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HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC — VOA’s radio magazine in SpecialEnglish.
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This is Doug Johnson. On our program today:
We play some music by Eva Cassidy …
Answer a question about Oklahoma City …
And report about a famous book by Jack Kerouac.
Kerouac Manuscript Tour
HOST:
“On The Road,” the book by Jack Kerouac, was first published innineteen-fifty-seven. Since then, it has sold more thanthree-million copies. It has been translated into twenty-fivelanguages. It is often called a defining work of a group of writersduring the nineteen-fifties known as “The Beat Generation.” ShepO’Neal has more.
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“On The Road” is the story of two young men as they travel backand forth across the United States. The young men are Sal Paradiseand Dean Moriarity. They and many of the other people who appear inthe book are said to be similar to Jack Kerouac and his many unusualfriends.
Listen as the writer himself reads from “On the Road”:
KEROUAC: “There he goes, Dean Moriarity, ragged in a moth eatenovercoat that he brought specially for the freezing temperatures ofthe East. Walking off alone, the last I saw of him, he rounded acorner of Seventh Avenue. Eyes on the street ahead, intent to itagain. Gone!”
Jack Kerouac worked intensivelyfor three weeks when he was ready to put “On the Road” on paper. Hetyped it on several long pieces that he connected to form acontinuous document. It rolls out to thirty-six-meters long.
Two years ago, American businessman Jim Irsay bought the original”On the Road” for more than two-million dollars. He paid more thanhad ever been paid for a literary manuscript. Mister Irsay wantedthe manuscript to travel across America in the years beforetwo-thousand-seven — the fiftieth anniversary of its publication.
The document can be seen today at the Lilly Library at IndianaUniversity in Bloomington, Indiana. It will remain there until May.Then it will begin its travels across the United States. Stops willinclude Lowell, Massachusetts; Orlando, Florida; Chapel Hill, NorthCarolina; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Tour organizer Myra Barshoff says “On the Road” may even traveloutside the country. She is now trying to organize showings inBritain and Japan.
Jack Kerouac wrote other books. But he had trouble with all thefame that “On the Road” brought him. He drank heavily. Jack Kerouacdied in nineteen-sixty-nine. He was forty-seven years old.
Oklahoma City
HOST:
Our VOA listener question this week comes from Vietnam. MargieCao Trang in Ho Chi Minh City has a question about Oklahoma City.She wants to know what a visitor to America can see and do there.
Oklahoma City is the capital and largest city in the state ofOklahoma, in the south central United States. More than one-millionpeople live in the area. It is one of the centers of oil productionin America.
Visitors to Oklahoma City can ride a water taxi boat through anew area of stores and eating places called Bricktown.
They can also visit the National Cowboy and Western HeritageMuseum. There is also the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.
Visitors can explore throughthousands of plants over at the Myriad Botanical Gardens. You canwalk up a vine-covered mountain and under a waterfall.
Outside the city is the ReadRanch. Visitors can ride on wagons to an Old West frontier town.They can watch horse races at nearby Remington Park. And they canenjoy live shows and fifty rides at the Frontier City AmusementPark.
Yet, Oklahoma City is also known for something terrible thathappened. On April nineteenth, nineteen-ninety-five, a bombdestroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. A former Americansoldier named Timothy McVeigh was executed for the attack.
The city has built a memorial that includes parts of thedestroyed building. Visitors enter the memorial area through a gateon the east side. This gate represents the time of nine-oh-one inthe morning, just before the explosion. Visitors leave through thewestern gate which represents the time of nine-oh-three and thelives that were changed forever. Between the two gates is areflecting pool and one-hundred-sixty-eight empty chairs — one foreach person killed. A tree that survived the bombing stands nearby.
There is also the Oklahoma CityNational Memorial Center. This building contains a museum. It alsocontains a public policy research center that studies terrorism andpolitical violence.
Eva Cassidy
HOST:
Singer Eva Cassidy died more than six years ago. Not too manypeople knew about her then. But fame has now come to a life cutshort by cancer. The story from Phoebe Zimmerman.
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Eva Cassidy became serious about music when she was nine. Herfather taught her how to play the guitar. Eva would practice forhours. She could also sing many kinds of music: folk, pop, blues,jazz, gospel.
Years later, a friend brought herto a studio to record some music. Eva Cassidy went on to form a bandand perform around Washington, D.C, where she was born. One of herfavorite songs was “Oh, Had I a Golden Thread.”
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During the summer of nineteen-ninety-six, Eva Cassidy learned shehad melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer. Her friendsorganized a concert to honor her. Although very weak, Eva performed”What a Wonderful World.” She recorded this version earlier thatyear for her album “Live at Blues Alley.”
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Eva Cassidy died in nineteen-ninety-six, at the age ofthirty-three. Music critics said she was close to reaching anational audience at the time of her death.
Now her music has gone not just national but international.”Songbird,” an album released in nineteen-ninety-eight, became a topseller in Britain.
Another album, “Imagine,” came out last year. It includes thissong by Eva Cassidy which we leave you with: “I Can Only Be Me.”
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HOST:
This is Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today. And Ihope you will join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC — VOA’sradio magazine in Special English.
This AMERICAN MOSAIC program was written by Bob Brumfield, LawanDavis and Nancy Steinbach. Our studio engineer was Tony Pollock. Andour producer was Paul Thompson.