Pessl re Dylan

'Artist' can’t make even the briefest public appearance without extensive baggage. The next time you’re at a party and someone asks what you do for a living, boldly say artist, then sit back and watch the jolting effect that little word has upon a conversation. Above 14th Street, you’ll be offered money, food, some tips on where to find free lodging. Below 14th Street, the person will smirk, dutifully ask “What kind?” or appear to start swallowing an egg, which is a disguised yawn. You’ll get a hug in the Midwest. In Santa Monica, you’ll get “sweet” and an invitation to go Rollerblading. In certain parts of the country you’ll get tied up and thrown into the back of a pickup truck, and no one will ever hear from you again. But every now and then, the word perfectly explains a certain person.
-- Marisha Pessl

Ms. Pessl's piece about “Bob Dylan: The Drawn Blank Series,” must have cost her a gold mine of focused attention. She shares her savory perceptions like a spread at a lavish party.

Observations about Bob Dylan are hardly rare. He's an intriguing being.

From the beginning, he’s been a mixed medium artist. He’s never been a straight linear person. He’s had a whole lot of miscellany.
-- Christopher Ricks

There's the bard himself in all his glorious miscellany. Then, the legions who honor his every word, sound, brushstroke. Witnessing his effect on these observers and their works about him, you begin to glimpse the power of a single person capable of silencing every naysayer within and without for the sake of his salient virtue.


photo Walt Campbell

Digital aplomb

She understands her future,
loves the gradual warmth
of the new brain marinade.

Befriending time,
she tells the countess
of caffeinated mediocrity
to leave her shoes on the stair
before coming in.

Youth is beautiful these days,
thanks to structure
evolved by kindly geeksters.

When time is ripe,
she ventures into its elegant mist,
exhales and evaporates.

Chiming.

Sammy

This little boy
points at my guitar case
on the frivolous preschool carpet
keen to be knighted
sir latcher of latches.

He kneels into the task
studious
remembering the groove of
slide
latch
click
each movement his personal best.

When the day comes
that he is master of projects
that change the way
we think and ask and thrive
it will have been music
that once answered prayer
of his fingering mind.

Verbiage

the Poets unbraid it
with punked up graffiti

the Pundits rebuke it
with bludgeons of grandeur
and voices of silt

the children reclaim it
their tongues on the throttle
their minds on the guttural
pulse of unknowing
in backward progression
from silence to sound

Artist re artist

You almost have to be full of yourself to be an artist, right? As in

I'm special.
I have something important to say.
The world needs my _____.
I owe it to the universe to live out my (stellar) trajectory.

Once you get enlightend about your status as just one of the gang, do you give up or hunker down? This is all pseudo art, after all. Real art is real life, however you live it. Charles Kuralt ambles by (he's dead of course -- artists are not immortal, dear) to ask about the scooner you're building in your parched yard or the bicycles you fix for neighbor kids who can't afford bikes, let alone repairs. You'll be humanly interesting for a minute, inspire somebody to get off the couch and weed the potatoes, but you won't see yourself Rolling-Stone blow-dry-air-brushed anytime soon.

Which leaves you with this. When the magnificent artist brain fits back inside the cranium, you start to see straight again. The bones that broke under your spectacular youness get strong and dear and appreciative of stuff like bird conjugations and orange rinds.

John McCain suggests his wife enter a topless beauty contest

This is how you get a rap for being a prude: rowdy guys leer at Cindy McCain and if you find her husband less than honorable for putting her in their sites, you (presumably) lack a sense of humor and adventure.

The same dynamic plays out in the litany of mega-artsy outside-the-boxers from New York to Hollywood who want you to 'lighten up! -- a little sex in the city never hurt anybody.'

A brave new citizenry will (soon, if it isn't here already) figure out how to make what is both creative and respectful of the human spirit trés cool.

Cindy McCain looks like she is smiling away in her roomy work shirt and crossed wrists on that biker rally stage, but like Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton and so many politico-wives through time, we'll never know what she's thinking or who's neck she's secretly wringing.