On The Road With Al and Ivy: Blog

"…I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future..." - Jack Kerouac (On The Road, The Original Scroll) "It was my last observation that it was the custom of every man to call every other man a madman. The truth, in my judgement, they were all mad." - Jack London (The Jacket, aka The Star Rover 1915) Jack London is known (these days) as an adventure writer whose most famous books, Call Of The Wild and White Fang, are considered children or young adult classics (at least in abridged editions). He was quite popular in his time, and wrote several books that are considered classic. His real life became legendary and many works like On The Road, a book about hobos, came from experiencing, and not just visiting, that life. London treated writing as a discipline, and part of that involved churning out 1500 words a day. That resulted in a body of work that included short stories, ...

"Homer died two hundred years ago, or more, and we still speak of him as though he were living...the others he wrote in his epic of the Trojan War. They are mere shadows, given substance by his songs; which alone retain the force of life; the power to soothe or stir or draw tears." - Robert Graves (Homer's Daughter 1955) I celebrated a half million views in the November blog entry, and this month should see another milestone; the completion of the final draft of the book. It'll still need to be line edited (and possibly refined as a result) but I decided last month that it was time to finish. I remember good friend, author and editor, Melody Ramone, once telling me that there'd come a time when it felt "finished" and added half jokingly that I'd also might be sick to death of the manuscript. That was certainly true, though being "sick of it" in my case is more a case of the musical equivalent, which is feeling that the work is as good as i...

"Though frightening, your dream is a significant portent. You must know the Gods have decreed that the lot of the living is to grieve. Your dream ordains mourning for the one who survives." - The Gilgamesh (Gerald J. Davis 2014 translation) "I have heard it said that there are men who read in books to convince themselves there is a God." - James Fenimore Cooper (Last Of The Mohicans) "...I was playing the guitar but heard an orchestra in my head." - John Fahey As of this writing (of this opening section), this blog has reached a wonderful milestone; a half million visits, virtually all of it for the "On The Road With Al & Ivy" homeless literary journal that began on the Delta Snake page and was later split off into it's own blog. The half million figure is the total for the two blog pages. The earlier blog was called the Delta Snake Review, which was intended to be a continuation of my 80s blues and jazz...