JACK KEROUAC
The Isolation Blues;
reflections during covid-19
Two blocks away we saw the blood-red neons of some bar and restaurant winking against the distant brownbrick of its building with subsidiary blue moons of neons that said SEAFOOD, STEAKS, CHOPS, saw it agitating with a comfortable little message of joy to anybody who had the money or knew the people there to come on in and enjoy the shelter, the food, music, the waitresses, the hot hissing radiators; he wanted to go and be with it all and go gabbling among humanities and not just meander in a blind chagrin…It’s all fine and good to sit in a diner and enjoy soup and papers and looking out the window…I only know my own complete life, an endless contemplation, it is so interesting, I love it so, it is vast, goes everywhere – and this gray day now has its gulls, wild hungers, voices of workers, figures crossing rainy supply dumps with umbrellas, black forms of all kinds, a call from across the world and of the great gray mist of America and American things.
– Jack Kerouac, Visions of Cody (1958)
The whole thing forms one enormous comedy, the world of raging action and folly and also of gentle sweetness seen through the keyhole of the eye. – from the introduction to Visions of Cody
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As I have admitted before, on more than one post, I have spent more time in diners, eateries and small cafes with a small notebook in hand than I have anywhere else. Years ago I sought out city libraries or small book stores where you could browse in the stacks for hours before anyone would notice you, but overall, I preferred the busier locales where you could watch people, soak up the chatter, scribble in the notebook and get a cheap cup of coffee at the same time. If you were fortunate to have a weekend newspaper in hand (remember those?) it was hours well spent with the sports section, news, editorials, the comics and numerous coffee re-fills. In a hurried-pace world, allotting extra time to just sit leisurely and hang out with your thoughts is a provocative act. Who knows where that sort of thing will lead? Even though we are more apt to have a cell phone or portable device at our table these days than we are a book or newspaper, it’s the mind working with the content that is key. What’s the new idea? What are you noticing? How is my body experiencing this place and time?
Jack Kerouac was an American writer (1922-1969) most well-known for his book “On The Road” which defined a generation seeking new values in the post World War Two years. In his travels from coast to coast and back again and then again, Kerouac explored the vision of America; its train yards, factories, highways, diners, pool halls and bars, the Great Plains, jazz and automobiles. It was a spiritual beatific version of how he experienced America in the middle of the twentieth century. You don’t often think of many American novelists as contemplatives, but that was how Kerouac viewed himself, a spiritual observer of things and people. In the closing pages of “Visions of Cody” he writes, “I struggle in the dark with the enormity of my soul, trying desperately to be a great rememberer redeeming life from darkness…this written record is my joy.”
In the woods,
Dave
February 23, 2022
