1. The 8th Annual Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! Festival will be held on 4-9 October in Lowell, Massachusetts. Featured events will include a rare performance by Patti Smith with Herbert Huncke and Willie Alexander, a variety of walking tours (including several that focus on Kerouac’s novel “Dr. Sax”), a tribute to Charlie Parker, a visit to nearby Walden Pond, a number of symposiums, an interpretive dance called “Weird Scenes from the Gold Mine,” and a memorial mass for Kerouac. For more info, write Lowell Celebrates Kerouac!, Box 1111, Lowell,
MA 01853 or call the Lowell National Historical Park at (508) 970-5000.

2. I recently purchased the “Haight-Ashbury” CD-Rom (produced by Rockument) and found a ton of OBC (Official Beat Content) within. The project was led by Allen Cohen, who edited San Francisco’s psychedelic newspaper The Oracle during the sixties, and much original material from this paper is here, including articles by
Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Lew Welch, Lenore Kandel and even William S. Burroughs. Maybe I bought this one because I’m so tired of waiting for the Jack Kerouac CD-Rom (produced by Viking Penguin) to finally show up. The word from Viking Penguin is that it will hit the shelves very soon, hopefully in the next few weeks.

3. To my surprise, Literary Kicks was chosen as one of the Top 10 Web Sites by Point Surveys. I showed up as #7 on the Best Overall list for the week of August 21, and again as #9 (hey! what’s the problem here?) for the week of August 28. I’m especially proud to be one of the only non-corporate sites on the list, and also one of the only ones maintained by a single individual instead of a team. I was told by Point Communications that I’m now on their Top 5% of All
Websites list, and so I get to wear this badge: