I had always been a big reader but somehow it was not wasn’t until my second year of college that I found Kerouac’s “On the Road”. Earlier I had run across Hunter S. Thompson’s “The Great Shark Hunt”, already an anthology. It was years later before I even learned of the overlap these two mid-20th century American books had. But this was all before the internet where such connections were harder to make.

I wanted to read the rest of the Kerouac catalog but only made it roughly halfway through. I may yet finish. I confess to having an ebook of “Mexico City Blues” on the pad I currently am typing on (all thumbs, much slower than Kerouac) but haven’t gotten too far with it. All that said, I have since read two or three biographies of Kerouac and have the hardback Viking 50th Anniversary edition of “On the Road” with critical commentary on my bookshelf, a prize possession.

Unlike most books, especially books that are people’s favorites, this one seems to defy discussion. I have found close friends also liked this book, but we never discussed it the way we would discuss writing or music. It was somehow self contained. It was the fully formed view of where post-WW II America was and where it was headed, long before anyone else seemed to realize it.

I undertook a bit of a project recently to re-read some of the favorite books of my youth. I was prepared to be a bit embarrassed by my youthful enthusiasms. Kerouac was the hardest to approach. I liked that book so much when I was younger it would be hard to find out that it was perhaps thinner and lighter than I thought. But I bought the ebook and dug in and it was as good as I remembered, perhaps better (so was, I might add, Persig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, another favorite of mine at that time).

I suppose Kerouac was always controversial and never easily integrated into the rest of 20th century writing. I don’t imagine he is on many college English class syllabus, or taken that seriously in English departments. Anyway a re-evaluation of Kerouac seems to be underway. Maybe it is always underway. From the Los Angeles Review of Books.

“On the Road,” Again

A good March Madness read from The Better Letter.

The Better Letter: How Lucky Are You?

Everyone I talk to from out of state asks the same question: what the heck is going on in Texas? I don’t have a good answer, besides incompetence and mismanagement. I will let the Guardian in the UK explain. I don’t see my family continuing to live in Texas.

Texans scramble to get vaccinated after Republican governor says no more masks

I have spent large portions of my adult life without a car. I college I lived in Boston and took the T everywhere and even took trains to New York and DC. That was a while back, but even now I recall the experience being superior to air travel. Roomier and actually faster, door to door, than flying or driving for even fairly long trips.

As an adult I spent time in the UK and Japan and used their trains fairly extensively. Japan’s shinkansen were amazing, and they were probably 1970s technology. I’m told China has a great national rail system.

So what is wrong with America? I would say a knee-jerk reaction against anything “public”, but as a replacement for the airlines, it still seems attractive. That may be the real problem. In America where there is so much money in politics, entrenched interests get their way. I heard that many, many years ago a Texas project to connect Dallas, Houston and San Antonio was scuttled by Southwest Airlines.

I would love to be able to jump on a train and get to Dallas, Houston or New Orleans at 200+ MPH. Hope I get to see it one day.

Gen Z’s high-speed rail meme dream, explained

I try to live in the real world. I (perhaps foolishly) think I am pretty good at it and that it more a survival technique than anything philosophical. That said, I am certain I have my delusions, most of which I imagine I don’t want to examine too closely. I think it is ok to pull the wool over you own eyes a bit, to suspend disbelief. Just a little, though.

The Usefulness of Our Delusions

Now that I have some free time I’m noticing all the things I’ve left in a state of benign neglect over the years, like my house, yard, photos, files, etc. The yard is an acre with lots of trees, mostly live oaks. They push out leaves in spring, leaving the yard mostly covered. Over the years I’ve let them go, letting the mower much whatever it could telling myself it was good for the grass. Of course, being honest I have very little grass these days and lots of leaves. I thought about raking them and using them as mulch in the big beds in the front, but that seems like lots of work. Tried the leaf blower but it just seemed to wedge the leaves down into what little grass was left. I have my little Worx Landroid robotic mower in the back, and soon in the front, so a bagging mower wasn’t really available. Same for my electrified riding mower (still in development). I figured I would try a small battery electric push mower and use it more or less as an electric rake. Bought a Worx since I’ve had good luck with the Landroid. I was told the 20V batteries would work with my Black and Decker tools but they appear to have a gratuitously different interface. But so far so good with the leaves. Gonna take a while but it is only once or twice a year. Maybe I’ll have real grass again.

I have been watching the news on the Myanmar coup. I was trying to figure out what the point was. I was tempted to make a cynical comment about how it is always about the money. I suppose that isn’t strictly true. But follow the money first if you want to save yourself some time.

Myanmar coup leaders tried draining $1bn from US account

I still remember tracking the news from China and then Italy about the emerging virus. I was hoping the US would be able to isolate and control it, but I didn’t see any movement in that direction. By late February 2020 we started to stock up on food. My last meal at a restaurant was February 28. I realized things would get bad when I went to visit a colleague at a tech company up the road and saw this notice on the door. This was a little over one year ago.

A couple of weeks ago our printer started complaining about lost WiFi connections. Then it stopped working completely. We went to buy a new printer but they seem to be in short supply. We ordered one and it finally arrived, but it did not work. It kept giving a cartridge error and wouldn’t print (but it would scan). Packed it up for return and realized we don’t have a printer to print out the return label.