Kerouac

In an effort to bring more books into my 15 year-old's life, we listened this morning, she and I, on the way to school, on the endlessly slow Olympic Boulevard (never has a street been less aptly named) to "On the Road" as read by Will Patton.  To quote John Travolta, "It's electrifying."  To wit:

"They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn..."

-- Jack Kerouac, On the Road

and

"I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was — I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds."

-- Jack Kerouac, On the Road