[lbo-talk] Bob Again (Was National Review's Top 50 )

[Louis Kontos]

What's your point? Sure, Dylan is a man and only that. My point is  
that contemporary music is a bunch of garbage -- really, it just has  
to be said -- and in this big heap of garbage we have some decent  
music. It should be recognized (or ignored), not scorned or  
ridiculed. Moreover, 'recognizing' it is not a matter of saying it's  
good or great, but engaging it in some way. People don't do that with  
Dylan. Instead, they 'project' all their foibles and failures and  
unfulfilled expectations and frustrations and the rest. You can see  
that much in almost every review and commentary about Dylan. (The  
only other poet-musician that can rival Dylan -- in my view --  
Leonard Cohen, has never had his work taken apart so casually and  
aggressively. In fact, nobody is subject to the kind of nasty routine  
that Dylan has faced over four decades.) I don't believe that Dylan  
projects anything onto 'us' (that 'we are like a screen' for Dylan).  
If you believe that, you should elaborate. How does he do that?
Louis

On May 28, 2006, at 12:53 PM, tfast wrote:


> You have it inverted: we are like a screen on to which Bob can and  
> does
> project his own trials, misgivings, longings, failures, neuroses, etc.
>
> Let BOB be a man would you. Bob is sometimes brilliant, sometimes  
> dumb,
> sometimes right wing, sometimes left wing, sometimes thoughtful,  
> sometimes
> reactionary, sometimes an Artist sometimes a hack, but always a Man  
> (of the
> species Homo Sapien)
>
> Can we please stop star fking.  Besides being blasphemous it is  
> boring and
> one dimensional.
>
> Travis
>
> Louis Wrote:
>
>> Dylan is like a screen onto which people can (and do) project their
>> own trials, misgivings, longings, failures, neuroses, etc.
>
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