EDITOR’S NOTE: In converting Mr James Forrester’s original document, to this pmWiki WebPage, it was attempted to keep this page true to his creation. However there are unavoidable variances in placement of photos and other format achievements. Where possible I have gotten a new internet download of Mr Forrester’s photos, but in two cases where forced to do so, have taken a C&P the photo from his paper. Also I have taken the liberty to add several Section Titles, continuing the practice of Mr Forrester’s First Two Section Titles. I trust all of these variances, meet with Mr Forrester’s approval.
Henry Gurr ZMMQ Sitemaster. 1:30 pm, 12 Mar, 2016.

Robert Pirsig meets Jack Kerouac

ZAMM … ON THE ROAD:

ABSTRACT
Cult “road” novels by Robert Pirsig and Jack Kerouac share certain aspects and in other ways are quite distinct in terms of their respective author’s intentions. This essay examines where the boundary meets and where it diverges.

By James Forrester
ENGL 5201H: Travel Writing Fall 2014 Revised September, 2015

Pirsig’s Pilgrims and the Beat Generation

Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the most widely read philosophy book ever written, with more than 5 million copies circulating world-wide. Its sudden, unexpected success in 1974, after 121 publishers rejected the manuscript is a record which still stands today.

Subsequently ZAMM (as some of its readers refer to it) has inspired a number of other books as diverse as 2005’s Riding with Rilke by Canadian academic Ted Bishop and the 2009 title Shop Class as Soul Craft by professor and motorcycle shop owner Mathew B. Crawford. Curiously neither author acknowledges Pirsig, who in turn owes a debt to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road; 1 as does every modern writer who borrows this framework. (Unless you consider Pilgrim’s Progress, Don Quixote, Canterbury Tales, Beowulf or Homer’s Odyssey as the origin of the “road” narrative).

ZAMM is a long narrative essay, a moving story about a father and son, a journey of re-discovery and a painful psychological exploration of the after effects of mental illness. The western U. S. motorcycle journey described in the book actually took place in the summer of 1968 and the names of the participants are not disguised as they were in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. It’s an autobiographical non-fiction novel. The narrator refers to his former self as Phaedrus.

In the opening chapter, Pirsig explains the principle method he intends to use in the discourse:

What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua – that’s the only name I can think of for it - like the travelling tent-show Chautauqua that used to move across America, this America, the one we are now in, an old time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. 2

Pirsig, in the foreword to the 25th anniversary of the publication, quotes President Teddy Roosevelt (who attended the NY Chautauqua in 1905) as describing Chautauquas as “the most American thing in America.” 3

Chautauqua Institution Meeting Tent: 100 Year Anniversary Celebrated By US Postage Stamp

Chautauqua Festivals, 1874 –

To provide some background on Pirsig’s cultural model, here are some details about the advent of the Chautauqua, which appeared in 1874 on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in western New York State, south of Buffalo. The annual summer event was founded by Methodist Bishop John Vincent and businessmen including Canadian Hart Massey. In time, this original site spawned a thousand independent touring Chautauquas in both the U.S. and Canada starting in 1904. The New York Chautauqua is still in operation today and the U.S. Postal Service, by coincidence, honoured the Chautauqua’s 100th anniversary in 1974 with a commemorative stamp.

While it was founded by Methodists, the institution took a non-denominational approach in its programming, and in time the Chautauqua became more of an entertainment forum and adult education institution with the formation of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle in August, 1878.

Sheilagh Jameson’s Chautauqua in Canada indicates that Bishop Vincent, the architect of the CLSC project, “instituted several means of projecting the success of the summer assembly over the winter months … whereby direction was provided for home reading and study groups … an antecedent of literary societies and book clubs flourished in American towns.” 4 Vincent’s plan sounds remarkably similar to the Mechanics Institutes which became adult education schools and eventually public libraries.

Robert Pirsig’s ZAMM Chautauqua.

Pirsig’s Chautauqua is about “quality” and he uses the motorcycle itself as a metaphor for his views. The Metaphysics of Quality is the name given to Pirsig’s approach in both Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and his second novel Lila: An Inquiry into Morals (1991), which was not as successful in terms of sales, but does expand on his theories. MOQ draws upon Eastern thought, fused with Native American ceremonies and the work of Yale professor F. S. C. Northrop in his book The Meeting of East and West: An Inquiry Concerning World Understanding (1946). Pirsig adapted the ZAMM title from a 1948 German book, “Zen in the Art of Archery” and borrowed the subtitle from Northrop’s work.

Richard Rodino in his essay called “The Matrix of Journeys in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” contained in the Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance analyzes why the novel was successful:

Now, there is little doubt that we are meant to endorse in theory most of the narrator’s conclusions. But Zen [Pirsig’s ZAMM] is not only a series of [Chautauqua] lectures, nor is it a single, unified journey. One way to understand how it creates its meaning is to think of the different plot developments as three simultaneous journeys, which create constant tensions between the grand and exciting progress of Pirsig’s theorizing and the accelerating failure of his motions towards sanity and fatherliness. The book as a whole is greater that the lectures it contains; Pirsig’s trip is much more complicated than just following the road to a concept of Quality. 5

Contrasting Robert Pirsig’s ZAMM with Jack Kerouac’s On The Road.

There are common links between ZAMM and On the Road; both novels describe journeys initially taken westward (the general direction of American migration). Each work has a narrator who describes the journey and characters met “on the road.” Both authors are promoting a Zen Buddhist world view mixed with other religious and philosophical elements; Native American peyote ceremony in the case of Pirsig and Kerouac’s deeply rooted Catholicism.

On a personal level each author struggled with his own mental health. Pirsig spent time in a psychiatric hospital after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and he received shock treatments. Kerouac received an honourable discharge from the U. S. Navy in 1943 due to “schizoid tendencies” and suffered a nervous breakdown in 1960 at Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Big Sur cabin, while trying to deal with sudden fame and his increasing alcoholism.

ZAMM and On the Road were both rejected by multiple publishers, and Kerouac would have to wait seven years between the appearance of his first novel The Town and the City in 1950 and the eventual success of his second.

On the Road describes Kerouac’s life criss-crossing America beginning in 1947 and the various characters he meets along the way. As early as 1948 he began writing, using the diaries, letters and journals he kept of his travels. All of Kerouac’s novels are autobiographical and could be considered as “roman a clef”. In the Preface to Big Sur, his most autobiographical novel, Kerouac explains that all his writings “are just chapters in the whole work which I call the Duluoz Legend ... The whole thing forms one enormous comedy, seen through the eyes of poor Ti Jean (me), otherwise known as Jack Duluoz …” 6

There was an assumption, due to the free-wheeling life style of On the Road, that Kerouac was a liberal minded hedonist. However, Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac was in fact of Quebecois ancestry and remained a devoted conservative Catholic who adored his mother (and lived with her for large parts of his life). Not exactly what you’d expect from a founder and icon of both the Beat and Counterculture generations. Many of Kerouac’s friends and associates were gay and in spite of his three marriages Kerouac seems to have been deeply conflicted about his own sexuality. Neal Cassady was opening bi-sexual as was William S. Burroughs. Kerouac grew up in Lowell, MA speaking Joual (Quebecois French) and he wrote in his first language during his early years as a writer. A Quebec journalist discovered in 2007 some 200 pages of his writings in French among Kerouac’s literary archive, including an early section of On the Road titled Sur le chemin. 7

During an intense three week period in April, 1951 Kerouac (possibly fueled by coffee and Benzedrine) typed the manuscript of On the Road using a continuous 120 foot roll of teletype paper with no paragraphs or formatting. This became known as the “scroll”. Viking Press made an editorial decision in 1957, when the manuscript was submitted, to use pseudonyms for all the major characters; so Allan Ginsberg was Carlo Marx, William S. Burroughs became Old Bull Lee, Neal Cassady was Dean Moriarty and Jack Kerouac (the narrator) was transformed into Sal Paradise. John Clellon Holmes, a poet and friend of Kerouac published the first “Beat” novel Go in 1952 and Kerouac appears in this “roman a clef” as Gene Pasternak with Neal Cassady as Hart Kennedy. The “novel” depicts the same circle of friends as On the Road and some of the same events. 8

Matt Theado in Understanding Jack Kerouac examines what makes Kerouac’s style unique:

Kerouac’s work was different from that of any contemporary American writer’s; influenced by James Joyce, Marcel Proust, and jazz, he developed his own native American diction and his own method of layering meaning upon meaning … In 1953, Kerouac outlined the core features of his technique in a short piece called “The Essentials of Spontaneous Prose” … The first section recalls the habit of Impressionist painters such as Cezanne and Renoir who lugged their palettes and easels out of the studios so they could paint landscapes with immediacy and from direct observation. 9

In 1967, The Paris Review sent poet Ted Berrigan to interview Kerouac who was back living in his hometown Lowell, MA. In response to the question “What encouraged you to use the spontaneous’ style in On the Road?” Kerouac replies:

I got the idea for the spontaneous style of On the Road from seeing how good old Neal Cassady wrote his letters to me, all first person, fast, mad, confessional, completely serious, all detailed, with real names in his case … but I got the flash from his style … we both got the secret of LINGO in telling a tale and figured that was the only way to express the speed and tension and ecstatic tomfoolery of the age … Is that enough? 10 (108 -109)

Regina Weinreich in The Spontaneous Poetics of Jack Kerouac: A Study of the Fiction observes:

During this “road” or transitional period, Kerouac was in fact evolving his philosophy of spontaneous composition, that spontaneous bop prosody which he wished to develop through each subsequent creation. Kerouac’s philosophy is, moreover, one which involves a discovery of language through a new definition of structure. Each novel subsequent to On the Road is an attempt to redefine structure as it solves formal problems through the discovery of resourceful properties of language. Thus the quest for language becomes the solution to Kerouac’s problem of form, with language itself becoming the object of the quest motif from Kerouac’s perspective. 11

Kerouac is associated with the Beat Generation of writers which includes William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg; an association that he was not entirely comfortable with, in spite of the fact that he is credited with using the term first in Feb. 1949. By contrast Pirsig is not necessarily associated with either the “Beats” or the “Hippies” of the 1960s. Both writers became increasingly reclusive in response to their fame and obsessive fans; the advantage going to Pirsig who turned 87 on Sept. 6th this year, while Kerouac died in St. Petersburg, Florida October 21st, 1969 (age 47) of alcohol related hemorrhaging. (One year after his pal Neal Cassady was found dead beside a railway track in Mexico at age 41). 12
The scroll of On the Road was purchased in 2001 by Jim Irsay, owner of the NFL Indianapolis Colts for $2.5 million. It subsequently went on tour to galleries and museums in the US and Europe from 2004 to 2012. In 2012 a feature film version of the novel was released, directed by Walter Salles. Unfortunately, the film did not live up to the promise of the director’s excellent film The Motorcycle Diaries based on Che Guevara’s travels in South America.

While both novels could be considered “cult classics” and both have been “in print” since the day they were published, it’s on the anniversary of that date that the titles take on a new life. The fiftieth anniversary of On the Road saw two editions published in 2007, including The Original Scroll text released by Viking Press, with a selection of essays. That year The Library of America published a handsome edition of all Kerouac’s Road Novels, 1957-1960, with selections from his travel journals and a detailed chronology.

2014 marked the 40th anniversary of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance being published. There was a new edition and an afterword by Robert Pirsig which provides the author’s perspective on why it was a success:

Culture-bearing books challenge cultural value assumptions and often do so at a time when the culture is changing in favour of their challenge. The books are not necessarily of high quality. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was no literary masterpiece but it was a culture-bearing book. It came at a time when the entire culture was about to reject slavery … The success of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance seems the result of this culture-bearing phenomenon. The involuntary shock treatment described here is against the law today. It is a violation of human liberty. The culture has changed. 13

Pirsig Pilgrims: An Apt Moniker Created by ZAMM’s Gennie DeWeese.

On the 40th anniversary of the original 1968 motorcycle journey described in the book, Canadian journalist Mark Richardson retraced the Zen route on his motorcycle and wrote the book Zen and Now: On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. In following the Zen route, Richardson joined a group of riders who are known as “Pirsig Pilgrims.” Most of these riders have read the novel multiple times before the text became clear to them. On his web site Richardson responds to a question about his link to the pilgrimage and why riders undertake it:

A: The people who follow this route all do so for very personal reasons. I’m no exception. Before I set out, I’d hoped there may be a book at the end of it and so I kept detailed notes, but first and foremost, I made the road trip because I hoped it would help in some way to redirect my life into a more interesting direction. As well, I had wanderlust after years of not traveling while raising a young family, and I just wanted to get away for a while, as I’d done 19 years before on essentially the same motorcycle – the prospect of a long, solitary motorcycle road trip seemed fabulous. Others have written about their trip. 14 (Web.)

December 7-8, 2012 Montana State University (where Pirsig taught creative writing from 1959 to 1961) organized a “Chautauqua” as a celebration of Robert M. Pirsig and many of the “Pirsig Pilgrims” participated. The accompanying short version of the video shot at that event provides an impression of how Pirsig’s writing has affected his readers:

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvzq17ypmTI

Lee Glover

Michael Becker, [a MSU Montana Mountains & Minds Author, not] one of the organizers, wrote an article in the MSU magazine called Mountains & Minds outlining the motivation for the pilgrims and quoting one of the most dedicated, Lee Glover of Boise, Idaho. Lee has been working on a documentary about ZAMM for a number of years. His experience may be representative of this group of readers who move beyond normal boundaries and take their reading to another level of understanding:

Glover picked up a copy of Zen at a garage sale in 2005. He read the first half and was not impressed, so, like many people, he set it aside. A few years later, Glover accepted early retirement from his technology job. While searching for his next big thing, he rediscovered his copy of Zen. After he learned about Pirsig's insanity, it all clicked. "A great work of literature draws people in for various reasons," Glover, 51, said. "I think that book is an incredible example of different people deriving different meanings from something that resonates with them in some profound way."

Pirsig took his trip in 1968, the same year Glover's father, suffering from his own mental breakdown, was sent to prison for armed robbery. That slim connection resonated with Glover, growing from a lone idea, to his own Zen pilgrimage, then to a three-year film project. "The book described my life," he said. "It sounds weird to say, but literally, figuratively and philosophically, it describes my life growing up." What started as a simple travel film became a major project, entwining his father-son relationship with the one portrayed in Zen. Glover has since interviewed more than a dozen Pirsig Pilgrims, researchers and scholars about the book. "Journeys of life are pretty important," he said. "Take a journey like that, and who knows what might happen? It might change your life." 15

Notes:

1. It was recently pointed out to me, that Robert Pirsig does acknowledge the influence of Kerouac during an interview contained in Anthony McWatt’s excellent 2008 documentary On the Road with Robert Pirsig. Pirsig says: " I just wanted freedom [like the Hippies] I was of the generation of Jack Kerouac.
On the Road impressed me greatly. I lived a bit of that life drifting around the West; down to Mexico and then coming back. I got tired of all the 'do nothing' jobs and I decided to teach.”

2. Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, (New York, 1974), p. 17.

3. Many authors use this quotation incorrectly, citing other books as the source and implying that it is a direct quote from Roosevelt. However, I tracked down the originally source of this quotation. “Teddy” Roosevelt’s niece Eleanor Roosevelt, in her syndicated column My Day, August 23rd, 1937 wrote: “Chautauqua is an extraordinary place. I think my uncle, President Theodore Roosevelt, once called it the most American thing in America.”

https://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1937&_f=md054727

I followed up with an e-mail to Chautauqua Archivist Jon Schmitz (Trent University ’80) and received this response on Wed. July 29th:

When Teddy Roosevelt came to Chautauqua in 1905, he said. “[Chautauqua is] a gathering that is typically American in that it is typical of America at its best.”’

The paraphrase by Eleanor Roosevelt rather than actual 1905 quotation is what has been circulating in print and online.

4. Shelagh Jameson, Chautauqua in Canada, (Calgary, 1979), p. 10.

5. Richard H. Rodino, “The Matrix of Journeys in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” in the Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Ronald L. DiSanto and Thomas J. Steele, eds. (New York, 1990), p. 305.

6. Jack Kerouac, Big Sur, (New York, 1981), p. 5.

7. Gabriel Anctil, “Kerouac, le français et le Québec,” Le Devoir, 8 September 2007.

8. John Clellon Holmes, “This Is The Beat Generation” in The New York Times Magazine, November 16, 1952.

9. Matt Theado, Understanding Jack Kerouac, (Columbia, SC, 2000), p. 34.

10. Ted Berrigan interview with Jack Kerouac, “The Art of Fiction No. 41” in the Paris Review, No. 43, Summer 1968, p. 108-109.

11. Regina Weinreich, The Spontaneous Poetics of Jack Kerouac: a Study of Fiction, (New York, 1990), p. 40.

12. It’s Neal Cassady who bridges the Beat Generation and the Counterculture era of the 1960s, in that he is the bus driver of Ken Kesey’s “Merry Pranksters” bus named “Further” on their 1964 trip to NYC and back to San Francisco. This “trip” is celebrated in Tom Wolfe’s book, “Electric Cool-aid Acid Test” (1968) and the footage was used in a 2011 documentary film “The Magic Trip”. There’s a scene in the film, which shows Jack Kerouac meeting The Pranksters in NYC, but he looks very uncomfortable.

Ken Kesey & Neal Cassady (1964)

13. Robert Pirsig, Zen and The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, (New York, 2014) [40th anniversary edition], p. 394.

14. Mark Richardson, “About the Author,” Zen and Now. 7 Dec. 2014. Web.
http://www.zenandnow.org/author.php

15. Michael Becker, “Pirsig’s Pilgrims.” Mountains and Minds 5:2 (Fall 2011), p. 28-35.

Works cited:

Becker, Michael. “Pirsig’s Pilgrims.” Mountains and Minds 5:2 (Fall 2011): 28-35. Print.

Campbell, James. This is the Beat Generation: New York – San Francisco - Paris. London: Secker & Warburg, 1999. Print.

Christy, Jim. The Long Slow Death of Jack Kerouac. Toronto: ECW Press, 1998. Print.

Clark, Tom. Jack Kerouac: A Biography. New York: Marlowe & Co., 1984. Print

DiSanto, Ronald L. and Steele, Thomas J. Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. New York: William Morrow, 1990. Print.

Grace, Nancy M. Jack Kerouac and the Literary Imagination. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Print.

Jameson, Shelagh. Chautauqua in Canada. Calgary: Glenbow-Alberta Institute, 1979. Print

Kerouac, Jack. Big Sur. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981. Print.

ibid. Road Novels, 1957 – 1960. ed. Douglas Brinkley. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2007. Print.

ibid. On the Road: The Original Scroll. New York: Viking, 2007. Print.

McWatt, Dr. Anthony. On the Road with Robert Pirsig. Liverpool: MOQ. 2008. DVD.

Morrison, Theodore. Chautauqua. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1974. Print.

Plimpton, George, ed. The Paris Review Interviews: Beat Writers at Work. London: The Harvill Press, 1999. Print.

Pirsig, Robert M. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. New York: William Morrow, 1974. Print.

ibid. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. New York: Quill, 1999. Print. [25th anniversary edition]

ibid. Zen and The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. New York: Vintage. 2014. Print. [40th anniversary edition]

Richardson, Mark. Zen and Now: On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. New York: Knopf, 2008. Print.

Richardson, Mark. “About the Author” Zen and Now. 7 Dec. 2014. Web.
http://www.zenandnow.org/author.php

Theado, Matt. Understanding Jack Kerouac. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2000. Print.

Weinreich, Regina. The Spontaneous Poetics of Jack Kerouac: a Study of Fiction. New York: Paragon House, 1990. Print.

Appendix 1:

In addition to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road non-fiction novel, I would speculate that John Steinbeck’s road narrative/novel Travels with Charley (1962) may have had some influence on Robert Pirsig’s work. Steinbeck’s travel narrative was initially published as a three part essay in Holiday magazine under the title “In Quest of America”, and subsequently expanded with a fourth part describing his southern journey through Texas where he had many family connections.

"In Quest of America," part one. Holiday 30, no 1 (July 1961): [26], 27-33, 79-85.

"In Quest of America," part two. Holiday 30, no. 6 (Dec. 1961): 60-65, 116-18, 120-21, 124, 126-28, 130-31, and 134-36.

"In Quest of America," part three. Holiday 31, no. 2 (Feb. 1962): 58-63, 122.

Holiday Magazine: John Steinbeck’s "In Quest of America," Three Parts Appeared In These Four Issuers.

The book was released by Viking Press on July 27th, 1962 months before Steinbeck was to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. It was taken at face value as an authentic “non-fiction” book describing actual encounters with Americans of all walks of life. It was only on the 50th anniversary of the original 1960 journey in 2010 that journalists began to re-examine the route that Steinbeck described. A retired investigative journalist, Bill Steigerwald, retraced the journey stopping at all the locations mentioned in the book. He created a timeline of the Steinbeck trip and concluded that there were “discrepancies with the book’s account”. Steigerwald also examined the original 1962 manuscript in the Morgan Library and discovered that the Viking editor had eliminated the presence of Elaine Steinbeck (who accompanied him on large sections of the tour) in favour of a “man and his dog” story. Ironically, Steinbeck himself gives a hint at the true nature of the publication with the following text:

“And suddenly the United States became huge beyond belief and impossible to ever cross. I wondered how in hell I’d got myself mixed up in a project that couldn’t be carried out. It was like starting a novel.”

(p. 20, Steinbeck Centennial Edition, Travels With Charley. 2002)

Another author, Bill Barich published “Long Way Home: On the Trail of Steinbeck’s America” also in 2010. He’s quoted in the NY Times that:

"I'm fairly certain that Steinbeck made up most of the book. The dialogue is so wooden. Steinbeck was extremely depressed, in really bad health, and was discouraged by everyone from making the trip. He was trying to recapture his youth, the spirit of knight-errant. But at that point he was probably incapable of interviewing ordinary people. He’d become a celebrity and was more interested in talking to Dag Hammarskjold and Adlai Stevenson.” '''

( “A Reality Check for Steinbeck and Charley” by Charles McGrath, NYT, April 3rd, 2011)

John Steinbeck’s Travel With Charlie AND Charlie !!

John Steinbeck’s '' John and Elaine Steinbeck at the Nobel Prize Ceremony, 1962
''!!

Links To Further Reading + Links To Video Watch Pleasure: More Information Concerning Kerouac, Steinbeck, ZMM BOOK, & Mr James Forrester,.

((Reminder note to HSG ZMMQ Sitemaster: The links this page, also need to be on ZMMQ ZMM Links Page.))

'Here is James Forrester’s Power Point Presentation, which accompanies (and extends), his above ZAMM … ON THE ROAD article, about Cult “Road” Novels by Robert Pirsig and Jack Kerouac. ''. His Article and Power Point, were submitted to satisfy the course requirements for his ENGL 5201H: Travel Writing Fall 2014

http://1drv.ms/1Wjg6Ah

which will show address in URL box.
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?cid=7357c7c3e51a1e2e&page=view&resid=7357C7C3E51A1E2E!956&parId=7357C7C3E51A1E2E!1078&authkey=!AMpwDPaeaFs_tP0&app=PowerPoint

Jack Kerouac: Back On the Road at the Barber Institute, A Special 50th Anniversary Museum Display.
Marking the 50th anniversary of the publication of the novel, Jack Kerouac: Back On the Road opens on Wednesday 3 December and continues until 28 January 2009. .. As well as displaying the iconic scroll, partially unfurled to reveal 22 feet of its text in a glass case custom-built for the Birmingham show, the exhibition will feature a selection of maps, photographs, album covers and memorabilia that explore the novel’s genesis. [We deduce that the Barber Institute is a museum, which operates within The University of Birmingham, UK.]t

A) Jack Kerouac: Back On the Road at the Barber Institute Site:

http://bhamalumni.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=408

B) Birmingham Post UK: A Video to accompany the Barber Institute exhibition 'Jack Kerouac: Back On the Road' at the Barber Institute in December 2008. Professor Dick Ellis, Department of American and Canadian Studies, discusses the exhibition and Kerouac's work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR0vkz9CGr4

C) Kerouac's original manuscript for On The Road goes on display in Birmingham

A roll of fragile paper 120 feet long which forms one of the 20th century’s most iconic literary manuscripts has been carefully unpacked at Birmingham’s Barber Institute of Fine Arts.

http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/news/local-news/kerouacs-original-manuscript-road-goes-3951948

D) Jack Kerouac, Kerouac’s On the Road, the Beats and the Post-Beats: A two day conference at the University of Birmingham UK, Mr Forrester sends these Two OneDrive Archived Pages

https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=!ADMZOuYDoMu1TBs&id=7357c7c3e51a1e2e!1166&cid=7357C7C3E51A1E2E&parId=7357C7C3E51A1E2E!1168&parCid=7357c7c3e51a1e2e&o=OneUp

https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=!ADMZOuYDoMu1TBs&id=7357c7c3e51a1e2e!1167&cid=7357C7C3E51A1E2E&parId=7357C7C3E51A1E2E!1168&parCid=7357c7c3e51a1e2e&o=OneUp

The text of this Dec 2008. WebArchiv version, is mostly there, but is missing images.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090208024558/http://www.kerouac.bham.ac.uk/

E) Google found these two links, discussing the above Barber Institute Programs, but are a weak substitute for the original Barber Exhibit ones.

http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/literary-history/art62822

http://realitystudio.org/scholarship/the-holy-shit-of-burroughs-and-kerouac/jack-kerouac-back-on-the-road-at-the-barber-institute/

F) Catch-22 – The Vagaries of filmmaking, by Elliot _____, a FilmMaker who calls himself a “One man in a room level at which I operate”. Elliot upon seeing the display at the Barber Institute, said this: “I went up to give a talk on how my own travels were first prompted through contact with On The Road. I first read the book in 1958 and became fired up on the possibilities of the road life in America. As this website will attest, I’m one of those lucky people whose fantasy lived up to expectations. … My main reaction when viewing the physical size of the [Kerouac 120 foot] scroll was how it was able to impart something of the creative flood involved. Kerouac (whom it seems was a red hot typist) would have had the words of this story flowing almost nonstop from his fingers – an observation reinforced by the fact that there are very few typos and corrections.

Some Very Good Information about Jack Kerouac.

A) An excellent short biography about Jack Kerouac’s life and with an emphasis on Kerouac’s Quebec and French speaking background. This is an emphasis we don’t usually see, is an excellent article found by Google.;

http://www.ameriquefrancaise.org/en/article-650/jack_kerouac_-_a_wandering_canadian?.html

B) Kerouac's Grandparents were from Quebec, and apparently he wrote an early first draft of "On the Road" in "Joual", a French: Dialect in Quebec.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joual

C) The Kerouac Project supports writers through Writer’s Residency, in their Kerouac House and other programs that seek to enrich the Greater Orlando Florida Community.

http://www.kerouacproject.org/

D) “The Obsessively Detailed Map of American Literature's Most Epic Road Trips”

by Richard Kreitner (writer), Steven Melendez (map) July 20, 2015. After this page comes up, your mouse on the map will show a) A “hand” … This will allow you to click drag the map to see better what’s off the edges. B) A “finger point” on one of the map dots… This will allow you to left click and see a text explanation. If you do a mouse wheel roll the map will magnify!! WOW! Really nice all over!!
Mr James Forrester, used a.. “combo search for Kerouac and Steinbeck”, to find this, for which we thank him!!

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-obsessively-detailed-map-of-american-literatures-most-epic-road-trips

E) Google Maps also provides Road Trip Maps, similar to the above, but may be a smaller collection.. Examples will come up as you access the “ZAMM Travelogue Maps”, of Mr Gary Wegner. To see Wegner’s ZMM Route Map, scroll down to his name after you click on (menu at left), ZMM Route & Mt Climb: Maps & How To Follow.

Other Information about Jack Kerouac, Which Google Happened To Find, But Since I Am Unsure Of It’s Quality, I have no idea how much trouble these programs will cause. Please advise me by email, what you find. => WARNING => PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK !! .

A) A WebPage Called “Ode to Jack Kerouac, is a long listing of Videos about Kerouac. Found by Google; I have no idea how much trouble these programs will cause. Please advise me by email, what you find.

http://esbuzz.net/trends/video/ode-to-jack-kerouac

B) The “Video Hit” WebSite Has A Page Is Titled “On-The-Road-Jack-Kerouac”: The Site appears to be partly in Russian Language, but the movies and audio programs appear to be in English. If you click on any part of this WebSite, I have no idea how much trouble any of these Video or Audio programs will cause. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK. Please advise me by email, what you find. When this page comes up, there is a top center an apparent “Video Frame”, but it leads to a “Legends of Honor” Computer Game: I have seen this same Logo on other WebPages, and deduce it is an advertisement. A brief Google search confirms this. Until you learn more, I suggest you strenuously avoid.

Next down are the listings of the movies and audio programs:
Here are some of the Captions =>

Soundtrack from 'On the road' - I've Been looking for this song for ages too, enjoy :)

Jack Kerouac - Readings from 'On the Road' and 'Visions of Cody'

Russell Brand continues his epic road trip across America in this free video from BBC Worldwide. Here, the comedian visits the home of jazz poetry, a movement ….

Jack Kerouac on The Steve Allen Show with Steve Allen 1959

This is the only known motion picture of beat generation writer and icon Jack Kerouac reading his own work For licensing ...

http://videohit.me/results/0000/on+the+road+jack+kerouac/

Here Are YouTube videos by James Forrester, Showing His ZMM Enthusiast Involvement:

A) Mr Forrester shares ZMM Enthusiasm (and video production interests), with Lee Glover. Mr His email signature line:
J. A. Forrester
jamesforresterlakefield@outlook.com
P.O. Box 718, Lakefield, Ontario K0L 2H0

B) Des Molloy on Motorcycling
Here's the video James Forrester shot of Des Molloy, in his New Zeeland, garage with his faithful Panther motorcycle: As you will see Mr Molloy, has a great interest in ZMM, which lead him, his Daughter, and friend to complete the ZMM Route, on duplicate bikes, to those Pirsig and John Sutherland road in the original 1968 ZMM Ride. Mr Molloy and other antique cycle enthusiasts, have ridden their oldies on numerous continent spanning bike rides, on some 5 continents. The comment is from Henry [Des’s friend, or son? ]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxiJRolmDZI =
More information and links are on ZMMQ ZMM Links Page]: After this page comes up, scroll down ~30 inches to Zen and the Last Hurrah II. “Two New Zealand Guys …. .

'''C) This link leads to a page listing several of Mr Forrester’s Video, one of which the above Molloy Video.
https://www.youtube.com/user/BMWriderCanada '''

D) Chautauqua 2012 : MSU Honors Robert Pirsig, by James Forrester
Published April 18, 2013
Topics Chautauqua 2012, Montana State University, Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Chautauqua 2012 MSU honors Robert Pirsig records events at a symposium which took place December 7th/8th, 2012 on the Bozeman campus of Montana State University where Robert Pirsig taught creative writing in 1958-60. Michael Sexton, Master of Ceremonies, Charles Pinka, Tina DeWeese, Anthony McWatt, Henry Gurr and filmmaker Lee Glover (among others) spoke during the seminar. Lee Glover premiered his feature-length video entitled "Meridian" which examines Pirsig and his classic work "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".[HSG Editor’s Note: Also in this video, Tina mention how her parents sponsored parties with local artists & intellectuals, with Robert Pirsig attending. Although Tina implies that the word Quality, may not have been much used, her parents had firm perceptions of highest merit, and the most important and stimulation things to them. Then comes Tina DeWeese’s Introduction To Lee Glover’s movie Meridian . And then Lee’s dedication of his movie to John Sutherland, of ZMM Book.] .. Producer James Forrester .. Language English
38. 8 min. http://archive.org/details/ZAMMatMSU2012Med

E) A Shorter Version Of: C) Above: Chautauqua 2012 : MSU Honors Robert Pirsig, by James Forrester
The first ~6 min is the same as above, but then leaves out a long explanations, such as a) Lee Glover’s story details how he found his duplicate of Pirsig’s Honda Super Hawk. b) Tina DeWeese talking about her Mom & Dad, what was important to them, Henry Gur and Charles Pinkiva’s open mic presentations, are shortened, as are Tina & Lee’s discussion of Lee’s Movie..
11.6 min http://www.youtube.com/JamesAForrester

Additional Links To Good Internet Resources Re: Robert Pirsig and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:
Here are two VERY good links, sent by Mr James Forrester, which are programs on CBC Radio: (Wikipedia says “The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (French: Société Radio-Canada), officially branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster.” )

A) This is a description of a CBC Radio Canada, Audio Program. By Tim Wilson.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/a-fresh-look-at-robert-pirsig-s-zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance-1.2856138

B) This is the audio tape of above mention radio broadcast, originally on Dec. 2, 2014. You can listen to Tim Wilson's interview with Robert Pirsig on CBC Radio's Ideas on-line now. Recommend you should pay attention to the following segments:

Just after the audio start: The ZMM reading Re experiencing in “immediate consciousness,.

The segment on why you should not attempt to Definition Quality starts at 18:00 min.

The segments concerning USA social unrest in 1970’s, start at 25:30 min thru 26:00 min.

http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2623057085

By James Forrester RevSept15. HSGPrepZmmq12Mar16.
File =JamesForrester}Ppr=RobertPirsigZMM& OnTheRoad{RevSept15PostZMMQ03

And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good—
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?"
Robert Pirsig in his “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”..