On The Road: Scroll Away The Dew

The scroll, laid out in its long glass case like an ancient Catholic relic, is brown and tired, coffee stained, penciled and faded. This is powerful stuff. These are the words, straight from Jack’s brain. Words that inspired Dylan, Garcia, Morrison, Hunter Thompson and countless hordes of creative free-thinkers to get off their asses and create, write and experience their own golden road. Stretched out like a wise, old, ink-tattooed snake, you can feel the tangible significance of raw creativity that is On the Road.

The exhibit includes drawings, paintings, photographs, journal entries, rough drafts, first editions, scorecards for imaginary baseball teams…There’s Kerouac, good, bad, prolific, meticulous, paranoid, inspired…I found myself drawn to the scroll more than anything else in the room. Maybe it’s the romantic notion that in front of my eyes, breathing the same air as me, was the ‘primordial ooze’ of the holy text that permanently changed my perspective on life. Maybe it’s the supernatural synergy of the beat ghosts of Kerouac’s narrative and the beat ghosts of Manhattan’? Maybe it’s because it is in big, shiny, sixty foot glass case in the center of the room?… Whatever it is, I plan on leaving work early a few more times to stir up some more “ripples in the upside-down lake of the void.”

The scroll and the exhibit head back on the road at the end of February. Maybe it’ll find Old Bull Lee in New Orleans or Hassle’s haggard ghost in Detroit? Maybe stop by Denver for a reunion with the spectres of the old gang — Carlo Marx, Dean Moriarty, Roland Major and the Rawlins clan? If you’ve got the means, take a road trip of your own and come see this exhibit at home in NYC. If you can’t hit the road, take the advice of the Great and Knowledgeable Icculus and “READ THE BOOK,” whether it’s your first time, or fifty-first time. I leave you with Jack, his own words in his own voice. Dig it, daddy-oh:

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