John Sinclair’s It’s All Good: A John Sinclair Reader was recently published, and it presents an intriguing alternative vision of him to hipster from another time his voice can conjure up. On paper as he essays on his own legal problems or the jazz and blues artists that speak to him, he creates the image of an auto-didact who has developed his own governing theories about the art and ideas that move him. The pieces here reveal a combination of history, musicology, theory and faith, as Sun Ra, Willie King, Iggy Pop and Mardi Gras Indians are presented not just as musical, social or historical figures, but as totemic figures he believes in. It’s a personal relationship, and it mirrors our relationships to the artists that inspire us. It’s also the sort of personal history/analysis that you won’t get anywhere else.