Church of Bob

Here’s to memories, to constancy, and to humour:

Church of Bob

The Church of Bob

This is the story: Ten years ago, I was sitting on the lawn outside the library with a beer and my good friend and fine Dylan interpreter Lars. Somehow, the similarities between Bob and Jesus came up: Carpenter/Zimmerman Jews from the north going south to change the world; performing their most important work in the country’s main city at 33, etc.

Since I was extremely busy at the time, working 24/7 to finish my Ph.D. in time (i.e., while I was still 33), I immediately sat down and turned our chat into a website.

I had this idea that it would be fun if it was completely anonymous: a full-scale religious framework developed solely out of religious fervor and love for the Cause. I think I spent more time on it than it deserved, and then I forgot all about it.

But that’s the nice thing about the net: I had almost forgotten that it existed, I have no idea anymore how to log in to the server, but it’s still there, the counter has been ticking in two visits a day and is now up to 21977, and it’s as anonymous as it ever was (which means that my name is there in the source code — this was in the days of Microsoft Front Page, and I’m not ashamed to admit it).

And I still think it’s hilarious . . .


Update: I couldn’t stand looking at that crappy html of the original site, so I decided to clean it up a bit. Since I can’t get in there, I put up a new version at a website near you. I cleaned up some of the mess, but left the layout mostly intact, as a memento of how things used to be. Don’t expect the external links or the mail address to work, though. The original is still over here.

“Say Only That Which You Have Figured Out Yourself”

These are the words of Thomas Blachman, the guy who has divided more water in Denmark than anyone since Moses (not that Moses was active in Denmark, but you know what I mean), the judge in Danish X Factor who according to some is a sadist who takes delight in sending aspiring stars home to their teenage rooms crying, according to others — yours truly included — a voice who actually has managed to say something important about culture in these Modern Times. In this case, it is from his book, The Colossal Human (p. 15).

Thomas Blachman - The first man to know everything again?

Anyway,

“Say Only That Which You Have Figured Out Yourself”.

Hm.

Is he a utopian, is he just out there to provoke, or is he plain stupid? What kind of an ideal is that, in these Modern Times when everything has already been figured out a long time ago, and when it takes at least a degreen in quantum mechanics and a super-advanced wheelchair to even start trying to understand even the questions that need to be asked to figure out that which still remains, let alone figure them out? And when there’s no need to figure out anything oneself, because wikipedia is always two clicks away? Is he calling for complete silence from the rest of us?

On the contrary, and I think he’s right.

But I think he’s right not only for the reasons he gives:

Because if everything I say has already been said before, who is then speaking? My parents? Their parents?

Seen in this light, his statement is a protest against the postmodern state, the quotation society, where even the attempts at true originality is abandoned because everything has already been said; where the closest we can ever get is to piece together the quotations in new and — hopefully — interesting ways.

Seen in this light, it is a call to arms against the fear of originality: if you don’t even try, there is no way to tell if what you had meant to say really was original, the spark of genius which, against all odds, had let you figure out something new. Be brave — fight the odds.

This is a valid and necessary opposition. But the statement could be taken in another direction too:

Athanasius Kircher -- the last man who knew everything

Thomas Young -- the last man who knew everything

OK, there is a fair chance that everything I have to say has already been said before, in one way or another. There is such an immense wealth of information out there, texts, opinions, blogs, databases, journals, etc., that if I were to check if anyone has said what I wanted to say, I would never get around to even saying it. I have some times suggested a five-year ban on writing and publishing, to give us a chance to catch up, but even if we extended that to ten or twenty years, it would still just be a piss in the Pacific (as my teacher used to say; wonder who said it before him?). The last man who knew everything died a long time ago, whether we think it was Athanasius Kircher (1601/2–1680) or Thomas Young (1773–1829).

But if that is my predicament, it is also yours, the reader’s: the chances that whoever reads what I write knows exactly that particular article which I happen to have copied (without knowing it because I haven’t read it), are so slim that it might as well be disregarded. In a certain sense, everything is new to discover again, so let’s get started.

What distinguishes this from the post-modern “rearranging the quotations” model is that the quotations — which they most probably are — are not treated as quotations but as new, because to the individual reader, it most likely is new: not necessarily new knowledge, objectively speaking, but at least new statements, nevermind if they have been made before.

In other words: consider what is being said not primarily as information, but as action — communication as an act of human interaction, not as a transferral of knowledge. Or, to use a different image (which I hereby use for the first time, to my knowledge and presumably to yours): as sex, not in the sense of transferring information like a sperm to an egg, but in the sense of cuddling, enjoying someone’s company, body, and mind.

Even an expert in the same field as mine would have a different background, different reasons to say what he says, different ways of saying it. Hearing our different versions of the same information would still be to meet two different persons, witness two different realizations of being human, expressions of humanity. They are revealing, not so much in what they say as in how and why: here’s another person who is saying something — why is he doing that? why does he keep using “red” as an example? Which records did he listen to when he was sixteen?
Etc.

Then there’s always the thin line which separates bold greatness from trivial platitudes. Perhaps we don’t need hoards of people who have figured out for themselves that the world is round and are dying to tell the world about it. Or perhaps we do? Rather than hoards of people who don’t? Discovering that the world is round is a wonderful thing to do, even though Columbus has done it already. Too wonderful to be done once (and) for all.

Good Links: Theme Time Radio and Tell Tale Signs

Scott Warmuth, who first discovered Dylan’s extensive borrowing from Henry Timrod for the lyrics to Modern Times and went on to dig deeper into the Ovidian connection, presents more findings in his blog. Well worth a visit!


The third season of Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour is well underway, and it’s as good as it used to be.
Get the shows, and read up on them. Highly recommended!


Acoustic Guitar Magazine has an online lesson with the basics of the guitar styles of Maybelle Carter, Jimmie Rodgers, Roy Harvey, and Riley Puckett, compete with music examples, a video, and thorough background material.

Can’t Wait

Two things in particular make Tell Tale Signs a god-send for the Dylan analyst. One is that it shows how tightly interconnected Dylan’s last three albums are, not only musically but also lyrically: text fragments and themes float between them as if they were part of the same triple album. The other is that it gives an opportunity to study the process that so many musicians who have worked with him have mentioned: that songs can change radically from one session to the next or even between takes. The three versions of “Can’t Wait” are particularly revealing in this respect.

Continue reading Can’t Wait

Things Twice, the book — now in html

I admit it: the chords part of dylanchords may be in a decent state (apart from the use of frames, which is sooo last century), but the articles are a mess. There’s the collected pdf volume, the selected links on the Self-ordained Professors page, the blog posts here, and the introductions to some of the albums.

I’ve now decided to do something about it. Here’s the state of affairs:

  1. Things Twice — the book. This will always be the definitive version. If/when I do revisions to articles, this is where they are made. The layout is more pleasant than in any of the other formats. It’s a pdf file, currently c. 2 Mb.
  2. Self-ordained professors. This used to be where new stuff appeared, but that is no longer the case. Static html is not the most versatile format to work with, and when I moved on to greener pastures, the versions that were left here, became more and more obsolete. I therefore opted for the radical approach: the articles on the Self-ordained Professors page are now converted versions of whatever is found in the pdf version. This makes them an inferior option, for several reasons: some of the layout is lost, the images are of a horrible quality, and the way the footnotes appear is a bit cumbersome (and I care a great deal about my footnotes!). All in all, this should only be an option if you don’t fancy a 2 Mb download.
  3. Finally, there’s Things twice — the blog — this place right here. This is the place for experiments, drafts, work-in-progress. In other words, it will never be the final version of anything, but it’s where you have a chance to comment. There has been a time when there was more activity here than now, but let me also take this opportunity to say that some of the articles could not have been written without — and others have become immensely better thanks to — the feedback I have gotten from you at the blog.

A quick note on Tell Tale Signs

Just to say: this is a tremendous piece of work!

And: I don’t mind Dylan leaving gems off the official albums, as long as he puts them out like this instead.

And: in a way, it’s even better like this. Hearing facets of the work of a creative mind over a limited period of time can be even more rewarding than a single shot (like an album) or a carreer-spanning tour de force (like the original Bootleg Series 1-3).

More on this later. Stay tuned.

Confessions of a Class Traitor

“Sitting there, drink in hand, separated from the plebs by a heavy curtain, and with servile maidens swirling around me at my slightest wink, I could feel every nerve in my body politic screaming: ‘It wasn’t my fault! It’s a mistake! I’m not like this!’ But what could I do…?”

Continue reading Confessions of a Class Traitor