Jack Kerouac's New Year's Resolutions

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:01:00 GMT

Jack Kerouac is dead, so obviously these are what we call "vintage" rules to live by. (In fact, this coming year will mark the 40th Anniversary of the Beat Generation writer's death, which was due to cirrhosis of the liver.)

And while these chunks of wisdom, taken from his Belief and Technique in Modern Prose (or, at least, the style of rapid-fire modern prose he invented and brought down with him), are geared toward writers, they are words to live by in 2009-- so says us:

Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy
Submissive to everything, open, listening
Try never get drunk outside your own house
Be in love with your life
Something that you feel will find its own form
Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
Blow as deep as you want to blow
Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
The unspeakable visions of the individual
No time for poetry but exactly what is
Visionary tics shivering in the chest
In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
Like Proust be an old teahead of time
Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
Write in recollection and amazement for yrself
Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
Accept loss forever
Believe in the holy contour of life
Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
You're a Genius all the time
Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

True, we don't understand half of what he says, but everyone can take a line or two and run with it. The man who once wrote "I want to marry my novels and have short stories for children" would have turned 86 this past year.

Via Wikipedia.

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New World Resolutions

Emily Farris — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:09:00 GMT

We don't really believe in New Year's resolutions. New Year's comes every year and when we fail to keep our resolutions after days or weeks (as most of us do), we often feel bad about ourselves.

But something about today inspires us to make resolutions we want to keep. Something we didn't think could ever happen happened when Barack Obama won the Presidential election last night, and now that we can feel the pain of canvassing Kansas City in our calves and the the celebratory shots in our heads, we feel like we're a part of this, too. Because if Barack Obama is going to change things for the country and the world, the least we can do is make a few changes (and stick to them) in our own lives, right?

Read our resolutions and share your own after the jump.

Scanner Emily resolves to:

Save money (even if it's just $20) every month.
Become a member of my public radio station.
Stop ignoring my debt and start paying it down, even if it's just $20/month.
Keep in better touch with my family.
Move into my own apartment within the year.
Run or swim at least twice a week.
Stop eating when I'm not hungry.

(Scanner Brian and Scanner Nicole should feel free to add their own in the post).

Image via AP/CNN.com

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Jack Kerouac's New Year's Resolutions

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