“I Was Jack Lewis”
More on Jack Kerouac’s elaborate sports fantasy play and writing:
Apparently Kerouac, also a little nuts about horse races, created a system of fantasy horse racing using marbles. He actually describes a version of this game in Doctor Sax:
“I was Jack Lewis and I owned the greatest horse, Repulsion, solid ballbearing a half inch thick, it rolled off the Parchesi board and into the linoleum as smooth, and soundless but as heavy as a rumbling ball of steel all tooled smooth, sometimes kicked poor aluminum-marbles out of sight and off the track at the hump bump of the rampbottom—”
This sentence, with its haphazard commas that barely dent the momentum of the writer’s thinking, reminds me of what can be so appealing about Kerouac’s prose. First and foremost, there’s his manic confidence—a sense that every aspect of experience is worth describing. This style can make Kerouac seem like a wise man trapped in the body of a child who’s eaten a bag of chocolate-covered espresso beans. But at its digressive best the style matches Kerouac’s ambition to uncover the rhythms of a certain uppity male consciousness.
That last bit captures exactly why I’m not a Kerouac fan, but I do find his obsessive (and apparently secretive) fantasy sports life fascinating, particularly what has emerged of his racing games.
Links for 2009-05-23
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"Rachel Alexandra figured to be the favorite off her spectacular record-setting 20 1/4-length win in the Kentucky Oaks (G1), but for most of the early betting she was barely above even money. The public could not bet her enough and she certainly qualified as the kind of overbet favorite that we always tell you to avoid." I guess I'm alone in this — I thought 9-5 on a much-the-best horse who looked like even money or a tick better was a pretty good price.
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"On a cool spring morning in May of 1836 Isaac Michael Dyckman possibly took leave from his family home in Inwood, on the Northern tip of Manhattan, mounted his steed, and rode the muddy trail to the Union Race Course in far off Long Island for what would prove to be one of the most celebrated horse races of the 19th Century …"
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Key point, expanded: "When Gawker started, there was a surfeit of information and not nearly enough context — so we provided that, in the form of links and occasionally snarky commentary. But now the balance has shifted…. If a good exclusive used to provide 10 times the traffic of a standard regurgitated blog post, now it garners a hundred times as much…. The content market is finding its new balance."
Links for 2009-05-16
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Halsey Minor still at work on buying bankrupt Magna assets: "I talk to everybody … and I’m hopeful that a solution can be put together that prevents tracks from being put in harm’s way. If I succeed, then obviously that will be great for the sport. And if I fail, it will not be through a lack of effort." [Mention of tech initiatives as something for later near article end.]
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"The Godolphin runners would finish eighth and 14th. Sheikh Mohammed must have looked at these deadpan men, up from the banks of the Rio Grande, and pondered his own, unrequited craving for this prize. Who are those guys?" Chris McGrath reviews the Derby on Preakness eve.
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And with fantasy horse racing: "The ball bearing traveled faster than the marbles, some of which were intentionally nicked to indicate equine fragility and mortality. So the ball bearing became the nearly invincible horse Repulsion, 'King of the Turf,' whose legendary speed and stamina are celebrated in Kerouac’s racing sheets."
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Geolocation patent will also allow targeted advertising.
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A look at NPR’s use of a nifty bit of “backstory” programming to mine their archives for relevant links to tweet. Illustrated with a Derby story.
Equally Elusive
The last baseball Triple Crown was won by Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, the last racing Triple Crown by Affirmed in 1978. In which sport will the next Triple Crown be won first?
Links for 2009-05-09
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"They weren't supposed to be here…. Not the tiny horse with the funky feet and unsightly gait. Not the cowboy trainer with the black hat, busted leg and horseshoe mustache to match. Not the owner who met the trainer in a bar fight and got immunity in a federal corruption case through his father's plea deal." Yet, there they were, standing in the winner’s circle …
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Unproven pedigree, started out funny looking: "He had a cute little head and he was not real big…. He toed out quite a bit in his right front leg, which, you know, a lot of foals aren't perfect when they're born. But they go through changes and they can straighten up, so we were pretty encouraged."
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Jessica Chapel writes and edits in Massachusetts. Railbird is a Thoroughbred horse racing blog published from June 2004 to July 2019. More / Contact
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