Reuters reported this evening that Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina is now free.
Maria Alyokhina, a member of Russian punk band Pussy Riot, walked free from jail on Monday under an amnesty allowing her early release from a two-year sentence for a protest in a church against President Vladimir Putin.
“They’ve just released her,” Pyotr Verzilov, the husband of fellow band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who is also due to be released under the amnesty, told Reuters.
The headline in today’s New York Times: “Bob Dylan: Musician or poet?”
I’m always happy to see Dylan written about in the New York Times. They’re no johnny-come-lately as supporters of Bob Dylan.
It was their music critic Robert Shelton who gave Dylan his first serious, high-profile review, following a performance at Gerdes Folk City in the Village, September 26, 1961.
Still, here at the end of 2013, do we really have to ask? Is Bob Dylan a poet? Would the New York Times run an essay today titled “Was Einstein a genius? Well maybe, possibly.
I guess the question bothers me because it seemed so obvious from the start. I always thought Dylan was a poet. And a rock star. And a singer. And a musician. And he was damn funny too.
I first heard Bob Dylan on the radio singing “Like a Rolling Stone” in 1965 and it knocked me sideways, it was listening to one of Picasso’s cubist masterpieces, sent me right into some other world. I was 12 years old. When I bought Highway 61 Revisited, once I got past looking at the amazing cover photo, there was a lengthy piece of writing by Dylan that was clearly (to me) a poem.
Soon enough, by the time I was 13, I was reading Ferlinghetti’s “A Coney Island of the Mind” and e. e. cummings’ “a selection of poems” and Ginsberg’s “Howl.” If “Howl” was a poem, why not “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” or “Bob Dylan’s Dream” or “Desolation Row”?
We really don’t need the Times asking if Dylan is a poet 50 years too late.
Still, both essays in today’s Times — by Francine Prose and Dana Stevens — are worth reading (and are well written), but not because you need anyone to tell you whether or not Bob Dylan is a poet. You don’t need a weatherman, To know which way the wind blows.
John Corigliano – “Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan”:
Greil Marcus talks with composers John Corigliano and Howard Fishman at the CUNY Graduate Center about their respective projects based around the works of Bob Dylan. September 17, 2009:
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In Sunday’s The Observer, Andrew Hussey offers a lengthy story about heroin’s role as artistic stimulant.
“I think the relationship between heroin and cities, or cityspace, is very interesting,” Will Self [a former heroin user] says. “It has more to do with spatiality, how the inner world of the user connects with the outside word of reality. And what we’re really talking about is the psychogeography of heroin. William Burroughs knew this when he wrote The Naked Lunch, the great heroin novel set in the Interzone of Tangier, and Lou Reed knew this. The first Velvet Underground album is essentially a day in the life of a heroin addict in New York City, and a map of where he goes and what he sees and what he feels. And the music sounds like heroin, with its drones and impatient feedback and stuttering words. It’s the perfect soundtrack to the junkie life. There is a heroin psychogeography – where to find it, where to buy it, where you can smell it.” He goes on: “The point is that heroin users occupy a certain negative space in the world, in society. Burroughs writes in The Naked Lunch how, strung out in Tangier, he could sit and look at his shoe for eight hours. Heroin users don’t need to do anything or go anywhere: they just are.”
For more of this fascinating article, head to The Observer.
The Velvet Underground, “Heroin”:
The Velvet Underground, “I´m Waiting For The Man”:
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Cover art from Pearl Jam Christmas single.More cover art from Pearl Jam CHristmas single.
On December 19 Pearl Jam Online broke the news about this year’s Pearl Jam Christmas single:
SPOILER ALERT!
PEARL JAM | 2013 Holiday Single
SIDE A: 99 Problems – Written by Jay-Z, Performed by Pearl Jam with Jay-Z (9/2/2012 Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Made In America Festival)
SIDE B: Shattered – Written by Rolling Stones, Performed by Eddie Vedder with Jeanne Tripplehorn (9/15/2013 Private Location, Malibu, CA, EBMRF Benefit with Ed Vedder)
Here’s video of “99 Problems”:
Here’s video of “Shattered”:
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Bonnie Beecher, one of Bob’s girlfriends, playing a folksinger in an episode of “The Twilight Zone.”
Fifty-two years ago, on December 22, 1961, Bob Dylan recorded 26 songs during two and a two-and-a-half hour session at his girlfriend Bonnie Beecher’s apartment in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Included were four Woody Guthrie songs dealing with venereal disease.
Woody Guthrie wrote the VD songs in 1949 for the U.S. Public Health Service. Guthrie’s versions were released this year on the 6-CD set, Woody Guthrie: American Radical Patriot. The set includes a 78 disc with Dylan’s recording of “VD City.”
When Bob recorded his debut album in November of 1961, he didn’t record any of the VD songs, although all but one song on that album were covers. Perhaps the topic wasn’t appropriate, or maybe Bob had just moved on.
“VD Blues”:
“VD Waltz”:
“VD City”:
“VD Gunner’s Blues”:
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“Criminal Minds” star Jeanne Tripplehorn takes the lead while Eddie Vedder accompanies her on guitar for a crazy but appealing cover of the Rolling Stones “Shattered.”
They performed at a fundraiser in L.A. for Heal EB. Heal EB is a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding a cure while raising awareness for Epidermolysis Bullosa.
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Today the New York Times‘ book critics each listed the books they most enjoyed during 2013. Below are the lists. But to read what they like about each book, head to the New York Times.
In the intro to the lists Janet Maslin writes:
“Let us be the first to tell you: These are quirky lists. They’re supposed to be. These are our favorite books of the year, so please don’t confuse them with 10 Bests, because we can’t make lists like those. For one thing, all of us — Michiko Kakutani, Dwight Garner and I — read so many books on assignment that we don’t have the leeway to be comprehensive. For another, we’ve listed books that we liked as much as we admired. That’s where the quirks come in.
“Each of us has chosen only from among the books personally reviewed during the calendar year. That alone creates big omissions. We cannot review books by reporters for, or writers associated with, The New York Times. That means that at least two widely praised works of nonfiction — Peter Baker’s “Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House” and Sheri Fink’s “Five Days at Memorial” (part of which originally appeared in The Times Magazine) — weren’t covered by us. The same goes for books by friends. And, yes, there are books we didn’t cover and regret having missed.”
Michiko Kakutani’s list
1 THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt
2 THE EXAMINED LIFE: HOW WE LOSE AND FIND OURSELVES by Stephen Grosz
3 THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE by David Finkel
4 CLAIRE OF THE SEA LIGHT by Edwidge Danticat
5 AFTER THE MUSIC STOPPED: THE FINANCIAL CRISIS, THE RESPONSE, AND THE WORK AHEAD by Alan S. Blinder
6 JOHNNY CASH: THE LIFE by Robert Hilburn
7 MY BELOVED WORLD by Sonia Sotomayor
8 BIG DATA: A REVOLUTION THAT WILL TRANSFORM HOW WE LIVE, WORK, AND THINK by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier
9 HOW TO GET FILTHY RICH IN RISING ASIA by Mohsin Hamid
10 TENTH OF DECEMBER: STORIES by George Saunders
Janet Maslin’s list:
1 LAWRENCE IN ARABIA: WAR, DECEIT, IMPERIAL FOLLY AND THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST by Scott Anderson
2 THE UNKNOWNS by Gabriel Roth
3 SOMEONE by Alice McDermott
4 THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS by Elizabeth Gilbert
5 MANSON: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHARLES MANSON by Jeff Guinn
6 LIFE AFTER LIFE by Kate Atkinson
7 EMPTY MANSIONS: THE MYSTERIOUS LIFE OF HUGUETTE CLARK AND THE SPENDING OF A GREAT AMERICAN FORTUNE by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr.
8 JOHNNY CARSON by Henry Bushkin
9 N0S4A2 by Joe Hill
10 NEVER GO BACK by Lee Child
Dwight Garner’s list
1 THE FLAMETHROWERS by Rachel Kushner
2 THE UNWINDING: AN INNER HISTORY OF THE NEW AMERICA by George Packer
3 MEN WE REAPED: A MEMOIR by Jesmyn Ward
4 CRITICAL MASS: FOUR DECADES OF ESSAYS, REVIEWS, HAND GRENADES, AND HURRAHS by James Wolcott
5 COUNTRY GIRL: A MEMOIR by Edna O’Brien
6 MY PROMISED LAND: THE TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY OF ISRAEL by Ari Shavit
7 MARGARET FULLER: A NEW AMERICAN LIFE by Megan Marshall
8 THE WET AND THE DRY: A DRINKER’S JOURNEY by Lawrence Osborne
9 THE SKIES BELONG TO US: LOVE AND TERROR IN THE GOLDEN AGE OF HIJACKING by Brendan I. Koerner
10 I WANT TO SHOW YOU MORE: STORIES by Jamie Quatro
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When I want to listen to a truly beautiful Bob Dylan performance, I listen to this studio recording of “Blind Willie McTell. The song is in part a tribute to the bluesman Blind Willie McTell, and recorded in 1983. Dylan has referred to it as a demo.
In an interview with Rolling Stone he said: “I started playing it live because I heard The Band doing it. Most likely it was a demo, probably showing the musicians how it should go. It was never developed fully, I never got around to completing it. There wouldn’t have been any other reason for leaving it off the record. It’s like taking a painting by Monet or Picasso – goin’ to his house and lookin’ at a half-finished painting and grabbing it and selling it to people who are ‘Picasso fans.'”
It was released in 1991 on the The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.
Dylan’s voice sounds fantastic. This is a very moving song.
The Guardian has finished rolling out it’s best albums of 2013 list. Brooklyn Veganhas been keeping taps and today makes it easy to check out the entire list in one quick read.
There are 40 albums in the list. Here are the Top 20. For the rest, go here.
The Guardian’s 20 Best Albums of 2013
20. David Bowie – The Next Day
19. Arctic Monkeys – AM
18. These New Puritans – Fields of Reeds
17. Laura Marling – Once I Was an Eagle
16. Kacey Musgraves – Same Trailer, Different Park
15. Earl Sweatshirt – Doris
14. Chance the Rapper – Acid Rap
13. Lorde – Pure Heroine
12. Haim – Days Are Gone
11. The National – Trouble Will Find Me
10. My Bloody Valentine – m b v
9. Janelle Monae – The Electric Lady
8. John Wizards – John Wizards
7. Kelela – Cut 4 Me
6. Disclosure – Settle
5. James Blake – Overgrown
4. Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the CIty
3. Daft Punk – Random Access Memories
2. John Grant – Pale Green Ghosts
1. Kanye West – Yeezus
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