Mark Rudd on Mark Rudd: The Proust questionnaire

Mark Rudd is the author of the memoir UNDERGROUND: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen, out now. Here he confronts the Proust questionnaire.

--What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
The isolation and fear of the racist; the despair of the murderer or soldier; the egotism and weariness of the politician on the campaign trail; the prisoner in his cell.

--What is your idea of earthly happiness?
It has something to do with chicharrones.

--Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?
Alexander Portnoy; Raskolnikov; the White Whale

--Who are your favorite characters in history?
V.I. Lenin, Ella Baker, George Burns and Gracie Allen

--Your favorite painter?
Breughel, Goya.

--Your favorite musician?
Vladimir Horowitz playing Stars and Stripes Forever in Moscow; Jimi Hendrix playing blues.

--Who would you have liked to be?
Richard Pryor