last generation to truly enjoy and make use of letter writing was the Baby Boomers. My parents both came quite late into the baby boom. My mother was born in the 1958 and my father in 1961 (If I'm not mistaken. I'm never very sure). Still, I do remember a time, when I was much younger, when my mother would sit down and write out these long letters to her sisters and parents. Now most conversation between her and her side of the family is made with phone calls and, more than likely, emails (although my Aunt Sue does write rather lengthy notes in her Christmas cards).
As much as I don't want to admit to it, I don't think my generation, or the one before it, has much use for letter writing. Things are faster and easier now with the internet. We can say what we want and be done with it. Then there's that (possibly) personal sense of fame every time something is posted. I know when I make an exceptional status update I like to have everyone remark upon it. Of course, that is my ego (and yes, I do blame Facebook for making larger than it actually should be).
I'm getting off track.
Letter writing is a lost art unfortunately and I offer my lamentation (this is where refusing to live in my own time comes in). I believe, although maybe not firmly, that the internet has made the community of people sloppy writers. Everyone should have a good sense of speech, communication, and it's usefulness. I would love to see a letter in my mailbox randomly. Truthfully, though, it's a tough thing to constantly do. It takes time. It takes thought. There's sort of this big expectation that the recipient is going to really READ the letter. It's not like an email where one click of a button could make it disappear as if it never existed at all. It's there, it's real. You can touch it. Every pen stroke is visible. Every scratched out mistake. With that sort of pressure, it takes even more time to really make a letter. It is, in my personal opinion, art. From whomever it may be, it is a piece of art. Maybe I'm over romanticizing the letter. But let's be honest, if you recieved a letter tomorrow, how excited would you be? Especially if it was written by someone you really cared about?
I value the aniquity and the simplicity of it, I suppose. Say what you will, I think people would be better writers if they hand wrote or even typed letters to one another. Real letters. Not just email. A piece of writing in a stamped envelope. They'd at least value it more.
That's all I've got. Until next time.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
"This can't go on all the time -- all this franticness and jumping around. We've got to go some place, find something."
Jack Kerouac wrote a few great books, and in those books, he had a few really good lines. Last summer I went to a used book shop about fifteen minutes from where I live to see what treasures were nestled amongst the stained and tattered classics (Thank God for second hand bookstores, by the way). I stumbled upon a copy of Jack Kerouac's claim to fame, On the Road. The summer before was when I first discovered Kerouac. Back then I was more so emersed into my vagabond dreams, so finding Kerouac was like finding a lost love. I picked up Dharma Bums skimmed a few pages, and realized this Kerouac fellow and I were going to get along nicely. Anyway, I found a lightly used copy of On the Road with some bends in the corners and some ink outlining the O of On. Nothing much, still in rather fine condition, and I only had to spend $6 rather than the $15 it was originally priced when it was new (See why second hand bookstores are fantastic?) Anyway, I grabbed it with a certain glee because I loved Dharma Bums and this book, On the Road, is his Stairway to Heaven to his Led Zeppelin, or his Star Wars to his George Lucas. If that made any sense.
So I spend some of the summer reading it (I have my hand in some other books at the time as well...which has become a habit since I've been in this English Major gig. It used to be sacrilege to me to start another book while I was reading another. Now I just don't care.) As I read it, I still have that childish mentality that comes with almost anyone who reads Kerouac: I want to leave and go west to, live off the road, no home, loose friendships, and a destination as uncertain as the Second Coming of Christ. That seemed to be the life for me, and that's why I read ol' Jack.
I finish the book sometime in October, and all the time I had spent reading it (And a commentary along with it called Why Kerouac Matters: Lessons from On the Road by John Leland) I tried to reconcile the true message of the book with that of my previous notions and wild, insane dreams. It couldn't be done. Truth is, the book isn't necessarily about being a vagabond, rucksack wanderer traveling from one place to the next with no end in sight; "We've got to find some place, find something."
I don't really know what prompted this post, or if this is really what I had originally intended when I signed into the site. All the same, I'll keep going. I've got this far.
Maybe what prompted this is the "franticness". Things have felt crazy the last month. Things have felt crazy for a long time. Such is life. For me, I don't see an end, a beginning, and part of me still wants to go on that big vagabond journey. There has to be some big to do in which I'm finally propelled from the nest. I'm waiting for it. Trying to find it. Maybe I've just read too many stories, like The Odyssey, The Hobbit, Neverwhere, Stardust, ect. ect., where the main character has to go on this great quest. Leave the home, prove himself (or herself...sorry ladies), grow, gather a broader understanding of the world around them, and come back changed. Then settle down. What's the end to every action movie (or almost every)? Love.
Here is the quote that I used in the title with a bit more context:
"'I want to marry a girl,' I told them, 'so I can rest my soul with her till we both get old. This can't go on all the time -- all this franticness and jumping around. We've got to go some place, find something.'"
Yeah. There's an end. Making a home and family is at the end. We take all we learned from the world and adventuring so we can know how to raise kids and take care of the wife.
Unfortunately, Kerouac didn't have this in his life. Sal Paradise, the literary representation of Kerouac in On the Road, made it to the end with someone to potentially settle down with. As a matter of fact he chooses her over Dean Moriarity, the character who pulls him onto the road, and not just once but several times. Sal makes the decision to finally rest his soul with Laura, and ceases the madness with Dean. Kerouac did find a girl, Joan Haverty, but this was very short lived and tragic. As a matter of fact the rest of his life was rather tragic, and in the introduction to his novel Desolation Angels Joyce Johnson writes, "'A quiet life' became his stated goal, but he couldn't imagine how to achieve it."
When I first read this, I laughed, as Phil and I have joked about "The Quiet Life" which seems to be exactly what Kerouac was aiming for: a life without a woman. After reading the intro to Desolation Angels I felt I would rather not take Jack's path. At times I really admire his free spirit, go wherever the road takes ya sort of attitude. Even the "Crap man, I don't need a woman" seems rational. But it only takes you so far. And you have to find home sometime.
Still, I don't know what I was getting at. I rambled for too long. In conclusion, I love Jack Kerouac and all of his Dharma bummin', beatnik novels. But there's a lesson to be learned, and I wish I could've said it in a more concise manner and a bit more poignatly, but this was the best I could do. Its 3:23 in the morning. Lay off.
But one day I've got to find my road. And then, hopefully, rest my soul with another soul who's willing.
Goodnight followers. I leave you with this:
"It was remarkable how Dean could go mad and then suddenly continue with his soul -- which I think is wrapped up in a fast car, a coast to reach, and a woman at the end of the road -- calmly and sanely as though nothing had happened" - Once again, from Kerouac's On the Road
So I spend some of the summer reading it (I have my hand in some other books at the time as well...which has become a habit since I've been in this English Major gig. It used to be sacrilege to me to start another book while I was reading another. Now I just don't care.) As I read it, I still have that childish mentality that comes with almost anyone who reads Kerouac: I want to leave and go west to, live off the road, no home, loose friendships, and a destination as uncertain as the Second Coming of Christ. That seemed to be the life for me, and that's why I read ol' Jack.
I finish the book sometime in October, and all the time I had spent reading it (And a commentary along with it called Why Kerouac Matters: Lessons from On the Road by John Leland) I tried to reconcile the true message of the book with that of my previous notions and wild, insane dreams. It couldn't be done. Truth is, the book isn't necessarily about being a vagabond, rucksack wanderer traveling from one place to the next with no end in sight; "We've got to find some place, find something."
I don't really know what prompted this post, or if this is really what I had originally intended when I signed into the site. All the same, I'll keep going. I've got this far.
Maybe what prompted this is the "franticness". Things have felt crazy the last month. Things have felt crazy for a long time. Such is life. For me, I don't see an end, a beginning, and part of me still wants to go on that big vagabond journey. There has to be some big to do in which I'm finally propelled from the nest. I'm waiting for it. Trying to find it. Maybe I've just read too many stories, like The Odyssey, The Hobbit, Neverwhere, Stardust, ect. ect., where the main character has to go on this great quest. Leave the home, prove himself (or herself...sorry ladies), grow, gather a broader understanding of the world around them, and come back changed. Then settle down. What's the end to every action movie (or almost every)? Love.
Here is the quote that I used in the title with a bit more context:
"'I want to marry a girl,' I told them, 'so I can rest my soul with her till we both get old. This can't go on all the time -- all this franticness and jumping around. We've got to go some place, find something.'"
Yeah. There's an end. Making a home and family is at the end. We take all we learned from the world and adventuring so we can know how to raise kids and take care of the wife.
Unfortunately, Kerouac didn't have this in his life. Sal Paradise, the literary representation of Kerouac in On the Road, made it to the end with someone to potentially settle down with. As a matter of fact he chooses her over Dean Moriarity, the character who pulls him onto the road, and not just once but several times. Sal makes the decision to finally rest his soul with Laura, and ceases the madness with Dean. Kerouac did find a girl, Joan Haverty, but this was very short lived and tragic. As a matter of fact the rest of his life was rather tragic, and in the introduction to his novel Desolation Angels Joyce Johnson writes, "'A quiet life' became his stated goal, but he couldn't imagine how to achieve it."
When I first read this, I laughed, as Phil and I have joked about "The Quiet Life" which seems to be exactly what Kerouac was aiming for: a life without a woman. After reading the intro to Desolation Angels I felt I would rather not take Jack's path. At times I really admire his free spirit, go wherever the road takes ya sort of attitude. Even the "Crap man, I don't need a woman" seems rational. But it only takes you so far. And you have to find home sometime.
Still, I don't know what I was getting at. I rambled for too long. In conclusion, I love Jack Kerouac and all of his Dharma bummin', beatnik novels. But there's a lesson to be learned, and I wish I could've said it in a more concise manner and a bit more poignatly, but this was the best I could do. Its 3:23 in the morning. Lay off.
But one day I've got to find my road. And then, hopefully, rest my soul with another soul who's willing.
Goodnight followers. I leave you with this:
"It was remarkable how Dean could go mad and then suddenly continue with his soul -- which I think is wrapped up in a fast car, a coast to reach, and a woman at the end of the road -- calmly and sanely as though nothing had happened" - Once again, from Kerouac's On the Road
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