Positively 4th Street (Dylan & Pynchon)

[gary webb]

On this the anniversary of 11 September I learned that Bob Dylan will be
passing through Ann Arbor MI this year on what is his never ending tour. I
saw Dylan 18 years ago on in Cincinnati OH (Cintas Center... a shitty venue
if ever one existed) after his Love & Theft album was released (18 years to
the day). One of his finest albums and one of the better albums of the 21st
Century(so far) but seemingly made on another planet, outside of any
discussion concerning music today. It’s remarkable that for both Pynchon
and Dylan Rich Farina was to some extent their respective spirit guide,
Farina influenced Dylan, at least according to David Hajdu's Positively 4th
Street, inspired his magisterial trifecta of albums (Bringing it all Back
Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde) which Dylan from the
period 1965-66 took pop music to weird new places... Of course Farina
influenced Pynchon, and no doubt Pynchon influenced Farina, as is written
in P's into to Farina's novel, that same anarchistic spirit that permeates
Been Down so Long permeates Pynchon's great trifecta of novels (V, COL49,
and GR, which is dedicated to him) and it's remarkable that Pynchon and
Dylan, who overlap each other socially or they did while Richard Farina was
still alive, never formally connected or acknowledged one another in their
work, afterwords it makes sense... Dylan became a rockstar and Pynchon
hunkered down in Manhattan Beach writing...

I grew up watching MTV. Popular music was presented to us young consumers *in
vitro as a* prepackaged televisual experience. Dylan didn't fit that mold
initially. It's been fun watching him in this current manifestation which
got underway with his Time Out of Mind album and Things Have Changed on the
Wonder Boys soundtrack... On to his winning the Nobel, and supposedly
plagiarizing a high school kids essay in his acceptance speech, which I
find hilarious and kind of fitting to his weird persona. I remember when he
shot a Victoria Secret commercial, which I've linked below (He's in Venice
of all places!).

Scorsese's Rolling Thunder Revue is fantastic, if anything for Scarlet
Rivera and her violin, she's incredible. It reminds me of Le Guin's preface
to Left Hand of Darkness "I talk about the gods, I am an atheist. But I am
an artist too, and therefore I am a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am
telling the truth."

 Anyway, if anyone on the P-List has any good Ann Arbor recommendations let
me know, I'm interested to spend some time in town, not staring into the
void that is my phone until the show starts...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsFrFQ-F64Y