by Jack Kerouac
Allen, meanwhile there are big rumors around town here that you were seen several times on the street and in The Place, as tho you were Hitler and nobody wants to believe that you’re really “dead”. Also you were “seen” in New York even and everywhere I go I’m introduced as “that guy that Howl is dedicated to!” (you rat!) [?] So anyway Howl was cleared in Immigrations Customs Court or whatever (let Whalen explain details) but now local police step in. Write to Frechtman for God’s sake, show to someone else if he don’t like it, like Cocteau or Genet himself. Al S. [Sublette] is in jail for shoplifting, he will be freed in thirty days for good. My visit to Gregory was a big story in itself. Yes I will pick up the LaVigne painting of Peter, wanta study it. “New Haven Poet man” was John Wieners (he has already bugged Sterling Lord with his “illiterate” letters). Gary sent Phil Whalen big Buddha robes—also, Gary’s sister is in Mill Valley and I am going to latch on. Send Wieners your and Bill’s material and Pete’s too and he wants snapshots too, he’s open to everything. I think he would be better for “Green Auto” because I think New Editions is square. When I saw Lucien he wasn’t drinking any more, quiet, had to quit, I drank, got drunk, he was very friendly and nice and I told him whole story of everybody and he laughed. In Paris latch on to American girls at Bonaparte Cafe near the Deux Magots Cafe near the church St. Germain de Pres, better than men like [James] Baldwin etc. they have loot and wanta be loved, that’s how Gregory makes it, but try to live in Montmartre only half hour hike. London nowhere, don’t ever even go there, except unless you want to strangle bobbies in the fog. Try to go thru Aix and Arles too, and don’t miss Louvre, don’t miss anything . . . (you won’t) . . . wish I was with you. Now that my mother all settled and happy I feel like becoming happy too—but the three girls are arriving soon (Joyce, Elise, Carol) and Neal all blowing hot and big season to begin. New poet on scene, little incunabular Burroughs with glasses called Dave Whitaker . . . (seventeen). Send me instructions about “Green Auto”, whether for Grieg or for Wieners. I hear there’s a picture of you and Gregory and Laff in new issue of Esquire (for July) and that dumb Rexroth article is in New World Writing no. 11 where I’m “in his small way” peer of Céline and Beckett. Esquire has turned down what we offered them after a big hasselous lunch where they wanted to stare at me the pricks . . . I should have shoved my prick in their mouth, that’s what they really want . . . I will write big separate letter to Pete now but also for everybody to read.
Ti Jean
Editors’ Note: Kerouac’s mother wasn’t happy living in California, so they moved to Orlando in order to be near Jack’s sister, Nin Blake.
Jack Kerouac [Orlando, Florida] to
Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, and Alan Ansen [Venice, Italy]
July 21, 1957
Dear Allen and Peter and Alan:
Finally re-settled my mother for good in nice pad here in Orlando, which has my own room—cost me hundreds of dollars and’s left me destitute but all is set, she says she never wants to leave here and cheap rent of $45 she can make it herself, on her social security monthly checks—so tomorrow I leave this heat wave horror for cool plateau of Mexico City where I will arrive with $33 and must write despairing letters to Malcolm Cowley and agent for money. If Garver is dead, and my rooftop room is taken, I’ll go to 7 peso-per-day Hotel Solin where Esperanza liveth and buy candles and holy weed and alcohol burner and potatoes and write second half of Desolation Angels. Allen, crafty Cowley wants me to write more childhood scenes for Doctor Sax and deliver them by Oct. 1st and I suspect he will yank fantasy out of it without my permission, as he yanked much out of On the Road (review copies of which are out) (On the Road undecimateable, unlike Sax) without my permission or even sight of galley proofs! Oh shame! shame on American Business! So I may get Sax publish’t as is by Mike Grieg for the record (free) and let Viking fuck Sax? You are very famous now, Allen, incidentally I will be getting money this fall undoubtedly and will send you cashier’s check for $225 before Xmas I hope. Reprint people ought to take Road any week, it’s only 305 pages as published hard cover. Wild book, by the way—(first Dostoevskyan pure novel in America). Evergreen Review No. 2 is also great, “Howl”, “Railroad Earth”, good Gary, McClure, everybody blowing, nice cover. Elise [Cowen] came to Frisco mysteriously, Joyce [Glassman] in N.Y. wondering where I am, has $500 to travel. Rather be poor than bugged. Received your Angel postcards of Spain. If all goes as it should, I ought to meet you all in Paris in May. Have to explain Beat for Harper’s or Saturday Review, big article, by Aug. 15th. LuAnne [Henderson] and Neal and Al Hinkle floated into my Berkeley door just as I was unpacking boxful of On The Roads from Viking, all got high reading, LuAnne wanted to fuck me that next night, Ow, had to leave (bus tickets). Saw Stanley Gould and Al Sublette in one mad night that exhausted and scared Elise. Tell Gregory I wrote him letter but where mail it? Lafcadio brooding in N.Y. Desolation Angels all scattered. Is Bill alright? Will you see him in Paris? does he know I love him? (I mean, in my letters, I never mention him affectionately). Shall I have Viking mail you copy of Road?—don’t be bugged by what Cowley wanted put in, on page six or so, about “intellectualism” of you and Bill and Joan [Burroughs] as against Neal’s hard-on hungry purity. Cowley thinks I’m Simple Simon, I’m a fool alright. Who will really justify us shits?
Peter, I didn’t get that LaVigne painting, no time. Peter, write a mad story, Mike Grieg wants to publish my “hidden geniuses”—you, Jack Fitzgerald, Hunkey, Laff, etc. in his New Editions. How about a nice essay on Portuguese Baroque by Sr. Alan Ansen? Don Allen came to Frisco with Jonathan Williams, Whalen doesn’t like him much (he’s contemptuous of so many things including my way of writing, say “On the Road ought to be a good book, the Viking editors spent three years revising it”)—and Rexroth saying at big get-together, “We who have power with publishers” like, they’re all getting hungup on the power poetry gives, not poetry itself. Rexroth says Road is great and sent me message saying so. Even Mark Schorer tried to reach me. Anyway, spending all my money before I get rich so now I can make me fine pad in Mex City and come home winters, all’s finally settled. Now for Panama Street.125 Write to me care of here till I send you Mex address. I’ll write long letter soon to all of you. Are you going to file for Guggenheim now, deadline Oct. 1st? I will. Gary coming to Calif. within months, it seems, on freighter. Well, end of sheet.
DIAMONDSHATTERING BULLSHIT
Jack
Jack Kerouac [Brownsville, Texas] to
Allen Ginsberg [Venice, Italy]
August 9, 1957
Dear Allen:
This is by way of being a letter to Bill also, to tell him that Bill Garver is dead, buried somewhere in Mexico City with Joan [Burroughs], died last month or so. That was the first catastrophe, then I went to Esperanza’s hotel, she’s disappeared, then that night the earthquake which made me tremble and hide under the bed in this hotel room with a twenty foot ceiling (woke up from deep sleep to what I wordlessly thought was the natural end of the world, then I said “It’s a giant earthquake!” and waited as the bed heaved up and down, the ceiling creaked deeply, the loose dresser doors moansqueaked back and forth, the deep rumble and SILENCE of it in my Eternity Room). One horror after another as usual in Doom Mexico. Now, a few days later, I walk and see the building that used to say “Burroughs” on it is divided in two, all the windows broken and only “Burrou” left of the name in front. Anyway I wrote the article they want, EXPLAINING THE BEAT GENERATION, all about our visions, yours, mine, Bill’s, Philip Lamantia’s, Gregory. Visions of “devils and celestial heralds,” Joan’s, Hunkey’s, Gary’s, Phil’s—even Alene’s and the Times Square kid of the Second Coming. I hope they publish the article, in it I show that “beat” is the Second Religiousness of Western Civilization as prophesied by Spengler. I also mention Neal’s religiousness and Lucien’s attempt to gain asylum in a church, which is really the most Gothic mad event of all. Also, I’m writing new scenes for Doctor Sax but I’ve decided to sho
wdown with Cowley by inserting a clause in the contract against removal of (Gothic) fantasy and in fact against extensive editorial fucking-up. I have $17 left, however, and am waiting to be saved. Will start back September 15 and go to New York in October. Joyce [Glassman] wanted join me here.
I keep thinking of Bill Garver . . . and of November when we were all together here. Have no typewriter and thinking of looking up old painter Alfonso for one, or Donald Demarest of the Mexico City News who mentioned you and Denise Levertov last Sunday in a review about a painter’s autobiography (the painter, Lester Epstein, is an “aficionado” of you and Henry Miller, it says). I asked Viking to send you copy of On the Road. O what a loney room I have, twenty foot ceiling, whorehouse mirrors, no windows, right downtown. Except for writing-work, I haven’t got a single reason in the world to be here, especially since Catastrophe No. 3 was my visit to Panama Street. The whores have been driven off the streets completely apparently by spreading cancer of Americanism. And I’m without my holy weed too! Write to me in Florida, am leaving.
Jack
Latest latest news—I got Asiatic flu and going home.
Allen Ginsberg [Venice, Italy] to
Jack Kerouac [n.p., Orlando, Florida?]
August 13-September 5, 1957
August 13, 1957
American Express
Venice, Italy
Dear Jack:
Got your letter today, of Garver’s death, and the other letters before, and answering with big long letter now, I’ve been putting off, it’s such a big terrible letter, telling all about Europe, I’m sorry I waited so long, but thought every day and couldn’t sit at typewriter for fear of not writing something beautiful. But Bill is only in Copenhagen, after London, after Spain, waiting what to do, we (me and Peter) in Venice with Alan Ansen, Gregory (we hear from oftener) in Paris still (with big apartment someone loaned him and broke and hungry we sent him five dollars but he ate with Genet and met Brandos), and now we are all ready to take off it costs only twenty and go to Greece and further Istanbul, before even seeing Paris—but all our plans are not fixed, so when you are ready in October after NY where else is there to go, come join us in Istanbul or Paris or live free at Ansen’s (pay for your own food rent free and lots free liquor) in Venice—we been here month and half now.
Peter and I left Alan and Bill in Tangiers and took off on our own with knapsacks into Spain [ . . . ]126
Sept. 5. Never finished this—Leaving for Paris day after tomorrow and cleaning up desk—will pick up from there and tell you everything else we’ve done so you don’t miss nothing of Europe. I got fare to Venice a few days after writing you last—write us c/o American Express—are you in N.Y.C.?
Love
Allen
Ferlinghetti sent me check for $100 royalties (unexpected) for Howl, all sold out printing a 4th printing. Probably more loot coming in a few months—helps solve money problems which is a lot better now. Will file for Guggenheim soon—if you get chance ask Cowley if he’ll write for one for me. Should he? Have Viking send me a Road in Paris if they haven’t already.
Allen Ginsberg [Amsterdam, The Netherlands] to
Jack Kerouac [New York, New York]
Sept 28, 1957
Dear Jack:
Passed thru Vienna, Munich, week in Paris, then up here to Amsterdam, sleeping on Gregory’s floor here. Mad scenes in Holland—it is a great town—everybody speaks English, they have hip poet’s bars, bop bars, surrealist magazines that publish Gregory’s poetry and will review Howl and Road, and Burroughs get pieces published here. Canals, quiet streets with weeping willows and psychiatrists offices, no housing shortage, cheap food, 12 cent big rare roast beef sandwiches, beer and cheese, magnificent museums with Rembrandt and Vermeer—and a museum with fifty-five Van Gogh paintings—another one twenty miles away with ninety-five Van Goghs—and the whore streets—huge red lite district neat and clean and quiet—girls sit like mannequins in windows, like Dutch dolls in dollhouses, on ground floor, windows bright and clean, they sit in chair and cross legs and knit quietly waiting for customers on quiet streets—whole blocks and blocks of girls in bright ground floor windows—like a heaven—and they don’t yell at you or grab your arm—just go on with knitting. Neal would go mad. And lovely canals on side streets. Peter’s shaved his beard and moustache. I spent all nite awake wandering round Les Halles (market) butcher district till 7 AM writing huge poem about carts full of lungs and horns still sticking out of naked goat’s head—in Paris—we went up Eiffel Tower, beautiful dream machine in sky—greater than I imagined—and hitch hiked to Belgium—saw Rotterdam and went to museums there. Tobacco cheap here too—friends here and girls nice—sweet town—we almost go on to Sweden.
Bill is in Tangier writing, he’s OK will perhaps join me in Paris when Peter leaves for NY.
We saw Times September 5 review,127 I almost cried, so fine and true—well now you don’t have to worry about existing only in my dedication and I will have to weep in your great shadow. What is happening in NY? Are you being pursued? Is there a great mad wave of fame crashing over our ears? What does Lucien say about Road review? I thought his father-in-law must have arranged that extra space and picture.
I am writing a short intro. to Gregory’s book Gasoline, why don’t you also write a page of intro—send it to Ferl to use with mine—we unite and give him send off—for he is sure to be generally put down unless people are made to dig him—everybody in S.F. according to Ferlinghetti puts him down as a “showman” and for that reason Ferlinghetti won’t even publish “Power”. Tell Don Allen about “Power” too.
Will return to Paris room with gas stove Oct. 15 and settle there. Write soon, what’s news. Love to Lucien—you seeing him?
Allen
Jack Kerouac [New York, New York] to
Allen Ginsberg [Amsterdam, The Netherlands]
October 1, 1957
New York Oct. 1
Dear Allen:
Of course now in a position to send you your $225 sometime this Fall. Did you see Gregory in Amsterdam? I writing to him separately. First, you must tell Peter that I wrote him a long beautiful letter about the Russian Soul but mailed it c/o Orlovsky instead of c/o Ansen, Venice, so it’s probably still there and he must send for that letter for sure . . . it was to you too . . . important you should read it. Everything’s been happening here, including this last satori week-end with Lucien and Cessa and kids and Joyce [Glassman] at his upstate country haunted New England house with birds peeking in the holy windows, a big blurred Dostoevskyan party with socialites where I was The Idiot, etc. so mad in fact I could write a novel about just this last weekend, Lucien and I went mad in moonlight haunted house yelling coyote cries and gibbering and seriously insane sitting in our shorts in the old parlor as girls tried to sleep. Then when all sleep I played four hours massive musical suck-out of everything in pump-organ incredibly long sonatas, thundering oratories, shoulda heard. A guy called Leon Garen (who you better meet, twenty, hepcat) will produce a play about Neal if I write it, offers me a weekend in Taft Hotel in room overlooking Broadway with free sandwiches and typewriter if I knock it off, which I might (big play about Neal, horses, the night of the Bishop, etc., with you and Peter in it). But another guy called Joe Lustig backed by money also wants a play about Neal. Meanwhile Hollywood somewhat active on Road, Marlon Brando’s manager (his Dad) I heard was interested. Italian publishers bought Road. Grove Press bought Subterraneans on new hard cover big-time basis. Esquire bought casual baseball story for $400 (all spent now). Pageant bought article on Beat for $300. I wrote intro to a book of photos by Robert Frank, to be translated in French for the English edition (Delpire publishers). Ferlinghetti getting my Blues by mail. Letter from Robert Olson saying I am a poet, he says, from reading Ontario stuff and “Three Stooges” (by the way, I sent you a copy of the “Three Stooges” New Edition to Venice, did you get it?) Bob Donlin was in NY (with evil Hittleman) got photographed by Playboy with me kissing me on street, after p
hoto I feed him hand to mouth in Cedar bar Creeley artists madbar. Donlin and I fell on sidewalk in Bowery, I also fell on Bowery with Stanley Gould. Unbelievable number of events almost impossible to remember, including earlier big Viking Press hotel room with thousands of screaming i nterviewers and Road roll original hundred mile manuscript rolled out on carpet, bottles of Old Granddad, big articles in Saturday Review, in World Telly, everyfuckingwhere, everybody mad, Brooklyn collidge wanted me to lecture to eager students and big geek questions to answer. Of course I was on television, big interview bit, John Wingate show, mad night, I answered angelic to evil questions, big letters poured in saying I was beloved, finally a phonecall from Little Jack Melody. I had nervous breakdowns, two, now I got piles and I lay up read The Idiot and rest mind. I had final evil flips of evil spirits and most insane dreams of all time where I end up in leading big parades of screaming laughing children (wearing my white headband) down Victory Street Lowell and finally into Asia (parade is intended to cover me up from cops, when they look kids surround me hide me singing, finally cops join parade happy and it ends big blur of robes in Asia). I been preaching Peterism, on TV too, about love, preaching Nealism, everything, I have just made big final preachment in America that would flip you if you knew details . . . big roaring parties finally where I see old enemies in a blur shouting round me—(Bill Fox, etc.) . . . new that Norman Mailer pleased with me, telegram from Nelson Algren praising me, etc. etc. in short we don’t need press agents any more (I told Sterling to leave minor details of our poetry and Burroughs to us, he is busy with contracts and $$$ and bewildered by your innocent demands, you being poet do not realize the madness of NY). You will when you get back. Now listen Viking wants to publish Howl and your others and also Grove they racing to reach you first take your choice I think Howl needs distribution it has not even begun to be read.