October 5, 2005
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The Daily News
Ken Kesey, author
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
1 Good to see a Merc article coming to us from Menlo Park.
The great Kepler’s Books reopens this Saturday after having
closed with virtually no warning this past August.
2 Kepler’s had just celebrated its 50th anniversary in May, and
remains famous as one of the hallmark counterculture book-
stores not only in the Bay Area, but in the entire country.
3 According to longtime employee Nancy Wirth, the late Ken
Kesey used to frequent the venerable Kepler’s. “Ken Kesey
hung out at Kepler’s to hit on chicks,” Wirth once said.
4 The history of Kepler’s is practically the history of dissent in
a changing America during the 50′s and 60′s. I won’t go into
the entire history here, but if you are interested, I’ll include a
link to an article about Kepler’s that appeared in the May 11,
2005 edition of the Palo Alto Weekly online edition. Here’s
the link:
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/2005/2005_05_11.kepler11mb.shtml
You might also visit their website and see about helping:
5 So Kepler’s, welcome back!
6 Moving on: while we celebrate the gains of the Enlightened, it
should not go unnoticed that not one, but two IRISH rock
stars are the odds-on-favorites to win the Nobel Peace Prize,
which will come out on Friday. Bob Geldolf and Bono are
finally being recognized for their years of work devoted to
ending hunger and abject poverty in Africa. As recently as
this last summer, both these humanitarians brought us the
Live 8 concert. Congratulations to two great human beings.
7 Did I mention that both those cats are Irish?
8 Some fun.
9 Moving on…
10 Yesterday morning was great. On Monday afternoon, it
appeared that the air-conditioning in my portable decided
to go on the fritz. I fixed it the only way I know how in a
situation like that: I turned it down to 44. Well, I took off
Monday night, and forgot all about it, but when I came in
yesterday morning, Sherpas were at Camp 1, cooking up
salmon and ice fishing in the middle of my floor.
11 I went over to the air-conditioning unit, removed a student
stuck there with a crowbar, and tried to fix it.
12 But the students went in, and several thought they had
reached the summit. One kid broke stalctites off his
moustache…
13 Finally, this student named Miguel reminded me that last
year, we had a portable heater for the portable classroom, and
that we had set the big heater on “Emergency”.
14 Well, it worked, and soon, things had turned back to normal.
15 The students thawed, and we had just another day in the life.
16 And with that, I’m going to hop on a bus and roll outta here
for the day. A nice quick one, but we must move on, we must
move further.
16 Have a good day in the life today.
17 See ya later.
peace.
~h~
