Jack Kerouac : The Dharma Bums
The Dharma Bums has always been one of my favorite Kerouac books. What I loved from the first time I read it is the relaxed, peaceful and serene atmosphere described in most chapters, such as in the ones in which Ray (Kerouac) and Japhy Ryder (Gary Snyder) are sitting in a cabin, talking and having … Continue reading
Happy Birthday City Lights
Despite Jack Kerouac perhaps not playing that big of a role in the history of the City Lights Bookstore and City Lights Publishing (as far as I know they only published one or two poetry collections by Kerouac) I found it fitting to upload this post. Lawrence Ferlinghetti was a longtime friend of Kerouac, most … Continue reading
Oakland Bay Bridge
The Bay Bridge is mentioned in a number of Kerouac’s books, but it’s of course very hard not to notice when in San Francisco. I crossed it a short while after I took this photo on a bus which took me to Emeryville (Oakland) train station where I got on board the California Zephyr to … Continue reading
Tosca
After finishing watching Antonelli’s film Kerouac: The Movie (1985) I decided to post a photo of the Tosca, although I don’t know if Kerouac had a connection with it at all, or if it already existed at the time he hung out in San Francisco. In any case it’s located directly opposite the Cafe Vesuvio … Continue reading
Market Street Cinema, San Francisco
Kerouac loved movies and his books are full with mentions of going to see one. He describes going see a movie with Gregory Corso on Market Street in Desolation Angels, although I can’t say if it was this one (or even if this particular cinema existed in Kerouac’s time, but it looks rather worn and … Continue reading
Pic and Slim Arriving In Oakland
The inspiration for this post is the end of Kerouac’s short novel ‘Pic’, in which Pic and his brother Slim arrive to an uncertain future, without money or a job in Oakland after Slim is seeing no future for himself, Pic and Slim’s wife Sheila in New York. I don’t know the story of … Continue reading
Jack Kerouac’s Jacket
at The Beat Museum, Broadway, San Francisco The label reads: ‘This wool and cotton jacket belonged to and was worn by Jack Kerouac. The label is CPO, a brand popular in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The earth tones and broad checks reflected Kerouac’s working class aesthetic and it is the type of jacket Kerouac would … Continue reading
Neal and Carolyn Cassady’s house
These photos show the house in which Neal and Carolyn Cassady lived from 1949 to 1952. Jack Kerouac stayed with them a few times, the longest of which was a 6-month stint in which he worked on ‘On The Road’ ‘Dr Sax’ and ‘Visions Of Cody’ (according to Bill Morgan’s ‘The Beat Generation in San … Continue reading
Broadway Tunnel and Alfred’s Restaurant, San Francisco
This photo shows the Broadway Tunnel in North Beach/Russian Hill, San Francisco. Kerouac wrote about it in ‘The Subterraneans’, which was set in SF and not in New York, where the events told actually took place as well as other book(s). The yellow building in the center of the photograph shows the house in which … Continue reading
Easy And Dreamlike
This photo post was inspired by chapter 1 of ‘Big Sur’ in which Kerouac describes the journey he took from Long Island to San Francisco. This photo was taken somewhere in the Sierra Nevada (‘the final mountains of California’ he meant I guess)
Retracing Jack Kerouac 