For me, Jack Kerouac and Lowell will always be inseparable. Living in the Lowell area from 1977 to 1985, I was deeply affected by both the writer and the city. Lowell now has a memorial to commemorate its native son but it did not come easily. The controversy seemed to me a natural thing, since I see Kerouac's life and writing as fueled by the tensions and conflicting viewpoints within his personality. At first it seems like the town versus the city, Lowell versus New York, but I don't think it's that simple. Lowell, like Jack Kerouac, contains many contradictions.

When I think about Jack Kerouac, Lowell, and contradictions, I find that it all comes to the river, the winding Merrimack that divides and dominates the city. Pawtucket Falls, on the Merrimack, is the reason for the city's existence. The vision of a group of businessmen, Lowell became the country's first planned industrial community in A complex system of canals converted the potential power from the drop in the river's level at the falls into energy to run the textile mills. It was an experiment, intended as a model. There would be profits for the owners and a good environment for the workers. The first workers were young women from the farms of New England. As working conditions declined, they were replaced by successive waves of immigrants. By the late 1940's, most of the textile mills had moved south, leaving Lowell without its economic base. In recent years the national park system and the high-tech industry have brought new uses to old mills and have preserved what had not already been torn down.

There's a moodiness and a sense of mystery in Lowell. It comes from the river. The river and the canals were all working water, harnessed to run mills and make cloth. And yet, nature's power is ever-present; the threat of a flood is always there. Potential danger, as well as potential power, is the foundation of Lowell.

Lowell is a city made for work and populated by workers. It is also a city of dreams, from the dreams of the first mill owners for an alternative to England's Industrial Revolution to the dreams of the workers for a better life for their children and themselves. I see Jack as a dreamer from a city of workers, out of synch by his choice of a lifestyle so unlike theirs. But I also see him as a worker, driven by his commitment and dedication to his writing.

The river rushes to the sea. It has a sense of freedom. Lowell's industry was based on the river's movement, but it took freedom and movement from the workers' lives. I can see the conflict in Kerouac's life, between the security of millworker life with Memere and the movement and freedom of life on the road.

Kerouac's exploration of time is the most important part of his writing for me. Through past time, memory, he puts us in touch with the mystery of time, and the mystery of life. This, too, I relate to the river. The Greek Heraclitus said, "You cannot step into the same river twice." The Merrimack River, flowing though Lowell, is a constant reminder of the nature of time.

CONTRADICTIONS: Jack Kerouac, Lowell, the River ©1990 Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord CONTRADICTIONS was first created as an original artists book for the Rencontre Internationale Jack Kerouac in Quebec City, Quebec in October The books was written, designed, and lettered by Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord with quotations from the works of Jack Kerouac. The images of the river are photocopier manipulations of a photograph of Pawtucket Falls by Betsey Bolton of Lowell, Massachusetts. A limited edition of 100 copies was published by Notan Press. It was produced on a Ricoh photocopier and hand-sewn with a Japanese binding. This presentation of the limited edition book was created in Keynote.

Permissions Selections from DR. SAX by Jack Kerouac. Copyright ©1959 by Jack Kerouac; copyright renewed ©1987 by Jan Kerouac. Used by permission of Grove Press, a division of Wheatland Corporation. Selection from LONESOME TRAVELER by Jack Kerouac. Copyright ©1960 by Jack Kerouac; copyright renewed ©1988 by Jan Kerouac. Used by permission of Grove Press, a division of Wheatland Corporation. Selections from ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac. Copyright ©1955, 1957 by Jack Kerouac; copyright renewed ©1983, 1985 by the Estate of Jack Kerouac. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, Inc.