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:
– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
Maria Alekhina (left) and Nadezhda Tolokonnikov. Photo via Earth First!
Russian President Vladimir Putin said today that the imprisoned Pussy Riot members will be freed under an amnesty but described their protest against him in a church as “disgraceful behaviour,” NDTV reported.
The amnesty will also free 30 people arrested in a Greenpeace protest against Arctic oil — before Russia hosts the Winter Olympics in February 2014.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina are serving two-year sentences for a protest at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which included the filming the music video “Punk Prayer – Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!”
Putin said the amnesty was passed to mark the 20th anniversary of Russia’s post-Soviet constitution, and not with the Greenpeace protesters or Pussy Riot in mind.
At an annual news conference today Putin said:
“It (the amnesty) is neither linked to Greenpeace, nor this group (Pussy Riot).”
But Putin also said, “I was not sorry that they (the Pussy Riot members) ended up behind bars,” Putin said. “I was sorry that they were engaged in such disgraceful behaviour, which in my view was degrading to the dignity of women. They went beyond all boundaries.”
Maria Alekhina (left) and Nadezhda Tolokonnikov. Photo via Earth First!
Russian lawmakers approved the final version of an amnesty today that will free Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who are both currently serving two-year sentences.
The State Duma, or lower house of parliament, made modifications to the amnesty, and then approved it. The law passed unanimously, according to the state news organization RIA Novosti.
Maria Alekhina (left) and Nadezhda Tolokonnikov. Photo via Earth First!
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina, currently serving a two-year prison sentence, could be freed by the end of the week under a new amnesty, their lawyer said today.
Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, unanimously approved the amnesty proposed by Russian President Putin on the first of three required readings today
“According to the draft law passed today, my clients will be freed,” lawyer Irina Khrunova said in a phone interview with Bloomberg News.
Maria Alyokhina (middle) and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (right) are serving two-year sentences; Yekaterina Samutsevich (left) had her sentence suspended. Photo via The Journalist.
The Moscow Times Reports:
Jailed Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova will spend the rest of her two-year prison term at a hospital in the Krasnoyarsk region, a news report said Monday.
Tolokonnikova made the request herself after she had been examined at the hospital, which is run by the prison, and the authorities will now decide what job to give her while she is there, Itar-Tass reported.
Tolokonnikova’s lawyer said her client was feeling well and has joined the hospital’s band.
Her sentence is set to run until March 2014, but her lawyer thinks that she could be released earlier under an amnesty planned for this month in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Constitution.
A draft of the amnesty is currently under consideration by the State Duma and is expected to be passed on Wednesday. It could come into effect by the weekend.
Bono was in South Africa this week, to join those paying tribute to Nelson Mandela at Tuesday’s memorial service.
‘In Ireland,’ he says, ‘A wake is never without humour but it’s fair to say we lean heavily on the melancholy… one thing I love about Africa is they accompany the departed with dancing, lots of it, and music full of joy.’
On Thursday, ‘Ordinary Love’, the song the band wrote for ‘Mandela:Long Walk To Freedom’, was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and today the band wanted to share Paul Epworth’s new version.
‘We think Paul Epworth’s mix is a very soulful, uplifting one and we hope our audience will agree,’ says Bono. ‘Nelson Mandela’s life and times meant more to me than I can ever tell you, I would need a hundred songs to do that… but this complicated little love song to Winnie and South Africa is the one that landed on our lap.
‘I want to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press for believing in us and the film. This is truly a great honour.’
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
Fifty years and two days ago an inebreated Bob Dylan shocked an audience of liberals at the Emergency Civil Liberties Union’s (E.C.L.U.) annual Bill of Rights dinner when on receiving their prestigious Tom Paine Award, he launched into a rant (see below) that in part attacked members of the audience as well as those on the stage with him.
In the days following the speech a letter was sent by one of the organizers of the dinner to all the attendees of the dinner defending the E.C.L.U.’s choice of Dylan to get the award that year.
Dylan ended up writing an open letter which was really a long poem (on page two of this post) in which he tried to explain where he was coming from when he made his speech and what he was talking about.
The video below is taken from Martin Scorsese’s “No Direction Home: Bob Dylan” documentary.
Transcript of the full speech:
I haven’t got any guitar, I can talk though. I want to thank you for the Tom Paine award in behalf everybody that went down to Cuba. First of all because they’re all young and it’s took me a long time to get young and now I consider myself young. And I’m proud of it. I’m proud that I’m young. And I only wish that all you people who are sitting out here today or tonight weren’t here and I could see all kinds of faces with hair on their head – and everything like that, everything leading to youngness, celebrating the anniversary when we overthrew the House Un-American Activities just yesterday, – Because you people should be at the beach. You should be out there and you should be swimming and you should be just relaxing in the time you have to relax. (Laughter) It is not an old peoples’ world. It is not an old peoples’ world. It has nothing to do with old people. Old people when their hair grows out, they should go out. (Laughter) And I look down to see the people that are governing me and making my rules – and they haven’t got any hair on their head – I get very uptight about it. (Laughter)
— continued —
Use this link or the one below below to get to the rest of this post.
