Chapter 1 (1959-1965): Early Years: New York, Stockholm, and Durham, North Carolina
Chapter 2 (1966-1972): Elementary School in North Carolina and California
Chapter 4 (1980-1986): My Jewish Explorations
Chapter 5 (1987-1993): The Graduate Student Years in Los Angeles
Chapter 6 (1994-2000): Marriage, Fatherhood, Research and Too Much Los Angeles
Chapter 7 (2001-2007): A Life Under Construction - My Oregon Adventure
I have heard it said that the human body completely renews its cells (except perhaps the neurons) every seven years or so.
By that standard, we are each a new person every seven years.
I don't know if that is true or not.
I do know this. When I arranged my life in seven year periods each of those periods seemed to represent a broadly coherent chapter.
In contrast, a decade by decade arrangement produced no such coherence.
Why does seven seem to be a good number to order the passage of time, whether the days of creation, the weeks or the years? Does the number seven really represent something deep about the structure of time? I don't believe that kind of thing, and yet...
William Shakespeare, As You Like It, (Act II, Scene 7)
All the world´s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse´s arms.
And then the whinning school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress´ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon´s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin´d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav´d a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends his strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
I'm always trying to stay right square in the moment. I don't want to get nostalgic or narcissistic as a writer or a person. I think successful people don't dwell in the past. I think only losers do.
Bob Dylan, 4 April 2004,
LA Times interview concerning his autobiography
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, Verse 1
I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance, Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original energy.
Welcome to Documented Life, a photographic representation of my 48 years of life - an exploration of virtual identity.
Here are a few words about why and how the Documented Life autodocumentary was created and what it might mean.
I originally thought of calling this site "An Ordinary Life." But really, who am I to claim to be ordinary? Even if mine were an ordinary life, I've messed that up by documenting it so thoroughly. To observe reality is to change it, and my life has already been changed in subtle ways by this website.