Signify: On The Road Without Jack Kerouac

Saturday, August 28, 2010

On The Road Without Jack Kerouac

We made our way across the American landscape, headed toward Appalachia. I was prepared with the proper music, etc., for the journey. We've got "family" music: The Monkees, a little Motown, some Chris Tomlin, and so on...

While the kids were occupied, I listened to some Jakob Dylan. It's the new one, I can't remember the name. He's riding on a horse "with a good woman by his side." It's pretty good, I like it, but it's a little, I don't know, thick somehow. Too many syllables and, overall, mixed very full in the mid-range. So I pop in Dan Zanes' Parades and Panoramas, which is a set of songs taken from the Carl Sandburg American Songbag. This recording is one of my all time favorites. It has a lot more overall character than most things you listen to, and it's totally fitting for the journey.

So we moved along, and we don't drag on behind.

I read Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions on the way. Honestly not sure what to make of it. It seems to me to be primarily about the madness of dehumanization, which is an essential issue of our times.

I saw a truck up ahead, it looks like this:

I like coffee, but that's a little overboard, don't you think?

Anyway, we rolled the chariot along, moved on to sit at the foot of the great Smoky Mountains in a little cabin. When you open the door of that cabin and look out, here's what you see...