“all the possible directions”

“I felt the sensation of each of the directions I mentally and emotionally turned into amazed at all the possible directions you can take with different motives that come in like it can make you a different person — I’ve often thought of this since childhood of suppose instead of going up Columbus as I usually did I’d turn into Filbert would something happen that at the time is insignificant enough but would be like enough to influence my whole life in the end? — What’s in store for me in the direction I don’t take?”

― Jack Kerouac, The Subterraneans
Born March 12, 1922

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“the only truth is music”

This would have been the big 9-0.

To commemorate, Flavorwire is offering a reflective post of some of Kerouac’s “life advice.”

This post’s title is one of the pearls, there’s this too:
“The best teacher is experience and not through someone’s distorted point of view.” — On the Road.
More here.

image via flavorwire

Photo Poetry

THE NEW YORK TIMES has a gorgeous slideshow up of Allen Ginsberg’s snapshots of the best minds of his generation. I’ve always loved these photos and many of them have been collected in one volume or another. The slideshow features highlights of a current show up at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. This one of Kerouac has been tacked up to many of my writing desks over the years. Ginsberg captioned it — in his distinctive prose-poetry thusly:

“Jack Kerouac wandering along East 7th street after visiting Burroughs at our pad, passing statue of Congressman Samuel “Sunset” Cot, “The Letter – Carrier’s Friend” in Tompkins Square toward corner of Avenue A, Lower East Side; he’s making a Dostoyevsky mad-face or Russian basso be-bop Om, first walking around the neighborhood, then involved with The Subterraneans, pencils & notebook in wool shirt-pockets, Fall 1953, Manhattan.”
1953

These photos were small poems and made me think about how thin the line is between the written word and the visual statement can be — beautiful complete little stories told in visual moments.

photo credit:
via National Gallery of Art site
gelatin silver print
Gift of Gary S. Davis
2009.108.2