ESSENTIAL READING TO IGNORE . . . AT YOUR OWN RISK

One blogger’s essential reading is another’s fire-starter; that’s just how it is.

Except the book in Ken Kesey’s hand won’t start any fires today, not the way it started fires in his younger days.

What made Kesey so special? Because he was special and then some. It had to be his looks, right?

He’s got a thoughtful Ryan Gosling thing going on.

Looks and books?

“The Ken Kesey Story” starring Ryan Gosling? I think the old Mouseketeer could pull it off. This would be his best movie since the La La Land Oscars.

After the awards given to the movie version of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, this new movie will add more to the Kesey trophy case.

Essential Reading Hoax

All reading is essential, shouldn’t we agree? Anything less is a hoax, like the Oscars Kesey never received

‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ became the first film in 41 years to sweep the major categories .’ Best Picture Saul Zaentz  Michael Douglas
Best Actor in a Leading Role Jack Nicholson
Best Actress in a Leading Role Louise Fletcher
Best Director Milos Forman
Best Writing, Screenplay Adapted From Other Material Lawrence Hauben  Bo Goldman

The ‘Other Material’ up there was the novel.

It was a bad deal for show business when Kesey didn’t get his just due, but that was the deal he let go down.

The essential reading in his case was more about a contract, not his work.

But Kesey was never one for paperwork. At the peak of his career, Kesey felt he had been burned in negotiations for the movie adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He sued Michael Douglas, Saul Zaentz and other producers for $869,000, and won an undisclosed settlement. The flap left Kesey with a lifelong disdain for the mechanics of Hollywood.

Here’s the fascinating part: Kesey came out of the Wallace Stegner Fellowship, a program at Stanford that goes back to 1947. He was class of 1959; Cuckoo’s Nest was published in 1962.

By 1964 he was headed a direction other than the cage for the next Literary Lion. Instead of signing up to churn out a book every two years, he made a sharp turn on the bus and changed his era; kicked off a new era is more like it.

“Take what you can use, and the let the rest go by” sounds like a good plan for essential reading.

Dear Readers: I’m reading ‘Talking To Strangers’ by Malcolm Gladwell. It feels essential. You can pick it up at Powell’s.

What are you reading? Better tell, or risk being haunted by the ghost of Kesey.

He looks like he’d know how to haunt, too.