“He was in an extra rage that Labor Day. Against his own decline. His death. I think he actually believed that, because of who he was and what he had, he wouldn’t die. Not because he took great care of himself, because he didn’t, but because he couldn’t imagine being anything less or other than what he was.”

We often think of life as a series of events that happen to us. As a result, we neglect the fact that it’s often a series of actions that we do to ourselves. Having grown up under the guidance of jazz cats back in the ’40s and ’50s, I’ve seen and done the hard drug route, and I used to smoke four packs of cigarettes in a twenty-four-hour period. Co

“People view me as a writer and I am a writer, I'm a productive writer, but I don't start writing until the afternoon. The whole morning is devoted to listening to music and reading and mostly reading books.” What jumped out to me was a comment that signaled how seriously he took this good work: "I did not do this as a career strategy. I didn'