Potrzebie
Monday, October 06, 2008
  Jack Kerouac reads from Doctor Sax
Control click heading above to hear Anna Domino's haunting interpretation of "Pome on Doctor Sax".

©2008 Jack Kerouac Estate
Doctor Sax the master knower of Easter was now reduced to penury and looking at stained glass windows in old churches - His only two last friends in life, this impossibly hard life no matter under what conditions it appears, were Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, who visited him annually in his room on Third Street and cut through the fogs of evening with their heads bent ...


In 1957, Kerouac was asked what he considered his best book, and he answered, "A book called Doctor Sax,  a kind of Gothic fairy tale, a myth of puberty, about some kids in New England playing around in this empty place when a shadow suddenly comes out at them, a real shadow. A real shadow." Our pre-Halloween celebration continues with two videos which combine Kerouac's voice with photos of Lowell, the setting of Doctor Sax. The first is by Gottfried Geist, who has many other videos about writers which you can see here. (To reread Potrzebie's 2007 Halloween Celebration with the real-life horror tale "University of Horrorda," click on "horrorda" in the labels at bottom.)



Excerpt from Chapter 10 of Doctor Sax: It was in Centralville I was born, in Pawtucketville saw Doctor Sax. Across the wide basin to the hill--on Lupine Road, March 1922, at five o’clock in the afternoon of a red-all-over suppertime, as drowsily beers were tapped on Moody and Lakeview saloons and the river rushed with her cargoes of ice over reddened slick rocks, and on the shore the reeds swayed among mattresses and cast-off boots of Time, and lazily pieces of snow dropped plunk from bagging branches of black thorny oily pine in their thaw, and beneath the wet snows of the hillside receiving the sun’s lost rays the melts of winter mixed with roars of Merrimac was born. Bloody rooftop. Strange deed. All eyes I came hearing the river’s red; I remember that afternoon, I perceived it through beads hanging in a door and through lace curtains and glass of a universal sad lost redness of mortal damnation ... the snow was melting. The snake coiled in the hill not my heart.

Young Doctor Simpson who later became tragic tall and grayhaired and unloved, snapping his--"I think everything she is going to be alright, Angy," he said to my mother who’d given birth to her first two, Gerard and Catherine, in a hospital.

"Tank you Doctor Simpson, he’s fat like a tub of butter--mon ti n’ange..." Golden birds hovered over her and me as she hugged me to her breast; angels and cherubs made a dance, and floated from the ceiling with upsidedown assholes and thick folds of fat, and there was a mist of butterflies, birds, moths and brownesses hanging dull and stupid over pouting births.


More Lowell images set to this 1961 audiotape of Kerouac reading.


Another production of Doctor Sax is a CD audio drama created by Kerouac 's nephew, Jim Sampas, in 2003. Sampas based his script on Kerouac's unproduced screenplay, Doctor Sax and the Great World Snake. The release on Sampas'  independent record label, Gallery Six (named for the Six Gallery reading), consisted of two CDs and a book with the screenplay illustrated by Richard Sala. Music score by John Medeski. Cast: Robert Creeley (narration), Jim Carroll (Jackie Duluoz, Count Condu), Robert Hunter (Doctor Sax), Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Wizard), Kate Pierson (Vamp Contessa), Graham Parker (Baroque), Ellis Paul (Lousy), Bill Janovitz.

NPR: Bob Edwards interviews Jim Sampas, plus excerpts from Doctor Sax and the Great World Snake (RealPlayer).


©2008 Jack Kerouac Estate

Labels: , , , , , , ,

 
Comments: Post a Comment



<< Home
Masquerade of the albino axolotls

My Photo
Name:

is the editor of Against the Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood (2003), reviewed by Paul Gravett.

ARCHIVES
October 2005 / November 2005 / December 2005 / January 2006 / February 2006 / March 2006 / April 2006 / May 2006 / June 2006 / July 2006 / August 2006 / September 2006 / October 2006 / November 2006 / December 2006 / January 2007 / February 2007 / March 2007 / April 2007 / May 2007 / June 2007 / July 2007 / August 2007 / September 2007 / October 2007 / November 2007 / December 2007 / January 2008 / February 2008 / March 2008 / April 2008 / May 2008 / June 2008 / July 2008 / August 2008 / September 2008 / October 2008 / November 2008 / December 2008 / January 2009 / February 2009 / March 2009 / April 2009 / May 2009 / June 2009 / July 2009 / August 2009 / September 2009 / October 2009 / November 2009 / December 2009 / January 2010 / February 2010 / March 2010 / April 2010 / May 2010 / June 2010 / July 2010 / August 2010 / September 2010 / October 2010 / November 2010 / December 2010 / January 2011 / February 2011 / March 2011 / April 2011 / May 2011 / June 2011 / July 2011 / August 2011 / September 2011 / October 2011 / November 2011 / December 2011 / January 2012 / February 2012 / March 2012 / April 2012 / May 2012 / June 2012 / July 2012 / September 2012 / October 2012 / November 2012 / December 2012 / January 2013 / February 2013 / March 2013 / April 2013 / May 2013 / June 2013 / July 2013 / August 2013 / September 2013 / October 2013 / December 2013 /


Powered by Blogger