recap: Feb. 10 On the Road manuscript @ DPL

How is it possible that I've lived here for as long as I have but only found out last Saturday that, all this time, a Denver Public Library card could have been mine? Unbelievable. I had gotten back into the habit of going to the library a few years ago when we were still living in L.A. Although our neighborhood branch was small and was closed most evenings and Sundays, I had the entire Los Angeles Public Library catalogue at my disposal. And it's a big catalogue.

Having downsized library systems twice since moving to the Denver area -- once to the JeffCo library, and again to our current county -- imagine my amazement, my glee, when I found out on Saturday that a Denver Public Library card is the inalienable right of any and all Colorado residents. I felt almost as if I were Mary Lennox fitting key to lock and stepping into that walled garden for the first time. ("Might I... might I have a bit of stacks, sir?") What I love the most about libraries is that I can be as focused and research-driven as I want to be, or I can indulge in being able to indulge in whatever strikes my fancy. I currently have at home (from my local library) a book on bistro cooking and another on artisanal bread baking just cause they looked pretty, as well as season 2 of "Jeeves & Wooster." (If you're not familiar with the show, just think of Bertie Wooster as the anti-House.)

I only found out about the availability of the DPL card while perusing the brochures at the Central Branch for possible free events. I had walked down from the Denver Center for the Performing Arts between New Play Summit events (recap to follow) to view the On the Road manuscript that went on display the first weekend of January. I wish I'd known in advance of all the activities that surrounded the opening of the exhibit, as it's one of the guitarhero's favorite books and it would have been great to hear some jazz for free, but let's be honest -- that was a snowy weekend and we weren't in the mood to go anywhere.

The exhibit itself is low-key: pretty much just the first 60 feet of that famous scroll, single-spaced, a little tattered around the edges, with some inscrutable editorial marks here and there. This not being the final, published draft, you can catch Allen Ginsburg playing himself in this version, before the name was changed. I think Sal makes it to Denver after about 15 feet of type, and to L.A. another 15 or so feet later. I do not recommend trying to actually read the book in this fashion, as I got a good crick in my neck after just a couple of minutes of leaning to the side over the low glass display case.

The walls of the gallery are hung with some period photos showing Denver in the 1940s through late 1960s, some shots of Kerouac and contemporaries, and a few placards that describe the historical context. Unless you're a die-hard student of the Beats, I don't know that the exhibit itself is worth a trip solely to view it (note that the second 60 feet will go on display Feb. 24). But if you're in the area or at the library for any number of other activities (some of which I've already started listing here), then it's just a very cool -- like, crazy, man! -- thing to see. Although the glass display case wasn't working for me, I think that Kerouac's desire to write uninterrupted resulted in the medium informing the message. Somehow, returning to my old paperback version, with its foreword, page turns, and paragraph indentations doesn't pack the same visceral punch as reading even a few lines of that fantastic, mad, caffeine- and Catholic guilt-fueled stream of consciousness. If I ever read On the Road again -- and I plan to -- I'll try to set aside a weekend with nothing else to do, and try to forget everything I learned in high school about looking for predominant themes and recurring motifs. Kerouac just wrote, so I should just read, my only knod to context some Charlie Parker playing in the background.

Crazy, man.