you’re teaching me how to write all over again.

there’s a raison d’etre to every movement in life, every place you go, every person you meet, every space you occupy. if I were Jack Kerouac, I would capture all those movements AS THEY OCCUR, because they are precious, god-given, the gem in the ointment. but that would take the unique genius that is yours alone. we who walk in your steps find our own paths. we DO WHAT (we) LIKE, as you once told a budding young novelist to do when she, in amour with you, sought insights into the writing life, into Life.

so this is the beginning of my jazz-like “improv,” to be propelled by our shared love of words and that crazy, zany desire — compulsion — energy-sustaining NEED to write, of which you daily remind me.

it is my exceptional privilege to be here (although through that first, long, and shivery, night with you, I wondered, aloud, what the HELL am I doing here????). perhaps after my three months are up (gaol term or respite – are both but two faces of the same eve, or adam?), I will know, a tiny bit more, about the meaning of this existence.

on the road, here.                                                                                                                 xx

⁽¹⁾ Joyce Johnson, Kerouac’s lover with whom he corresponded while living in Orlando. “Jerce” was his pet name for her in the letters.

the work flows, with a manic energy that doesn’t stop, in the morning in the afternoon in the evening all night long until day breaks and the moment begins anew. surrendering to the process has been easy, TO WRITE (the reason for my being here), to be, for real, what I claim I am (I’m a writer- are you how wonderful – well yes I suppose it’s a kind of life- oh it’s a wonderful life – perhaps, since it’s christmas in america where wonderful lives are everything are all).

if only it were as easy to surrender the soul.

J.K. you were a victim of wine & roses, the movie that made me weep, alone in an inhospitable flat where the water was warm but the love was cold & for sale & unable to sustain me, or anyone, for long. in your house J.K. I discover Important Things (capitalized à la Pooh, the taoist bear) . . . like: wine & roses are words that belong to a poet, one Ernest Dowson, an english decadent born in 1867, thanks to the new york times that the Kerouac House supplies me every sunday. to think I never knew, me, the lover of words & images & roses & wine & days without nights. you learn your ignorance every hour, every millisecond, as long as you breathe, IF you choose.

today a teenage boy scout asked, “want some mistletoe?” and he was innocent & charming, a dear angel boy, so I said, no, rather than saying, “and will you kiss me if I do?”

there was one christmas, years ago now when I ascended to the top of a mountain in KOTA KINABALU (formerly Jesselton, in East Malaysia), by climbing over fourteen thousand feet, because it seemed imperative, the thing to do, to be completely alone on christmas day at an altitude for private amens and amends to gaze on the face of.

hearing you, J.K., as I turn up the volume to “whisper.” sweet.

beat generation. the only war that matters is the war against the imagination. diane di prima, woman of the.

beat is time, time, time, and there WILL be time - grandfather’s clock / too big for the shelf / stood ninety years / on the floor. only clocks stop, not time.

beat, beats go on. rhythms in brains – dude that kicks ass – IF you listen. parker-c, carter-b. coltrane-j, lady-day. quiet now for monk. qi gong⁽¹⁾ brain fire duchess joanne brackeen. LISTEN.

BE AT – be attitude – in my solitude / you haunt me.

sing to me jack, jacky-kung-fu-kicking, jackie-pink-suit-picking, A-JAX! shouts the loneliest duck, privately unbeaten in remaindered re-runs into monday – around midnight – mornings in the dark. comedy channel, orlando’s route 66.

millennium joy. beatitude.

⁽¹⁾ Chinese breathing exercises, linked to marital arts. Not unlike exercises practiced by the Falun Gong and other spiritual groups.

ps: my short story ‘until the next century’ is in the current (january) issue of a webzine at www.carvezine.com –  it is a zine dedicated to the writer raymond carver

believing is seeing.

sights from the kerouac space. for web world eternity.

                   
(click on these thumbnails to view full size images)

Hi everyone — Great news.

The VOA (Voice of America) is coming to New York next week to film a 1/2 hour TV profile on me and my life as a writer for broadcast in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.  That’s the good news.

BUT — and this is truly the height of cool — I’m doing a reading while the VOA’s here at the Cornelia Street Cafe in the Village and David Amram agreed to come along with his drummer and back me up.  So I’ll be reading from my Kerouac journals which are on the website and my jazz fiction piece titled JAZZ WIFE.  The VOA are going to film the whole thing and we will of course tell the story of the Kerouac House and all that.  That will be on Nov 7.  I’m thinking of calling our performance a tribute to the Kerouac House.

Anyway, we’ll try to get some pictures or something you can use for the site.  I was at David’s book party a couple of nights ago and it was fantastic.  He is truly a wonderful supporter of everything Kerouac was and represents.

Thought you’d like to know.  Cheers.

XU XI