What We Loved This Week: ‘The Dharma Bums,’ the Hay-Adams and Burma VJ

Michael Yessis
I’ve lived in the Washington, D.C.-area for almost four years, and this week I finally took in the iconic view from the top of the Hay-Adams Hotel. Stunning. The shot from my iPhone hardly does it justice.

David Frey
I recently finished reading Kerouac’s “The Dharma Bums,” and I loved this quote (1958, mind you): “I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of ‘em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures ...” Dig it.

Jim Benning
Burma VJ, the Academy Award-nominated documentary about the 2007 uprising. It’s been airing on HBO. Here’s a taste:

Bill Belleville
There are lots of little freshwater springs tucked away in the tropical landscape of Florida, the Yucatan, Central America, and so on. My favorites are always the ones that are far off trails, and have no signs pointing the way. Such as this one my good friend Yvette Comeau and I just experienced; a deep pool to the fore and a shallow run through the lush jungle foliage to the aft, where she’s wading.

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