Biographies

I like reading biographies. They have become my favorite read, partly because if they are well-written, you can learn much about particular times and places, as well as the human game of living - you learn about the life, and the context of living a life. Now some of this is just selective editing, any book is subject to skepticism I suppose. Do most lives really have a theme, or is that really a device used by the author to make the life and the book more compelling? Like so much else a biography is a work of art (artifice) just like much of what we make of the world.

Some of my favorite subjects have included: Jean Genet, Howard Hughes, Richard Nixon, Neil Young, Jack Kerouac, William Blake, Vince Lombardi, Bob Dylan, Dean Martin, Nicholas Ray, Robert Oppenheimer, Led Zeppelin, Sam Fuller, Thomas Merton, Bing Crosby, Phil Lesh, Terry Southern, Sonny Liston, Christopher Marlowe, Billy Strayhorn, William Shakespeare, Andre Breton, Muhammad Ali, Elvis Presley, Robert Irwin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jean Cocteau, Michel Foucalt, Johnny Lydon, Jean Paul Satre...

Right now I'm reading a biography of Timothy Leary. It's a real kick. Here's a line from Kerouac to Leary as they discuss how the good Doctor is going to transform society (I think it's clear that he did so, whether for good or bad is anybody's call):

Kerouac: "Coach Leary, walking on water wasn't built in a day."

Now that makes little ole sunnyjimmy just want to sit up and laugh...and laugh...and laugh!