I saw an interview with Avery Brooks in an oddball documentary ("The Captains", about the captains in all of the various Star Trek shows). He is freaking out there, in a Jack Kerouac hipster kind of way.

I love Jack Kerouac loves lamp.

"Neal Leon Cassady is perhaps best known for being characterized as Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road." - Wikipedia.

If you haven't read On The Road yet, read it. It's a cultural "Must". It categorized a way of living that we all want to taste but (at the same time), we wanted to be stable, so we just read the book instead. So many of today's cultural references came from this book and the characters surrounding it!

Hey, No worries, I actually expected "someone" to make a comment, how could you not! I've never read anything else by him, and I'm not really making any plans to either, but I enjoyed this one!

In reply to this comment by EDD:
Hey, I'm not hating I haven't read it, I've merely heard Hubbard's stuff is sub-par from friends who are avid sci-fi readers. Personally I'm very much into sci-fi and fantasy movies, but very much NOT into those kinds of books. I'm just weird like that.

In reply to this comment by Sagemind:
Ya, I knew someone would say something about that! Hey, I like sci-fi and fantasy stuff. Battlefield Earth is a a great Sci-fi read. It's not not like I listed Dianetics or something. It is what it is - A "fun" read where the good guys, the humans win - Have you read it?? Perhaps you should!


In reply to this comment by EDD:


P.S. Oh and I think I speak for us all when I say - Sagemind - WHAT. THE. F*CK??

>> ^Sagemind:
I have to give two lists!

FICTION:
Clive Barker - Imagica
David Farland - Runelords
Dan Millman - Way of the the Peaceful Warrior
Frank Hurbert - Dune
John Fowles - The Magus
Alexander Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo
L Ron Hubbard - Battlefield Earth
Jack L Chalker - Lilith: A snake in the grass
Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel’s Dart
Jack Kerouac - On the Road

Ya, I knew someone would say something about that! Hey, I like sci-fi and fantasy stuff. Battlefield Earth is a a great Sci-fi read. It's not not like I listed Dianetics or something. It is what it is - A "fun" read where the good guys, the humans win - Have you read it?? Perhaps you should!


In reply to this comment by EDD:


P.S. Oh and I think I speak for us all when I say - Sagemind - WHAT. THE. F*CK??

>> ^Sagemind:
I have to give two lists!

FICTION:
Clive Barker - Imagica
David Farland - Runelords
Dan Millman - Way of the the Peaceful Warrior
Frank Hurbert - Dune
John Fowles - The Magus
Alexander Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo
L Ron Hubbard - Battlefield Earth
Jack L Chalker - Lilith: A snake in the grass
Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel’s Dart
Jack Kerouac - On the Road

-Le Petit Prince by de Saint-Exupéry, because it permanently shaped the way I look at (and interact in) any and all attachments.
-Vinnie the Pooh, because in it's simplicity it provided unique and oh-so-valuable insights on social norms and the psychology of friendship.
-The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, because it gave me the final nudge to become a true bookworm. I like to boast - at age 5 or 6, I read it cover-to-cover in about 9 hours (refused lunch and dinner until I'd finished ).
-The Catcher in the Rye - I guess the most straightforward and requires no explanation.
-A Hero of our Time by Lermontov, because it presented me with a fatalist byronic hero and gave me a clear idea of someone I was very much like and I DID NOT want to become.

and last but definitely not least:
-The Lord of the Rings to which I practically exclusively owe my English skills - I started Book 1 in 1999, I think, with the thickest available dictionary in hand, which honestly, at first had to utilize for practically every sentence but finished Book 6 (not a month later) having clearly surpassed my English teacher in vocabulary and speech fluency.

It has happened before and it will happen again (I mean this kind of Sift Talk), so I guess it was just a matter of time before I participated.

I only stated the couple of books that actually altered my life somewhat (I'm saying this because I always somehow got the impression other people made their lists based on how artsy/fancy their titles sounded, which I really hope isn't true in most cases among Sifters).
Anyway, I guess it's also worth saying that I read every one of these before the age of 15, which helps explain why and how they have influenced my life to some extent.

It's funny though - by the time I was 16 I'd also read and re-read Hesse, Huxley, Orwell, Dostoyevsky, Nabokov, García Márquez, Rand, Joyce, Vonnegut, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, Burgess, Hemingway, Rushdie and other "classics", but most some of these managed was to entertain me mildly (Vonnegut, Hesse, Huxley, Joyce - yes, I really did enjoy reading Ulysses), while I actually hated having to finish some of them (Orwell, Rand, Burgess).

P.S. Oh and I think I speak for us all when I say - Sagemind - WHAT. THE. F*CK??

>> ^Sagemind:
I have to give two lists!

FICTION:
Clive Barker - Imagica
David Farland - Runelords
Dan Millman - Way of the the Peaceful Warrior
Frank Hurbert - Dune
John Fowles - The Magus
Alexander Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo
L Ron Hubbard - Battlefield Earth
Jack L Chalker - Lilith: A snake in the grass
Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel’s Dart
Jack Kerouac - On the Road

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clark
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
Foundation - Isaac Asimov
The Stars my Destination - Alfred Bester
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
A High Wind in Jamaica - Richard Hughes
Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
The Call of the Wild - Jack London

This list is the product of a few moments of reflection. I read many of these books when I was young but their subject matter combined with where I was in my life left me with indelible memories.

Also, the people above me have good taste.

I have to give two lists!

NON FICTION:
David Bodanis - E=MC2
Kerry Mulis - Dancing Naked in the Mind Field
Richard P Fynman - Pleasure of Finding Things Out
Richard P Fynman - The Meaning of it All
Paul Coelho - The Alchemist
Depak Chopra - The Way of the Wizard
Ralph Mayer - Artist’s Handbook
Dennis Willium Hauck - The Emerald Tablet
Janet Gleeson - The Arcanum
Will Durant - The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time

FICTION:
Clive Barker - Imagica
David Farland - Runelords
Dan Millman - Way of the the Peaceful Warrior
Frank Hurbert - Dune
John Fowles - The Magus
Alexander Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo
L Ron Hubbard - Battlefield Earth
Jack L Chalker - Lilith: A snake in the grass
Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel’s Dart
Jack Kerouac - On the Road

*The Stars My Destination (Tiger! Tiger!) - Alfred Bester

*The Foundation Series - Isaac Asimov

*On the Road - Jack Kerouac

*Zadig or Fate - Voltaire

*Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

Honorable mention: The Forever War - Joe Haldeman

Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller

The Diary Of Anais Nin, Volume 2 (1934-1939), Anais Nin

On the Road, Jack Kerouac

Sophie's Choice, William Styron

Birthday Letters, Ted Hughes

Quite a few others, too, some of which were mentioned above.

On the Road has been described as the defining novel of the so-called Beat Generation, a disparate group of poets, artists, filmmakers and musicians who shared certain broad philosophical affinities. By far the most popular of Kerouac’s works, it strikingly portrays a mysterious, semi-nomadic subculture dramatically at variance with the conformist and materialistic American culture of the 1950s.

In late 2002, Jim Irsay offered to exhibit the Scroll across the United States. The official tour of the Kerouac Scroll began in Orlando in January of 2004 and is scheduled to conclude at the end of 2009. In addition to Orlando, it has been exhibited at Emory University in Atlanta; Marquette University in Milwaukee; University of Iowa Museum of Art; Las Vegas Public Library; Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, San Francisco Public Library, Denver Public Library and the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It has also been exhibited in Rome, Italy at the Azienda Speciale Palaexpo.

"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 who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars, and in the middle, you see the blue center-light pop, and everybody goes ahh..."

Jack Kerouac On The Road

/\ From the same logic that brought you;

Inmate - opposite of mate; enemy.
Extractor - used to be a tractor.
Extractor fan - used to like tractors.
Tenants - one less than 11 ants.
and
Auto-Fellatio - a very enjoyable car ride.

Choggie's English Dictionary, not for everyone!

I'd just like to further mention 2 friends of mine (gay) really want to travel the world. They definitely want to go around america a bit (they like kerouac). They can't go because of the way people are in certain areas of america. "Especially the south" they tell me. One, with her ex, has been all but pelted by rotten tomatos for holding hands in some states.

Can't even front though - england is a smaller country and so the 'backwards' areas are easier to miss. In Dublin apparently, they had to act like 2 friends on a year out or something.

Everyone's kinda like this, but at least in some countries it doesn't go hand in hand with politics.

One of my favorite clips of Jack Kerouac. Interestingly, it is not actually On the Road that Kerouac is reading from, but his final version of it (and what Kerouac considered his masterpiece, thought not nearly as well received) entitled Visions of Cody.

Kerouac rarely appeared on television, and the few appearances he did make were typically brief. The deviation from the agreed-upon plan of reading from On the Road is often interpreted by counterculture literature enthusiasts as a sort of "f*** you" to the establishment by reading from the work Kerouac believed to be his best, rather than from the "inferior" On the Road that garnered far more mainstream popularity.

1949

* Harry Truman is inaugurated as US president after being elected in 1948 to his own term; previously he was sworn in following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
* Doris Day enters the public spotlight with the films My Dream Is Yours and It's a Great Feeling as well as popular songs like "It's Magic"; divorces her second husband.
* Red China as the Communist Party of China wins the Chinese Civil War, establishing the People's Republic of China.
* Johnnie Ray signs his first recording contract with Okeh Records, although he won't become popular for another two years.
* South Pacific, the prize winning musical, opens on Broadway on April 7.
* Walter Winchell is an aggressive radio and newspaper journalist credited with inventing the gossip column.
* Joe DiMaggio is injured early in the season but makes a comeback in June and leads the New York Yankees to win the World Series.

1950

* Joe McCarthy, the US Senator, gains national attention and begins his anti-communist crusade with his Lincoln Day speech.
* Richard Nixon is first elected to the United States Senate.
* Studebaker a popular car company, is beginning its financial downfall.
* Television is becoming widespread (in black and white format) and becomes the most popular means of advertising.
* North Korea, South Korea engage in warfare as North Korea attacks on June 25, beginning the Korean War.
* Marilyn Monroe soars in popularity with five new movies including The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve, and attempts suicide after death of lover Johnny Hyde. Monroe would later (1954) briefly marry Joe DiMaggio (the rhyme in the previous verse).

1951

* Rosenbergs were convicted on March 29 for espionage.
* H-Bomb is in the middle of its development as a nuclear weapon, announced in early 1950 and first tested in late 1952.
* Sugar Ray (Robinson) the boxer obtains the world's Middleweight title.
* Panmunjeom, the border village in Korea, is the location of truce talks between the parties of the Korean War.
* Brando (Marlon) is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the first time for his famous role in A Streetcar Named Desire
* The King and I opens on Broadway on March 29.
* and The Catcher in the Rye is a controversial novel by J. D. Salinger.

1952

* Eisenhower (Dwight D.) is first elected as U.S. president by a landslide.
* Vaccine for polio is privately tested by Jonas Salk.
* England's got a new Queen as George VI passes away and Elizabeth II succeeds to the throne of United Kingdom and the Commonwealth Realms.
* Marciano (Rocky) defeats Jersey Joe Walcott, becoming the world Heavyweight champion.
* Liberace has a popular 1950s television show for his musical entertainment.
* Santayana, good-bye as philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist George Santayana dies on September 26.

1953

* Joseph Stalin dies on March 5, yielding his position as leader of the Soviet Union.
* Malenkov (Georgy Maksimilianovich) succeeds Stalin for six months following his death.
* Nasser (Gamal Abdel) acts as the true power behind the new Egyptian nation as Muhammad Naguib's minister of the interior.
* and Prokofiev (Sergei) the composer, dies on March 5, the same day as Stalin.
* Rockefeller (Winthrop) moves to Arkansas, the state where he will be elected governor.
* Campanella (Roy), a baseball catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, receives the National League's Most Valuable Player award for the second time.
* Communist bloc is a group of communist nations dominated by the Soviet Union at this time.

1954

* Roy Cohn resigns as Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel and enters private practice with the fall of McCarthy.
* Juan Perón spends his last full year as President of Argentina before a September 1955 coup.
* Toscanini (Arturo) is at the height of his fame as a conductor, performing regularly with the NBC Symphony Orchestra on national radio.
* Dacron is an early artificial fiber made from the same plastic as polyester.
* Dien Bien Phu falls as Viet Minh forces under Vo Nguyen Giap take over the Vietnamese village, leading to the creation of North Vietnam and South Vietnam.
* "Rock Around the Clock" is a hit single released by Bill Haley & His Comets in May, spurring worldwide interest in rock and roll.

1955

* Einstein (Albert) dies on April 18 at the age of 76.
* James Dean achieves success with East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, gets nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, and dies in a car accident on September 30.
* Brooklyn's got a winning team as the Brooklyn Dodgers win the World Series for the only time. (There is cheering in the background of the song during this line.)
* Davy Crockett is a Disney television series about the legendary frontiersman of the same name.
* Peter Pan is broadcast on TV live and in color from the 1954 version of the stage musical starring Mary Martin on March 7.
* Elvis Presley signs with RCA Records on November 21, beginning his pop career.
* Disneyland opens on July 17 as Walt Disney's first theme park.

1956

* Bardot (Brigitte) appears in her first mainstream film And God Created Woman and establishes an international reputation as a French "sex kitten".
* Budapest is the site of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
* Alabama is the site of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
* Khrushchev (Nikita) makes his famous Secret Speech denouncing Stalin's "cult of personality" on February 23.
* Princess Grace (Grace Kelly) releases her last film High Society and marries Prince Rainier III of Monaco.
* Peyton Place, the best-selling novel by Grace Metalious, is published.
* Trouble in the Suez boils as Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal on October 29, beginning the Suez Crisis.

1957

* Little Rock is the site of an anti-integration standoff as Governor Orval Faubus stops the Little Rock Nine from attending Little Rock Central High School, and President Eisenhower deploys the 101st Airborne Division to counteract him.
* Pasternak (Boris), the Russian author, publishes his famous novel Doctor Zhivago.
* Mickey Mantle is in the middle of his career as a famous New York Yankees' outfielder and American League All-Star for the sixth year in a row.
* Kerouac (Jack) publishes his first novel in seven years, On the Road.
* Sputnik is the first artificial satellite, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4.
* Chou Enlai is in the middle of his reign as Premier of the People's Republic of China.
* Bridge on the River Kwai is released as a film adaptation of the 1954 novel and receives seven Academy Awards.

1958

* Lebanon is engulfed in a political and religious crisis.
* Charles de Gaulle is elected first president of the French Fifth Republic following the Algerian Crisis.
* California baseball begins as the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants move to California and become the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants. They are the first major league teams west of Kansas City.
* Starkweather homicide captures the attention of Americans as serial killer Charles Starkweather kills eleven people before he is caught in a massive manhunt in Douglas, Wyoming.
* Children of thalidomide are born with birth defects caused by the sleeping aid and antiemetic, used to treat morning sickness as well (although not in the USA).

1959

* Buddy Holly dies in a plane crash on February 3 with Ritchie Valens and J. P. Richardson, "The Big Bopper". (As an intro to this stanza, Billy Joel mimics Buddy Holly's trademark "hiccup" style, singing a-UH-uh-oh...).
* Ben-Hur wins eleven Academy Awards as a film based around the New Testament starring Charlton Heston.
* Space monkeys Able and Miss Baker are the first living beings to successfully return to Earth from space aboard the flight Jupiter AM-18.
* Mafia are the centre of attention for the FBI and public attention builds to this organized crime society with an historically Sicilian/American origin.
* Hula hoops reach 100 million in sales as the latest toy fad.
* Castro (Fidel) comes to power after a revolution in Cuba and visits the United States later that year on an unofficial twelve-day tour.
* Edsel is a no-go as production of this car marketing disaster (Ford spent $400 million developing it) ends after only two years.

1960

* U-2: an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union, causing the U-2 Crisis of 1960.
* Syngman Rhee: was rescued by the CIA after being forced to resign as leader of South Korea for allegedly fixing an election and embezzling more than twenty million U.S. dollars.
* Payola: was publicized due to Dick Clark's testimony before Congress and Alan Freed's public disgrace.
* and Kennedy (John F.): beats Richard Nixon in the November 8 general election amongst allegations of vote fraud.
* Chubby Checker: popularizes the dance The Twist with his song of the same name.
* Psycho: an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, based on a pulp novel by Robert Bloch and adapted by Joseph Stefano, which becomes a landmark in graphic violence and cinema sensationalism. The screeching violins heard briefly in the background are a trademark of the film's soundtrack.
* Belgians in the Congo: The Democratic Republic of the Congo was declared independent of Belgium on June 30, with Joseph Kasavubu as President and Patrice Lumumba as Prime Minister.

1961

* Hemingway (Ernest): commits suicide on July 2 after a long battle with depression.
* Eichmann (Adolf): is captured by Mossad agents in Argentina and tried for crimes against humanity.
* Stranger in a Strange Land: written by Robert A. Heinlein, is a breakthrough best-seller with themes of sexual freedom and liberation.
* Dylan (Bob): after a New York Times review by critic Robert Shelton, Dylan is signed to Columbia Records.
* Berlin: The Berlin Wall, which separates West Berlin from East Berlin and the rest of East Germany, is constructed.
* Bay of Pigs Invasion: failed attempt by United States-trained Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro.

1962

* Lawrence of Arabia: the Academy Award-winning film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence starring Peter O'Toole premiers in America on December 16.
* British Beatlemania: The Beatles gain Ringo Starr as drummer and Brian Epstein as manager, and join the EMI's Parlophone label.
* Ole Miss: James Meredith integrates the University of Mississippi.
* John Glenn: flew the first American manned orbital mission termed "Friendship 7" on February 20.
* Liston beats Patterson: Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson fight for the world heavyweight championship on September 25, ending in a round-one knockout.

1963

* Pope Paul (VI): is elected to the papacy.
* Malcolm X: makes infamous statements about agreeing with the Kennedy assassination, thus causing the Nation of Islam to censure him.
* British Politician Sex: the Profumo Affair.
* JFK blown away, what else do I have to say?: President Kennedy is assassinated on November 22.

1965

* Birth control: in the early 1960s, oral contraceptives, popularly known as "the pill", first go on the market and are extremely popular. Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 challenged a Connecticut law prohibiting contraceptives. In 1968, Pope Paul VI released a papal encyclical entitled Humanae Vitae which declared most birth control a sin.
* Ho Chi Minh: a Vietnamese Communist, who served as President of Vietnam from 1954–1969.

1968

* Richard Nixon back again: Nixon is elected in the 1968 presidential election of the United States.

1969

* Moon shot: refers to the Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing.
* Woodstock: famous rock and roll festival of 1969 that came to represent the epitome of the counterculture movement.

1974

* Watergate: political scandal involving a hotel break-in, eventually leading to President Nixon's resignation in 1974.
* Punk rock: the Sex Pistols and their new sound become popular.

1977 (Note that these two items, while later chronologically than the two 1976 items, come immediately before them in the song)

* Begin (Menachem): becomes Prime Minister of Israel in 1977 and negotiates the Camp David Accords with Egypt's president in 1978.
* Reagan (Ronald): President of the United States from 1981 to 1989; attempted to run for president in 1976

1976 (Note that these two items, while earlier chronologically than the two 1977 items, come immediately after them in the song)

* Palestine: the Palestine Liberation Organization is admitted as a member of Arab League; see history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
* Terror on the airline: Numerous aircraft hijackings took place, specifically, the Palestinian hijack of Air France Flight 139 and the subsequent rescue at Entebbe Airport in Uganda, 1976.

1979

* Ayatollahs in Iran: during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the West-backed and U.S.-installed Shah is overthrown as the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini gains power after years in exile.
* Russians in Afghanistan: Soviet forces fight a ten-year war in Afghanistan, from 1979 to 1989.

1983

* Wheel of Fortune: a hit television game show which has been TV's highest-rated syndicated program since 1983.
* Sally Ride: in 1983 she becomes the first American woman in space.
* Heavy metal, suicide: Billy Joel himself had previously stated on his website that even though the two terms are separated by a comma they are collectively one item (like "North Korea, South Korea" above). In the 1980s Ozzy Osbourne and the bands Metallica and Judas Priest were brought to court by parents who accused the musicians of hiding subliminal pro-suicide messages in their music.
* Foreign debts: Persistent US trade deficits lead to substantial foreign debt in the eyes of the 1980s period, particularly to Japan.
* Homeless vets: Veterans of the Vietnam war are homeless and impoverished.
* AIDS: A collection of symptoms and infections in humans resulting from the specific damage to the immune system caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). It is first detected and recognized in the 1980s, on its way to becoming a pandemic.
* Crack: Refers to crack cocaine, a popular drug in the mid-to-late 1980s.

1984

* Bernie Goetz: On December 22, Goetz becomes a vigilante after being mugged four times; he shoots four young men who he believed to be threatening him on a New York City subway. Goetz was charged with attempted murder, but was acquitted of the charges.

1988

* Hypodermics on the shore: medical waste was found washed up on beaches in New Jersey after being illegally dumped at sea.

1989

* China's under martial law: On May 20, China declares martial law, enabling them to use force of arms to end the Tiananmen Square protests.
* Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore!: soft drink giants Coke and Pepsi each run marketing campaigns using popular music stars to reach the young adult demographic.