Editor's note: New York City's Sam Levin, a beginner driver, is kicking off his fellowship with Westword by documenting his cross-country trip. This is his third dispatch from the road. 
Welcome to Kansas.
The open road makes me dizzy. Very dizzy.
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Editor's note: New York City's Sam Levin, a beginner driver, is kicking off his fellowship with Westword by documenting his cross-country trip. This is his second dispatch from the road.
Indiana.
Contrary to the lessons of my upbringing as a native New Yorker, there is an exciting world beyond the Big Apple.
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Editor's note: New York City's Sam Levin, a beginner driver, is kicking off his fellowship with Westword by documenting his cross-country trip. This is his first dispatch from the road.
A very big Big Mac.
A frantically shouting security guard ran toward my car, waving his arms back and forth as I struggled to find the right button to lower my window before I stopped my vehicle short.
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Denver County has never had a Denver County Fair -- but that century-in-the-making event will finally come to the National Western Stock Show facility July 28-31.
Carla Madison.
Denver does have a County Fair, though, and today it will celebrate the life of councilwoman Carla Madison.
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Ed Quillen.
Betcha Ed Quillen is pissed.
Last month, Quillen, a Salida-based contributor to the Denver Post, offered what I saw as a dubious reason for why the Rocky Mountain News had gone under: The tabloid had focused its circulation efforts on the Denver metro area, as opposed to energetically promoting its product to readers elsewhere in Colorado. In regard to the Denver Post, which had maintained more of a statewide presence, I wrote at the time that "it may actually be losing money on every subscriber living in remote communities on the Western Slope or the eastern plains," adding, "The Post would be well advised to bite the bullet, whether it frustrates its Salida correspondent or not."
According to "Post Trims Delivery in Some Areas," publisher/MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton has decided to do just that. Beginning in July, only the Sunday paper will be delivered to what reporter Aldo Svaldi refers to as "outlying parts of the state."
My father, a Palisade resident who died in February, would have loathed this move. As I noted in an item about his passing, he spent every morning pouring over copies of the Rocky and the Post at a Grand Junction doughnut shop. But as much as it disheartens me to think of other newspaper lovers like him in smalltown Colorado having this a.m. ritual snatched out from under them, the move makes good business sense. While folks at the Post continue to insist that the broadsheet's circulation numbers are jim-dandy, the economic climate and the shift of many consumers away from print means papers must be extremely judicious with their resources -- and paying to ship a relative handful of issues hundreds of miles to customers most Denver-area advertisers have no interest in reaching doesn't meet that standard.
Sorry, Ed -- and sorry, Dad.
Monday, January 7
by David Amram
Putnam Valley, New York | In 1956 Jack Kerouac and I first met at a bring-your-own-bottle party at a painter's loft and instantly began collaborating artistically. I backed him up musically while he read and from the earliest days of our working together I knew that he was an exceptional storyteller and writer. The spontaneous energy that poured out of him reminded me of what it was like when I played with Charles Mingus or Dizzy Gillespie or Thelonius Monk. Jack's way of reading was the embodiment of the spirit of jazz. He combined formality and spontaneity in a seemingly effortless way. As a young classical composer, as well as a jazz musician, I, as well, wanted my compositions to sound as natural as if I were making them up on the spot. Jack told me that this was what he was trying to do when he wrote his narrative novels. "I want the reader to feel like I'm talking directly to them," he said. We became friends.
Monday, January 7
by Audrey Sprenger, Ph.D
Denver | There has been a lot of talk about Jack Kerouac this year and the 50th anniversary of his novel On The Road. It's buzzed through Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone, public broadcasting and public radio. Over and over again I hear the same comments, the same questions. "Why are we talking about this book?" "How can it possibly be relevant today?" "Why are we wasting time on Jack Kerouac? He was nothing but a hack. He was nothing but a one-hit wonder." To which, I imagine Jack Kerouac's bemused response. "Are they," he asks with genuine surprise, "Talking about me?"
More »Thursday and Friday:
Yesterday was my last day of work for the week. Typically I would never get Friday off, but my progress has been superb, my body has found its health, and my trainer knows this. My trainer also knows that Santa is watching him, and in a pathetic attempt to win brownie points with Father Christmas, he gave me today off. He's so transparent.
Wednesday:
I awoke this morning before the sun. I opened my blinds to a firey orange suggestion that it may soon follow my lead. I arrived at work bleary-eyed and as I approached the glass doors that lead into the cafeteria, I hit an icy patch that sent me into the splits. This was an unwelcome test for my healing groin that I thankfully passed without much more than a heavy sigh. The glass doors and windows to the cafeteria are tinted, so I wasn't sure if anyone inside saw me pull a Jane Fonda on the pavement. Thankfully, I was spared the laughter.
Tuesday:
The halls were empty today at our Dove Valley facility. Tuesday is an empty day in the NFL anyway, but on a Tuesday in late December, you can hear leaky faucets. Not that we have any. Our maintenance crew is excellent. In fact, everyone that steps into that building is excellent at what they do, and that's not an accident. The efficiency with which the building moves and operates should be studied and emulated and taken to our nation's capital. There are far too many leaky faucets there.
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