Yesterday was The Champ's 62nd birthday. The fact that you probably know who i'm talking about without me having spell out his name says a lot about the man. Arguably the most famous American on the planet, "certainly the world's most famous Muslim-American", one of Time's 100 most important people of the last century, the man who wrote Clean out my cell / And take my tail / On the trail / For the jail / Without bail / Because it's better to be in jail / Watchin' television fed / Than in Vietnam somewhere dead and also said "It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly waves pound the sand. I beat people up," the man who is hailed as "the father of rap" by George Plimpton, editor of The Paris Review... i could go on. He's one of a very short list of people who i would unabashedly admit to being a fan of.
What's The Greatest doing in a book blog? Well, there's a truly heavyweight tribute scheduled to hit the stands (ouch) sometime now. Weighing in at 34 kgs, 50 cm x 50 cm in size, "800 pages of archival and original photographs, graphic artwork and articles and essays," GOAT: Greatest of All Time is a limited edition, just 10,000 copies, each one signed by the Champ, and is available for US$3000. You can snatch a preview here, here or here.
Is GOAT (godawful acronym!) the Greatest Book of all time? Dunno about that. But it won't be the Biggest or even the Heavyweight Champion. That spot was recently taken by Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey Across the Last Himalayan Kingdom.
- Zig