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ere’s a bit of very interesting typewriter lore. We use A4 sheets to type. American novelist Jack Kerouac wrote his cult classic ‘On the Road’ in 1957 on a single 120-foot-long scroll of paper. Someone bought it at an auction for over $2.4 million in 2001. On the Road is based on the travels of Kerouac and his friends across the United States. It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations, with its protagonists living life against a backdrop of jazz, poetry, and drug use. I wonder if it has been translated into Sinhala. If not, someone should. The characters bring to my mind another 60s American classic, this time a movie – ‘Easy Rider.’ Kerouak was apparently inspired by a 10,000-word rambling letter from his friend Neal Cassady. A 10,000 word letter! I wonder if it was typewritten. Most people can’t that much today with a word processor. Isn’t it ironical that, long after writers, painters and other artists are gone after a life of struggle, their work is sold at auctions for millions? Among painters, Van Gogh comes to mind.