NWR: Bob Dylan

I'll tell this story, even if some people will hate me (bitch eatin' crackers). In January of 2014, Joe and I went to see a performance of the early 17th century composer Charpentier's Orpheus Descending to the Underworld in an old chapel down in lower Manhattan.

The opera was unfinished at the time of the composer's death, but it is still beautiful. We were in the oldest chapel in Manhattan and seeing this, we discussed the interaction of time and loss. (As well as older people's propensity to put their scarves and whatnot on the chair next to them.)

Then we walked by the old graveyard by the side of the chapel. It was winter, there was snow.

We went to a restaurant that had recently opened, Telepan Tribeca—an outpost of a chef on the Upper West Side. We were at first wary of the wine list, yet we found a good Macon to drink. The food was surprisingly awful—pizza with lumpy carbs atop, etc. We discussed as much with vigor.

We walked home in the snow, to Leonard Street.

We sat on the couch, opened a bottle of Burgundy, and began to play songs to each other, songs that resonated. We'd seen a tale of death and beyond and were, in a silly way (because we always sat on the couch and listened to music, movies or TV shows) somehow melancholy.

Joe told me about Bob Dylan, and how he'd listened to him as a high-school student. I'd never heard these albums, "Blood on the Tracks," "Desire."

And then he played: "One More Cup Of Coffee For the Road."

He cried.

I told him, "Don't cry, sweetie." I wanted to comfort him.

It had affected him very much.

All I could do was play the clown.

So, listen to Rameau's Indes Galantes.
 
I've been a little giddy all day, and, I'm greatly amused by the minor controversy, the most entertaining example of which, was the tweet from Irvine Welsh. "ill-conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies." Much more fun than the election.
Bob's my uncle
 
Though, oddly, I mentioned a few years ago to JPD that Bob Dylan was being bandied about for the Nobel, and he wasn't for it.

Was he a purist? I mean, his favorite novelist was P.G. Wodehouse.
 
Joe a purist? Mais oui, Mlle! Loved the story, but JPD drinking a still Chardonnay? What witchcraft was this?

Personally, I'm happier with Dylan getting a literature Nobel than I would be with him getting an award for his singing. I'm on the same page with Joe on his choice of Dylan songs, though.

Mark Lipton
 
Sharon, when you said "all I could do was play the clown" what came to mind was the song "Why Try To Change Me Now?" which Dylan covered on his album from a couple years back called "Shadows In The Night," which consisted of songs famously recorded by Sinatra. The lyric is made for Dylan, and his rendition of it is the best thing on the album. (And I loved the album)
 
I know a couple of ladies who went to high school with Dylan in Hibbing, Minnesota. They had some interesting comments there...

Otherwise, I think Desire is one of the most under-rated of his albums. I really like (my favorite, in fact) "Romance in Durango" ("Hot chili peppers in the blistering sun now...Soon the horse will take us to Durango"), although Isis and Sara are both great songs as well...
 
originally posted by MLipton:
JPD drinking a still Chardonnay? What witchcraft was this?
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He liked the odd Chablis (had lots of poxing Dauvissat, unfortunately), Jura of course (esp. Ganevat), and I got him into Valette in the Maconnais and fizz from certain hills in that chalky place....
 
I have the impression that most people acclaiming Dylan don't actually read much poetry. On the other hand, numbers of very achieved poets have been quoted in the papers recently acclaiming the award (Rita Dove, Yusef Kumunyakaa). And, because I have three hands for the moment, on the third hand, the Nobel committee has always had a fondness for literature that makes political statements in any case. I've always liked Dylan, and of course some of his songs are part of the soundtrack of my growing up. I don't know that I would have voted to give him the prize, but there are plenty of others who have gotten it that I wouldn't have voted for either.

Oh, and he doesn't hold a candle to Rimbaud.
 
Yes, they have always liked the literary figures who have made political, or perhaps politically uplifting statements (e.g., Blowin in the Wind).

I cannot take it all that seriously myself (at least from the literary point of view, given the fact that the top 3 prose writers of the 20th century (Joyce, Proust, Kafka) did not win the prize...
 
I'll grant you Joyce. It would hardly have been possible for them to recognize either Kafka or Proust as both of them had their major works published or completed posthumously. It's the Pearl Bucks and William Goldings of the Nobel list that get me.
 
I'll just point out, since I'm also a Jeopardy aspirant, that Dylan is now one of two people who have received both a Nobel and an Oscar. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader -- or a topic of conversation at dinner tonight -- to name the other.

Mark Lipton
 
He starred in an Oscar-winning film, but was never personally awarded an Oscar. So it is not him. Although, winning the Nobel Peace Prize ain't too shabby on its own.
 
Ibsen never got the prize, but his Norwegian contemporary Bjørnsson did, mainly because he was an Important political figure as well as a writer (of a decidedly lesser stature than Ibsen).
 
originally posted by Michael Lewis:
He starred in an Oscar-winning film, but was never personally awarded an Oscar. So it is not him. Although, winning the Nobel Peace Prize ain't too shabby on its own.
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I expect he is who Keith and Mark mean, though I'll happily be corrected if he's not.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
I'll just point out, since I'm also a Jeopardy aspirant, that Dylan is now one of two people who have received both a Nobel and an Oscar. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader -- or a topic of conversation at dinner tonight -- to name the other.

Mark Lipton
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NEGOT?
 
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