The lost Jack Kerouac Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

Being on the road in South America, I don’t have any time to check up on web readings, but Mike Marlett recently sent me a link to “The American Canon Of The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” by Matthew Collison and Chris Mccoy, which recently appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. This satire shows how the works of various classic authors (such as Ernest Hemingway and Henry Miller) would appear if written in the style of “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” children’s books. I’ll share the Jack Kerouac portion here:

A Selection from the Recently Discovered Jack Kerouac Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, Bop Affirmation, c. 1955

You’re trudging in the riverbottom sand when zoooom, there goes a flatbed truck and you’re suddenly on the back of the truck with two Nebraska farm boys and you’re weeping, ‘Y-e-e-e-e-e-e-s,’ yes to the blue swing swing of the Bird, yes to Charlie Parker, that shimmering saxophone, yes to the original mind, yes to this uncompromising romp through the heartland, you who labored on the railroad with crimson sun on your back, you who know the palabra, you who look right into the blowin’ breeze and cry and moan and shout

AND…

a. Discover a rainbow.
b. Go off to pick oranges with the Mexican girl.
c. Sing in a rising crescendo, ‘Y-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-s.’

…In real-world Kerouac news, the 120-foot scroll on which the Beat author typed the first draft of On the Road is now, well, on the road. Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay, who bought the manuscript two years ago for $2.43 million, plans to take the famous scroll on a 4-year, 13-city tour to museums and libraries around the United States. Full story online here.