The Things You Notice

It struck me as rather weird, but perhaps you will disagree. I just thought I should relate it because it has been rattling around in my brain and writing it down is the best way to exorcise it.

The other day, as I was driving to work, I came to a stoplight. I was the second car in the line and there were several cars around me. After spinning through all the presets on the radio and finding only banal commercials, I decided to look around me. I am normally scanning around anyway, but looking for danger and possible danger is different than looking at the scenery.

The car in front of me was white. It was some kind of SUV. The car beside it was also white, and the same make of car. I am not up on all my cars to be able to tell you if they were from the same model year, but they looked quite similar. Instead of pursuing that further, I looked to my left and noticed something odd. That car was white too. Three white cars clumped together at the traffic light. Then I noticed that the car behind that one was also white, as was the one behind it.

What a rather odd coincidence I thought. Then I started scanning more, because surely the other cars would have some colour. No. the two cars behind me were white as well. I was completely surrounded by a bunch of white cars! I should point out that my car is bright blue like the picture above.

Sure, white is a popular colour. Weird that so many people would choose it in North America, though. When I lived in Japan a quarter of a century ago, white was the most popular car colour as it was cheapest to fix when bodywork was needed. That made it an attractive fleet car even if it didn’t turn any heads on the road. The resale value was also probably higher, but I am not sure about that.

I didn’t get paranoid and start thinking that I was being followed by “the men in white”, but it is just one of those things you see while driving.

Have you ever seen anything strange on the road? Please feel free to comment.

Musings on Kerouac

I am reading another book on Jack Kerouac, this one called Jack’s Book: An Oral Biography of Jack Kerouac by Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee.

The question I have for myself is why? It isn’t that I dislike the book.  In fact, I think the book is very compelling and well written.  I wish there were more pictures of the people featured in the book, but that’s something altogether different and probably not that important now that I and the world have Google.

You see, I am not that enamoured of Jack Kerouac’s work. I am not that enamoured of the people he travelled with.  I am not into jazz music and I don’t need to discover America.

This came up a few weeks ago when I was talking books with some of the new teachers at work. We were dropping author’s names like so many playing cards at a poker game.  At times like these, I do not drop the existentialists or the Beats, and I mostly criticize books that we had read in school that I do not like (I am looking at you Gatsby).

When someone brought up On the Road, my comment went something like

There were moments when I loved the book and moments when I didn’t. Some of it is brilliance, but not all of it.  However, what I do admire is the way it moved people.  It was a book that got people talking.  It was a book that challenged narrative.  It was a book that meant something, even if we can’t agree on what that is.  What a great blessing and a great curse to have written such a novel.

The people listening probably didn’t understand what I was going for (and now that I read it over, perhaps I am not being eloquent enough, or not taking a hard enough risk with my words…)

So, I am reading this book, getting sucked up into a world that became fiction that became the world again through analysis and social commentary. I am reading this book that shows the hero and anti heroes in a less than flattering light.  I am reading a book about a doomed group of people whose moment in the light burns quite brightly, if only too quickly.

I think it is because Kerouac wrote. Kerouac’s words became immortal on the printed page.  I admire and envy this with every fibre of my being.  Every time I am lazy and not writing; every time I don’t write down the idea I have for a story; every time I don’t heed the lessons on the printed page….I feel so much less.

 

Kerouac Found Me

She was beautiful, she had her own style, and she was reading On The Road.

I am not going to wax lyrical about the book.  I have conflicting feelings about the book.  I have read it several times and felt differently each time.  What I can’t deny is the impact and importance of the book.

I also know that it is a gateway to a wider world of literature.  It is a book that opens doors to other books.  Love it or hate it, you will find something else to read in reaction to it.  You might look for something that emulates the style or emulates the depth.  You might look for something more or less spiritual.  You might look for something with more or less structure.

When I asked her what she was reading, she answered enthusiastically, proudly displaying the book.  She explained that she had requested it for Christmas (Along with the Catcher in the Rye) and had been looking forward to it since.  Her eyes lit up when she talked about the book and the characters.

I would love to say that we spent the rest of the commute talking about books, but we did not.  Why ruin a Perfect Moment.

 

On the Road

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  While that may be true, it isn’t necessarily the most enjoyable.  Also, outside of the 401, Yonge Street and downtown Toronto, not really applicable for the roads in Ontario.  The roads themselves are straight, but you generally have to make a bunch of turns to get where you want to go.

Today, I decided to make more turns than were necessary. I don’t know if it was because I recently watched the movie version of On the Road, or if I am just tired of the roads I travel.  Either way, I chose to make a few more turns, go through a few small towns and glimpse a different perspective on the journey.

It seemed like a good thing to do. The sights were unfamiliar but not too unfamiliar.  There were different gas stations scattered among the typical chain stores.  There were different yards with different cars.  There were different fences, from white picket to gnarly wood to dull mostly brown boards, with only a handful askew.  With different bends in the roads came unfamiliar speed traps (thank you fellow drivers).  With hard to read road signs, the open road beckoned.

Also

Today is a day worth noting here at the blog.  I have had the same number of page views as I had all of last year.  I guess that means the blog is growing.  I like that.