Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.
From a project to photograph Great Britain and Ireland, square by square.
ReplyDelete(Copyright Simon Ledingham and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Licence - per the request of the site)
Av, I see there is a book coming out on the Rise and Fall of John Edwards,
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Politician-Insiders-Account-Edwardss-Presidency/dp/031264065X
Thanks, Gintaras. That may be a little more scandal than I'm up for. I think Young is the one he paid to claim paternity.
ReplyDeleteEdwards seems to be a classic tragic figure. Started from nothing, used his smarts, charm, and good looks to make it in the world, and to connect with real people, and then came tumbling down with a self-inflicted wound to the heart. Hubris -- isn't what the Greeks called it?
It was almost like he became delusional -- but then this is American politics, so what did I expect?
After all of this, I'm still moved by the way, when he was withdrawing from the race, he stopped and talked to homeless veterans living under a bridge in New Orleans. He didn't need to do that. The race was over.
I still think there is something in his DNA that understood what was right -- withdrawing from Iraq, investing in the environment and people, addressing the needs of the poorest Americans first -- that's a powerful message, even though he was fatally flawed and unable to act on it.
I have Game Change coming with Madison. Hopefully get it Monday. That's probably all the insight into Edwards I'll need. From what I've read, they don't paint a very pretty picture of his wife, either. Sad when you think of what might have been for both of them.
This is the kind of inquiry we needed to have in this country. Alas, Obama didn't have the stomach for it:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/26/iraq-war-illegal-chilcot-inquiry
New York Magazine had an excerpt from Game Change last week (read it online)that was scathing of John and Elizabeth Edwards. I won't be buying Game Change, especially after it was used by people like Michael Steele and several white Republican pundits who tried to use it (unsuccessfully) to destroy Harry Reid.
ReplyDeleteI imagine airing such dirty laundry from Campaign 2008 will do well at the book stands, but sadly it will only serve to make Americans more cynical about the election process.
ReplyDeleteWell, you are both probably right. But I'm such a political junkie, I really want to read it. I didn't read any of the post election books -- I planned to read Richard Wolffe's Renegade, but never saw it when it came out -- so this will be the jaded one I read.
ReplyDeleteIt could be too that I have already become so cynical about the election process that this one will speak to me.
RIP-Howard Zinn
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bo. I hadn't seen that. He was an important voice for America and will be missed.
ReplyDeleteI was too taken up with the State of the Union -- which I thought was a masterful job. I don't agree with some of his policies, but hopefully he can get our leaky ship back into the river and moving again.
And I'm proud of any president who can end discrimination in the armed forces, staring down the stony-faced generals in the front. Or talk down the Supreme Court sitting there with them. (Poor Ruth Ginsburg doesn't appear to be long for this world.)
And I particularly liked that he will be calling regularly on Congress. Even the republicans towards the end seemed to be paying attention -- whether it will make any difference or not remains to be seen.
My hope is that Americans were paying attention.
Read a few pages of Game Change during the republican response. I try to keep an open mind, but these guys don't seem to have much going for them. The book is far more informative.
ReplyDeleteI think I made the right choice. This one looks like a really good read. Hopefully it won't be too scandal ridden.
For example, Clinton spent $29 million in Iowa, and only got 70,000 votes. I don't think I've ever seen that number before. And it appears that she and her husband blamed Richardson.
And another number that I probably did know but had forgotten -- 239,000 people voted, twice the number from the caucus four years before.
As Obama is quoted on the cover from September 2008: "This shit would be really interesting if we weren't in the middle of it."
In Santa Monica of all places.A zinn kind of town.
ReplyDeleteHere's that conversation again with Zinn and Harrelson, which really is good:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BydZv9ykJU
Kind of funny seeing Zinn and Harrelson together. What I admired most about Zinn is that he never stepped back from his positions.
ReplyDeleteI had a hard time listening to Harrelson in the beginning, but he sort of grew on me. Zinn was simply wonderful.
ReplyDeleteAnd now JD Salinger is gone at 91.
ReplyDeleteThat's another inside story that may come out now that he's gone. What a fascinating man.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/28/catcher-in-rye-salinger-dies
ReplyDeleteInteresting story about the lost hydrogen bomb off Tybee Island.
ReplyDelete