ARTS . Arts Picks

Jack Kerouac's On the Road

Thu., Jan. 25, 4 p.m.-midnight, free, Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk.


	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Jan 23, 2007

reading

Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty have been ramblin' down that long, lonesome highway for half a century now, leaving who-knows-how-many starry-eyed hipsters and poetically justified burnouts in their wake.

Countless miles of road, and even more sheets of typing paper, have blurred past the red-eyed countenances of would-be adventurers with dog-eared copies of On the Road in their back pockets since Jack Kerouac's novel was published in 1957. Now, Kelly Writers House celebrates the anniversary with a marathon eight-hour-plus reading of the entire novel in the spirit of its frenzied three-week conception (if you choose to buy into that particular version of the story — but it's a party, so celebrate the myth).

As the lengthy taped-together scroll is unfurled by a host of "local luminaries" (what would Allen Ginsberg rhyme with that?), improvised jazz will sound and coffee and pie will be served. To truly keep to the spirit of the original (and stay awake throughout), chemical enhancement would be appropriate, if not exactly encouraged.

Thu., Jan. 25, 4 p.m.-midnight, free, Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, 215-573-9748, www.writing.upenn.edu/~wh.