Jack Kerouac serves as the inspiration for a documentary and album titled, One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur. It seems like all of the media outlets I frequent have mentioned this now. This morning I heard an excellent piece on NPR about the making of the documentary.
The album is a soundtrack for the documentary, but represents recordings using Kerouac’s narrative as lyrics to songs. The album is an effort between Jay Farrar (of Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt) and Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie). The documentary and soundtrack represent works that have spurred me to re-engage with Kerouac, who has been a person of interest to me since reading On the Road in 1987.
When I entered graduate school in 1994, I took part in a reading group who focused on examining the literary giants that influenced Kerouac and his beat generation buddies, Alan Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. We regularly read excerpts and short stories from likes of Melville, Blake, Proust, and others who influenced these fringie characters of the Beat Generation. For about two years I was into all things Beat, and then I slowly weaned myself off of it, and moved onto more heady post-modern stuff by the likes of Don Delillo, David Foster Wallace and others. Just when I thought I was I out, they pulled me back in!
Well, I am excited about this. I am amazed at how many folks are inspired by Kerouac. I think it has to do with his unabashed love of the little things and the mess of contradictions that he represented. He was a complex man. He wanted to be known as a great writer but he eschewed fame by drowning himself in alcohol. He was a devout Catholic who appreciated Buddhism and Buddhist teachings. He was a devout Catholic who ended up in some really odd and often complicated sexual relationships. He represented the Beat Generation but despised the counterculture that emerged from it. I could go on all day about Kerouac.
I think what attracts most readers to Big Sur is the tragedy that it foreshadows in Kerouac’s life. He died embittered and young at age 47. He was one who held so much promise, but became undone by his own insecurities. To me, Kerouac’s vulnerability is what grabbed me about him. You get the feeling from his later books that he is ready to run off the tracks at any moment, and in Big Sur he almost does.
If you’re interested in learning more about Kerouac, I suggest reading Kerouac: A Biography by Ann Charters first. It’s an excellent introduction and history of Kerouac that hasn’t been topped despite several other biographies of Kerouac and the Beats.
I haven’t had a chance to listen to the soundtrack yet. What I’ve heard sounds more like Son Volt than anything else. That’s not a bad thing. Check out a track from the soundtrack here: Farrar & Gibbard – One Fast Move…(mp3)
To close the loop on the title for this blog piece, I should explain how Gibbard and Geddy Lee are connected. In all of this hub bub about the Kerouac documentary, Gibbard’s band, Death Cab for Cutie, contributed a track to the new Twilight movie which has been making the rounds in the blogosphere. Have a listen to: Meet Me on the Equinox (MP3), and tell me that it doesn’t sound like something from the Canadian power trio. I had to listen to it twice to be sure that it wasn’t a mistake.
Until next time…
