Candida Royalle.  Unless you are a scholar or aficionado of X-rated movies and films, this name is likely not familiar to you.  One of the late twentieth century's biggest porn stars, Candida (given name "Candice") carved a bold path through the Sexual Revolution and the many controversies it subsequently spawned about the effects of pornography on women, controversies that, in many ways, are still with us today.  A highly creative spirit, although Candida began as an entertainer, in her later life she had a bit of a "conversion" and endeavored to make pornographic films that celebrated not necessarily the raw mechanics of sexual congress but rather the beauty of sexuality itself.  Unfortunately, she died of ovarian cancer in 2015 at the age of 65.

    Why do I mention Candida's name?  In a recently published biography, Candida Royalle and the Sexual Revolution, author Jane Kamensky paints a rich and largely sympathetic portrait of Candida.  She presents Candida as a person of great artistic insight but, at the same time, a person who constantly wondered what she and her life were really all about.  With unfettered access to the voluminous diaries that Candida kept throughout her life, Kamensky continually unfolds the ambivalence and existential questioning in which Candida engaged all of her days.  Candida emerges as a person who was usually happy, but also as a person who always wondered who she was.  It's both tragic and fascinating.

    And that's my point.  We cannot measure the ultimate value of our lives.  All we know is that we live them, love them, and, one day, lose them.

    Wow.  Without a larger framework of meaning, maybe all really is vanity.