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Suddenly I found myself on Times Square. I had traveled eight thousand miles around the American continent and I was back on Times Square; and right in the middle of rush hour, too, seeing with my innocent road-eyes the absolute madness and fantastic hoorair of New York with its millions and millions hustling forever for a buck among themselves, the mad dream—grabbing, taking, giving, sighing, dying, just so they could be buried in those awful cemetery cities beyond Long Island City.

Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk—real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.

Jack Kerouac, On the Road

I think I like this book, sort of, but not in the same way I’d like it if I were very young again.

…because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’

Jack Kerouac, On the Road

How strange that this often-quoted part of On the Road comes so early in the book. I know a boy who has a tattoo of this quote wrapping around his arm, and I used to know a boy who counted Kerouac (and this book) as his biggest influences in his life, and he quoted this part, too. Having already reached the part about the mad ones who “burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles,” I almost feel like I can quit the book now, sixteen pages in.

…When did I become so cynical? My students think I am, too.

(via stupidlittletuftybeard:silentpunk:yoursecretary)
When they’re young, it’s Hemingway and Bukowski, yes, but also Ginsberg and Kerouac. When they’re older, if they never grow out of this douchebaggery, it’s Jean Baudrillard and David Foster Wallace and Michel Foucault, among others. I don’t hate any of them (and in fact I’m quite fond of DFW), but I’m tired of those names being thrown around. Pick a new writing god. Make her female.

(via stupidlittletuftybeard:silentpunk:yoursecretary)

When they’re young, it’s Hemingway and Bukowski, yes, but also Ginsberg and Kerouac. When they’re older, if they never grow out of this douchebaggery, it’s Jean Baudrillard and David Foster Wallace and Michel Foucault, among others. I don’t hate any of them (and in fact I’m quite fond of DFW), but I’m tired of those names being thrown around. Pick a new writing god. Make her female.

Mlle Hazelwood

Reader & Writer, Master of Fine Arts, Collaborator on Structure and Style, a new poetry blog.

 

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