It's funny how things come together sometimes in life. I've been contemplating Tristessa a lot lately. I always considered it Kerouac's most beautiful, poetic, and sad story--not his best, necessarily (what does that even really mean?), but the one in which his particular gifts were the most condensed and potent. To me, the beauty of Kerouac has always been in his power to grant a halo of redemptive light to the most beaten-down aspects of existence. 
And, just as I was thinking of the book and of Jack, I stumble across the story about the house he died in being saved.

I recently shared a fascinating conversation with hermiticist/alchemist/artist Seven Bremner. The full interview will be posted soon, but I put up this snippet as a teaser. My question: Did the ancient alchemical artists receive the symbols and then deduce their meaning, or did they start with the meaning and then reduce it to a symbol?  

Her answer is intriguing.