Life and How to Live It

“Athens, GA (Clarke County) Copyright 2008 D. Nelson

This house on Meigs Street once belonged to Brev Mekis, a schizophrenic. He had divided the house into two totally different apartments, each one featuring different style furniture, different clothes, books, and pets (per Michael Stipe, a cat on one side and a gerbil on the other), to suit his personalities. He would live for a while on one side until his other personality took over, and would then take off his clothes and move to the other side. After he died they discovered a closet filled floor to ceiling with copies of a book he had written called “Life And How To Live It” – since he had kept all the copies locked up nobody ever knew he had written anything. The R.E.M. song with the same title is based on this true story.

I once flipped through one of the copies, and remember it as faschist and biased, to say the least. Vic Chesnutt lived here about the time I moved to Athens, and we watched many a Wim Wenders movie here.”

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