The title is of course from Kerouac, and this is by no stretch of the imagination a Kerouacian road. It leads from the nearby golf course into the forest. At some point it becomes a path trodden on the forest floor, and even that peters out and then you have to find your own way. People get lost in it.
We went to see On The Road at the cinema last night. Though it had bad reviews and clearly they chose the wrong actor to play JK, it captures something of the beat buzz and that drive to be constantly on the move. I wouldn't want to go time-travelling back there (or anywhere before Germaine Greer wrote The Female Eunuch) as a female - I just know I would have ended up barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen while the men went off and had adventures.
There is something about a road, and a white line arrowed to anywhere that is not whatever one knows as Here. It is sometimes said that a real traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. I should perhaps adopt this approach because my fixed plans often unravel, however intent I may be on reaching my goal. To go the distance you need fuel in your tank. I am not speaking of my Nissan Micra, the trusty Signsmobile, but the vehicle that is my body. I am a PWME and therefore compromised. I can't do roads. I can do short-distance flights. I make promises I can't keep* and commit to projects I can't complete, but hell, so did Dean Moriarty who was mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time and just like him, I burn, burn, burn - in my fashion.
* so if I don't do a post a day don't shoot me.
p.s. Spam-merchants have invaded my house, so comment Word Verification is back, sorry.
5 comments:
Hi PB - haven't seen you here before (have I?).
Not that I'm a Kerouac fan, but an English actor playing the lead? I'll buy that he was miscast.
I know, Zhoen, it doesn't make sense - and he was quite the wrong type.
sorry - it was I, signed in to wrong thingy (don't ask)
Keep a secret? I've never read On the Road. I started to, at about 18–19, and found it boring. No, really, I did. I should mayhap go back and try it again (please note that I wasn't a complete illiterate either, so I don't rightly know what happened there; although I suppose there's a slight possibility that it just wasn't – possibly isn't my bag, as they say).
So I cannot rightly comment on the casting. I am just going to be annoying (yes, the return of Ms Smart-Ass, I fear, is upon us) and note that being pregnant (and barefoot, why not) is an adventure that men will never experience (okay, they just might go barefoot on occasion). Not that this means anything at all, of course; for I know full well what you mean, whilst not wanting to sound like one of those femminist folk who go on about men only being partially human or whatnot, due to their lack of womb and blah. NO.
I don't know what I'm going on about. Just to prove the point of my illiteracy, I've never even heard of Mrs. Pepperpot until I read your post. Shame on me, obviously.
I think I want to grow old and have adventures – because as a woman gets older (me, at any rate), she has less of the feminine about her (so no bare feet in the kitchen being with child, innit, or at least not the last of that lot). This is, in a sense, just as well, for I am growing old and will continue growing more so, if all goes to plan. Making a virtue out of a necessity here, quite wildly. Maybe growing old is a kind of an adventure, too?
Growing old may also, like, really suck, innit. But then who said adventures always are brilliant throughout? Exactly.
I need to shut up. I'll be away for the weekend, Signsipoo, so you just watch it.
x
(Oh and - the word ver non-robot proof: no problem, Signs (today's word is Hotaria - beat that). I think it's a good thing, what with those lovely wee photos, and I was getting quite a lot of the spam-master specials into my inbox, due to having ticked the "follow the comments on this post" box some years ago on some long-lost posts where we used to play, when we and the world were young, do you remember? Ah yes, I remember it well. Oh do be quiet. Me, obviously. Mwah.)
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