From: ml (mbtlehn@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Sat Oct 09 2004 - 06:40:30 BST
Hello Ian...
Ian:
> A question for you US cultural hisorians ...
>
> When John mentions "Twenty-six-forty-nine Colfax Avenue, 8 years before"
to
> Bob and Sylvia, whilst they're all basking in the post-wine-and-fish inner
> glow at the DeWeese's and Sylvia says let's not talk about it, but John
> makes a knowing remark to Bob about the quality of the evening with
friends
> ...
>
> Do we know specifically which Colfax Avenue, which previous friends' party
> they're referring to ?
> Is it an allusion, or direct reference, to Jack Kerouac's night in Denver
in
> On The Road ?
> Anyone know the significance ?
mel:
Found this, here:
http://www.zmmquality.org/gallery/album03
2649 South Colfax Ave, Minneapolis
John Sutherland and his wife Sylvia, are one of the four main characters in
ZMM. "Later John mumbles something a few times, looks up and announces,
"This does it-this just does the whole thing for us . . . Now we can go back
for another eight years on Twenty-six-forty-nine Colfax Avenue." Sylvia says
mournfully, "Let's not talk about that."
Minneapolis MN dusk shrouds the quiet well maintained home at 2649 South
Colfax Ave. From the contextual evidence contained in ZMM we may deduce that
John's statement about Colfax Avenue surely must be about his home in
Minneapolis MN, where sure enough www.mapquest.com shows it as a N-S street,
just west of the downtown area. In a recent letter Pirsig said of this
photograph. "This could be John's house. [They] Moved to the country in late
'70's." ZMM author Robert Pirsig went to Elementary School about ten blocks
North of Here. The children Pirsig went to school with would have come from
this neighborhood. As a child, he may have walked through this area of town.
There is a Colorado street Colfax, the longest
named street in America (supposedly, but any
Chamber of Commerce looks for some reason
to be unique.) , part of it runs through Denver,
part is West in Jefferson County and the rest
East in Arapahoe and Adams Counties.
Kerouac spent much longer than his literary night in
Denver and may have 'got up to some considerable
shenanigans' as the old expression goes.
But this is an aside...
thanks--mel
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