Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Come on, man.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

In after Baud. Damn.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

So many bastards, so little time.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

T R E 4 5 O N

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize Lecture – Open Thread

Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize Lecture – Open Thread

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can be found here.

Learned it all in grammar school. Don Quixote, Ivanhoe, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, Tale of Two Cities, all the rest – typical grammar school reading that gave you a way of looking at life, an understanding of human nature, and a standard to measure things by. I took all that with me when I started composing lyrics. And the themes from those books worked their way into many of my songs, either knowingly or unintentionally. I wanted to write songs unlike anything anybody ever heard, and these themes were fundamental.

Specific books that have stuck with me ever since I read them way back in grammar school – I want to tell you about three of them: Moby Dick, All Quiet on the Western Front and The Odyssey.

…

A typhoon hits the Pequod. Captain Ahab thinks it’s a good omen. Starbuck thinks it’s a bad omen, considers killing Ahab. As soon as the storm ends, a crewmember falls from the ship’s mast and drowns, foreshadowing what’s to come. A Quaker pacifist priest, who is actually a bloodthirsty businessman, tells Flask, “Some men who receive injuries are led to God, others are led to bitterness.”

Everything is mixed in. All the myths: the Judeo Christian bible, Hindu myths, British legends, Saint George, Perseus, Hercules – they’re all whalers. Greek mythology, the gory business of cutting up a whale. Lots of facts in this book, geographical knowledge, whale oil – good for coronation of royalty – noble families in the whaling industry. Whale oil is used to anoint the kings. History of the whale, phrenology, classical philosophy, pseudo-scientific theories, justification for discrimination – everything thrown in and none of it hardly rational. Highbrow, lowbrow, chasing illusion, chasing death, the great white whale, white as polar bear, white as a white man, the emperor, the nemesis, the embodiment of evil. The demented captain who actually lost his leg years ago trying to attack Moby with a knife.

We see only the surface of things. We can interpret what lies below any way we see fit.

And much more.

I’m going to do a small plug for a friend here. Martin Pfeiffer, a graduate student in anthropology known on Twitter as @NuclearAnthro, has a new blog. He has some unique takes on how nuclear weapons affect our thinking. Also gay humor. His first post is on advertising for the nuclear weapons laboratories. Go check out his blog.

 

And – Open Thread!

 

Reader Interactions

62Comments

  1. 1.

    BruceFromOhio

    Don Quixote, Ivanhoe, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, Tale of Two Cities, all the rest – typical grammar school reading that gave you a way of looking at life, an understanding of human nature, and a standard to measure things by.

    The book burnings in Kansas and Kentucky shall commence immediately. Purge the demons!

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    I decided to keep my Chromebook (the 10.1″ Asus Flip), so I bought a screen protector and shell case for it. Now I’m trying to convince G that it will help his bronchitis if he takes a hot shower so I can pop in there afterwards and put the screen protector on in a virtually dust-free environment.

  4. 4.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, if any fans of the game Monument Valley were unaware, they released a sequel today with zero fanfare — just oh, by the way, you can download this starting today.

    Game developers are turning into Beyoncé.

  5. 5.

    MomSense

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m thinking of getting a kindle fire just to watch movies, do emails, and all the knitting pattern related browsing and following. All I have is my phone right now.

  6. 6.

    lamh36

    I’m off to bed, but first in non-Russian corrupt Trump news…

    Trump DC hotel received $270,000 from Saudi lobbyists trying to gut law allowing victims to sue terrorism sponsors ow.ly/nAcy30clhOE

  7. 7.

    mvr

    Thanks! That was an interesting talk, though probably for me partly because of who it was written by.

  8. 8.

    Mnemosyne

    @MomSense:

    I have a MacBook, an iPad Mini, and now the Asus Flip. I’ve heard good things about the Kindle Fire, but I don’t have one. The iPad Mini is definitely good for knitting patterns, and the Kindle Fire should be pretty similar.

    I have a Paperwhite (eInk) Kindle because I HATE reading longform anything on a screen with a backlight.

    ETA: The Asus Flip is my portable writing machine, because carrying my laptop around with me is heavy and stressful. If I break a $300 Chromebook on the go, I’ll be mad, but not as mad as I would be if it was my $1500 MacBook.

  11. 11.

    BruceFromOhio

    @MomSense: Been using a Kindle Fire HD for same (email, NetFlix, casual browsing), ‘listening’ to Yahoo videos as I write this; super convenient if there is a persistent WiFi connection available, not so much if not. Get the origami cover, keeping it dust-free has been the challenge, I take it everywhere. Since I received it as a Christmas gift in 2014, I’ve read more books than I have in the past 20 years. The public library is a potent blessing.

  12. 12.

    Mnemosyne

    @BruceFromOhio:

    Yes, Overdrive is AWESOME, and you can download the books directly to your Kindle for FREE.

    It became even more useful when I found out that I could use it to get books from the LA city and county libraries, which have much better ebook collections than my local library does.

  15. 15.

    Omnes Omnibus

    – good for coronation of royalty – noble families in the whaling industry. Whale oil is used to anoint the kings. History of the whale, phrenology, classical philosophy, pseudo-scientific theories, justification for discrimination – everything thrown in and none of it hardly rational. Highbrow, lowbrow, chasing illusion, chasing death, the great white whale, white as polar bear, white as a white man, the emperor, the nemesis, the embodiment of evil. The demented captain who actually lost his leg years ago trying to attack Moby with a knife.

    Read like one of his lyrics. “I must admit I felt a little uneasy. When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe. Tangled up in blue.”

  16. 16.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Mnemosyne:

    I have a Paperwhite (eInk) Kindle because I HATE reading longform anything on a screen with a backlight.

    Moi aussi. I love paper books, but they can’t touch the convenience of the Kindle. No trips to the library (except today, to vote early for Jon Ossoff!) to check out or return books, no suitcase full of books on long trips, no fear of running out of reading material while out of town–it’s just awesome. And the Paperwhite isn’t even expensive.

    ETA: Plus the books on Amazon Prime Reading!

  19. 19.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I can’t really believe that people are using a Bob Dylan Nobel Prize thread to talk about weird computer shit.

  22. 22.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m gonna listen to it later– clicking on the link, it looked like an audio
    this made me think of John McCain, at least Moby Dick was a physical being, it could be found and attacked

    The demented captain who actually lost his leg years ago trying to attack Moby with a knife.

  24. 24.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Mnemosyne:

    Now I’m trying to convince G that it will help his bronchitis if he takes a hot shower so I can pop in there afterwards and put the screen protector on in a virtually dust-free environment.

    That’s so much weirder than anything in that Bob Dylan lecture. To paraphrase what he said at one point, I have no idea what you’re talking about, but it sounds good.

  25. 25.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: And Putin managed to threaten her publicly during the interview. That’s always good for ratings.

  28. 28.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    Finnick is still trying to master running around on three legs. His integration into the house is moving along, though Harry is still recalcitrant about responding to Finnick’s greetings with anything other than a hiss when I let him out. Finnick spent a couple of hours napping in the butterfly chair this evening before I went to work. I have him back in his own room while I’m at work tonight. Maybe I won’t have to do that tomorrow.

  29. 29.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    My favorite Bob Dylan song aside from Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands is Tears of Rage. I’ve actually read threads with people saying that it’s a complete mystery what it’s about, but right from the first line, I mean could it get any more clear than this:

    We carried you in our arms
    on independence day
    and now you throw us all aside
    and put us all away

    And couldn’t be more fitting right now.

  30. 30.

    efgoldman

    @Mnemosyne:

    Luddite.

    You’re talking to a guy who drives an antique Swedish car they don’t make any more, and for which he can’t get parts.

  33. 33.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Omnes Omnibus: well, a kindle is simply an iPod/iPhone for books, and I have “Sylvio” in my iTunes library on not one but two iPhones, so this discussion is clearly on topic!

  34. 34.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Bill E Pilgrim: my favorite Dylan song is “absolutely sweet Marie” as covered by Jason and the Scorchers. That’s one of the best things ever recorded (other than spoken word albums by crotchety old men).

  35. 35.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    I’ve got a friend who sends me videos he wants to share by just sending a description of it. Then I have to go search and see if I can find what he’s talking about. And he refuses to learn how to copy a link and paste it. I’ve explained, I’ve sent videos explaining it, I’ve used hand puppets…. nada. “Oh that stuff is all too complicated.”

    It’s like someone sending you an article clipping by putting 300 newspapers in a box and mailing it to you, then telling you the article to search for, rather than just cutting out the one article and sticking it in an envelope. I’ve even tried explaining it that way. Zilch.

    The Lud runs deep in this one.

  36. 36.

    Mnemosyne

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    New feline resident? I wasn’t around as much this weekend since I was at a daylong writers retreat.

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    Sadly, pilling the cat tonight was relatively uneventful. It helped that we blocked her access to the bureau where she holed up for a good 20 minutes last night, growling at us.

  38. 38.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Mnemosyne: And do you really bring a laptop and screen into the bathroom after someone has showered to watch videos with less dust? Or just project them on the wall? On the tile, I’m picturing. Or did I completely misread that. If you do I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever read here.

    Edit: Oh –proTector.

    I read projector. Seriously.

    It’s my fault, I’m in denial about needing glasses.

  39. 39.

    efgoldman

    @Steve in the ATL:

    That’s one of the best things ever recorded (other than spoken word albums by crotchety old men).

    The only spoken word album I ever made was in 1976, when I was still a crotchety young man.

  40. 40.

    Mnemosyne

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    Not really — it’s to put a screen protector on with less dust. Though if you really want me to watch a few videos after that, I’m sure I have a good backlog of kitten cams to watch.

  42. 42.

    The Golux

    @efgoldman:

    You’re talking to a guy who drives an antique Swedish car they don’t make any more, and for which he can’t get parts.

    You’re making me wistful about my old Saab 95 two-stroke, the World’s Ugliest Car, which I loved to death. I’d buy one now if they hadn’t all rusted out.

  43. 43.

    hitchhiker

    I went to public school in northern Minnesota, about 50 miles away from Dylan’s home town of Hibbing. It’s great to hear him talking about the influence of that education, especially the names of the books his teachers gave him to read. We were so lucky way up there in the boonies to enjoy solid schools w/ excellent teachers.

    Thanks, whoever you were that worked to make that happen 60 yrs ago. It wasn’t automatic & it must have taken some doing.

  47. 47.

    Mnemosyne

    Wait, something funny did happen with tonight’s pilling — Annie tried to hide by jumping into an empty cardboard box. Because … we couldn’t just scoop her out of it?

  48. 48.

    The Golux

    @efgoldman:

    Or more recently, this Subaru.

    That Subaru is a prettified rendition of the old Saabs. Mine was powder blue with red primer fenders, which coordinated nicely with the iron oxide.

    But it ran like a top.

  52. 52.

    efgoldman

    @aangus:

    Citroen.

    Really? They didn’t used to look like that.

    @Mnemosyne:

    G has a strange affection for the Aztek

    Guy I knew at work had an Aztek. I think they only sold about a dozen in the whole state.
    It had some strange innovations…. I remember something about all the cockpit wiring going thru the radio in the center console.

  55. 55.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @Mnemosyne: Yes. I got Finnick on Friday. I intended to get a feisty little girl, as I think that Dirk misses Monster bossing him around. That lasted until I met Finnick. He’s a very handsome young man, about 10 months old. He was found as a stray, and had chronic injuries in his left hind leg. It turned out that he had multiple torn ligaments and other damage in the knee, and the decided that amputation was the best option.

    It took him a couple of days to come out, but he’s showing some enthusiasm.

  56. 56.

    Elizabelle

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: You realize we will all require a photo or two of young Finnick now? Perhaps as a morning pet thread. You know the drill: email Anne Laurie ….

    Congrats on your new pet overlord.

  57. 57.

    lowtechcyclist

    A Quaker pacifist priest, who is actually a bloodthirsty businessman, tells Flask, “Some men who receive injuries are led to God, others are led to bitterness.”

    That’s about as Dylan as you can get, right there.

    It’s really cool to see him talking about the books he was steeped in, that came alive in new ways thanks to Dylan’s amazing creativity.

  59. 59.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Paul in KY: had an Aztek as a rental car once back in the day. The rear hatch had a bunch of glass and a bar across that which contained the brake and tail lights, handle, and lock. That bar sat right in the middle of your view in the rear view mirror. Just a stupid design that would annoy you every time you looked back.

    Plus, you can guess how annoyed I was that Aztec was misspelled.

  60. 60.

    leeleeFL

    @lamh36: I thought that was what caused Trump to rise. Am I incorrect, or are both surmises true?

    BTW, is there a punishment awful enough for Jeffrey Lord? WHAT A TOOL !

    And I love Bob Dylan, for making so much of my life bearable!

  61. 61.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @efgoldman: (Re)joining this late, but wat the hell:

    Allow me to point out, ef, that you are old enough to remember from real life these sheet-metal-Cubist automotive monstrosities. “Mr. Ernie,” our neighbor across the alley, brought one home brand new; IIRC it was cream-pink witih a dark roof. AIIEEE! (But that’s a tentatively recovered long-repressed memory of design horror, so it ‘s probably not reliable.)

  62. 62.

    Three Dots

    @lowtechcyclist:

    From the Nobel speech: “When Starbuck tells Ahab that he should let bygones be bygones, the angry captain snaps back, ‘Speak not to me of blasphemy, man, I’d strike the sun if it insulted me.'”

    From Dylan’s “Tombstone Blues”: “The sun’s not yellow / It’s chicken!”

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