Al bare kah moo

"Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day."

Camus became a vital part of my life during those angsty & suicidal teenage years.  "The Myth of Sisyphus" made me feel that not killing myself was an act of defiance.  "There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn."  Way to go on the reverse psychology, Al.  And I read The Stranger for school, but I read The Plague and The Fall and The Myth of Sisyphus on my own.  

Yesterday I was thinking about The Beatles (and listening to the MAH-valous 1+) and remembered that Alice Cooper had done a cover of "Eleanor Rigby" for a McCartney Music Appreciation album, so I looked that up on the internets, and that was a bit disappointing, so it led to other things, one of which was looking for a video of The Tubes's "Boy Crazy," and on one of the videos for that I saw the Camus quote ensconced above.

Sooner or later it leads to Camus.

Somewhere in this house of fallen books I have a copy of a Camus book--I think it's Resistance, Rebellion, and Death--which belonged to my mom.  I'm going to find it and read it.  It's possible I've read it before and forgotten it.  It's possible I gave her that copy of that book.  It meant something to her, and I want to evoke her spirit.

I miss my mom on a pretty regular basis.  I miss dad and Kate, too, but especially my mom.  We used to talk about everything.  Except sex, thank God.  But everything else.  She had a very uncommon mind.  Only an 8th grade education, but she read Camus.  Born in the Benny Goodman era, but she loved David Bowie and Iggy Pop and she thought the New York Dolls were cute.

You know, Camus only lived 46 years.  And he's been dead for 55 years.  Most of my life Albert Camus has been dead.

Uh-oh.  I think that's the opening line for a novel.