Category Archives: Biography

BOOK: Caged by Brandon Dean Lamson

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Caged: A Teacher's Journey Through Rikers, or How I Beheaded the MinotaurCaged: A Teacher’s Journey Through Rikers, or How I Beheaded the Minotaur by Brandon Dean Lamson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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In Caged, Brandon Dean Lamson tells the story of his time teaching inmates on Rikers Island, finding himself in conflict both with students and with the guards. There is definitely a unique culture to the world of incarceration. I found myself thinking about the Stanford Prison Experiments in which ordinary people were randomly assigned to play either inmate or guard. The subjects’ behavior changed during the short period of the experiment, guards becoming more domineering and sadistic and inmates becoming more scheming and duplicitous than these people were in their regular lives. One sees evidence of this strange power dynamic and the resulting unusual behavior throughout the book. Lamson and the other teachers and staff involved with the school often saw the guards as vicious fascists, but – at the same time — they couldn’t trust the prisoners because learning was never an inmate’s top priority but rather was a combination of survival and maintenance of status.

As interesting as the story inside the wire is, it’s equally fascinating to learn what happens with Lamson outside his workday. The author is forthright about changes in his own psychology as he developed a need to work out his own violent tendencies as well as uncharacteristic sexual behavior. Lamson describes time spent in a boxing gym and S&M dungeon in service of these changes.

The book also offers some insight into what teaching methods worked or didn’t. Some of this pedagogical insight might be exclusively applicable to jails and prisons, but some would likely be of use to regular teachers, particularly in dealing with troubled or challenging kids. Lamson is also forthright about his own teaching missteps and failures, while offering the reader insight to what he learned from those teachers who seemed to be unusually effective.

I found this to be a fascinating book. It’s well-written and thought-provoking. I’d highly recommend it for readers of nonfiction.


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Limerick of Richard Dadd

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Titania Sleeping (1857); Richard Dadd
An English painter named Richard Dadd
 went completely stark raving madd.
  He stayed in asylums -
  Broadmoor to Bedlam.
 For stabbing to death his dear old dadd.

Pushkin Limerick

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The poet Alexander Pushkin
 challenged twenty-one duels with no win.
 But just that one loss,
  put him under a cross.
 Perhaps, he'd have lived if his skin weren't so thin.

Kafka Clerihew

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The Bohemian writer Franz Kafka,
 more conflicted than Queen Jocasta,
  wrote tales, absurd -n- surreal...
   yet how factual they feel.

Francisco de Goya Clerihew

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The Madhouse (1812-19)

The work of Francisco de Goya
 shows a touch of paranoia.
  Worry of going insane
  can cause quite a strain.

Voltaire Clerihew

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The Enlightenment thinker called Voltaire
 beat the lottery to become a millionaire.
   To the man, he did stick it,
    by buying every ticket.

Cambridge U. Limerick

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When Lord Byron lived at Cambridge University,
he greatly increased campus diversity.
He lived with a bear.
They were quite the pair.
For the poet, the dog ban was a perversity.

BOOK REVIEW: By Water by Jason Landsel & Richard Mommsen

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By Water: The Felix Manz StoryBy Water: The Felix Manz Story by Jason Landsel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Release Date: March 21, 2023

Get Speechify to make any book an audiobook

This is a graphic novel-style biography of Felix Manz, a Protestant (Anabaptist) reformer from Zurich during the sixteenth century. Manz and his compatriots had a few beefs with the Catholic church, broadly classified. The first (and most religious / doctrinal) grievance was with respect to how the Church handled baptisms; specifically, infant baptism prevented baptism from being a free choice for the baptized. The second set of grievances involved the priesthood and how priests were moved around at the convenience of the Church and how much money they cost the citizenry. (i.e. They wanted local priests and not to be forced to pay a lot of overhead.) The third complaint was more an entire slate of complaints about resources. In that era, Swiss commoners couldn’t just go hunting in the woods or chop firewood as they needed because the land was under the ownership of the powers that be.

The story of Manz and his followers is intriguing, if one is interested in history. It’s kind of a strange topic to read in comic book form, but as history can be tedious in historical / biographic tomes, this makes for a quick and painless way to take in the story. There are a couple points where the book seems to shift into hagiographic territory (i.e. being difficult to swallow for the non-believer.)

The art is clear and neatly rendered, but I wondered how time-accurate it is. Maybe it is, but the inside of the houses looked pretty much like today (e.g. curtains and furnishings) and I found myself wondering whether its anachronistic or not. Ultimately, I have to give the artist the benefit of the doubt as I know virtually nothing about how Swiss commoners lived in the 1500’s. At the end of the book, there are some appendices that provide more information in prose text.

If you’re interested in European and / or Religious History, you may want to read this book.


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BOOK REVIEW: Rilke: The Last Inward Man by Lesley Chamberlain

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Rilke: The Last Inward ManRilke: The Last Inward Man by Lesley Chamberlain
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This book surveys the influences on Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry, and makes the argument that Rilke was the last vestige of a mystically spiritual [Romantic or Romantic-esque] poetic line. Poetry was becoming more political and more influenced by nihilistic philosophies that eschewed inward investigations of meaning and self-realization, constructs that were seen as artificial and empty. Rilke bucked the trend, and while he did become an important poet, Chamberlain believes he paid a price.

The book discusses the influence of sexuality, spirituality, and artistic obsessions on Rilke’s poetry in great detail. It also talks about his life as an influence, both his family life (or lack, thereof) and the key years he spent in Paris. The last couple chapters tie the story together by clarifying what Rilke achieved and how it contrasted with prevailing trends.

If you’re interested in understanding more about the philosophical and spiritual forces impacting Rilke’s work, this is an interesting read. It’s not a biography, strictly speaking, but does unavoidably discuss Rilke’s life in some detail (though always through a literary / philosophical lens.)


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BOOK REVIEW: Hendrix: Electric Requiem by Mattia Colombara

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Hendrix: Electric RequiemHendrix: Electric Requiem by Mattia Colombara
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Release Date: September 6, 2022

This is a biography of the life of Jimi Hendrix in graphic novel form, from his youth in the Jim Crow South to his untimely demise. The book takes narrative license here and there, rather than being a just-the-facts scholarly or journalistic biography. This license is most extensively seen in the mystical and surreal dream and death sequences, but the back matter suggests that there was at least one event depicted in the book that didn’t happen in reality (or, at least, there isn’t evidence to support its occurrence.)

Hendrix’s life was so short and his death was now so long ago that few people know more than that he was a guitar prodigy with a penchant for playing in wild and unusual ways. The story digs into moments of poignancy and drama in the guitar phenom’s life as well as emphasizing his interactions with major artists of the day: e.g. Clapton, McCartney, and The Rolling Stones.

I found the book intriguing and valued the fact that there were notes and a bibliography in the back that help to clarify what’s well-supported and what events take creative license. The art is well rendered and colorful. If you’re interested in learning more about a rock-n-roll legend, it’s worth looking into this book.


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