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Tag: Jack Kerouac

February 2025 Books and Reading Notes

2025-03-012025-02-28 John Winkelman

At long last, over two months since I cracked it open, I finally finished Doctor Zhivago. It was a long read – mostly beautiful, occasionally frustrating, and above all definitely worth the effort.

Now I am reading short fiction, to help reset my brain. Currently I am working my way through The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966, which, in addition to being full of superb short prose and poetry, is an interesting time-capsule of the state of literature almost seventy years ago.

Acquisitions

The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste Speculative Science Fiction

  1. R.T. Samuel, Rakesh K., Rashmi R.D. (editors), The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF (Blaft Publications)

Reading List

Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak

Books

  1. Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago [2025.02.14]

Short Prose

  1. Jim C. Hines, “Kitemaster” (Patreon post) [2025.02.11]
  2. Samuel Beckett, “Dante and the Lobster”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.14]
  3. Jack Kerouac, “October in the Railroad Earth”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.14]
  4. Patsy Southgate, “A Very Important Lady”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.16] – [Note: I could find almost no information at all on Patsy Southgate online. Anything I found was as a side note to other writers and creative types. The two obituaries I could find, from 1998, were behind paywalls. Perhaps I will gather some sources and put together a Wikipedia page.]
  5. Kameron Hurley, “At the Crossroads of Many Futures” (Patreon post) [2025.02.16]
  6. Tobias S. Buckell, “The Last Cathedral of Earth, In Flight” (Patreon post) [2025.02.17]
  7. Alexander Trocchi, “From Cain’s Book“, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.18]
  8. John Rechy, “From City of Night“, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.18]
  9. William Eastlake, “Portrait of an Artist with Twenty-Six Horses”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.18]
  10. Carlos Fuentes (Lysander Kemp, translator), “The Life Line”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.21]
  11. Juan Rulfo (Lysander Kemp, translator), “From Pedro Páramo“, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.22]
  12. Octavio Paz, “Todos Santos, Día de Muertos”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.24]
  13. Henry Miller, “Defense of the Freedom to Read”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.24]
  14. William Eastlake, “Three Heroes and a Clown”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.25]
  15. Terry Southern, “Red-Dirt Marihuana”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.25]
  16. William S. Burroughs, “Deposition: Testimony Concerning a Sickness”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.26]
  17. Eugène Ionesco, “Foursome”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.26]
  18. Martin Williams, “Charlie Parker: The Burden of Innovation”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.28]
Posted in Book ListTagged Boris Pasternak, Evergreen Review, Jack Kerouac, Jim C. Hines, Kameron Hurley, Patsy Southgate, Samuel Beckett comment on February 2025 Books and Reading Notes

Weekly Round-up, February 15, 2025

2025-02-152025-02-15 John Winkelman

A trail of cat footprints in a light covering of snow.

[A trail of cat footprints in a light covering of snow.]

This past week was hectic, but not overwhelming. We are already making plans for ConFusion 2026, and I am excited to be part of that process. ConFusion 2025 was a tremendous experience and I am grateful that we are able to keep that momentum up as we plan for next year.

Reading

I finally finished Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. In any other year I would have completed it sometime around the holidays, but surviving in a cyberpunk dystopia takes a lot of mental energy, and is quite psychologically draining. And classic Russian literature requires a lot of focus and attention to detail.

Immediately upon closing the Pasternak, I opened The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957-1966. I believe I picked this book up as a remainder when I worked at Schuler Books & Music back in the mid-1990s. So this book has been in my possession for between 25 and 30 years. And now I am finally reading it. The first two short stories therein are by Samuel Beckett and Jack Kerouac.

Writing

While at Monumental ConFusion a couple of weeks ago, my partner bought me an unlined journal with paper thick enough to allow me to use a fountain pen without bleed-through or blotching. I have written a couple of poems in it, one a sort of “welcome to the journal” piece, and the other a response to finishing Doctor Zhivago here in the mid-21st century. Feels good to have my head in that space again.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Environment, Precursors
Setting: Frontier
Genre: Technothriller

Listening

“Careless Whisper” by Wham!

While looking for a song to include in this post, I found a list of the top 40 songs of this date 40 years ago. “Careless Whisper” was at the top of an ABSOLUTELY AMAZING collection of music. 1985 was a hell of a year to be a teenager listening to the radio.

Interesting Links

  • “Trump’s Pardons and Purges Revive Old Question: Who Counts as a Terrorist?” (Hannah Allam, ProPublica)
  • “Paradise Is a Police State: Examining the Techno-Optimism of Billionaire Silicon Valley Investor (And Unofficial Trump Administration Adviser) Marc Andreessen” (Conor Gallagher, Naked Capitalism)
  • “Microsoft Study Finds AI Makes Human Cognition “Atrophied and Unprepared”” (Emanuel Maiberg, 404 Media)

 

Posted in LifeTagged Boris Pasternak, Evergreen Review, Jack Kerouac, Samuel Beckett, Wham! comment on Weekly Round-up, February 15, 2025

Interesting Links for the Week

2022-03-182022-03-18 John Winkelman

* We recently celebrated Jack Kerouac‘s 100th birthday. Here are a few interesting links:
** Politics and Prose Live: Does Jack Kerouac Still Matter?
** Jack Kerouac reading poetry, accompanied by Steve Allen on piano, 1959.

* City Lights Books and PM Press hosted a weekend-long symposium celebrating the launch of Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, which was recently published by PM Press. Links to the individual sessions follow:
** 0. Dangerous Visions: Keynote Session
** 1. Dangerous Visions: Imagining New Worlds – What activists can and  have learnt from sci-fi
** 2. Dangerous Visions: Bursting Through the Boundaries – Queering SF
** 3. Dangerous Visions: Wild Seed – Reflecting on the work and impact of Octavia E. Butler
** 4. Dangerous Visions: Final Programmes and New Fixes – A conversation with Michael Moorcock
** 5. Dangerous Visions: The Forever War – Vietnam’s impact on Sci-Fi
** 6. Dangerous Visions: The Bridge of Lost Desire – A Conversation with Samuel Delany
** 7. Dangerous Visions: 10,000 Light Years From Home – On the work and impact of James Tiptree, Jr.
** 8. Dangerous Visions: False Dawns and Wandergrounds – Dystopia, Then and Now

* Speaking of dystopias, bad things are still happening in Ukraine.
** The Financial Times released an interactive presentation titled How Russia’s mistakes and Ukrainian resistance altered Putin’s war.

Posted in BloggingTagged beat poetry, City Lights, Jack Kerouac comment on Interesting Links for the Week

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