Ken Kesey - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Overview

Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey (icon; September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a novel written by Ken Kesey. Set in an Oregon asylum, the narrative serves as a study of the institutional process and the human mind, as well as a critique of Behaviorism and a celebration of humanistic principles. Written in 1959, the novel was adapted into a...

(1962), and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation

Beat generation

The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...

of the 1950s and the hippie

Hippie

The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...

s of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik

Beatnik

Beatnik was a media stereotype of the 1950s and early 1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s and violent film images, along with a cartoonish depiction of the real-life people and the spiritual quest in Jack Kerouac's autobiographical...

, and too old to be a hippie," Kesey said in a 1999 interview with Robert K. Elder

Robert K. Elder

Robert K. Elder is an American journalist, author and film columnist.- Early life and education :A Montana native, Elder interviewed Ken Kesey for his high school newspaper. The author encouraged Elder to attend his alma mater, the University of Oregon, which Elder did two years later...

.
Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado

La Junta, Colorado

The City of La Junta is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Otero County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,568 at the U.S. Census 2000. La Junta is located on the Arkansas River in southeastern Colorado east of Pueblo.-History:During...

to dairy farmers Frederick A.

Discussions

Kesey and the Merry Pranksters

The next stage on from Cuckoo's Nest

Help with school reading logs

What are some of the themes of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

Kesey's experiments with drugs

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Quotations

Along the western slopes of the Oregon Coastal Range . . . come look: the hysterical crashing of tributaries as they merge into the Wakonda Auga River . . .

Sometimes a Great Notion|Sometimes a Great Notion (1964) First lines

NEVER GIVE A INCH!

Sometimes a Great Notion|Sometimes a Great Notion (1964)

The Grateful Dead are faster than light drive.

Inside cover of "The Grateful Dead" LP (1967)

I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph.

As quoted by Tom Wolfe|Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test|The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) Ch. 1

We are always acting on what has just finished happening. It happened at least 1/30th of a second ago. We think we’re in the present, but we aren’t. The present we know is only a movie of the past.

As quoted by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) Ch. 11

There are going to be times when we can't wait for somebody. Now, you're either on the bus or off the bus. If you're on the bus, and you get left behind, then you'll find it again. If you're off the bus in the first place — then it won't make a damn.

As quoted by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)

Nothing lasts.

As quoted by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)

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