Penn Student Retypes Entire Kerouac Novel, Proving He’s Both Very Hip and Very Boring, Just Like Kerouac.

Let’s be honest here: It’s impossible to know what to make of Penn student Jason Jadick’s weekend project—sitting down at a computer and typing the entirety of Jack Kerouac’s novel The Subterraneans into Tumblr in a marathon 24-hour keyboard session. Is it plagiarism? Is it performance art? Is it a bunch of hooey? It’s probably not the first: There’s a long history of artists copying other writers in order to get a feel for their rhythms—and Jadick was earning a grade, believe it or not, in Kenneth Goldsmith’s “Uncreative Writing” course at Penn. (Goldsmith explains the deeper purpose here.) Performance art? Well, Jadick did make video of the entire typing slog, resulting in such scintillating entertainment as what you see below. So the “writerly rhythms” excuse probably doesn’t hold up here, since the purpose is to be seen plagiarizing. Hooey? Well again: This is how Jadick is earning his Ivy League degree. Good for him?  [The Daily Pennsylvanian]