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Home » English » The American Novel Since 1945 » ENGL 291 - Lecture 8 - Jack Kerouac, On the Road
ENGL 291: The American Novel Since 1945
- Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Professor Amy Hungerford's lecture on Kerouac's On the Road begins by contrasting the Beats' ambition for language's direct relation to lived experience with a Modernist sense of difficulty and mediation. She goes on to discuss the ways that desire structures the novel, though not in the ways that we might immediately expect. The very blatant pursuit of sex with women in the novel, for example, obscures the more significant desire for connection among men, particularly the narrator Sal's love for Dean Moriarty. The apparent desire for the freedom of the open road, too, Hungerford argues, exists in a necessary conjunction with the idealized comforts of a certain middle-class American domesticity, signaled by the repeated appearance of pie.
The Beats: Similarities and Differences to Literary Modernism
A New Use of Language: Mirroring the Speed of Experience
"The Prophet of 'Wow'": The Language of Dean Moriarty/Neal Cassady
Dean and Sal: Tangled Sexual Tensions
The Hunger Metaphor: The American Culture of Consumption
Modes of Craftedness: Carlo Marx's Papier-Mache Mountains
The American Novel Since 1945
ENGL 291 - Lecture 8 - Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Chapter 1. The Beats: Similarities and Differences to Literary Modernism [00:00:00]
Professor Amy Hungerford: So, today we find ourselves in a very different novelistic world than we've been in for the last week and a half: On the Road. Did anyone take this course because they love On the Road? Anybody? One, sort of ambivalently. Yes. Okay. Sometimes I do get students who have just an image of this novel in their mind, or they read it when they were in high school and have a sort of irrational, passionate love for it. And so, sometimes people approach it in that way, and I think in a way it holds that aura around itself in our culture and in the history of the novel in this period that we're studying together. I'm going to talk a little bit about its publishing history, its compositional history, actually, at the end of my two lectures on the novel. So, I would ask you just to reserve whatever curiosity you have about that. So, in a way, I'm flipping my usual practice; I would tell you a little bit about its publication history at the beginning. I'm going to do that at the end for this reason: that it has such a special place in the imagination of our culture. And so, I'm going to talk about that after we have a better understanding of what's going on in the book.
My point, at the end of my lecture on Lolita on Monday, was that Nabokov is trying to imagine an autonomous work of art that has a life to it, that is in some sense animated or personified, and that this desire to make the aesthetic something living introduces to the world of the aesthetic the problem of mortality. It's mortality that gives it that sense of ephemeral value, but it's also mortality that threatens to cancel it out altogether. The language that the Beats tried to imagine, tried to write, takes up some of these problems that we saw in Nabokov. Unlike Nabokov, these writers are not trying to make a language that is autonomous and separate from the world, so you will not see the kind of artifice and the labored attention to form. You're not going to have a writer spending a month on the representation of a barber from Kasbeam. You're not going to get that in the Beats. Instead, you're getting something, a language that tries to come as close as possible–not necessarily to life in all its facets–but to life as we experience it.
In a certain way, this is not a rejection of modernism and its desire for the autonomous work of art, because partly, as I've shown, the desire for the autonomous work of art shades into the desire to replicate life. There is that desire much more explicitly in the writing of Jack Kerouac, the desire to replicate experience as you read, the feeling of having the experience that the writer wants you to have and that the writer himself has had. That's always going to be important to understanding this work. So, that's one aspect in which it shares something with modernism, even though stylistically, and as a matter of craft and composition, it looks very distinct. The other way it shares an ambition of modernism is precisely in that effort to communicate experience, consciousness. So, if you've read at all in the novels of Virginia Woolf, for example, or in James Joyce's novels, you know that part of modernist innovation, part of the stylistic difficulty, is the effort to put on the page what happens in the mind, that sense of the mind drifting from one idea to another that you get in Virginia Woolf's prose, so magically in Woolf's prose.
So, that is something these writers share with modernism, but there is one big difference and I want to exemplify that for you just by reading to you two parallel texts, one from the modernist canon and one from the Beat canon. So, first I want to read to you the footnote to T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland. Now The Wasteland was the first poem to have footnotes, and you have to ask yourself: what do you have to think the poem is in order to think that it needs footnotes? So, I'm going to say a little bit more about that, but let me just read to you, first, from the notes on The Wasteland:
Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston's book on the Grail legend, From Ritual to Romance (Cambridge)."
He has a little bibliography, there:
Indeed, so deeply am I indebted, Miss Weston's book will elucidate the difficulties of the poem much better than my notes can do; and I recommend it (apart from the great interest of the book itself) to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble. To another work of anthropology I am indebted in general, one which has influenced our generation profoundly; I mean The Golden Bough; I have used especially the two volumes Adonis, Attis, Osiris. Anyone who is acquainted with these works will immediately recognize in the poem certain references to vegetation ceremonies.
And then there are particular notes for the different parts of the poem. That's the introduction to the footnotes. What I want you to note there is the sense that the matter of the poem comes from an archive, an archive of scholarly work, a body of knowledge that you read about. And I also want you to note that language: "Miss Jessie Weston." It's a very mannered, decorous language.
Now I would like to read to you from the footnote to Howl, Allen Ginsberg's famous poem, that for many people embodied at the time what it meant to be engaged in this new literary project. So, this is footnote to Howl:
Holy! holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! Everybody's holy! Everywhere is holy! Every day is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!
The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is holy as you my soul are holy!
The typewriter is holy! the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!
Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cassady holy the unknown buggered and suffering beggar holy the hideous human angels!
A little different tone, don't you think? A few things I want to note about that besides the obvious. The fount of poetic inspiration is not to be found in an archive. It is not to be found in Miss Jessie Weston's book on ritual and romance. It is not to be found with a bibliography saying "Cambridge." That's not where you find the fount of the great poem. The footnote to Howl says that the source of Howl–that's what footnotes are; they're an indication of the source–it says that the source of the poetry is that holy, lived experience, and a particular slice of lived experience: the formerly rejected, the indecorous, the ecstatic.
Chapter 2. A New Use of Language: Mirroring the Speed of Experience [00:09:46]
I noticed that several of you were smiling, in a way, as I read, that suggested you were embarrassed by the performance. Right? I did not elicit this by accident. Embarrassment is something that the Beats value. When Ginsberg first read Howl, he was on stage, and there was a little bathroom. It was–I think it was–in a book store. (I can't remember; I didn't reread my notes on Howl.) And so, when the show started he was in the bathroom, on the pot with the door open, and then he got up, and he hiked up his pants, and he waltzed out and he gave his reading of Howl. This is indicative of the sense that he wants to lay bare, in a literal way, all the seaminess of human life, all the aspects of what it means to be an embodied person, all the ecstasies that come from that embodiment. And, of course, this is not at all original to Ginsberg. If you read Walt Whitman, you will see much of the same ethos (and probably a lot better poetry). So, Ginsberg is not the first to do this in the American tradition, for sure, but it's a very important part of what the Beats revive. And I want to get at that question of embarrassment, because it comes up very explicitly on page 36. Embarrassment is thematized in On the Road, and it's assigned what I think is a very interesting provenance. So, this is Chad King talking to Sal Paradise:
A quavering twang comes out when he speaks. "The thing I always liked, Sal, about the Plains Indians, was the way they always got s'danged embarrassed after they boasted the number of scalps they got. In Ruxton's Life in the Far West there's an Indian who gets red all over blushing because he got so many scalps and he runs like hell into the plains to glory over his deeds in hiding. Damn, that tickled me!"
The sense of embarrassment is the sense that the excess of–what?–joy, in this passage, the Indian's bravery, his achievement, his success; all of that is in excess of the decorous presentation of that experience, of that real world of life, of that excessive joy. And it's given here this sort of clichéd, noble origin with the Native American, the Plains Indian. So, there is a sense, in the Plains Indian, that he is both the embodiment of a noble, restrained lineage; but also, deep in that American past, is this sense of great excess. Embarrassment tells us we're in the presence of the excess, and that's why Beat writers court it. That's why I courted it today for you.
The excess requires, for the Beats, a new kind of language. One aspect of their language which maybe you've noticed in On the Road–it's not quite so pronounced in On the Road as it is elsewhere, certainly–in the letters that these figures write to each other. Part of that is the elimination of small words, "the," "and"; the abbreviation of certain words, "your" to "yr." There are all kinds of little abbreviations they make, and it suggests that language has to be wrenched out of its conventions; syntax can be set aside; language needs to move at the speed of experience and at the speed of ecstasy. So, that's one small way in the language that they practiced tried to imitate the experience that they were immersing themselves in. But there were more formulated ways of capturing that experience in language. Jack Kerouac had a list of essentials that he taped up on his wall when he was writing, and this is what they include:
Scribbled secret notebooks and wild typewritten pages for your own joy [and that's "yr," your own joy].
Submissive to everything, open, listening.
Try never to get drunk outside your own house.[Well, this is a piece of advice clearly he never took.]
Be in love with your life.
Be crazy dumb saint of the mind.
Blow as deep as you want to blow.
Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind.
The unspenspeakable visions of the individual.
In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you.
And then, my favorite one is: "You're a genius all the time." Now, try putting that up in front of your desk: "You're a genius all the time." It will help you to produce a lot of writing; I guarantee.
Kerouac tried over and over again to write On the Road, and it was an effort to practice this kind of free language that would be uninhibited and that would gesture towards some deeper, bottomless part of the human experience, the human soul. Sometimes it was spiritualized. In this sense, this is why I put this quote up on the board from On the Road: "We've got to go someplace, find something." There is a relentless seeking sense that's at the heart of this work.
Now, for those of you who don't know, On the Road does document pretty closely the actual road trips that Jack Kerouac took with Neal Cassady and a whole host of others, and I can do a little decoding for you. Old Bull Lee is William Burroughs, and his wife, Jane, Jane Lee. [–Huncke: I can't remember who Huncke is, now, in the book. These are some minor characters who lived with them and went to Columbia with them, or were in their circle when these writers lived in the neighborhoods in New York around Columbia University.] So, Allen Ginsberg is Carlo Marx, and Ginsberg went to Columbia. He was kicked out of Columbia, and then sort of went back. He was in and out of school. So, a lot of them were in this little community, and they picked up wanderers and various people who wanted to lear
Chapter 3. "The Prophet of 'Wow' ": The Language of Dean Moriarty/Neal Cassady [00:18:13]
n from them. And that's what Neal Cassady was to them at first, a kind of wanderer who wanted to be in their intellectual, but bohemian, circle.
So, you see the kind of language that Neal represents at the very beginning of the novel. First of all, he's introduced in this very mysterious way: "First reports of him." This is on the first page of Part One, the middle of that first paragraph: "First reports of him came to me through Chad King, who had shown me a few letters from him, written in a New Mexico reform school." So, his letters come out of this western land, New Mexico, and a land of criminality, the reform school. So, he's exotic just from the very beginning, and it's an exotic language. It's the letters that come out of this exotic place that first catch their attention.
I was tremendously interested in the letters because they so naively and sweetly asked Chad to teach him all about Nietzsche and all the wonderful intellectual things that Chad knew. At one point Carlo and I talked about the letters and wondered if we would ever meet the strange Dean Moriarty. This is all far back, when Dean was not the way he is today, when he was a young jail kid shrouded in mystery. Then news came that Dean was out of reform school and was coming to New York for the first time; also there was talk that he had just married a girl called Marylou.
It's that passive sense: "There was talk." Who's talking? We don't know. That passive verb, "there was talk," gives you the sense that there is this wide community passing word mouth to mouth of the coming of a mysterious spiritual figure: "first reports of him;" "news came;" "there was talk." So, language is this communal set of rumors spiritualized by its very vagueness and shared quality. And then, it's just fascinating to listen to what Dean says. Now this on page 2. This is how he talks:
All this time Dean was telling Marylou things like this. "Now, darling. Here we are in New York and although I haven't quite told you everything that I was thinking about when we crossed the Missouri and especially at the point when we passed the Booneville Reformatory which reminded me of my jail problem, it is absolutely necessary now to postpone all those leftover things concerning our personal love things and at once begin thinking of specific worklife plans …" and so on in, the way that he had in those early days."
His language is a sort of mishmash of poorly used academic locutions: "worklife plans." It sounds almost like corporate speak, in a way. It has that dry quality to it. And then, on the top of 3, we get another example:
"In other words we've got to get on the ball, darling, what I'm saying, otherwise it'll be fluctuating and lack of true knowledge or crystallization of our plans."
So, this is not yet that idealized speech that Kerouac is dreaming of when he writes the list of Essentials for Spontaneous Prose. Dean's language is not that in these passages. His desire for the intellectual download from Chad is not what's going to make him the figure of the new language for Sal. Rather, it is another kind of language that he represents that will be that kind of germ of what Sal is looking for. This is, you see, also on 2 at the beginning here:
I went to the cold-water flat with the boys and Dean came to the door in his shorts. Marylou was jumping off the couch. Dean had dispatched the occupant of the apartment to the kitchen probably to make coffee while he proceeded with his love problems for to him sex was the one and only holy and important thing in life although he had to sweat and curse to make a living and so on. You saw that in the way he stood bobbing his head, always looking down, nodding like a young boxer to instructions to make you think he was listening to every word, throwing in a thousand "yes"es and "that's right."
There is this sense of enthusiasm, so his response is not an articulation of some thought, but an effusion: "Yes; that's right." It's a visceral response, and you see it even more clearly on 4. So, he's staying, Dean is staying with Sal, and Sal has been writing. And they're ready to go out, and Sal says:
"Hold on a minute. I'll be right with you as soon as I finish this chapter," and it was one of the best chapters in the book. Then I dressed and off we flew to New York to meet some girls."
So, I'm going to skip along a little bit. ("I was…" Oh, let's see. "As we…"Actually, I am going to read that part.)
As we rode in the bus in the weird phosphorescent void of the Lincoln Tunnel, we leaned on each other with fingers waving and yelled and talked excitedly and I was beginning to get the bug like Dean. He was simply a youth tremendously excited with life and though he was a con man he was only conning because he wanted so much to live and get involved with people who would otherwise pay no attention to him. He was conning me and I knew it for room and board and how to write, etc., and he knew I knew. This had been the basis of our relationship but I didn't care and we got along fine. No pestering, no catering. We tiptoed around each other like heartbreaking new friends. I began to learn from him as much as he probably learned from me. As far as my work was concerned, he said, "Go ahead. Everything you do is great." He watched over my shoulder as I wrote stories yelling, "Yes, that's right. Wow, man," and "Phew!"
"Wow" is Dean's word. "Wow" is the kind of word that means nothing, but it suggests the immediacy of Dean's engagement. So, all that talking on the bus, and the way they're moving their hands, the bug, that's all where this language is rising from. That's where the new language is going to come from, and you can see how Sal assimilates that on page 35. This is just as he is coming into Denver:
I said to myself, Wow, what'll Denver be like? I got on that hot road and off I went in a brand-new car driven by a Denver businessman of about 35. He went 70. I tingled all over. I counted minutes and subtracted miles. Just ahead over the rolling wheat fields all golden beneath the distant snows of Estes I'd be seeing old Denver at last. I pictured myself in a Denver bar that night with all the gang and in their eyes I would be strange and ragged and like the prophet who has walked across the land to bring the dark word and the only word I had was "wow."
So Neal's–sorry–Dean's sense (I will do this and please forgive me. I will sometimes slip in to calling him Dean because he, Dean… nevermind. You know what I'm saying. I will sometimes slip in to calling him Neal when his name is Dean.) Dean has already projected this mode of language into Sal, so even as he's saying to Sal, "Teach me how to write," what he's doing is teaching Sal how to write, how to write this kind of book, how to be the prophet of "wow." This is all over the text. If you look at page 62, it's in these little stories:
Remi woke up and saw me come in the window. His great laugh, one of the greatest laughs in the world, dinned in my ear.
And then, if you just skip up to the top of 63:
The strange thing was that next door to Remi lived a Negro called Mr. Snow whose laugh I swear on the Bible was positively and finally the one greatest laugh in all this world.
The laugh is a lot like the "wow." It's that sound you make just because you're experiencing something, just because you're having a response to what's in front of you, something someone says. Okay. That's another example. And the last one I'll give you is on 55. This is when they've gone up to the mountain pass after getting in fights in the bars in Denver:
In the whole eastern dark wall of the divide this night there was silence and the whisper of the wind except in the ravine where we roared and on the other side of the divide was the great Western Slope and the big plateau that went to Steamboat Springs and dropped and led you to the western Colorado desert and the Utah desert all in darkness now as we fumed and screamed in our mountain nook, mad, drunken Americans in the mighty land. We were on the roof of America and all we could do was yell I guess across the night, eastward over the plains where somewhere an old man with white hair was probably walking towards us with the word and would arrive any minute and make us silent.
Their yell at the top of the world seems to Sal something that calls for a replacement; it calls for some other prophet to come walking ragged towards them and make them fall silent with his word. But, in the meantime, what you have is the continual reproduction of that yell, that laugh, that "wow," that "yes," that "that's all right," all those things that they say just to register their existence and their relation with one another.
Chapter 4. Dean and Sal: Tangled Sexual Tensions [00:29:48]
I want to note something else, though, about the first time that Dean and Sal meet and the contextualizing of that meeting. When they first meet in that passage that I read to you, he's just rising up from having sex on the couch with Marylou in someone else's apartment. He sent the owner of the apartment into the kitchen so he could have sex with Marylou on the couch. In other versions he says that Dean got up and was naked, not that he was in his shorts. There is an immediate sexual sense that charges the relationship between these people. Those relationships take place in the context of continual negotiations of sexual relationships, and so the book begins with that explanation that:
I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won't bother to talk about except that it had something to do with the miserably weary splitting up and my feeling that everything was dead.
Dean's negotiations between Marylou and Camille in Denver–where he has his schedule, and he has his exact time he has to get from one hotel to the other to sleep with each of them, and then he has to meet Carlo Ginsberg, Carlo Marx, in the basement to have his conversations to get to the "bottomlessness" of each other's mind–all those negotiations are absolutely crucial. It's what they spend their time talking about, often. It's what they spend their time negotiating.
So, the search for the immediate language of experience is part and parcel of a very complex negotiation of sexual ties between multiple people. And it's not just between the men and the women. It's between the men and the men. And that moment when Sal meets Dean at the door, and he's naked; it's reflected when he sees Dean with Camille. Camille opens the door to their room when they're in Denver, and he finally sees Dean in Denver. He opens the door to the room, and there is a picture that Camille has drawn of Dean: a portrait of him completely naked, and it notes his penis in that picture. It's as if Sal's first experience of Dean is already, in that scene, assimilated into the image of Dean: the disembodied, aesthetic image of Dean. But that aesthetic image of Dean is all bound up in these negotiations. So, it's a picture that Camille has drawn, and of course Camille doesn't know that he's sleeping with Marylou in another hotel on the same day, and so on.
So, all of that is very palpable, and Sal's own desire for Dean is sublimated in those scenes, but it's everywhere at the level of the language. And, if you note the repeated presence of that question, where was Dean? Where was Dean? He's always missing. When Sal gets to Denver, that's what he wants to know. When he gets back to New York, finally, at the end of this first road trip, he has missed Dean. There's always the sense that Dean evades him, and I think part of that sense of an evading object of desire is, again, the pursuit of sex in this novel; it's part of the pursuit of sex.
Chapter 5. The Hunger Metaphor: The American Culture of Consumption [00:33:55]
You might think, given all this, and given the ultimate plot of On the Road, that being on the road is about pursuing that kind of desire, and that it is necessitated by leaving home: you have to leave home in order to pursue that desire. But I would suggest to you that home is absolutely crucial to the production of this desire. And I want to point you to page 26. This is Sal's story about Big Slim Hazard, a hobo that he once knew.
He was a hobo by choice:
As a little boy, he'd seen a hobo come up to ask his mother for a piece of pie and she had given it to him and when the hobo went off down the road the little boy had said, "Ma, what was that fellow?" "Why, that's a hobo." "Ma, I want to be a hobo someday." "Shut your mouth. That's not for the like of the Hazards." But he never forgot that day and when he grew up after a short spell playing football at LSU he did become a hobo.
Being a hobo is produced in this little vignette by the experience of seeing a hobo get pie from your mother. Now, did any of you notice how often Sal eats pie? Let me just demonstrate the litany of pie. Okay, page 15. Actually, let's start on 14, or perhaps on 13: "Along about three in the morning after an apple pie and ice cream in a roadside stand…." That's Sal. Top of 14:
I ate another apple pie and ice cream. That's practically all I ate all the way across the country. I knew it was nutritious and it was delicious.
Fifteen, bottom:
I ate apple pie and ice cream. It was getting better as I got deeper in to Iowa, the pie bigger, the ice cream richer. There were the most beautiful bevies of girls everywhere I looked in Des Moines that afternoon. They were coming home from high school but I had no time now for thoughts like that and promised myself a ball in Denver.
And if you look on 107, the first thing Sal does when he gets home is eat.
When I got home I ate everything in the icebox. My mother got up and looked at me. "Poor little Salvatore," she said in Italian. "You're thin. You're thin. Where have you been all this time?" I had on two shirts and two sweaters. My canvas bag had torn cottonfield pants and the tattered remnants of my huarache shoes in it. My aunt and I decided to buy a new electric refrigerator with the money I had sent her from California; it was to be the first one in the family.
There is a sense in which hunger, the hunger generated by the road, in Sal's case in this last scene–he's been penniless; all he had was cough drops to eat at the very end–that the hunger generated by the road exists in a necessary relation to the consumption of home. And I would suggest to you that the consumption of home is driven by a certain kind of desire as well, that desire to move up in the American class structure: "the first electric refrigerator in my family." He's earned a little money on the road and sent it home. What it does for him is allow him to buy his aunt this symbol of a middle-class American domesticity, and he is a happy participant in this new purchase.
This is not exactly just what the women do while the boys are out on the road. The boys want the pie. The boys want to become hobos because there's a kind of hunger that's generated at home; it's satisfied at home, but it's also generated at home. And I want to suggest to you that part of the misogyny of the novel–which I'm sure is palpable to all of us as we read–part of that misogyny is connected to this consumptive ethos. So, when we talk about desire for something–"we've got to go someplace, find something–the very vagueness of that desire is connected with the basic hungers of the body for sex, for food, for sleep even. We see Dean sort of begging for sleep after his conversation with Carlo Marx in the basement in Denver.
Those kinds of desires are connected also with that American habit of consumption. This is a consumer society; in the 1950s it was already very much so. The mass production after World War II had already taken hold. Supermarkets, as we saw in Wise Blood, are already something one can be fond of, as Enoch was. And so, if this is a novel whose aura has always said to us, "Be free, be countercultural," what I'm suggesting is that it's structured around a very deeply embedded American cultural trait of consumption. It spiritualizes that kind of desire, and my symbol for it is pie.
Chapter 6. Modes of Craftedness: Carlo Marx's Papier-Mache Mountains [00:40:21]
I want to show you one last thing about how the language works, and this is on page 49. To set aside the critique of that search for a moment, I just want to move back into it in these spiritual terms and see what we can see. When Dean and Carlo are talking to each other, there's a lot of anxiety on either part about whether they have actually attained that thing that they were looking for. On 48, their talk is described as business in the beginning.
Then they got down to business. They sat on the bed cross-legged and looked at each other. I slouched in a nearby chair and saw all of it. They began with an abstract thought, discussed it, reminded each other of another abstract point forgotten in the rush of events. Dean apologized but promised he could get back to it and manage it fine, bringing up illustrations.
And then, they have this very complicated back-and-forth about things that they remembered, or didn't, and they hashed these things over:
Then Carlo asked Dean if he was honest and specifically if he was being honest with him in the bottom of his soul. "Why do you bring that up again?" "There is one last thing I want to know.'" "But dear Sal, you're listening. You are sitting there. We'll ask Sal. What would he say?" And I said, "That last thing is what you can't get, Carlo. Nobody can get to that last thing. We keep on living in hopes of catching it once for all."
So, all this language is produced because you can't ever get to that last thing; you have to keep hashing it over. But if you go to the next page you can see–or actually two pages over–you can see that already Sal is taking what he can get from this language and transposing it into his experience of reality. So Carlo had earlier–sorry to flip back and forth so much–had read earlier his poem–this is on 47–to Sal. He had been reading poetry.
Carlo woke up in the morning and heard the vulgar pigeons yakking in the street outside his cell. He saw the sad nightingales nodding on the branches and they reminded him of his mother. A gray shroud fell over the city. The mountains, the magnificent Rockies that you can see to the west from any part of town, were papier-mache. The whole universe was crazy and cockeyed and extremely strange.
So, this is what Carlo represents in his poetry. Well, if you look, Sal, after witnessing what it means–what their business is with one another, the way they try to get to the bottom of each other's soul–he looks out, and he sees the world through Carlo's eyes. He's been awake all this time listening:
"What were you thinking, Sal?" I told them that I was thinking they were very amazing maniacs and that I had spent the whole night listening to them like a man watching the mechanism of a watch that reached clear to the top of Berthoud Pass and was yet made with the smallest works of the most delicate watch in the world. They smiled. I pointed my finger at them and said, "If you keep this up, you'll both go crazy but let me know what happens as you go along." I walked out and took a trolley to my apartment and Carlo Marx's papier-mache mountains grew red as the great sun rose from the eastward plains.
So, the poetry that is part and parcel of the conversation between Dean and Carlo–Carlo's poetry–seeps out of that basement room. And there's a real spatial sense here, that it's being generated at the base of the world, and it goes up and it transforms these mountains into papier-mache. It makes them in one sense false; there is a falseness to the overlay that Carlo gives to Sal, and through which he then sees. There's a falseness, a craftedness, but it's a kind of folk craftedness. This is not the craftedness of modernism. This is papier-mache, a fairly crude folk art. Anyone can do it. Get your strips of newspaper and paste them up. So, it has a quality that is different from Humbert's elaborate world view through which we see or don't see Lolita. It's a very different kind of crafting, but yet it does replace reality in a similar way, or it makes demands on reality that push the real back.
And so, even though they can never get to the bottom of their souls–they can never get, as Sal says, that last thing, that's what you can never have–even though that's true, it has this world-making power. To what end will that power be used? This is one question I want you to think about as you finish this novel. What do these figures think language can be used for? What's it good for? What can it do for them? What beyond that kind of economics of desire, that accounting? If you look on 107-108, again at the very end of the section: "I had my home to go to, my place to lay my head down and figure the losses and figure the gain that I knew was in there somewhere too." What are the losses? What are the gains? Is it just a representation of an imaginative and desireful economy, or is there some other thing being produced here? What is the something? What is the someplace?
So, in that relation, I'd like you to think about the representation of America in the novel. What do you see there when you think about the America they're giving us, all these figures? So, that's for your reading. In section please bring Lolita. I think you're going to spend most of your time talking about Lolita. Section for On the Road will probably be next week unless your TF wants to bring up some brief questions about it, but that's all for today.
Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957)


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"Is there no one else?"
Other than the loss of a son or daughter, probably nothing could hurt a parent more than seeing his children quarrel, especially at a later age.
We often hear of siblings quarreling over inheritance. Some even bring their claims to the courts of law, especially when the patriarch or matriarch dies intestate, that is, without a last will and testament.
Some quarrel over parents' properties even when these are still very much alive. We have seen years ago the children of a wealthy haciendero classmate of former President Marcos fight bitterly, with one faction supported by the widow, herself of the ancien riche, and the other group of siblings bitterly fighting their mother in court. It was ugly.
Even now, business gossip revolves at what would likely happen when a multi-billionaire taipan dies, as eventually all will. The billionaire has several children from different mothers, and even now, boardroom rivalries are silenced only by the patriarch's imperious presence. But what happens when he goes?
These days, au courant political news is about siblings quarreling against each other for the same elective position.
Senator Joseph Victor Ejercito, better known as JV, former mayor of San Juan, like his older brother and father were, is seeking his first reelection in next year's mid-term elections.
But his older brother, Jinggoy, who preceded him as mayor of San Juan and also as senator of the realm for two terms, wants to come back to the Senate.
And the battle royale seems set, even beyond their father's intervention.
Patriarch of the political clan is former president, now Mayor of the City of Manila, Joseph Ejercito Estrada. Ejercito is his real family name, and Estrada his screen name when he was a movie great who used the better-known screen name as political nom de guerre.
When I chanced upon Mayor Estrada at a recent wedding where he stood as sponsor, I asked if the upcoming sibling rivalry for the Senate was beyond fixing.
In typical Erap humor, he simply said: "Ateneo-La Salle kasi." Jinggoy finished at the elite Ateneo; JV from the other elite university, De La Salle, perennial rivals in sports and elsewhere.
The current surveys say Jinggoy has the edge. Not only was he a movie actor himself; he has always used his father's screen alias, Estrada.
JV, a businessman before getting drawn into politics, has always used the real surname, Ejercito.
But it's months away before voters troop to the polls, and issues will be thrown against another. Will the siblings both win, as Erap hopes? Or will they cancel each other out?
Whatever happens, the telenovela-like rivalry probably rankles in the patriarch's heart.
There are many such stories in Philippine politics. Dynasties sunder due to sibling rivalry.
In Iloilo's fifth district, the Tupas brothers are at each other's throats. One fielded his wife against his brother in the previous election. The wife lost to the brother. Now he wants a grudge fight against the brother who is incumbent representative of his father's long-held district.
Some dynastic siblings hide their dislike of each other by divvying up the territory, as in one holds the governorship, and another the congressional district. This is what has happened to the Amantes of Agusan del Norte, where former Governor Angel inherited her late father Edelmiro's congressional district while brother Erlpe inherited her gubernatorial post. Even if they did not exactly like each other, they wisely swapped positions when term limits caught up with them, preserving the dynasty's hold.
The Villafuertes of Camarines Sur were in similar fettle. Patriarch Luis and former governor, now congressman LRey fought each other bitterly, and when LRey's son Migz succeeded him to the gubernatorial position, no less than the patriarch Louie challenged his grandson.
But now, with a common political enemy, Majority Floorleader Nonoy Andaya wanting to run for governor after his term as congressman expires next year, the news from Bicolandia is that the Villafuertes, pere et fil, have patched up to support incumbent Gov. Migz against Andaya, and the battle will be quite interesting, the rivalry bitterly intense.
But the hottest news these days is about the Binays of Makati. Incumbent Mayor Abigail Binay Campos who is running for her first reelection to the premier post of the nation's richest city, with former mayor Jejomar Junior snapping at her heels for turning her back on the "Binay brand" of politics.
The Binay brand, which he defines as hugging the poor constituents, going around in shorts and being "sensitive" to constituent's needs. Ate Abby, it is said, is more detached, aloof even.
But she does her homework, and the projects she has launched, the change she has begun, are there for the constituents to appreciate, she counterclaims.
She went to the Comelec offices armed with a Certificate of Nomination and Acceptance as UNA official candidate, signed by its chairman and founder, the Binay patriarch himself.
But Jun-jun says he will run against her nonetheless, with the constituents' clamoring for a return of his Binay brand. The Binay brand which has ruled Makati since Cory Aquino named Jejomar Binay OIC, birthing a dynasty that hopes to rule for generations on end, from patriarch to matriarch to patriarch once more, to Junior, to Ate, and beyond.
That brand has transcended the local when the patriarch ran for vice president in 2010, along with "the" Erap, and graduated into national politics with a tour de force nobody expected until it was too late.
The same brand had to go back to local because another local politician from deep South entered the national scene for the first time with an Intensity 5 gale force in 2016.
Pere Jojo will run for congress in Makati's first district, with fils et la souer slugging it out for mayor, unless Jojo and Dra. Elenita, coming back from a pilgrimage in Italy, can invoke heaven's wrath upon one or the other.
One wonders, like Brad Pitt's Achilles in the epic movie Troy adopted from Homer's classic, if the political drama in Makati could possibly ring out with an "Is there no one else?" challenge from anyone else.
In Makati and everywhere else in this benighted land, where politics has become torrens title.


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Image 1. 20s and 30~40s.
People in their 20s: There are a few people who congenitally have thin fat layers as well as thin epidermis, dermis and subcutis. However, most people in their 20s have rich collagen and subcutaneous fat volume as well as well-developed ligaments to hold them in place. This means you can use hard dermal fillers in vector increasing procedures with low risk of sagging. Subtle volume enhancement in Central Zone can bring visible improvements.
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text:
Common will open the Jazz Fest
July 9 tickets are on sale Monday.
By Tara Thorne
The Halifax Jazz Festival continues to brighten your summer: On the heels of its First Aid Kit/Bahamas back-to-back comes the news that the rapper Common will open the event on the waterfront stage Tuesday, July 9. Tickets to see Common, who won the Oscar for Best Song for "Glory'' from 2015's Selma (he's actually a Tony from EGOTing), are $59 and are on sale Monday, April 15 at 10am here.
Additional lineup announces made by the Jazz Fest today include the new contemporary jazz series at St. Paul's Church: Elise Legrow (Thu Jul 11), the Heather Bambrick Quintet (Fri Jul 12) and iskwē (Sat Jul 13). There will also be "music for desert picnics" in the form of Tuareg guitarist Mdou Moctar. Festival passes are on sale now.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
SYNDICATED COLUMN: The New Yorker is Bad for Cartooning
When you tell people you're a cartoonist, one of the first things they ask you is whether you've ever had a cartoon published in The New Yorker. I don't blame them. Everyone "knows" that running in the same pages that showcase(d) Addams and Chast proves you're one of the best.
The marketing hype behind New Yorker cartoonist and cartoon editor Bob Mankoff's new memoir — featuring something I really am jealous about, a "60 Minutes" interview — further cements the magazine's reputation as cartooning's Olympus.
"For nearly 90 years, the place to go for sophisticated, often cutting-edge humor has been The New Yorker magazine," says Morley Safer.
As is often the case, what everyone knows is not true.
Here's a challenge I frequently give to New Yorker cartoon proponents. Choose any issue. Read through the cartoons. How many are really good? You'll be surprised at how few you find. But don't feel bad. Like the idea that the U.S. is a force for good in the world, and the assumption that SNL was ever funny, the "New Yorker cartoons are sophisticated and smart" meme has been around so long that no one questions it.
From the psychiatrist's couch to the sexless couple's living room to the junior executive's summons of his secretary via intercom, New Yorker cartoons are consistently bland, militantly middlebrow, and mind-numbingly repetitive decade after decade.
Which is fine.
What is not fine is not seeing fluff for the crap that it is.
The New Yorker is terrible for cartooning because it prints a lot of awful cartoons, and uses its reputation in order to elevate terrible work as the profession's platinum standard.
They pay pretty well. Which prompts too many talented artists, who under a better economic and media model would produce interesting, intelligent, great cartoons (and did so, in the alternative weekly newspapers of the 1990s, for example), to pull their satiric punches and stifle their creativity. Of course, not every cartoonist follows the siren call to Mankoff's office in the Condé Nast building. It is possible to make a living selling cartoons to other venues. I do. Still, the New Yorker casts a long shadow, silently asking a question one fears is heard by art directors everywhere: If you're so smart and so funny and so talented, why aren't you in The New Yorker?
Mankoff and his predecessors have created a bizarro meritocracy in reverse: bad is not merely good-enough, but the crème-de-la-crème. It's like singling out the slowest runners in a race and awarding them prizes and endorsements. Some runners, devoted to excellence and the love of competition, will keep running as fast as they can. But fans will wonder why they don't wise up.
What makes a cartoon good/funny? Originality, relevance, insight, audacity and random weirdness. (There are other factors, which I'll remember after a minute after it's too late.)
Originality in both substance and form, and in both writing and drawing, is the most important component of a great cartoon. It is rare to find. Cartooning is a highly incestuous art form; most practitioners slavishly copy or synthesize the work of their forebears. Editors and award committees (composed of editors) have short memories and no historical knowledge, which feeds lazy cartoonists' temptation to present initially brilliant, but now hackneyed and recycled, ideas as their own. Other cartoonists' punch lines, structural constructions, even their drawing styles, are routinely stolen wholesale; alas, media gatekeepers never have a clue. All too often, the plagiarists collect plaudits while the victims of their grand larceny of intellectual property die sad and alone.
Well, maybe not sad or alone. But annoyed over beer.
Give The New Yorker its due: since it reacts to trends and news in politics and culture, the magazine's funniest cartoons can be relevant. Sadly, their single-panel gags say less than Jerry Seinfeld's jokes about nothing. At best, name-checking Lady Gaga or hat-tipping Instagram elicits a knowing ha ha, they read the same stuff I do (i.e. The New York Times).
Mankoff's book takes its title from the line of perhaps his greatest hit: "How about never — is never good for you?" This is an "nth degree" concept. What happens if the back-and-forth busy people often experience when they're trying to set a rendezvous achieves its ultimate, most extreme conclusion? It also showcases anxiety and insecurity among the aspirational bourgeoisie, the not-so-secret sauce of New Yorker humor, for nearly a century. But what does Mankoff's cartoon say? What does it mean?
A cartoon doesn't have to be political to matter. "The Far Side" wasn't political, but most of Larsen's work reveals something about human nature to which we hadn't previously given much thought. To be funny, a cartoon must rise above it's-funny-cuz-it's-true tautology. Mankoff's "never" toon does not. Nor does the magazine's famous "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" piece, drawn by Peter Steiner in 1993 (though Matt Petronzio's post-Snowden update does).
If you can credibly reply "so what?" to a cartoon, odds are it's not worth your time.
A great cartoon is funny because it's dangerous.
A 19th century relic of the degrading "shape ups" depicted in the film "The Bicycle Thief," The New Yorker's submission policy is a system — intentional or not, no one knows — that filters out originality and rewards a schlocky "throw a lot of shit at the wall and see if anything sticks" approach to cartooning. Every Wednesday morning, Mankoff holds court, looking over submissions of cartoonists who must present themselves in person rather than, say, email or fax their work. Because submissions must be fully drawn and the odds of acceptance increase with the number of cartoons presented, New Yorker artists deploy dashed-off, sketchy drawing styles that haven't changed much since the 1930s.
Editors at other publications work with professional cartoonists they trust to consistently deliver high-quality cartoons, and help them hone one or two rough sketches to a bright sheen. The results are almost always better than anything that runs in The New Yorker — yet "60 Minutes" doesn't notice.
"How much do the cartoonists make? Editor [David] Remnick will only say: nobody's becoming a millionaire," Safer says in the "60 Minutes" piece.
Well, Mankoff did. But that's another story for another time.
(Support independent journalism and political commentary. Subscribe to Ted Rall at Beacon.)
COPYRIGHT 2014 TED RALL, DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
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This entry was posted in Blog, Columns and tagged 60 Minutes, Bob Mankoff, cartooning, cartoons, Charles Addams, David Remnick, Instagram, Lady Gaga, Matt Petronzio, Morley Safer, New Yorker magazine, Peter Steiner, Roz Chast, Saturday Night Live, SNL on April 1, 2014 by Ted Rall.
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24 thoughts on "SYNDICATED COLUMN: The New Yorker is Bad for Cartooning"
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MMoosch on April 11, 2014 at 6:53 PM said:
Whaaa, Whaaa, Whaaa! Like either of you schmoes know anything about me. $20million? Puh-leez. Bust your ass and get your stuff seen, if you get $20 million, or $2, good for you. You get what you deserve.
CrazyH on April 10, 2014 at 10:29 AM said:
I've never subscribed to the New Yorker. I have heard their comics praised, and I remember a few insightful or outright hilarious comics I've read in its pages over the years.
So, naturally, when I saw a coffee table book dedicated to New Yorker cartoons, I bought it immediately. What a letdown. When you pile them altogether like that the repetitiveness becomes obvious, as does the fact that very few of them actually are insightful or hilarious. You could just as easily compile random cartoons from random sources and come up with the same ratio of hilarious & insightful.
FWIW, Playboy cartoons show the same symptoms. They were absolutely hilarious when I was new to adulthood, but now I've seen most of the punchlines and am no longer titillated by the mere mention of tits. Maybe I've become jaded, maybe I've become sophisticated, or maybe I've just gotten older.
alex_the_tired on April 3, 2014 at 7:52 AM said:
Your point about learning to be a cartoonist by copying other cartoonists is amazing. Want to know the one universal truth about all good writers? ALL of them — I have never encountered a case where this isn't true — read a LOT. When they start writing, almost always, they start by trying to make it "good" like ________ does. The blank being whomever the amateur's favorite author is. After a while, a developing writer stops imitating the favorites and starts mixing and matching. So dialogue from Twain and Stout, character analysis from John D. MacDonald, narrative from Bradbury, etc.
Know how creative writing used to be taught? You started with something called "copywork." A kid would be handed a poem or a passage, be told to read it, then copy it. This had two purposes: the kid learned how to write (cursive or block) and the kid learned how to write (how words come together). By the time you got to composition, you had first-hand experience with the basic frameworks. You could at least scrap something together that was okay. Now? Copywork is "boring" and "noncreative." Bullshit.
Bruce Coulson on April 2, 2014 at 8:54 AM said:
I would argue that the 'On the Internet…" is a valid cartoon, simply because it's something that is true, but that a lot of people tend to forget. Many folks forget that an anonymous post, or blog under pseudonym, means you know nothing about the credentials or qualifications of the writer. They may by an actual expert with years of study; or they may just be regurgitating an opinion they heard somewhere else without any real understanding of what they're saying. In short, they may actually be a dog; you don't know.
But I agree overall with your assessment that the New Yorker is coasting on its reputation.
tomfalco on April 2, 2014 at 8:49 AM said:
I used to think I was the only one who didn't get the gags, but I see it's a common thing. After watching how the cartoons are chosen last week, I can only imagine that your work is chosen depending on which side of the bed Mankoff got out of that day.
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Ted Rall on April 2, 2014 at 6:10 AM said:
Alan Gardner makes me laugh. If anything is cheaper or stupider than the "sour grapes" argument, it's going after someone who couldn't possibly have sour grapes because he doesn't apply to the New Yorker.
MMoosch on April 2, 2014 at 7:45 PM said:
You're an idiot. Why don't you or other cartoonists "start" something of your own to show off what you, and other idiots think are "good" cartoons? So, everyone HAS to believe everything "60 Minutes" says? No one can think for themselves. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, it's a pity so many people will read stupid ones like yours. Get a life.
You are so right. Why didn't I think of that? Next time I receive a $20 million check for one of my cartoons, I will use it to start up my own magazine which I will then use to hire great cartoonists. About 60 minutes, again, you are totally right about my rampant idiocy. No one should expect the truth from a show that is said to be presenting news or journalism. That's just silly! Everyone should not only think for themselves, but be able to imagine the truth out of thin air.
alex_the_tired on April 3, 2014 at 12:32 PM said:
MMoosch,
No. Everyone is not entitled to their opinion. Everyone is entitled to an informed or a well-reasoned opinion. Everyone is entitled to demonstrate that they can participate in a discussion by presenting coherent arguments.
You haven't done any of that. And, in actuality, very few people can actually "think" for themselves or for others. Usually what is done is "reaction" or mindless parroting. Again, back to the point about an informed opinion.
Ted's opinion is informed by years and years of drawing and news critique/consumption.
Yours, apparently, is, um, "informed" by a sugar crash from too many Frosted Flakes. Calm down, eat some real food, get a nap, and then evaluate for the first time:
1. What you're saying.
2. Whether it has any actual value.
FMHansen on April 1, 2014 at 9:32 PM said:
Really enjoyed your commentary. As a cartoonist I see that I fall into that trap of – one, wanting to be in the New Yorker, and two, emulating the style of the magazine. I need listen and act on my own voice more. So thank you. Great work and site.
Aggie_Dude on April 1, 2014 at 1:55 PM said:
The one about suggesting a wine and a filter setting got a smile and a single chuckle from me…the rest are…'meh'
Ted Rall on April 1, 2014 at 2:23 PM said:
That's one more chuckle than from me, but then I had to wade through a ton of those stoopid Instagram cartoons.
I recall a New Yorker cover by Charles Addams. Two luxury skyscrapers, facing each other. In one is a small dog, front feet pressed up against a balcony glassdoor or a large window. The perspective is from a little bit and to the side of the dog.
He's looking across the distance at an apartment in the other skyscraper. It is filled with people at a party. They're all talking and drinking and having a good time.
The dog is all by himself.
That's a cartoon.
SenatorBleary on April 1, 2014 at 12:31 PM said:
Count me among those who don't get the appeal of those cartoons. This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine tries to get several people to explain one of the cartoons to her, including a New Yorker editor, and no one can do it. I also remember reading a funny story about how a young Truman Capote — I think he was an intern — would deliberately lose the cartoons he didn't like before they got to the editor's desk; the quality of the cartoons getting published subsequently went up.
Ted, do cartoonists you know sincerely believe getting their cartoons into the New Yorker is something to aspire to, or is it just an easy way to get a paycheck? For example, PC Vey did funny stuff for Mad but his New Yorker stuff is dreck, so maybe it's just easy money for a cartoon he can draw in 5 minutes.
It's not easy money, SenatorBleary. You have to draw 20 or 30 or 40 cartoons to have a reasonable chance of publishing one. But yes, I do think most of these cartoonists do it more for the cash than the glory. There is glory, because most people don't think about it enough to know that these cartoons suck. But there's no real glory, i.e., the respect of your peers, or self-respect. That said, I think some cartoonists really do think it's an accomplishment.
Look, I'd love to be in there. But I'm not willing to dumb down my work to get in.
alex_the_tired on April 2, 2014 at 11:25 AM said:
I see — yet another — iteration of the Same Old Problem. Who would put themselves through that? Answer?
A victim.
MikeduJour on April 1, 2014 at 10:58 AM said:
In todays cartoon market not only is the ability to render/draw unnecessary it is a liability.
DanD on April 1, 2014 at 9:04 AM said:
60 Minutes used to be relevant … it was during the Reagan-era that corporate commercialism filtered its viability into a puppy show of much less time.
Tell me Ted, what neophyte (or perhaps even, "established") cartoonists have tried copying your drawing-style? Were they also (or not) successful in mimicking your (explicit or implied) commentary?
DanD
DanD, I can think of three fairly prominent cartoonists off the top of my pointy little head who owe more than a little to my drawing style. And many more influenced by my structures and writing style. But it would be mean of me to out them here.
DanD on April 1, 2014 at 4:52 PM said:
I'm just thinking that the education would be quite instructive, comparisons and all. I mean, is it like sports, where an aspiring young cartoonist may try for a time to be like you by way of repetition, ultimately do you so well that he does you better than you do?
I imagine such a freelance student would eventually find his own style, but what are your thoughts on such brands of plagieristic pedagogy?
Yes Dan, I think that's exactly it. Certainly as a young cartoonist I started out copying other artists. As a child, I traced Charles Schulz. When I became interested in political cartooning, I mimicked Mike Peters.
As you get older, you're supposed to find your own style. Unfortunately, that hasn't always been the case.


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text:
Steven Tyler & Vince Vaughn's Near-Miss Hangout in West Hollywood
Plus, more star sightings!
Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic; Lucas Jackson/Reuters/Landov
The more, the merrier!
Steven Tyler and Vince Vaughn stepped out separately at Sunset Marquis's Bar 1200 in West Hollywood on Monday night.
Both stars arrived around 10 p.m. – and didn't seem to see each another, an onlooker tells PEOPLE.
"Steven was there with a group of guys and girls," the source adds. "There was a birthday going on. He was posing with his friends for photos. They were laughing and having a great time."
Meanwhile, Vaughn kept a low profile with a few male friends.
"They seemed like just ordinary guys going out to catch up together and share a few laughs," the source says.
Wearing baggy jeans and running shoes, Vaughn was "super chatty and polite" to whomever walked by.
– Dahvi Shira


text:
Q: add escape character to json object flutter How to convert json object like this
{"firstname": "John", "lastname": "Doe"}

to this
"{\"firstname\": \"John\", \"lastname\": \"Doe\"}"

thank you.

A: Let's try
void main() {
  var data = {"firstname": "John", "lastname": "Doe"};
  Map<String, dynamic> newMap = {};
  data.keys.toList().forEach((key) {
    newMap.addAll({"\\${key}\\": "\\${data[key]}\\"});
  });
  print(newMap);//{\firstname\: \John\, \lastname\: \Doe\}
}

A: Try this:
final data = {"name": "John"};
print(jsonEncode(data).replaceAll('"', '\\"'));

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


What makes a great leather wallet?
How can you spot a cheap wallet?
There are 4 main components that make a great wallet, but the most important is the leather.
We use 2 types of leather in our wallets - full grain leather and top grain leather.
Full grain leather is used in most of our products including - card wallets, card sleeves, front pocket wallets and passport wallets.
In our bifold and trifold wallets, we shaved our leather and used the top grain part of the leather to make our wallets. We shaved it so it is not too bulky.
Suede or canvas are the only two materials used as our lining. This is different from other companies who use plastic and cheap fabrics in their wallets.
- No plastics or thin fabric is used in our wallets.
Most wallets you buy out there, are made with mid grain leather or low quality top grain leather. The difference between cheap leather and great leather, are the looks and the durability.
- You can spot a cheap wallet a mile away.
Our thread comes from Germany and is the highest quality thread on the market. It is not cotton or nylon. It is made of the strongest fiber - polyester.
- We don't want to make good wallets, we are in the business of making GREAT wallets and leather products.
YOR Leather is a Calgary based company and we are proud of our quality.


Aaaaah! I'm soooo happy for you! I can just imagine how you feel. I hope to have grandchildren someday too and hope to be an important and special person in their lives, as you mentioned. You are blessed with this experience.
That's the truth! Thank you!
Congratulation, Ann. You are such a grateful person!
Thank you! Believe me, I'm not always grateful. I just try to be….
You are really an honest person, Ann. I think no one is perfect yet. Everyone of us is making effort to be a better person.
Joy joy!! I'm so thrilled for you all! Blessings.
I'm a grandmother to one grandson who will be four years old this year. Nothing like it! Congratulations and enjoy the ride!
Thanks! I'm betting that being a grandparent gets even better as they grow up!
Many congratulations Ann! What lovely news! Such a beautifully written post and wonderful photograph!
Thanks, Susan, for the share. And a belated congratulations to you, too!!
Thank! It really is very exciting!
Thanks, Miriam! He's a much-loved grandson, that's for sure!
Congratulations! One of the big secrets, at least in my opinion, is that while we say we love our children unconditionally, it isn't really so. We love them to the nth degree, but I guess we are too close to the situation. Did we do all right? Could we have done better? Are they happy? Are their problems our fault?
Thanks, Barb! And my I say, your grandson sounds like a very wise young man. I hope my journey into grandparenthood is just as fun, and I think it will be!


Nice. Reminds me a little bit of one of Erik Satie's pieces.
hey its me thanks for commenting my tab i like this tab a lot u should finish it. good structure... add a little blues scale in there.
dudee ba u are pro!!!!!!!!! how long have u been writing music for?
some nice chords...you should finish this!!


text:
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NewsroomGulfstream Implements First Commercial Active Sticks
Gulfstream Implements First Commercial Active Sticks
Nov 3 2014	2014-11-03T08:31:00+01:00
Active side sticks get the "all clear," for Gulfstream G500 and G600
Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation has selected BAE Systems to provide active control side sticks for its new G500 and G600 aircraft. This contract marks the first time that this innovative flight technology, which was once reserved for military aircraft, will be implemented on a commercial fleet of planes.
"BAE Systems is the world's only provider of flight-worthy active sticks, with more than 25 years of design experience in active inceptor technology," said Dr. Ehtisham Siddiqui, vice president and general manager of Commercial Aircraft Solutions at BAE Systems. "Our active sticks reduce cost and weight over conventional pilot controls, working with the fly-by-wire system to assist in aircraft control while still providing an equivalent level of awareness for the pilots."
Active sticks provide force feedback directly to the pilot's hand, in real time, depending on flight mode and aircraft condition. The force feedback is intuitive, programmed to help the pilot control the aircraft and maintain stable flight. It can also provide an indication to the pilot of any impending structural and aerodynamic operating limits — otherwise known as flight envelope limits — thereby improving the pilot's awareness and ability to control the plane. Electronic linking of the two control sticks in the cockpit allows each pilot to feel the forces and see the displacements the other is causing.
BAE Systems is a leader in high-integrity flight and engine controls, and cabin and flight-deck systems. In fact, every second, a flight takes off enabled by the company's flight critical systems. The active sticks were designed, and will be manufactured, at BAE Systems' facility in Rochester, United Kingdom.
Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics, designs, develops, manufactures, markets, services, and supports the world's most technologically advanced business-jet aircraft. Gulfstream has produced more than 2,200 aircraft for customers around the world since 1958.
Ref # 239/2014
Nicole Gable Media Relations Electronic Systems
BAE Systems is not responsible for content of external websites.
Active Inceptor Systems


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text:
Some sightseeing, the Wolseley silo VK-WLY5, Wolseley Common, and the trip home.
Posted on December 7, 2021 by Paul VK5PAS
After leaving the Bordertown East silo we headed to Clayton Farm at Bordertown.
The first Undred of Tatiara was opened for land selection in 1872. One of the first settlers were August and Carl Wiese who took up blocks in the area. August settled on three blocks just to the south of Bordertown and called his farm Clayton.
Clayton Farm features a recently restored and refurbished homestead and a magnificent display of vintage farm machinery, tractors, and vehicles. There are various historic buildings including the silage, pigsty, and the woolshed which is the largest thatched roof woolshed in the southern hemisphere. We had a terrific guide who showed us around the property which took about 3 hours.
I even found some old radios in our travels at Clayton Farm.
We then headed to Wolseley for another silo activation for the Silos On The Air program. This time, the Wolseley silo VK-WLY5.
We struggled to find a quiet RF location near the silo so we drove to the end of Railway Terrace and entered the Wolseley Common Conservation Park, which we had activated on Saturday for the 2021 VKFF Activation Weekend. It was much quieter on the bands to operate from here.
In the SiOTA program, the activation zone is 1 km of the silo, so we were well and truly inside that.
Above:- Activation zone for Wolseley silo.
It was a 'double-whammy, a silo activation and a park activation.
We spent about 45 minutes at the silo/park and made a total of 34 QSOs on 40m SSB. We had run out of time to try 20m and 80m.
Marija made the following QSOs on 40m SSB;-
VK5ZSH
VK5FANA
VK3PI
VK3TV
VK3PF
VK5KLV
VK2VW
VK2HFI
VK2PKT
VK3FIMD
I made the following QSOs on 40m SSB:-
VK3FKL
VK5WG
VK1DI
VK3JP
VK3VIN
VK3MKE
VK5HS
VK2YAK
VK4NH
VK7EE
VK3AWA
VK3IH/m
VK3AMO
VK3CA
We then packed up and headed back into the town of Wolseley. Although we had looked around the town on Saturday, there were still some interesting things to have a look at in this very historic little town.
As we had not found the Shearing Tree over the weekend, we headed back into Bordertown and drove out on the Tatiara Historic Drive. We soon found the tree. The Canawiga Woolshed once stood on the rise across the road from the tree. The shearers would play 'darts' with old broken shears by throwing the blades into the tree. A blade pierced the trunk too deeply and it was unable to be retrieved. It remains embedded in the tree today.
We then started our journey home, stopping briefly on the Dukes Highway to view the monument for the 'Conquest of the Ninety Mile Desert'.
We then stopped at the little town of Culburra, which is an aboriginal word meaning 'plenty of sand'. The town was once a thriving township with a church, school, railway siding, goods shed and platform, shop, post office, hardware store, engineering workshop, cattle yards. In 1908, 16 petitioners requested that the Commissioner of Railways, create a railway siding at Culburra, as the nearest railway siding was '18 miles' away.
In 1910 the railway siding was constructed and was named Dewson. In 1911 the name was changed to avoid confusion with Dawson near Peterborough.
In 1914 the town of Culburra was laid out by Thomas Roberts into 17 allotments.
We then stopped at the tiny town of Ki Ki which is aboriginal for 'food and water'. The town is best known as the home of the Ki Ki Stone Roller which was used extensively in farming. The Congregational church was built in 1910. In the same year, the Ki Ki Well was dug. The Ki Ki Post office opened in January 1912 and the Ki Ki School in 1913. In 1914 a shop was opened. The school closed in December 1960, with students attending the new Area School at Coomandook.
Our final stop for the trip was Tailem Bend.
We went out for tea at the Riverside Hotel at Tailem Bend, one of our favourite country pubs. And the meal this time did not disapoint.
THANKYOU to everyone who called us whilst we were away for the 4 days. We had a terrific time of amateur radio and sightseeing.
A Compendium of the Place Names of South Australia, 2021, <https://published.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/placenamesofsouthaustralia/>, viewed 7th December 2021.
Tatiata Visitor Guide.
Tatiara Council, 2021, <https://www.tatiara.sa.gov.au/unity-objects-in-use/points-of-interest-for-mls-app/clayton-farm-heritage-museum>, viewed 7th December 2021.
Bordertown East silo VK-BRT5
Our second silo activation on Monday 29th December 2021 was the Bordertown East silo VK-BRT5.
Above:- Map showing the location of Bordertown. Map c/o Google maps
The silo is located on Tatitara Road, just a short distance out of the town of Bordertown. It is run by the company Pilgrim Grain Storage – PGS (SA) Pty Ltd. Pilgrims specialise in the storage of grains including wheat, barley, oats, canola, and beans.
More info can be found at…….
Marija and I spent 45 minutes at the silo and made a total of 31 QSOs. We operated from the vehicle for this activation and ran the Icom IC-7000 and the Codan 9350 self-tuning antenna mounted on the tailgate of the Toyota Hi-Lux.
Our contacts were into VK1, VK2, VK3, VK4, VK5, and VK7.
Marija worked the following stations on 40m SSB:-
VK3OHM
VK3NFS
VK2DG
VK2BYF/p (Burragorang State Conservation Area VKFF-1292)
I worked the following stations on 40m SSB:-
VK3SQ
VK7DM
VK3IK/m
VK3EJ
VK3DJC
VK5ZLT
VK2RP
VK2BDR
Pilgrim Grain Storage, 2021, <https://pilgrimsbordertown.com.au/about-us/our-company/>, viewed 7th December 2021.
Bordertown Silo VK-BRN5
It was now Monday 29th November 2021 and Marija and I headed to the Bordertown Bakery for some coffee and some egg & bacon rolls. It was a beautiful morning, so we sat in Tolmer Park opposite the bakery and enjoyed our breakfast.
Tolmer Park takes its name from Alexander Tolmer, a South Australian Police Officer who led numerous Gold Escorts along the Gold Escort Route from Victoria to Adelaide. Tolmer used this spot as a stopover on the gold escort route due to the permanent water supply. The creek in the park has been widened and filled. There are a number of interpretive signs in the park.
We then headed to the Bordertown Wildlife Park which was established in 1968. You can find Bordertown's famous White Kangaroos in the park. They were first introduced in 1980. Various other wildlife can be found in the park including wallabies, Bush Stone Curlews, Emus, Black Swans, Peacocks, and ducks.
Our next stop was the Tatiara Visitor Centre and the Bob Hawke Gallery. Bordertown is the birthplace of Australia's 23rd Prime Minister, Robert 'Bob' James Lee Hawke. Unfortunately, the famous gold jacket which he wore during the America's Cup win in 1983 was on loan to the Adelaide University. We did get to see a collection of photographs, news clippings, cartoons, paintings and various other memorabilia. This included a Panther motorcycle which is believed to be Hawke's 1939 British Panther.
We then headed to the Bordertown silos VK-BRN5 for an activation for the Silos On The Air (SiOTA) program. The silos are located in Brown Terrace and are alongside the Bordertown-Wolseley railway line (Melbourne-Adelaide railway). The silos are operated by the company Viterra.
We set up in Possum Park on Power House Road, in close proximity to the silos. We were very pleased that there was no man-made noise at all at this location on the 40m band. Unfortunately, we did experience strength 6 noise on the 80m band. There was no noise on 20m, but the Over The Horizon Radar was present on 20m once again.
Marija and I spent about 50 minutes at the silo and we made a total of 23 QSOs to VK2, VK3, VK4, VK5, and VK7.
We had at least one very interested onlooker during our activation. Marija took the time to chat with the lady concerned and explained to her the hobby of amateur radio and the SiOTA program.
VK2BYF/p (Thirmlere Lakes National Park VKFF-0486)
VK7JFD
VK3OHNM
VK5IS/m
Tatiara Visitor Guide.
Wikipedia, 2021, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Tolmer>, viewed 7th December 2021.
Geegeela Conservation Park VKFF-0883
Our final park for Sunday 28th November 2021 and day two of the 2021 VKFF Activation Weekend was the Geegeela Conservation Park VKFF-0883. The park is located about 313 km southeast of the city of Adelaide, and about 42 km south of the town of Bordertown.
Above:- Map showing the location of Geegeela. Map c/o Google maps
The Geegeela Conservation Park is about 858 hectares in size and was established on the 21st day of July 2005. It can be accessed via My Mi Mi Road. The land was purchased with the assistance of the Australian Government's Natural Heritage Trust.
Above:- An aerial view of Geegeela. Image c/o Google maps
The land occupied by the Conservation Park was previously used for agricultural and conservation purposes. About 200 hectares (490 acres) of land which is in the conservation park's southwestern corner was cleared in 1960 and established as a pasture of native grasses which was grazed for many years. In 1970 a total of 70 hectares (170 acres) was also cleared with limited grazing success. Agricultural activity in the area subsequently ceased and the cleared pasture land was able to regenerate.
In 1986 the land was acquired as a Private Heritage Agreement Area. In the early 1990s ownership of the land changed, but fortunately, the new owners decided to retain the land as a 'private conservation area'. In 1992, a parcel of land was proclaimed as a 'sanctuary as was known as Taralee Sanctuary.
Above:- SA Govt Gazette reference to Taralee Sanctuary. Image c/o Wikipedia
The park takes its name from the Hundred of Geegeela which was proclaimed on the 28th day of October 1907. The name is believed to be derived from the Aboriginal word tjitjila meaning 'wallaby'.
The name 'Geegeela Paddock' appears on early pastoral lease maps and G. Smith applied the name to his lease no. 5009 in 1880.
The park consists of Desert Banksia Heath, Blue Gum/Pink Gum open woodlands, and open woodlands and wetlands of Brown Stringybark. There are also small patches of woodland dominated by Rough-barked Manna Gum, River Red Gum and Buloke. Over 240 different plants species have been recorded in the park.
The park is home to numerous rare and endangered plant and animal species.
Five mammal species of South Australian state conservation significance can be found in the park. This includes the Eastern Grey Kangaroo, Sugar Glider, Western Pygmy-possum, Red-necked Wallaby, and the Common Wombat.
About 90 species of bird have been recorded in the park, including 17 threatened species in South Australia, and 29 which have an identified conservation rating in the southeastern region of South Australia. Endangered and vulnerable bird species include Red-tailed black cockatoo, Swift Parrot, Brown Quail, Little Lorikeet, Brolga, Blue-winged parrot, Rare Shining bronze-cuckoo, Blue-faced honeyeater, and Flame Robin.
During our visit to the park, I did a little bit of bird watching, but only spotted some Sulphur Crested Cockatoos and Willie Wagtails.
Marija and I spent a little under 2 hours at Geegeela and operated on the 40 & 20m bands. We ran our normal station consisting of the Yaesu FT-857d, 40 watts, and the 20/40/80m linked dipole.
We made a total of 102 QSOs and 37 Park to Park contacts. We did not operate on 80m as the afternoon was getting away from us and we wanted to head to the Mundulla pub for a meal.
A real surprise during this activation was to log Stuie VK8NSB up in Darwin.
VK3PF/p (Gormandale Flora Reserve VKFF-2325)
VK3CWF/p (Brisbane Ranges National Park VKFF-0055)
VK5AV/p (Gower Conservation Park VKFF-0798)
VK3TKK/p (Gisborne Flora Reserve VKFF-2322)
VK3ZPF/p (Kurth Kiln Regional Park VKFF-0971)
VK2YK/p (Warren Conservation Park VKFF-0941)
VK2IO/p (Sydney Harbour National Park VKFF-0473)
VK3DAC/p (Mornington Peninsula National Park VKFF-0333)
VK4MGL/p (Esk National Park VKFF-0677)
VK3MCA/p (Mount Charlie Flora Reserve VKFF-2396)
VK3LF/p (Kurth Kiln Regional Park VKFF-0971)
VK3PF/p (Callignee Wildlife Reserve VKFF-2287)
VK4FABN/p (Main Range National ParkVKFF-0300)
VK3YV/p (Sweetwater Creek Nature Conservation Reserve VKFF-2200)
VK5CZ/p (Wills Creek Conservation Park VKFF-0819)
VK3CJN
VK7HOB
Vk3AHR
VK3MPR
VK3AAV
VK7RM
VK3PF/p (Traralgon South Flora & Fauna Reserve VKFF-2464)
VK2KNV/m
VK2XSE/m
VK3RU
VK2HRX
VK7MOO
VK4SMA
VK3ZK/p (Echuca Regional Park VKFF-0966)
VK6XN/p (McLarty Nature Reserve VKFF-2826)
VK3EY
VK4GSF
VK6NTE
VK4MWL
VK2MG/p (Munmorah State Conservation Area VKFF-1361)
VK4MAD
VK4DOG
VK2LEE
VK8NSB
VK3UCD
VK5BMC
VK5PET
VK3KXR
VK5CZ/m
VK2NP
VK4KLA
VK5KVA
VK3HQZ
VK2FSLC
VK1DA
VK3SKT
VK5HAA
VK3BFH/m
VK3DWL/m
VK4AJR
VK6JK
VK4KUS
After packing up we started heading towards the town of Mundulla. We stopped briefly to have a look at Six Mile Well, which was dug prior to 1900. The well which was 20 metres deep was used as a watering point by travellers and early settlers.
We soon reached the small town of Mundulla. The town was proclaimed on the 3rd day of April 1873. The name is derived from the aboriginal word 'mantala' meaning place of thunder. This originated from the ground which is undermined with caves that rumbled when trampled upon. It was believed that evil spirits frequented such places.
Our first stop was to have a look at the historic old Wirrega District Council Chambers. The building was built in 1886 and served as a District Office until amalgamated with Tatiara in 1888. The building was then used as a District office for alternate meetings some years after that. The building waas restored in 1973.
The first section of the Mundulla Hotel was built in about 1876. In 1884 rooms were added and it became a licenced hotel. In 1912 the hotel closed when the licence was transferred to Waikerie in the Riverland region of South Australia. It was then used as a residence, boarding house, general store and storeroom until 1974 when it was saved from demolition and was purchased by the National Trust. It then became a museum and subsequently leased as a licenced restaurant and gallery.
We enjoyed a really nice meal at the hotel.
We then headed out to the old Cannawigra Hall. In 1900 sections of the original Cannawigra Station were allotted to settlers. John Charlton Guy, one of the settlers, donated land for a church and a school. A loan was obtained from the Congregational Church and the settlers of the district carted local stone to erect the building. Reverend David Milne laid the foundation stone in 1901. In 1902 the school opened. It closed in September 1956. Church services took place from 1901 until 1975. In 1978 local residents purchased the building for the community at a cost of $1,000 and a Cannawigra Hall Inc. Committee was formed.
A short distance away is a cairn to commemorate the Gold Escort Route.
We also stopped to have a look at Scowns Runaway Hole. It was formed through the action of water finding its way through the upper layers of soil to the porous limestone beneath.
The sun was started to set and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset.
Our next stop was the Plaited Tree. The branches of the tree, which is estimated to be 400 years old, are plaited (or cross over each other). This was an aboriginal meeting point.
Our final stop was the Buckingham Church and School. Buckingham was the name of the original farm of Mr David Jones, named after his home country of Buckinghamshire in England. In 1884 he gave one acre of land for the building of a church and school. In 1885 the school opened and operated until 1956 when children of the district were taken to school by bus at Mundulla. In its lifetime a total of 338 students attended the school. Uniting Church services continue to be held at the school.
We then headed back to the motel room.
Geegeela Conservation Park Management Plan, 2006, Department for Environment and Heritage.
National Parks and Wildlife Service, 2021, <https://www.parks.sa.gov.au/parks/geegeela-conservation-park>, viewed 7th December 2021.
Tatiara Visitor Guide
Wikipedia, 2021, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geegeela_Conservation_Park>, viewed 7th December 2021.


text:
Людми́ла Микола́ївна Якове́нко — доктор медичних наук (2005), професор; лікар вищої категорії.

Загинула в ДТП 11.05.2022

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Випускниця Київського медичного інституту імені О. О. Богомольця.

Завідувач кафедри хірургічної стоматології та щелепно-лицевої хірургії дитячого віку НМУ Богомольця.

Входить до складу апробаційної, спеціалізованої та вченої ради стоматологічного факультету НМУ, циклової методичної комісії, член комітету фахової експертизи «Крок 3», «Крок 2». Член Української асоціації щелепно-лицевих хірургів, член черепно-щелепно-лицевих хірургів (EACMFS).

Авторка 261 наукової праці — в тому числі 42 патентів на нові способи лікування, типових навчальних програм, методичних рекомендацій, робочих зошитів, 5 підручників, 5 учбово-методичних посібників.

Серед патентів: «Спосіб хірургічного лікування вроджених незрощень твердого та м'якого піднебіння», 2015, співавтори Єгоров Ростислав Ігорович та Харьков Леонід Вікторович.

Серед робіт: «Результати хірургічного лікування та якість життя хворих, оперованих з приводу множинних артеріальних аневризм головного мозку» 2007, співавтори Скорохода І. І., Цімейко Орест Андрійович та Мороз В. В.

Джерела
 Яковенко Людмила Миколаївна
 Співробітники кафедри
 Електронічна книжниця

Випускники Київського медичного інституту
Науковці Національного медичного університету імені О. О. Богомольця
Доктори медичних наук України
Українські професори
Українські винахідники

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