Multiculturalism

Friends,

If you aren't checking out Dwight Garner's Paper Cuts blog (as so linked to the right), you are really short-sheeting yourself. There's some quality stuff over there, and interesting too.

So in celebration of the release of "On the Road: the Original Scroll" (which, if you didn't know, had the original ending eaten by a dog...seriously), he found this website devoted to the various international covers that On the Road has received over the years. Some of them are interesting, like the Croatia one from 1971 looks like it cribbed part of it from The Beatles Revolver album cover. But, the absolute, best, quite possible most accurate one (in terms of being a pictoral representation of content) is the 2000 Chinese cover. Here it is:

Oh yeah, doesn't that scream beat generation? I'm pretty sure that one gentlement, the stark-white shirtless one, is a young Ginsberg or Burroughs. The ladies? Oh, the ladies are all the ladies Kerouac nailed whilst on the road, tramping around. Hey, something interesting about the Original Scroll...apparently Dean Moriarty is called Neal Cassady, it reads more as a memoir, and it's chock full of sex that the 1957 audience couldn't hack. So, maybe it's worth a read...but only if I can a Chinese cover of it, you know.

And, here's something a little random, and a little related.

While I was listening to Fresh Air the other day, the guest was the lead singer to this band called Gogol Bordello (they are famous for playing with Madonna on Live Earth recently), that plays this mish-mash of punk rock and gypsy music. So, since he's part gypsy, that's kind of close to being a hobo (like Kerouac did), but with nicer scarves and tambourines. And I'm not a big fan of gypsys and their stereotypical pro-baby stealing & eating views, but I kind like their music...makes me want to caravan somewhere and peddle my wares. Here's a video of this band Gogol Bordello singing a pretty good acoustic version of Supertheory of Supereverything off the record of theirs that I just bought Super Taranta ...and check out that sweet mustache of the lead singer:

VIVA EL MUSTACHE!