6 ms·

Lost Jack Kerouac story found among assassinated mafia boss' belongings

102 points by rmason 1y ago

rmason 1y ago
I am a life long fan of Jack Kerouac and thought will the biographies written about him every significant fact about his life was known and I am a bit gobsmacked. Massachusetts, the state of his birth claims Kerouac as their own and Florida where he lived at the time of his death claims him as well. Never seen San Francisco claim him as one of their own before. I think Paris would have the better claim if they were to make one.
- dvh 1y ago
  “If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare me a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.” -- Einstein
- habosa 1y ago
  SF seems to claim the Beat movement as a whole. There’s a museum dedicated to it and the area around it has multiple landmarks which play into that as well (City Lights, Vesuvio). I never really considered before if that was fair.
- cm2012 1y ago
  I read On The Road but really, truly came to hate the characters. Dean Moriarty is so evil and Sal is so stupid and I feel like this never comes full circle.
  - zabzonk 1y ago
    The characters are seen from Sal's perspective, and I will admit he is not the sharpest pencil in the box (I think Kerouac, who was quite smart, realises this). I wonder what OTR written from Dean's point of view would be like?
  - JKCalhoun 1y ago
    Apparently Neal Cassady was not a very good husband or father either — judging by some of the retrospectives/interviews I've seen on YouTube.
  - dyauspitr 1y ago
    They’re interesting because of it though. Let’s just say they’re “evil” in the ways I don’t care about.
    - cm2012 1y ago
      Dean Moriarty physically abuses multiple women, and impregnates and abandons multiple women in terrible circumstances with no regard for his children's welfare. And many other crimes. Sal glosses over them and still idolizes him.
      - aspenmayer 1y ago
        If retweets aren’t endorsements, artistic/literary depictions aren’t meant to promote the person or personages being so portrayed. The map is not the territory anymore than the mapmaker is God. Holding a mirror up to society does not make one Narcissus. For what it’s worth, Socrates wasn’t very popular in polite society of his time and place either, but rather reviled and given an ultimatum: repudiate your interrogatory work of our society, or die in exile. He chose the latter on his own terms via quaffing hemlock, and he went down in infamy.
      - dyauspitr 1y ago
        Well call me evil but I don’t really care about that. Honestly it serves to make him even more intriguing.
pfdietz 1y ago
Since this was written before 1978 and never published, it's not protected by copyright, yes?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- jt2190 1y ago
  Writing is protected by copyright the instant it's written.
  - pfdietz 1y ago
    That's true now. It wasn't true when this was written. Back then, US copyright depended on publication and registration.
    - jt2190 1y ago
      I'll leave this for you to parse. > § 303 > Duration of copyright: Works created but not published or copyrighted before January 1, 1978 > (a) Copyright in a work created before January 1, 1978, but not theretofore in the public domain or copyrighted, subsists from January 1, 1978, and endures for the term provided by section 302. In no case, however, shall the term of copyright in such a work expire before December 31, 2002; and, if the work is published on or before December 31, 2002, the term of copyright shall not expire before December 31, 2047
      - velcrovan 1y ago
        So you're right in that it was retroactively protected by copyright the moment it was written, but, without more information than this, it seems at least possible that the copyright on this work has now expired.
        bryanrasmussen 1y ago
        doesn't seem possible. It says that it should follow 302 as if it was published in 1978 if it was not heretofore copyrighted, and it wasn't, and it should follow section 302 which starts with "Copyright in a work created on or after January 1, 1978, subsists from its creation and, except as provided by the following subsections, endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and 70 years after the author’s death." seems like it should be out of copyright in 2039.
mkovach 1y ago
Ah, how wonderful, to stumble upon lost Kerouac like this, tucked away not in some Yale archive but in the collection of Paul Castellano of all people, as if the road had detoured briefly through the Five Families. That it reads like a missing chapter from On the Road makes the find all the more mythic, like a Polaroid from a dream you forgot you had. But this, for some reason, reminds me that Kerouac was also a devoted baseball mind. Not just a fan, but a proto-fantasy league commissioner before the term existed, meticulously tracking invented teams and players in private box scores. Kerouac, a fantasy baseball writer. And he wasn't alone: Corso batted lines like fastballs, Ferlinghetti cheered from the dugout of City Lights, and Ginsberg, ever the cosmic catcher, enjoyed the sport. Baseball wasn't a pastime but a parallel Beat narrative, complete with innings, errors, and the occasional poetic balk and haiku.
- ants_everywhere 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - pessimizer 1y ago
    Not far beyond. I'm old, so second-hand it seems that the entire reason he toured to do readings (at least in the 80s and 90s) was to stay with locals who had young male children. I know two horror stories myself. It was sort of a hippie/counterculture/futurist/Berkeley thing to let pedophiles openly operate and attack anyone as nosy lame perverts who would accuse them of being a problem, even after multiple arrests. See the Breendoggle.
    - abdulhaq 1y ago
      When I was a physics student at Oxford in 1983-86 I was a voracious reader and the Beats figured in that. Ginsberg travelled through Oxford for a day or two and gave some street performances. His nephew (Vincent?) was travelling with him, playing guitar IIRC. I must admit, I had my concerns at the time.
    - ants_everywhere 1y ago
      There was a similar attitude in some French intellectual circles in the seventies and eighties. For example I know Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre were involved. Having known several victims of CSA and some of their abusers, I think many people would be surprised at the amount of effort and planning that goes into ensuring access to a pool of potential victims. Abstractly it's a supply chain problem and is treated as such by the abusers.
noefingway 1y ago
I've been re-reading Kerouac lately (LOA has a nice collection of novels in a single volume). His prose is jumps from bebop riffs (On the Road) to elegiac praise of hiking in the woods/mountains (Dharma Bums). The characters (like them or not) are well drawn and always interesting. My hitchhiking days are long gone and I don't suppose this mode of transportation obtains much in the US anymore, which I think is unfortunate as it is (or was) a great way to see the country and meet a lot of people.
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  Biking across the country is a thing though. You'll meet people in the small towns along the way. I've only done a few well-established routes (Katy trail, for example) but I have, and full of vicarity, watched many YouTubers crossing the U.S. by bicyle.
  - jibal 1y ago
    Too much empty space. I spent six weeks doing a solo ride in France -- Versailles, Chartres, Loire Valley rivers and castles, eastern Brittany, St. Malo, Cherbourg, St. Mont Michel, Honfleur, D-Day beaches, Bayoux, Chantilly, Paris (where I caught the Tour de France finishing at the Champs-Elysées) ... amazing experience.
cyberpunk 1y ago
Am I the only one who thought On the Road was a completely awful, poorly written book? I also hated Catcher too so maybe the 'American Greats' just aren't for me..
- treis 1y ago
  Not being refined and well written is part of its charm. It's the raw unfiltered passion that's as much of the message as the story is.

102 points by rmason 1y ago

I am a life long fan of Jack Kerouac and thought will the biographies written about him every significant fact about his life was known and I am a bit gobsmacked. Massachusetts, the state of his birth claims Kerouac as their own and Florida where he lived at the time of his death claims him as well. Never seen San Francisco claim him as one of their own before. I think Paris would have the better claim if they were to make one.

dvh 1y ago
“If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare me a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.” -- Einstein
habosa 1y ago
SF seems to claim the Beat movement as a whole. There’s a museum dedicated to it and the area around it has multiple landmarks which play into that as well (City Lights, Vesuvio). I never really considered before if that was fair.
cm2012 1y ago
I read On The Road but really, truly came to hate the characters. Dean Moriarty is so evil and Sal is so stupid and I feel like this never comes full circle.
- zabzonk 1y ago
  The characters are seen from Sal's perspective, and I will admit he is not the sharpest pencil in the box (I think Kerouac, who was quite smart, realises this). I wonder what OTR written from Dean's point of view would be like?
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  Apparently Neal Cassady was not a very good husband or father either — judging by some of the retrospectives/interviews I've seen on YouTube.
- dyauspitr 1y ago
  They’re interesting because of it though. Let’s just say they’re “evil” in the ways I don’t care about.
  - cm2012 1y ago
    Dean Moriarty physically abuses multiple women, and impregnates and abandons multiple women in terrible circumstances with no regard for his children's welfare. And many other crimes. Sal glosses over them and still idolizes him.
    - aspenmayer 1y ago
      If retweets aren’t endorsements, artistic/literary depictions aren’t meant to promote the person or personages being so portrayed. The map is not the territory anymore than the mapmaker is God. Holding a mirror up to society does not make one Narcissus. For what it’s worth, Socrates wasn’t very popular in polite society of his time and place either, but rather reviled and given an ultimatum: repudiate your interrogatory work of our society, or die in exile. He chose the latter on his own terms via quaffing hemlock, and he went down in infamy.
    - dyauspitr 1y ago
      Well call me evil but I don’t really care about that. Honestly it serves to make him even more intriguing.

pfdietz 1y ago

Since this was written before 1978 and never published, it's not protected by copyright, yes?

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
jt2190 1y ago
Writing is protected by copyright the instant it's written.
- pfdietz 1y ago
  That's true now. It wasn't true when this was written. Back then, US copyright depended on publication and registration.
  - jt2190 1y ago
    I'll leave this for you to parse. > § 303 > Duration of copyright: Works created but not published or copyrighted before January 1, 1978 > (a) Copyright in a work created before January 1, 1978, but not theretofore in the public domain or copyrighted, subsists from January 1, 1978, and endures for the term provided by section 302. In no case, however, shall the term of copyright in such a work expire before December 31, 2002; and, if the work is published on or before December 31, 2002, the term of copyright shall not expire before December 31, 2047
    - velcrovan 1y ago
      So you're right in that it was retroactively protected by copyright the moment it was written, but, without more information than this, it seems at least possible that the copyright on this work has now expired.
      - bryanrasmussen 1y ago
        doesn't seem possible. It says that it should follow 302 as if it was published in 1978 if it was not heretofore copyrighted, and it wasn't, and it should follow section 302 which starts with "Copyright in a work created on or after January 1, 1978, subsists from its creation and, except as provided by the following subsections, endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and 70 years after the author’s death." seems like it should be out of copyright in 2039.

mkovach 1y ago

Ah, how wonderful, to stumble upon lost Kerouac like this, tucked away not in some Yale archive but in the collection of Paul Castellano of all people, as if the road had detoured briefly through the Five Families. That it reads like a missing chapter from On the Road makes the find all the more mythic, like a Polaroid from a dream you forgot you had. But this, for some reason, reminds me that Kerouac was also a devoted baseball mind. Not just a fan, but a proto-fantasy league commissioner before the term existed, meticulously tracking invented teams and players in private box scores. Kerouac, a fantasy baseball writer. And he wasn't alone: Corso batted lines like fastballs, Ferlinghetti cheered from the dugout of City Lights, and Ginsberg, ever the cosmic catcher, enjoyed the sport. Baseball wasn't a pastime but a parallel Beat narrative, complete with innings, errors, and the occasional poetic balk and haiku.

ants_everywhere 1y ago
[flagged]
- pessimizer 1y ago
  Not far beyond. I'm old, so second-hand it seems that the entire reason he toured to do readings (at least in the 80s and 90s) was to stay with locals who had young male children. I know two horror stories myself. It was sort of a hippie/counterculture/futurist/Berkeley thing to let pedophiles openly operate and attack anyone as nosy lame perverts who would accuse them of being a problem, even after multiple arrests. See the Breendoggle.
  - abdulhaq 1y ago
    When I was a physics student at Oxford in 1983-86 I was a voracious reader and the Beats figured in that. Ginsberg travelled through Oxford for a day or two and gave some street performances. His nephew (Vincent?) was travelling with him, playing guitar IIRC. I must admit, I had my concerns at the time.
  - ants_everywhere 1y ago
    There was a similar attitude in some French intellectual circles in the seventies and eighties. For example I know Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre were involved. Having known several victims of CSA and some of their abusers, I think many people would be surprised at the amount of effort and planning that goes into ensuring access to a pool of potential victims. Abstractly it's a supply chain problem and is treated as such by the abusers.

noefingway 1y ago

I've been re-reading Kerouac lately (LOA has a nice collection of novels in a single volume). His prose is jumps from bebop riffs (On the Road) to elegiac praise of hiking in the woods/mountains (Dharma Bums). The characters (like them or not) are well drawn and always interesting. My hitchhiking days are long gone and I don't suppose this mode of transportation obtains much in the US anymore, which I think is unfortunate as it is (or was) a great way to see the country and meet a lot of people.

JKCalhoun 1y ago
Biking across the country is a thing though. You'll meet people in the small towns along the way. I've only done a few well-established routes (Katy trail, for example) but I have, and full of vicarity, watched many YouTubers crossing the U.S. by bicyle.
- jibal 1y ago
  Too much empty space. I spent six weeks doing a solo ride in France -- Versailles, Chartres, Loire Valley rivers and castles, eastern Brittany, St. Malo, Cherbourg, St. Mont Michel, Honfleur, D-Day beaches, Bayoux, Chantilly, Paris (where I caught the Tour de France finishing at the Champs-Elysées) ... amazing experience.

cyberpunk 1y ago

Am I the only one who thought On the Road was a completely awful, poorly written book? I also hated Catcher too so maybe the 'American Greats' just aren't for me..

treis 1y ago
Not being refined and well written is part of its charm. It's the raw unfiltered passion that's as much of the message as the story is.