KCTS 9 - History Making: Desolation Adventure - Jack Kerouac
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- čas přidán 19. 12. 2012
- Jack Kerouac remains one of the most recognizable names in modern American literature. In 1956, he spent 63 days living and writing in solitude on top of Desolation Peak in the North Cascades mountains. His time on the mountain helped to define his voice as a writer and shaped in him a love of nature that permeates his writing and transformed him into an unexpected ally of the conservation movement. Learn more at kcts9.org/history-making.
I read 'Dharma Bums' and believe that it is Kerouac's best work. Jack was seeker and so am I. Wish that I could have met him.
I think On the Road and Dharma Bums should be read as a pair. The sum exceeds the parts. Kinda like Godfather and Godfather 2 movies only should be seen as a pair.
I would suggest reading Big Sur, too. I found it more poetic than On The Road but it is filled with a lot of self-loathing.
I was their at this forest fire watch tower back in the summer of 1985. Thinking to my self so this is where jack Kerouac wrote the short story, alone on a mountain top.
My daughter, 7 year old grandson, and myself attempted to climb Desolation Peak two summers ago. The trail from the lake is extraordinarily steep. We got up about four miles, but were too exhausted to climb further. I too have read Dharma Bums, one of my favorite books, but I am sorry to see what happened to Kerouac in his later years.
The hard part of our maturity is when our youth is scoundered by our old circle of peers who look to us and yet do not care who led or is leading who and where? Instead random people take their place who also do not care like they do. Their patience spent like the money in your pocket.
Really well made. Poetic. Pssionate. Kind. Thanks for the share. Man those are some rugged-ass mountains! And I LOVE the slo-motion helicopter shots!
I think Kerouac was a great writer. He worked hard at it and read other writers with a hungry passion looking for what the Beats referred to as "the truth." Hemingway did this in his way, lots of other great writers did as well. Unfortunately, Kerouac and his alter-ego (Neal Cassady aka Dean Moriarty and Cody Pomeray) and his good friend Allen Ginsberg and many of the others of that tribe were pretty heavy into chemical stimulants, not just booze but benzedrine ("Bennies" when it was in pill form). Back then nasal inhalers had benzedrine in the strips, so you went to the drug store, loaded up on them, crushed the tube, put the strip in tea and drank it. Then you were loaded, but speeding. That's why he used teletype paper as a manuscript and didn't bother editing or even using paragraph breaks (just make your editor do the work.) It worked, for a while. I realized I wanted to be a writer after reading "On the Road" for the first time. But I also read a book by his daughter, Jan, called "Baby Driver". He wasn't a good father (in my opinion). In fact he denied being her father until it was proven with a blood test. It didn't change him. He continued to abuse alcohol until it killed him, and not in a kind way. He had choices, and he left his considerable legacy. I wonder what he thinks of all he did, now that he's in the land of eternal light and reflection. If that's where he is. If that's where we go...
The book by Neal Cassady's first wife is amazing. Jack and Neal were free spirits and didn't really want to settle down. I feel bad for those left in their wake but I also have a strange appreciation for those people that just take on life in an almost glutinous way. The way Neal broke hearts makes me sad though.
Great stuff..
i really enjoyed this ..thankyou for sharing:)
An update- Thinking back, it was 1984 not 1985
Now I want to know the actual dates of Jack Kerouac's 63 days on Desolation Peak.
Because that would have have been an important detail that determined all kinds of weather factors.
(Was it extremely cold at night? Did it rain much, or not at all? Was it mostly clear and sunny or overcast? etc)
summer of 1956. lookouts are snowed in during winter.
Read/or listen to it on a video that information is there. "Alone on a mountain top", by Jack Kerouac. It's a short story he wrote while up there, at that fire watch shack.
@@randallhesse5011 Hey, thank you for the lead. Jack Kerouac was a complex person and we who admire him would like to gain insight about what shaped his thinking and ultimately his actions.
What movie are those Dharma Bum scenes from?
Jack Kerouac King of the Beats.
Nice reconstruction, but there was no Jack Daniel's on that mountain.
No drinking at all, no drugs, only himself and the wild nature around
he smoked cigarettes.
@@richardravenclaw318
That's right, hand rolled 🙂
Glad the shack where Jack Kerouac stayed is still standing on Desolation Peak. The Alaskan Government who removed the bus where Christopher McCandless died were WRONG!!
Bello poema simplemente natural y mistico. Gracias Jack Kerouak biwn camino.
God chose Mohammed (PBUH). That means any human has the propensity to do what prophets do. That should be empowering!