Literary Stuff

Ken Kesey once said that America co-opts its revolutionaries by showering them with money and honors. I doubt at the time he was thinking of his own co-Non-Navigator of the Merry Pranksters, Captain Skypilot Ken Babbs the Intrepid Traveler. I don't know about money, but lately Babbs has been collecting the honors. First he was invited to address the English Department at the Air Force Academy. Babbs is a decorated U.S. Marine pilot, but crossed military lines to speak to the Air Force instructors on how to teach the novels of Ken Kesey. He did arrive decked out in Marine regalia. 

It was a challenging audience for the Captain, not exactly beatniks and Deadheads.

However, he said his talk went over well with the military types:

When I got up to speak I shed the blazer to reveal my flourescent orange loggers suspenders to great laughs and cheers. I started the talk with the question, "Is anybody here ready to have a psychedelic experience?" whereupon two cadets raised their hands and cried, "We are."

They were promptly expelled, just kidding, everybody got a good laugh....

Babbs was also honored recently by the Beat Museum. Here he is posing by the official Merry Prankster shirt worn by Neal Cassady.

This is a picture of Neal Cassady when he was a baby. 

Just kidding. Here's the real Neal with Allen Ginsberg, no doubt at the time never suspecting that his clothing would be displayed in museums. 

The Captain also attended a Dead reunion show (what he calls the "Leftover Dead") and took this picture of a giant turtle appearing on stage.

I'm surprised by how commercialized and mainstream the legacy of the Grateful Dead has become. I can't help but wonder, what would Jerry Garcia have thought of it all?

Style Over Substance

 



I am saddened to hear of the death of Massachusetts writer John Updike. Despite living in Massachusetts since 1959, Updike was considered the best example of a certain kind of urbane New Yorker style writer. He was indeed a brilliant stylist, although in my opinion Updike's writing often had more style than substance. The subjects of his books always seemed too small for the size of his talent. The Rabbit Runs series for which he was best known, was a mean spirited trivialization of the American middle-class male, which made him well loved by leftist literary critics. But for all the praise he received, most of his books were more praised than read. His death was treated as the passage of a literary giant, but I predict Updike's reputation will fade with the passage of time.

 

Bad Call



Stephen King is not half the stylist Updike was, but I predict that King's books will still be read for generations to come. This 2006 novel was recommended to me because it is the first King book to have a homosexual as a lead character. Frankly I had stopped reading King. Ever since his near fatal accident King's books have become too dark to be fun.

The queer angle is minor in this book that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with technology. Cell shows King returning to form with a story that is a good mix of funny and scary. Something awful starts happening to people who use their cell phones, which King himself makes known he has never owned. If you're sick of seeing everyone walking around talking on cell phones, then this book is your vengeance.
 

Endless Winter

More snow last night, so walking downtown at dawn today my woodland way was turned into a snow lined corridor.

Some canines conspired to trick their humans into taking them out so that they could meet and tell dog secrets.

Once downtown, Northampton sidewalks were clogged with snow.

Oh my, not a day for bike riding!

Hey Spring, we're getting more than a little impatient. 

Dinosaur Jr. is the most successful band ever to rise out of Amherst. I saw their lead guitarist, J. Mascis, wandering around the Farmer's Market last summer and asked him if I could take his picture. He responded with sign language, putting a finger to his lips and nodding yes. I quickly took the following photo without alerting anyone around us to the world famous rock star in their midst. 

The Great Books

Rating the top 100. 

 


 

Our Alaskan friend Zoomabooma recently listed the top 100 books of all time and what he thought of them. Using the same list he used,  I shall attempt to do the same. Of course the list itself is a little whack. Nothing by Kesey? No Ayn Rand? Where's Dr. Seuss? Oh well, despite these glaring omissions, it seemed like a fun pastime for a hot Saturday afternoon to just go through the list and make a quick observation about each. 

1. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - This is number one? You're kidding!
2. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - I saw the movie on Ecstasy.
3. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood - I liked this novel, but her poetry sucks.
4. Lord of the Flies - William Golding - Pretentious but creepy.
5. Life of Pi - Yann Martel - Sorry, not a math major.
6. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - Sounds like a dull mystery.
7. The Color Purple - Alice Walker - The movie was good but did not inspire me to read the book.
8. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - No one could fail to be entertained by these tales.
9. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - Movie versions always looked boring.
10. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - The book was better than the movie, although the movie was very good.
11. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - Struck me as a dull antique soap opera.
12. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - The best political fiction ever written.
13. His Dark Materials (trilogy) - Phil Pullman - So dark I never saw it.
14. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - Overlong.
15. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller - One of the great war novels.
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien - Personally I like it better than the trilogy.
17. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger - Salinger is a great stylist but this book lacks substance. Most overrated book of the post-war period.
18. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - Shreiks boredom.
19. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Great psychological insight into the nature of guilt.
20. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - Acid consciousness before there was LSD.
21. Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis - My neices loved this book, but it bored me to read it to them.
22. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis - See above.
23. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne - Cute and clever.
24. Animal Farm - George Orwell - The second best political fiction ever written.
25. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - He was a stoner and it shows.
26. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - He writes so beautifully his laundry list would be worth reading.
27. On The Road - Jack Kerouac - The best American bohemian book ever written.
28. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - Corny but readable.
29. Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White - The artwork was better than the story.
30. Hamlet - William Shakespeare - Some of the best lines in the English language.
31. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - The Johnny Depp movie version looked interesting.
32. Complete Works of Shakespeare - Not everything he wrote was a masterpiece.
33. Ulysses - James Joyce - A tiresome literary fraud.
34. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - A powerful mood piece. Wasn't Apocalyse Now based on this?
35. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - A wonderful book, but skip the introduction.
36. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - The title suggests more than it delivers.
37. The Bible - God and Friends - I was raised Catholic, okay?
38. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald - Some great passages, but overall dull.
39. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - Not worth the effort.
40. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - Good read despite socialist propaganda.
41. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - His darkest work, a real downer.
42. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - Never read it but it sounds like fun.
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Sounds very dull.
44. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - Seems like an overrated bore.
45. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon - I'm curious to know more.
46. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - Another overrated author.
47. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery - Some people worship this book. I think they have psychological problems.
48. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole - Is this about Massachusetts politics?
49. The Lord of the Rings - The movies were better.
50. Harry Potter series - A stiff writer, the movies were better.
51. Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott - For chicks only.
52. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - Sad but well-written.
53. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - Not familiar with it but it sounds dull.
54. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks - Based on the song by Jerry Garcia?
55. Middlemarch - George Eliot - Another probable bore.
56. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - Forever eclipsed by the film.
57. Bleak House - Charles Dickens - Sounds like a load of laughs.
58. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - Zoomabooma says, "playin' "Tea for Two" ... sky was yellow and the sun was blue?"
59. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens - Not bad for Dickens.
60. Emma - Jane Austen - Maybe chicks will like it.
61. Persuasion - Jane Austen - Unconvincing.
62. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres - Who choosing these books, some French fag?
63. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden - Straight people will like it.
64. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - This cost the list a chunk of credibility.
65. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving - This is not the best John Irving novel.
66. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - Another insomnia cure.
67. Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery - Is this the book about which the critic wrote, "I could not put it down, instead I hurled it against the wall!"
68. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy - Annoying.
69. Atonement - Ian McEwan - Who needs a literary guilt trip?
70. Dune - Frank Herbert I hope the book was better than the movie.
71. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - Where you don't want to go.
72. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth - Another yawner.
73. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon - Slow, plodding plot.
74. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - The only really good Dickins novel.
75. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Painfully depressing.
76. The Secret History - Donna Tartt - More about Pioneer Valley politics?
77. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - A morbid bore.
78. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - Men in tights are always tiresome.
79. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy - Not obscure enough.
80. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding - Watch the X-rated version.
81. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie - Makes you wish the fatwa had been successful.
82. Moby Dick - Herman Melville - Tiresome beginning, but a cosmic trip overall.
83. Dracula - Bram Stoker - No film has matched the book.
84. Notes From A Small Island - Nice, but no classic.
85. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath - Weepy tale of suicide and depression.
86. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome - Yawn.
87. Germinal - Emile Zola - Tiresome Frenchman.
88. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - The magazine is better.
89. Possession - A.S. Byatt - See the Exorcist instead.
90. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens Some good lines, but overall sentimental pap.
91. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell - How about Atlas Shrugged?
92. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro - Literary leftovers.
93. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert - Even less interesting than it sounds.
94. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry - Makes you want to tip the scale.
95. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom - But what if you're going to hell?
96. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton - For nature lovers only.
97. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks - Don't get stung.
98. Watership Down – Richard Adams - Will give your kids nightmares.
99. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute - Don't go there.
100. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas - The candy bar was better.

It was so hot and humid in downtown Northampton last night that I wish I could've been dressed like this guy. 

I saw this morning that the old willow by Southwest at UMass was hit by lightning last night, the second time this summer that I'm aware of. Thankfully the injuries do not appear to be life threatening, but how long before the old tree gets hit with a death blow? 

Majestic sentinel, long may you stand. 

In a parking lot at UMass someone stenciled this word of encouragement.

Jerry Garcia's Book

Harrington Street.

Whew, let's take a break from politics and write about the Grateful Dead!

The other day somebody gave me a present - a copy of the now out of print Jerry Garcia biography Harrington Street. It's only 76 pages long, with most of it illustrations, so it didn't take long to read. 

The title of the book refers to the street in San Francisco which Jerry Garcia lived on as a boy. Garcia lived at number 87, in a house which is still standing. The current owners complain that hippies are always sitting on their steps. Here is Jerry's house as it looked in 2003.

I like this book. It is colorful, whimsical and fun to read. The problem is the book was incomplete at the time of Garcia's death. Various editors and friends tried to piece together what they could from the material Garcia left behind, but are only partially successful.

Garcia's intention was to make an illustrated biography mixing written narrative with his own paintings. Unfortunately at the time of Garcia's death he had only got as far as telling his life story to the age of ten. That leaves out a whole lot of things that were worth writing about in Garcia's life.

However, for a guy that always seemed to have starch in his grin Jerry Garcia had a pretty traumatic childhood. Born sickly, he was confined to his bed a lot as a child. At the age of two, he was nearly drowned when a drunken guest at a family party threw him into a swimming pool, from which he was barely rescued in time by his father. His Dad, a well known San Francisco musician, would himself drown to death in front of his entire family at a swimming resort. Watching his father die was a major trauma for Garcia, who for over a year later would burst into tears whenever his father's name was mentioned.

His mother never recovered from the tragedy, and Garcia ended up being raised by his eccentric grandparents, whose sterile marriage forced Garcia to retreat into art and music. He recounts two other disturbing childhood events, one of which involved a time when he tried to pursue what he thought was a kitten into the bushes but instead discovered was a rat. It reminded me of an event from my own childhood. When I was around four or five I was really fond of squirrels. One day a mean boy called me over to look at something in the gutter. When I did so I saw that it was a squirrel that had been hit by a car and its guts were all over the place. I remember I ran into the house and got sick, but when my mother asked me what was wrong, I said nothing.

Another traumatic event for Garcia was when some sadistic older girls stripped him and made fun of him while he was nude. Gosh, with all these childhood traumas, you'd think it would be enough to make somebody grow up and take drugs!

Garcia is a good writer. When telling about a seafaring ancestor, Captain Olson of San Francisco, he writes:

In truth, I only know of his existence because of a few meager pieces of evidence in the form of two anecdotes and one ancient photograph. The photograph, faded, out of focus, shows a blurred foreheady gaussian blur, as if the endless, restless motion of the sea itself had robbed from Capt. O. the ability to stand still for a photo, thereby denying the future a good look at him. Allowing him to sneak, so to speak, into the past, unseen, like the phantom he was....

Disappointingly, the book never goes past Garcia's early childhood, since he died while undergoing treatment in a California detox before he could write anymore. What saves the book from just being a dead rock star rip-off are the paintings Garica did to accompany the text. Garcia was a masterful psychedelic poster artist whose trippy mindscapes are simply beautiful to behold. If the text is maddeningly short, then the paintings provide endless fascination.

Alas, only used copies are available of this book on Amazon.com. However if you can get your hands on a copy there or somewhere else then I recommend you do so. Not just because this is a visually delightful book, but also because it is bound to become a valuable collectors piece. 

The other day I was wandering around downtown Northampton just before sunset and looking at all the posters, like this sort of Victorian one.

 



This wall has a whole lot of posters, mostly for musical events. 

There is an old sign painted on the side of this building, but so much has peeled off I can't make out what it used to advertise. Can you?

This sign reminds me that maple sugar season is just around the corner. Once the sap starts to rise, Spring will be right behind! 

So hurry the hell up and get here!