Thursday, October 13, 2016

And The Winner Is

-- Mr Robert A. Zimmerman of Duluth, Minn.

Obverse Of The Nobel Medal For Literature (Wikipedia / Creative Commons)
Look out, Kid / It's somethin' ya did
God knows when but you're doin' it again
-- Subterranean Homesick Blues (1965)
So many tracks playing in the ol' Brain Radio right now, connected to people, places, emotions.
Congratulations, Bob. This is way better than being asked to claim your Tub Of Slaw.
He is the first American to win the prize since the novelist Toni Morrison, in 1993. The announcement, in Stockholm, was a surprise: Although Mr. Dylan, 75, has been mentioned often as having an outside shot at the prize, his work does not fit into the literary canons of novels, poetry and short stories that the prize has traditionally recognized.

“Mr. Dylan’s work remains utterly lacking in conventionality, moral sleight of hand, pop pabulum or sops to his audience,” Bill Wyman, a journalist, wrote in a 2013 Op-Ed essay in The New York Times arguing for Mr. Dylan to get the award. “His lyricism is exquisite; his concerns and subjects are demonstrably timeless; and few poets of any era have seen their work bear more influence.”
... this is snarky, mayhaps -- but when Them Swedes give the same prize to Laurie Anderson, I'll really sit up and take notice. And, Laurie recently released Heart Of A Dog.
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1 comment:

  1. so many people have been given the name dylan by their ma and pa these last few decades

    this award makes me want to dig the vinyl out of the garage and buy a turntable to play it on

    as i may have mentioned (or did i?) i'm taking "class voice" at my county's community college - in the course of the semester we perform and are graded on four songs - the last is our choice - i was thinking of something by john lennon, or paul mccartney, or irving berlin, or bob dylan - now there's more weight on the last option

    one thought i had was to do "all along the watchtower"'s lyrics to jethro tull's "locomotive breath" music - but maybe i'll just do aatw straight

    one never knows when something surprising might happen, as yogi berra may have said sometime

    life is like a beanstalk in some ways







    p.s. too bad they didn't get around to kurt vonnegut when they had the chance

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