The Two Sides of Jack Kerouac

To: Magnus Toren <magnus DeleteThis @henrymiller.org>
Subject: Edington/Masten/Cassady
From: Magnus Toren <magnus DeleteThis @henrymiller.org>
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 20:42:51 -0800

Saturday March 20 @ 3 PM

"THE TWO SIDES OF JACK KEROUAC."
A presentation by Steve Edington author of
The Beat Face of God: The Beat Generation Writers as Spirit Guides.
and "Kerouac's Nashua Connection"
with Ric Masten and John Cassady
Free - Coffee and tea will be served.

Big Sur by Jack Kerouac is for a lot of people the only book about
Big Sur. Here at the Library we're very often talking about Kerouac,
his books, his life, his influence on world literature (one of my
favorite writers back in Sweden once said: "Kerouac's On the Road
made (!) me a writer."), his alcoholism, his religiosity, but most of
all, I've answered the questions: "Where is the cabin Kerouac lived
in while writing Big Sur" and, a bit less often, "Did Kerouac meet
Henry Miller." (we may not discuss these questions this afternoon but
I think the program will be very good - please read on).

Jack Kerouac the vagabond was also the Jack Kerouac who clung to his
French-Canadian roots. These roots are what is explored in Steve
Edington's book "Kerouac's Nashua Connection" (available at the
Library). The book explores Kerouac's French-Canadian ancestry and
shows how it plays out in his novels, both his Lowell novels and his
Road novels.

Mr. Edington will also share some parts of his current
work-in-progress "The Beat Face of God: The Beat Generation Writers
as Spirit Guides." This work treats the Beat Movement as primarily a
religious and spiritual phenomenon--a search for meaning and
authenticity against the cultural backdrop of the America of the
1950s.

Steve Edington is the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church
of Nashua, New Hampshire and an adjunct professor at the University
of Massachusetts at Lowell where he teaches a course on "The
Literature of the Beat Movement." He serves on the "Lowell Celebrates
Kerouac!" Committee, that puts on an annual Kerouac Festival.

A fellow Unitarian Universalist minister, one many of you locally
know and love, Ric Masten, will be here as well as John Cassady,
Kerouac's friend Neal Cassady's son.

(The bus came by and I got on, that's when it all began. There was
Cowboy Neal at the wheel of the bus to Nevereverland" ('The Other
One', Grateful Dead)

Perhaps we'll get lucky and get Ric to read some of his "beat" poems
and John Cassady to bring out the guitar!!

Welcome!

More about Steve Edington: http://www.uunashua.org/minister.shtml
(includes pictures).
More about Ric Masten: http://www.uunashua.org/minister.shtml
John Cassady interview : http://www.litkicks.com/JCI/JCI-Two.html -

--
I don't believe at all anymore in the legend of vigorous youth which
America is supposed to represent. More and more she seems to me like
the Madame of a whorehouse elbowing her way to the bargain counter.
Miller in a letter to Schnellock, spring of 1930.

Henry Miller Library
Highway One, Big Sur, CA 93920

Phone/Fax 831-667-2574

Web-site: http://www.henrymiller.org

E-mail: hmlib DeleteThis @henrymiller.org