gravling:
Stuff like this are what the internet is good for. I first read "On The Road" my first year of college back in the early nineties when information about ANYTHING was harder to come by, in those pre-internet days. I don't think I really got a lot of that genre of writing, but it's been nice over the years since learning and putting context to the characters and their real life counterparts. . .
oldernow:
@gravling thanks for the comment! I read On the Road in 1963; I was just starting high school, and I happened upon a coffeehouse where some folk had known Kerouac and Ginsberg from the time the book was written, so those fellows and their ilk loomed large in my adolescent experience... throw in Timothy Leary's first lab assistant who brought us 'samples' of his wares... and it made for an interesting if sometimes hazy growing up! There is a fairly decent documentary of Neal Cassady made of film shot on Further (Ken Kesey's bus); also the recently released "The Other One" about Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead shows the final influences of Neal (who lived with them!) And yes, the quick and easy access to these obscure bits of film and recordings... so much easier now--if one can avoid the drek--