As I currently have no income, resolution #1 has been modified to "Spend Less Money"; let's not talk about resolution #2.... but Resolution #3 is well underway :^)
First up on the book parade was Chronicles by Bob Dylan
This was an autobiography written in a unique (some may say incoherent) style. In the book, Dylan focuses primarily on two periods in Dylan's life; the early 1960's when he left Minnesota and landed in the streets of SOHO and Greenwich Village in New York City; and the very late 1990's when he attempted to revive his career after doing concert tours with the Grateful Dead and Tom Petty. One reason I read this book was an exhibit on his life we saw last year at the EMP (Experience Music Project in Seattle). I found the sections on his early career to be the most interesting; his descriptions of breaking in to the folk coffeehouse scene in New York were full of interesting anecdotes. In one story he recalls his relationship with Woody Guthrie who he visited as he lived out his last months in a sanitarium outside New York. Woody told Bob that there was a box of unpublished songs in his basement he could have. Working off directions from Woody, Dylan took the bus upstate to find the house. He describes stumbling across a swampy field in the dark and arriving a at the home only to scare the hell out of the babysitter and a baby Arlo Guthrie. He never got those songs.
Dylan's love of Folk Music led him to the archives of the New Your Public library where he would comb through Civil War era newspapers to absorb the tenor of that time.
Dylan writes in a relaxed, conversational style that can be very engaging to read, but which can occasionally deteriorate into long and confusing sentences. I would also note that while his recall of conversations and events is part of what makes this an interesting book, but frequently the unbelievable level of detail he recounts makes you wonder how this boomer's brain cells survived the 60's so well.
1 comment:
Dad... you just wrote a book report!!
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