Living in the Shadow of Armageddon (From Reconsidering Paradise, a manuscript in progress)
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Listening to the Crack of Doom on the Hydrogen Juke Box (Part 2)Living in the Shadow of Armageddon (From Reconsidering Paradise, a manuscript in progress)
This is the second installment of a long chapter from a manuscript I’m working on that fuses memoir, cultural and literary criticism, politics, written through the lens of my decades-long involvement with Jack Kerouac’s work. Kerouac, along with a few other writers, inspired me to make the written word my art form. It has been a love-hate relationship over the years (more love than hate, of course), as any relationship that lasts will be. Beatdom’s special Kerouac Turns 100 issue included my essay “Women on the Margins of the Kerouac Legend,” which was conceived as part of Paradise Reconsidered. You can get the issue here. You can read the first installment of ‘“Listening to the Crack of Doom on the Hydrogen Juke Box” here. Another planned section, “Notes on My Early Beatdom,” can be read here. The earlier posts were free, but this and future posts from the Kerouac manuscript will be housed behind a paywall. Listening to the Crack of Doom on the Hydrogen Juke Box (Part 2) An air-raid drill, age 5 or 6, folding our compact bodies, tucking ourselves under desks. As if the hard plastic would protect us from the shock of light and the fires of nuclear war. From the radiation. The poisoning of the atmosphere. The feds distribute a pamphlet. A handbook on nuclear war. You can protect yourself, it says. Get “inside a shelter.” Take cover “before the nuclear explosions occur.” “By getting inside or under something within a few seconds, you might avoid being seriously burned by the heat or injured by the blast wave of the nuclear explosion.” This “might save your life or avoid serious injury.”… Keep reading with a 7-day free trialSubscribe to Channel Surfing to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives. A subscription gets you:
© 2022 Hank Kalet
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Hank Kalet 