Re: COVID, Kerouac, and a Series Called Halston
Shortly after my week-long trip to visit my mother in Boise, I got…wait for it… COVID. Again. It’s been like a rerun of an old boring movie you don’t want to watch but nothing else is on so you just sit through it. During this time, I re-read The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, a meandering, in the best way, semi-autobiographical novel about a writer who is living within a polarity of existence. Meaning, the main character, Ray Smith is both a backpacking seeker who engages with nature, Buddhism, and meditation and a party hungry poet out for the next drunken thrill in the big city. In either and all cases, this guy is trying to transcend reality. I get it buddy. The novel is about searching, but it also illuminates the process of writing and the allusive act of fully articulating an experience into words: “One day I will find the right words and they will be simple.” Further, the novel pushes against itself through dialogue that highlights the tension between living experiences and merely writing about them: “I don’t want hear about your word descriptions of words words words you made up all winter man I wanta be enlightened by actions.”
“One day I will find the right words and they will be simple.”
Last semester I was teaching my class at San Diego State University called Art & Identity. Pretty rad, right? We studied the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat who, during a photoshoot, insisted he be photographed holding a copy of The Subterraneans by Kerouac, who Basquiat said was a major influence. This prompted me to share an excerpt with the class and, in turn, re-purchase (because I give away all my books) The Dharma Bums, On the Road, and The Subterraneans. At the time, this felt urgent and necessary to me. Much like rewatching Halston, it brought a level of familiarity and comfort. And inspiration.
“You can’t put a budget on inspiration.”
All this is to say that I am drawn to works of art that underscore living within extremes or going to extremes to create art. These convergences have prompted me to consider what bears repeating and why things recur. While I don’t have any firm answers, I want to keep exploring these questions: What do I keep returning to? What stories do I retell? What does the act of repetition lend? The rereading of the novel, getting COVID again and my unrelenting obsession with Halston, all led me to consider this human urge to recapture, repeat, and relive what keeps us from venturing into existential crisis land. I joke with my husband that I’m going to start an existential crisis hotline but when you call it, no one is there.
