cool jack

nothing can be more dreary than "coolness"

postured, secretly rigid coolness
that covers up the fact that the character is
unable to convey anything of force or interest

a kind of sociological coolness
a fad up into the mass of
middleclass youth for awhile

when I said to the Paris girl just fresh
she said from visiting a Persian shah for a Tiger hunt
"did you actually shoot the tiger yourself?"

she gave me a
cold look as tho I'd just tried to
kiss her at the window of a Drama School.

or tried to trip the Huntress.

or something.

but all I could do was sit on the
edge of the bed in despair listening
to their awful "likes" and "like you know"

and "wow crazy" and "a wig, man"
"a real gas"

dreary

(adapted from Chapter 58 of Jack Kerouac's Desolation Angels)