ABSTRACT
This essay is not so much about Elvis as why I think we need artists like him and artists like Howard Finster. There is something about the stories we hear and the stories we tell ourselves and each other about certain people—the stories that surround certain heroic individuals, not only in our own time, but down through history—that is necessary in order for us to feel like complete human beings. We need to feel that things can happen, that they happen for a reason, and that everything that happens is important. And in order to convey this information in the most deeply satisfying way, we work it into story form.
