Just Wondering

What's your favourite milkshake flavour?

Who was the last person to knock/ring at your door?

What is the strangest item you carry in your handbag/wallet/purse?

Book 9 - Carolyn Cassady "Off The Road"

Carolyn Cassady "Off The Road" (Black Spring Press)








The tone of Carolyn Cassady's memoir of her time with Jack Cassady has a bit of an undercurrent that seems hard to believe until she reveals a bit of truth in an incident with her teenage children one night. After finding out that an evening with their estranged father and Ken Keasey's band of Merry Prankster's has not lived up to expectations: Both of them admitted to a certain amount of disillusionment, now that they had seen their idols as ordinary people. My sacrifice had not been in vain.

In reading Off the Road, one realizes that without being a character in Kerouac's novels, her time with him would have amounted to being nothing but being the wife of a serial cheater, general compulsive (drugs, gambling, any other hobby of the moment), absentee father and classic man-child. But he was who he was and this memoir was realized in 1990 - during one of many revivals of all things Beat. One cannot blame the woman for wanting to recount this time with these men she knew before they all became famous, but it is clear that while she feels a need to live up to the legend, she still wants them to be seen as mere men. After all, she sacrificed the better portion of her younger life to living the attitude many individuals are content to read about or play at for a weekend or two.

Carolyn's version of events is well-packed with letters from Ginsberg and Kerouac (the latter who she had her own affair with, the former who she became friends with after he wanted to make up for having his own affairs with Neil). It's also a reminder of the limitations for women in the late forties and early fifties if hey found themselves in the precarious position of being the main breadwinner for a family. Portions of the memoir do drag when discussing the benefits of Edgar Cayce's Spirituality, but it becomes understandable as both Ginsberg and Kerouac begin their own spiritual journeys. She is very protective of the lives of her children, mentioning them only when absolutely necessary in the story. I do respect this protection, but as the story drags on through Neal's various exploits and her seemingly limitless ability to forgive for the sake of the family, I did find myself wondering why (since this was published in 1990 - nearly 30 years after Neal's death), there was no mention of any impact this rocky relationship had on them later in life.

What struck me most is the level of naivete that she displayed at the beginning of her relationship with Neal. There were quite a few moments that caught me rolling my eyes in disbelief. However, I guess that so would she have the benefit of hindsight. What Off the Road did really well for me was to portray the double standards that built the basis of On the Road - and which are not mentioned by Kerouac.

Good Morning

Lunch Double

So what did I do today? Well. I popped into town and posted off three packages from the selling on eBay and Discogs. I then sold a few paperbacks at Past Sentence - received a fiver - and then went to Spoons for lunch. I am mystery shopping it. Had two lunches, well, in fact, I am doing five and the last one is on Friday. Today was lunch number three and four.

The first was sirloin steak with a drink, and then an hour later, a barbeque chicken melt, also with a drink. I was stuffed by the end. All for the good cause of covert shopping lol!

Back at home, I popped into the common room to play some of my CD's and Trevor from number 2 came in and we chatted about music, and in particular, the radio station he listens to. He is a big rock fan but was a punk and hippy in the sixties, so he says. We have similar tastes.