Sydney Based UnRussian Mark Bo(u)ris: Diving Into Dylanology

Almanac: Henry James on the appeal of fiction

“There are two kinds of taste in the appreciation of imaginative literature: the taste for emotions of surprise and the taste for emotions of recognition.” Henry James, “Anthony Trollope” ... read more

To have passed through life and never experienced solitude is to have never known oneself. To have never known oneself is to have never known anyone.
— Joseph Wood Krutch, born on this date in 1893

THE world is laughing at Sydney. The big joke is we’re killing ourselves.

I’ve lived 61 years in this town and I’ve never seen rules and regulations like they are today. As a society this is something entirely within our control, yet this country — and specifically Sydney — has cocked it up big time

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Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfar (Czech Republic)Set in the near future, Jakub has become the first Czech astronaut in an effort to atone for his father’s political sins. Things aboard the spaceship quickly turn strange, though, in this darkly comedic novel.

Swallowing Mercury by Wioletta Greg (Poland)

Greg’s autobiographical novel tells of growing up in a small Polish village in the 1970s and ‘80s, a time of cultural and historical importance seen through a child’s eyes as the Soviet Union began to splinter.

What can we learn from a tell-all on literary women of the 1970s? That gossip is gold, and that the literary world is naturally mean, sad, and predatory  

Do Artists Have Political Responsibilities?

Should a writer be socially engaged? Is it a part of our duty? I always return to the poet and teacher Marie Ponsot: “The duty of the writer is to the welfare of the work.” Not to some political party or cause or ideal—which through making our art more useful might somehow rob it of its integrity, its wonderful, vital uselessness—but simply to the work itself. … [Read More]

DON’T MESS WITH PEARL’S GREY ARMY

As a smug, elderly person, I can appreciate that my presence causes terrible annoyance to politicians and marketers. A blight on the landscape, with my lined skin and thinning hair, I’m smug in the awareness that I’m healthier, less conservative, more engaged, and a darned sight more resilient than the generations I’m leaving behind. Oblivious […]

At the noisy end of the café, head bent
over the table, an old man sits alone,
a newspaper in front of him.

And in the miserable banality of old age
he thinks how little he enjoyed the years
when he had strength, eloquence, and looks.

He knows he’s aged a lot: he sees it, feels it.
Yet it seems he was young just yesterday.
So brief an interval, so very brief.

And he thinks of Prudence, how it fooled him,
how he always believed—what madness—
that cheat who said: “Tomorrow. You have plenty of time.”

He remembers impulses bridled, the joy
he sacrificed. Every chance he lost
now mocks his senseless caution.

But so much thinking, so much remembering
makes the old man dizzy. He falls asleep,
his head resting on the café table. 

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What We Learned On a 13-Hour Immersive Theatre Performance On A Plane From London To JFK

"Our work is interactive so audiences are not passive observers but in the midst of the action, both as witnesses or participants. We had members of the press offering to write a tale for our heroine’s birthday and one passenger, who had forgotten to take his usual Valium dose, dealt with his in-flight nerves by becoming a character in the show. However, being thrust into a theatre show for 13 hours can be bit much, even for the most ardent theatre-goer." … [Read More]

Diving Into Dylanology

He’s America’s greatest shape shifter; his lyrics are both timeless and endlessly poetic. And he has won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. Bob Dylan. One of my heroes.

Harvard Classics Professor Richard F. Thomas shares my admiration for the singer-songwriter. The professor, who teaches a seminar centered on Bob Dylan, has spent half a century decoding Dylan’s imagery and has shared his findings in his book Why Bob Dylan Matters. His reason for writing the book was “to show people why Dylan is important.” The Guardian describes it as “poignant blend of memoir, literary analysis through a classical lens, musicology and, above all, love.”

Thomas segments Dylan’s career into “acoustic, electric, his Christian period, the unpopular mid-80s, his  rebirth in 1997” as well as his most recent work. What he admires most is Dylan’s poetry. His music   demonstrates the beauty the human mind can produce through art. And it ties in with the classics.        

Thomas finds traces of classical greats in Dylan’s music. In Love and Theft for instance, he heard Virgil’s words singing back to him in Dylan’s voice. And there are many other references. His thesis that “Dylan has become Odysseus” is interesting, seeing that Dylan himself named The Odyssey as one of the books most important to him in his 2016 Nobel lecture (alongside Moby Dick and All Quiet on the Western Front).

In a Guardian interview last week, Thomas was asked if he wanted to meet Dylan. His response? “First of all he wouldn’t say anything. But also, Virgil is the poet I’ve most worked on. We know where he was born, we know when he was born, we know when he died. There are a few other anecdotes about him but most in a life that was written 100 years after he died. And that doesn’t bother me. I don’t need to know the poet. All I need is the poetry. Besides, what would I say?”

There’s a nice New Zealand twist to this story, a tangential connection. Richard Thomas was born in London, England and brought up in New Zealand. He received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Auckland, in 1972 and 1973 respectively. In 2015 Bob Dylan accepted the role of Patron of the Creative Thinking Project at the University of Auckland Why Dylan Matters – definitely one for Christ