'Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read.' - Frank Zappa

The legendary rocker, perhaps the first and greatest of all "alternative" rock artists, is the subject of a new biography by Barry Miles.

Camille Paglia wrote a wonderful review

for the November 14 New York Times Book Review.

From her appreciation:

Miles traces Zappa's credibility problem to his "self-destructive" habit of giving sexual or scatalogical titles to his serious pieces.

The bold feminist Germaine Greer was a Zappa fan.

His second wife, Gail, said, "Frank did not do love."

Because he thought formal education was a waste of time, Zappa took his children out of school and refused to pay for college.

After he died in 1993 at 52 of prostate cancer, his children put his espresso machine and cayenne pepper into his coffin.

Zappa was a brilliant guitarist

and called his solos "air sculptures."