Pictures from Robert Pirsig's original 1968 trip.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:27:25 -0500

Yes! These are the pictures taken on Robert Pirsig's very own camera as he, Chris, Sylvia, and John made that 1968 epic voyage upon which his book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (ZMM), was based. These 12 photos seem to be the only existing photos from that trip. Mr. Pirsig, when he sent me these photos, said that if he had known his book was going be so famous, he would have taken more photographs. As you will see, nearly all these photos appear to have been "written into" ZMM. This leads me to conjecture that there might have been many other photos that likewise were formative for many, many, other parts of the ZMM Travel Narrative.

I have added a title for these photographs, selected a ZMM passage and provided standard caption format. This includes: ZMM passage & page number, nearest town name, the probable GPS location where the picture was taken, as well as the photo number of my closest matching picture. Mr. Pirsig's own photo captions, sent with his original digital photo files, are included. My photo locations are referenced by a so called "GPS WayPoint Reference Number". A corresponding GPS WayPoint data file will made available upon request. This data file will in turn give precisely the coordinates (degrees North Latitude) + (Degrees West Longitude) for the site of each of my photographs.

New topic: Look closely at the reflection in the shiny gas tank in the first photo. You can faintly discern the image of John, holding the camera at his waist, as he took that photo! HSG

Photos Illustrate Pirsig's "Zen Art Motorcycle Maintenance"

Pictures from Robert Pirsig's original 1968 trip.