I see Kerouac as one of those transitional figures who tended to be romantic beatnik loaners who on occasional acted together, more or less...
The whole beatnik trip was a kind of "noir" ( to the point of wearing black clothes a lot) experience -- favoring chess games in smoky bistros, odd outings and poetry readings..
It had a tangential link to blues and jazz music, and also had the distinction of being the last generation of Americans to experience Greenwich Village in NYC as a Bohemian gathering place and not as a target for gentrification and pop and folk wannabes, as well as a tawdry tourist magnet or mainly a place to go to buy marijuana and other drugs.
Also, look how clean cut and unrebellious Kerouac looks in this photo. Miles from the scruffy and outrageous people who would follow in his wake and claim to be inspired by him.
Lastly, Kerouac's Village Scene makes me think of my friend Rick's cousin, Scheherezade Friestedt, a striking simmeringly rebellious blond girl who liked black sweaters who would hit the Village scene in those days and take her younger cousin ( Rick) around to beatnik haunts when they were still obscure. (Scheherazade was in the Midwest for a while were she became good friends with a girl who was to become Ann Margret...she is now back in New York again and I hope to meet her some day. I hope to take a lot of notes on her reminiscences...)
Jack Kerouac biography
Born On This Day
Jack Kerouac was born on this day in 1922.
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Quick Facts
- NAME: Jack Kerouac
- OCCUPATION: Journalist, Author, Poet
- BIRTH DATE: March 12, 1922
- DEATH DATE: October 21, 1969
- EDUCATION: Columbia University, The New School, Lowell High School, Horace Mann School for Boys
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Lowell, Massachusetts
- PLACE OF DEATH: St. Petersburg, Florida
- Originally: Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac
- AKA: Jean-Louis de Kerouac
- AKA: Jack Kerouac
Best Known For
Jack Kerouac was an American writer best known for the novel On the Road, which became an American classic, pioneering the Beat Generation in the 1950s.Videos see all videos
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Synopsis
Born on March 12, 1922, in Lowell, Massachusetts, Jack
Kerouac's writing career began in the 1940s, but didn't meet with
commercial success until 1957, when On the Road was published.
The book became an American classic that defined the Beat Generation.
Kerouac died on October 21, 1969, from an abdominal hemorrhage, at age
47.
Quotes
"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 like fabulous yellow roman candles."
– Jack Kerouac
Early Life
Famed writer Jack Kerouac was born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac on March 12, 1922, in Lowell, Massachusetts. A thriving mill town in the mid-19th century, Lowell had become, by the time of Jack Kerouac's birth, a down-and-out burg where unemployment and heavy drinking prevailed. Kerouac's parents, Leo and Gabrielle, were immigrants from Quebec, Canada; Kerouac learned to speak French at home before he learned English at school. Leo Kerouac owned his own print shop, Spotlight Print, in downtown Lowell, and Gabrielle Kerouac, known to her children as Memere, was a homemaker. Kerouac later described the family's home life: "My father comes home from his printing shop and undoes his tie and removes [his] 1920s vest, and sits himself down at hamburger and boiled potatoes and bread and butter, and with the kiddies and the good wife."Jack Kerouac endured a childhood tragedy in the summer of 1926, when his beloved older brother Gerard died of rheumatic fever at the age of 9. Drowning in grief, the Kerouac family embraced their Catholic faith more deeply. Kerouac's writing is full of vivid memories of attending church as a child: "From the open door of the church warm and golden light swarmed out on the snow. The sound of the organ and singing could be heard."
Kerouac's two favorite childhood pastimes were reading and sports. He devoured all the 10-cent fiction magazines available at the local stores, and he also excelled at football, basketball and track. Although Kerouac dreamed of becoming a novelist and writing the "great American novel," it was sports, not writing, that Kerouac viewed as his ticket to a secure future. With the onset of the Great Depression, the Kerouac family suffered from financial difficulties, and Kerouac's father turned to alcohol and gambling to cope. His mother took a job at a local shoe factory to boost the family income, but, in 1936, the Merrimack River flooded its banks and destroyed Leo Kerouac's print shop, sending him into a spiral of worsening alcoholism and condemning the family to poverty. Kerouac, who was, by that time, a star running back on the Lowell High School football team, saw football as his ticket to a college scholarship, which in turn might allow him to secure a good job and save his family's finances.
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