Masturbatory

"Men everywhere sit on their own insignificant pot, they dandle the gland all doom."

Kerouac, Jack. « To Neal Cassady, Jan. 10, 1951 », Selected Letters 1940-1956. Penguin Books, 1995, New York. Page 304.

Jumble

“That’s right where I lost it – trying to remember how I got there, for then the onrushing memory of those events tangled with my own American or “real-life” memories and everything became jumbled just like a shortwave radio at midnight that brings sounds from all over the world in a discordant but definite MEDLEY. I’d been there; I knew I’d been there; and now I’d never know how, or when, or why, or what, and life was still a foolish hassle when the vision died down and I stood dreaming on the pavement.”

Kerouac, Jack. « To Neal Cassady, Jan. 8, 1951 », Selected Letters 1940-1956. Penguin Books, 1995, New York. Page 280.

Words

“I have nothing to offer but the words that spring from my heart and mind in this enormous story.”

Kerouac, Jack. « To Neal Cassady, Dec. 28, 1950 », Selected Letters 1940-1956. Penguin Books, 1995, New York. Page 261

Self

“It has suddenly been revealed to me the extent of our common madness, and I mean not only you or me, but all of us. Particularly since our madness sets itself no vital goal, but only a kind of sustained and unrelieved heaviness of personality. We don’t want to move, we are caught inert in the contrived intertwining stupidity of the common preconceived notion of ourselves.”

Kerouac, Jack. « To Allen Ginsberg, Nov. 13, 1945 », Selected Letters 1940-1956. Penguin Books, 1995, New York. Page 100.

Spring

“ Spring is coming –
         Yep, all that equipment
For sighs”

Kerouac, Jack. « TANGIERS 1957 », Book of sketches. Penguin Books, 1952-1953, New York. Page 402

“ I, poor French Canadian Ti Jean become
a big sophisticated hipster esthete in
the homosexual arts, I, mutterer to
myself in childhood French, I, Indian-
head, I, Moogloo, I the wild one,
the “wild boy,” I, Claudius Brutus
McGonigle Mckarroquack, hopper
of freights, Skid Rok habitué,
railroad Buddhist, New England Modernist,
20th Century Storywriter, Crum, Krap,
dope, divorcee, hype, type; sitter in win-
dows of life; idiot far from home; no
wood in my stove, no potatoes in my
field, no field; hepcat, howler, wailer,
waiter in the line of time; lazy
washed-out, workless; yearner after
Europe, poet manqué; pas tough! ”

Kerouac, Jack. « SAN FRANCISCO SKETCH (1954 now) », Book of sketches. Penguin Books, 1952-1953, New York. Page 398-399

Fellaheen

“ – in fact life insulting me
because it no longer
included Gerard –
   Get rid of pride
   Get rid of sorrow
   Mix with the People
   Go among the People,
the Fellaheen not the
  American Bourgeois Middle-
  class World of neurosis
  nor the Catholic French
  Canadian European World
        – the People –
Indians, Arabs, the
Fellaheen in the country, village,
    of City slums – an
  essential World Dostoyevksy
    if you want to Gauguin on –
  but mainly, fulfill yr.
needs, live,  – sit staring
in the yard all day, if
  the other men laugh at
  you challenge them
  & ask them if “you would
  like it if I laugh at
   you” – Screw, drink,
     be lasy, roam, do
    nothing ... gather yr.
     food – Get out of
       America for good, it’s
         a Culture holding you,
           no Life – The People
          of No Good & Evil –
         of No Culture, no
        Prophets – nothing but
       essential politics & literature
    as Tales of the People –

  Gauguin practised a
neurotic civilization
  impressionism among
primitive fellaheen
  people – is his
  art so good as they
  say? – is it better
  really than all-out
  culture bourgeois dutch
 come-&-honey Rembrandt?
 – of course not – Impressionism
is & has always been
   a breakup & compromise
  in the art of picturing
 nature & is now a
wild scatological paint
blur call’d Surrealism etc

Primitive art nevertheless
is closer to Surrealism
than “Naturalism”
(which is unnaturally tech-
nical) – but primitive
art does not consider
Subconsciousness or
  Primitivism – & is in
any case Decoration
for Utilitarian Purposes,
not so called “expression
for expression’s sake”
& the difference is
millionfold down deep –
Gauguin would have done
better decorating their pots
  & boats – This humility
is the true artist’s –  ”

Kerouac, Jack. « Sun Apr 26 SWING THE HILLTOMBSTONE », Book of sketches. Penguin Books, 1952-1953, New York. Page 273-276