Bob Dylan – Better Living Through Literature

Friday Links

October 14, 2016 Karen

1. Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature yesterday and that delights me. I am also delighted by the goofiest joke ever the literary scholar on the prize committee made:

Sara Danius, a literary scholar and the permanent secretary of the 18-member academy, which called Mr. Dylan “a great poet in the English-speaking tradition” and compared him to Homer and Sappho, whose work was delivered orally. Asked if the decision to award the prize to a musician signaled a broadening in the definition of literature, Ms. Danius responded, “The times they are a-changing, perhaps.”

2. The best ad of the election? Possibly. Ladies, get your vote on!

Friday Unrelated Information

May 24, 2013 Karen

1. If you can’t tell from the lateness of this post, I have the day off (and Toby let me sleep in!). There will be plant shopping and hiking and sewing and pergola-sitting-under-ing galore in the next four days.

2. It’s Bob Dylan’s birthday today, whose songs make both my inner hippie and my inner poet happy. I’d pick one to feature but there are just too many: early Bob with “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” early-middle Bob, with “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Visions of Johanna,” or later Bob with “Not Dark Yet” or “Most of the Time.” Happy 73rd birthday, Bob!

Happy Birthday, Bob

May 24, 2012 Karen2 Comments

Bob Dylan and his magnificent haircut turns 71 today. I was going to pick a favorite video to share, but I really can’t–and with Bob, you either like him and you know the song or you’re not going to listen to one in the first place.

(Although in my search for a tune I remembered him getting “Soy Bomb”-ed at the 1998 Grammys. Soy Bomb!)

Bad Days

February 9, 2012 Karen

Sometimes all you can do is accept that the bad day wins, get takeout, make a drink, and listen to Bob Dylan (who I find soothing; your mileage may vary). My inner hippie really loves “Mr. Tambourine Man,” because my inner poet thinks the lyrics are so pretty:

Then take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves:
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

That last line is like a tagline for bad days! Also, be sure to watch the video soon if you find Bob soothing; I found it on a Turkish (?) site and it may not be up long.

Sing It, Bob!

May 26, 2011 Karen

Even though Bob Dylan is one of my absolute favorites, I haven’t featured any songs here because I know he’s not for everyone. But Tuesday was his 70th birthday, “Maggie’s Farm” has been in my head all week*, and this performance is pretty great, if only because he seems so pissed.

I don’t think this is the 1965 Newport Folk Festival performance where he went electric (because the crowd cheers in the end) but it seems to be from about the same time.

*Gotta love lyrics such as “He hands you a nickel, he hands you a dime, he asks you with a grin if you’re having a good time […] They say, ‘sing while you slave!’ and I just get bored.”