Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, September 9, 1987
9
Kerouac-Parker recalls life with Jack
By BRIAN BARESCH Staff writer
Staff writer
Frankie Edie Kerenac-Parker, in Lawrence for the River City Reunion, is working on a book about her life with the late beat poet Jack Kerenac, her former husband and longtime companion. The title, "You'll Be Okay," was written at the bottom of his last letter to her, two weeks before he died.
"Everything he ever did he typed, and that was the one thing that he took a pen and he went over the whole bottom of the page. 'You'll be okay,'" she said. "I don't know if it sends shivers up and down you, but it does me."
Kerouac, who died in 1969, was best known for writing beatnik bibles such as "On The Road." He was a close friend of poet Allen Ginsberg and writer William S. Burroughs; he traveled extensively and wrote prolifically.
Keroua-Parker, who turns 65 this month, met him in 1914 at Columbia University, where her father lived and where she was a special student, because it was an all-men's school at the time.
She spoke over breakfast Monday at the Paradise Cafe, 728 Massachusetts St., about Kerenouac, their time together and brief marriage, his problems, the beat movement, and Lawrence. Her 22-year traveling partner, Brooke Beardsey, a student at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, frequently joined in.
Kerouac-Parker will speak at 2 p.m. today in the Pine Room in the Kansas Union.
Kerouac-Parker is writing the book partly to explain how a well-to-do girl from the wealthy suburbs of Detroit got together with the future hippie icon, she said, and also to dispel some myths about Kerouac's friends, such as Neal Cassady, whom Kerouac often wrote about.
Some of the wealthy people in Grosse Pointe Park, Mich., where she is from, did crazy things, she said. Everything they did, Kerouac attributed to Cassady. Kerouac-Parker, however, said Cassady was actually boring. "she
"Cassady was Jack Kerenoua's ego," he said, "But when 'On the Road' came out, Neal never spoke to Jack for a year and a half, he was so mad, the way he portrayed him.
"But finally this book made both of them so famous — they became legendary — that Neal Cassady became the character that was in the book."
book.
Beardsley added that for many people, Cassady was a hero as much as Kerouac. "But are the facts straight that they have about these characters, whom they're worshipping as false heroes, who are really, maybe, dull people?"
really. You were Kerenouac-Parker said she had been working several years to write the book, gathering photographs and the letters he wrote her.
apps and the Internet and I have been lecturing and trying to reach the
young people as much as I can and converse with them to find out what they want to know, what they're interested in, because naturally they're going to be the audience for me and my book," she said.
"So I talk a lot about my childhood because I see the question they ask me is where the hell did I come from? I had money, how did Jack and I ever touch?"
She said, "You can wear anything you damn well plished. 'You can wear anything you damn well please, you can write everything.' she said. 'Of course, we always wrote everything because no one else would read our stuff but our own group. So censorship wasn't very important."
Ginsberg's poem "Howl" and Burrughs' book "The Naked Lunch" both survived obscenity trials.
Kerouac-Parker is on her second trip to Lawrence.
"This place is very similar to Boulder (Colo). but it's nicer, not as phony," she said.
She hasn't been traveling much lately, she said, because of the time her book demands. She hopes eventually to lecture more.
"As you can tell, I like to talk, and I know my subject," she said. "I'm very much enthused with Jack, and I still very much in love with him, so I enjoy talking about him a lot. And that's more or less my life."
Teachers in Chicago strike, delay classes
The Associated Press
CHICAGO — Teachers went on strike in the country's third-largest public school system yesterday, and both sides said the walkout could mean a prolonged delay in the start of classes for 430.00 students.
Chicago was the biggest city struck by teachers so far in the 1987-88 school year. Walkouts continued yesterday in Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington and Michigan, where Detroit teachers are on strike.
The 28,000-member Chicago Teachers Union and the Board of Education had three marathon bargaining sessions over the holiday weekend, but neither side budged on the main issue — money.
The teachers want a 15 percent pay increase over two years, and the board ays it doesn't have enough money even to maintain the current salary schedule. The average pay is $29,700, and starting teachers earn $16,016 a year. Gov. James R. Thompson, who
helped resolve a 1986 Chicago teachers' strike with an advance payment of state money, warned the teachers and school board they could expect no state help this time.
The school board announced yesterday that it was canceling classes, scheduled to begin today, until further notice, but school board spokesman Bob Saigh said negotiators resumed talks yesterday night.
The board contends it must trim the school budget because the Illinois General Assembly failed to provide additional school aid.
"We'll work within our budget," said Frank W. Gardner, school board president. "And the teacher will realize there no more money."
Gardner said the teachers' call for a pay increase was not worth contemplating.
The school board had asked the teachers to stay on the job while officials tried to get more money out of the state.
Encyclopedist loses $300 million lawsuit
The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that the creators of the board game Trivial Pursuit did not infringe on the copyright of two trivia encyclopedias.
The court threw out a $300 million lawsuit brought by encyclopedist Fred L. Worth against Horn Abbot Ltd. and Selchow & Righter Co.
Although the designers of Trivial Pursuit acknowledged using books by Worth as source material for their game, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Worth wasn't entitled to compensation.
In affirming a district court ruling against Worth, Judge Dorothy W. Nelson said "no reasonable jury could find substantial similarity of both ideas and expression between the works at issue."
Nelson said similarity of expression might have to amount to verbatim reproduction or close paraphrase work would be deemed infringed.
worth said the decision hurt a legitimate author's integrity, while helping other authors who do little or
no research of their own.
"The ramifications are gigantic if you think about computer software," he said by telephone from his home in Sacramento.
Worth he didn't earn much from the 200,100 trivia books he sold and he was never offered more than a small flat fee from Horn Abbot or Selchow & Righter. He declined to comment on whether he was ever offered a settlement for the suit.
"It took me eight years to compile the facts in my books, and it took them about two months to copy them," he said. "I did their research, but I was never compensated."
Worth filed suit three years ago against Sellon & Righter Co. the proprietors of Annapolis, Cornish, and Horn Abbot Ltd. and its principals, who designed the game.
Worth contended that 1,675 questions, or 27.9 percent, in the Genus edition of Trivial Pursuit were taken from his book, Super Trivia I; 1,293 questions, or 21.6 percent, in the Silver Screen edition were taken from Super Trivia I and/or IJ; and 828 questions, or 13.8 percent in the Baby Boomer edition were taken from the two books.
Downtown
BARBER SHOP
824 Massachusetts
Phone 843-8000
Regular Haircuts $5.00
Bar Porter
He's worked a lifetime to bring you 90-minutes of pleasure...
Yo-Yo Ma
...one of world's greatest cellists
Presented by the University of Kansas School of Fine Arts Concert and Chamber Music Series
8:00 p.m.
Tuesday, September 22, 1987
Hoch Auditorium
Tickets on sale in the Murphy Hall Box Office All seats reserved/For reservations, call 913/864-3982
Public: $15 & $13
KU & K-12 Students: $7.50 & $6.50
Senior Citizens & Other Students: $14 & $12
Funded, in part, by the Kansas Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts; additional funding provided by the KU Student Activity Fee, Swarthout Society and the KU Endowment Association.
HALF PRICE FOR KU STUDENTS
Independent LAUNDROMAT Open 24 hours 9th & Mississippi
While supply lasts.
Containing valuable health and beauty products
ONE PER STUDENT ONLY
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STUDENT SAVE 28% WHEN YOU ADVERTISE IN THE KANSAN GROUPS:
You Are Invited...
to attend a seminar on microcomputer applications and products. These sessions will feature Tandon PCs which are currently on contract with the State of Kansas.
These sessions are free and open to all students, faculty and staff.
9:00 - 9:30 PCs 101 - A Buyer's Guide To Microcomputer Selection
9.00 - 9.30 POSSIBLE
10:00 - 10:30 Compatibility - What Does It Mean?
10:30 - 10:30 Compatibility - What DOES IT HAVE?
11:30 - 12:00 Xerox Ventura Publisher Video "IN ACTION"
12:30 - 1:00 Aldus Pagemaker Video "Where Desktop Publishing Begins"
2:00 - 2:30 Wordprocessors - Choosing The One For You
3:00 - 3:30 Modems - Mainframe Access At Home
All products will be available for hands-on demonstration between sessions.
Thursday, September 10 9:00 am-4:30 pm Computer Center Auditorium Sunnyside Avenue and Illinois Street
Sponsored by: