From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V16 #405 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, November 19 2007 Volume 16 : Number 405 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #404 ["Bri N" ] Fav "new" track off the boxset? ["Bri N" ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #404 [Rex ] RE: Gram Parsons with The Flying Burrito Bros - Live At The Avalon Ballroon 1969 ["Bachman, Michael" ] RE: Gram Parsons with The Flying Burrito Bros - Live At The Avalon Ballroon 1969 [kevin ] Re: On yet another note.... [Rex ] Re: On yet another note.... [HwyCDRrev@aol.com] From the Environmental Impact Desk [kevin ] Re: On yet another note.... [kevin ] Re: On yet another note.... [2fs ] Re: On yet another note.... [Benjamin Lukoff ] Re: On yet another note.... [2fs ] Re: On yet another note.... [Carrie Galbraith ] Re: On yet another note.... [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: On yet another note.... [lep ] Re: On yet another note.... [Rex ] Re: On yet another note.... [kevin ] Re: On yet another note.... [kevin ] Re: On yet another note.... [kevin ] Re: On yet another note.... [Carrie Galbraith ] Re: On yet another note.... [Carrie Galbraith ] Re: On yet another note.... ["Stewart C. Russell" ] Re: On yet another note.... [kevin ] Re: On yet another note.... [2fs ] Re: On yet another note.... [2fs ] Re: On yet another note.... [lep ] Re: On yet another note.... [kevin ] RE: On yet another note.... [Michael Sweeney ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:23:06 -0800 From: "Bri N" Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #404 The Fegmaniac formerly known as the human mellotron wrote: >(and, heck, 'If You Were a Priest' for The Monochrome Set - -------------------------------- Hmm yes! But I'd rather hear them do "Do Policemen Sing" - -Nuppy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:51:20 -0800 From: "Bri N" Subject: Fav "new" track off the boxset? Mine is The Beauty Of Earl's Court. Hand's down. Sounds like this song should've been released in 1967. What beautiful harmonies! - -Nuppy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:09:22 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #404 On 11/19/07, Bri N wrote: > > The Fegmaniac formerly known as the human mellotron wrote: > > >(and, heck, 'If You Were a Priest' for The Monochrome Set > > -------------------------------- > > Hmm yes! But I'd rather hear them do "Do Policemen Sing" How 'bout "My Favorite Buildings", fleshed out a bit? - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:32:47 -0500 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: Gram Parsons with The Flying Burrito Bros - Live At The Avalon Ballroon 1969 - -----Original Message----- From: kevin [mailto:kevinstudyvin@earthlink.net] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2007 12:09 PM To: Bachman, Michael; 2fs Cc: fegmaniax@smoe.org Subject: RE: Gram Parsons with The Flying Burrito Bros - Live At The Avalon Ballroon 1969 >>I saw EB back in 1976 opening up for Bob Seger. Some drunken asshole >>was throwing firercrakers inside the Pontiac Silverdome during the concert. >>One of the worse concert I have ever been at and the last time I saw BS. Kevin: >Seems like the last time he would have been worth seeing, before he moved to Hollywood and sold his soul to GM. He was >great as a young punk from Detroit; too bad he didn't stay there. Same way I feel about Rod Stewart - he did some great stuff before he cut off his, ahem, roots and emigrated to El Lay. Some things thrive in that atmosphere - cacti, eucalyptus, Raymond Chandler - but lots don't. The sound was awful inside the dome and my date didn't like the fircrakers going off close bye. I saw U2 in 1992 at the Silverdome and the sound hadn't improved much in the subsequent years. Michael B. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:03:17 +0000 From: Michael Sweeney Subject: Re: On yet another note.... Rex wrote: >On 11/17/07, lep wrote: >> I never really thought to put it this way, but I'm sure I like Leonard >> Cohen more than I like Bob Dylan. Part of it it is just that I >> romanticize Mr. Cohen style over Dylan's. I imagine Mr. Cohen in some >> exotic, nameless Italian town. I imagine Mr. Dylan on someone else's >> couch. > >it's Dylan for me, certainly, although I do like Cohen. I'd second that (me: strongly pro-Dylan, while never anti-Cohen; not many weeks go by when I don't feel a strong need to listen to "Suzanne")...and I'd add this perhaps-explaining theory for the differences: I'm pretty familiar with the Cohen canon -- although, admittedly less so than my deep, know-far-too-many-of-all-of-the-words coziness with the Bobby Z. catalog -- and I'd say that (variance for taste, arrangements, voices, etc. aside) it may well come down to a preference for the more direct, personal voice of Cohen as opposed to the more sprawling, oft-vague vision of Dylan. So many of Cohen's songs sound like a letter being read to you from an old friend (which may be why "Famous Blue Raincoat"'s "sincerely, L. Cohen" is one of the most perfet closing lines EVAR), rather than a proclamation from the mountaintop of St. Bob. And even songs of Cohen's that are not necessarily first-person-narrator driven still sound more immediate (in a "just the facts. ma'am" way) than the language-dense and metaphor-strewn songs of Dylan. Such an intimacy (of stories told, secrets shared) can create a closer bond with the listener than more vague, "big picture," cinematic lyrics. And, of course, anything is possible when it comes to taste -- you can certainly find many random people on the street who would prefer "Oops, I Did it Again" to "River Deep, Mountain High" (and, I hope, you would solidly slap such people in the face afterwards) -- and I don't think it can be boiled down to any one thing, but I do think in this case that such a generally pronounced difference in presentation style can be a big part of it... Michael "I don't advocate shooting even mediocre actresses in the mouth, but, really, Phil Spector's defense attorney should have just played 'River Deep, Mountain High' for the court and asked for probation..." Sweeney _________________________________________________________________ Put your friends on the big screen with Windows Vista. + Windows Live. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/shop/specialoffers.mspx?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_CPC_M ediaCtr_bigscreen_102007 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:08:47 -0800 (GMT-08:00) From: kevin Subject: RE: Gram Parsons with The Flying Burrito Bros - Live At The Avalon Ballroon 1969 >I saw EB back in 1976 opening up for Bob Seger. Some drunken asshole was >throwing firercrakers inside the Pontiac Silverdome during the concert. >One of the worse concert I have ever been at and the last time I saw BS. Seems like the last time he would have been worth seeing, before he moved to Hollywood and sold his soul to GM. He was great as a young punk from Detroit; too bad he didn't stay there. Same way I feel about Rod Stewart - he did some great stuff before he cut off his, ahem, roots and emigrated to El Lay. Some things thrive in that atmosphere - cacti, eucalyptus, Raymond Chandler - but lots don't. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 10:37:24 -0800 (GMT-08:00) From: kevin Subject: Re: On yet another note.... >So many of Cohen's songs sound like a letter being read to you from an old >friend (which may be why "Famous Blue Raincoat"'s "sincerely, L. Cohen" is one >of the most perfet closing lines EVAR), rather than a proclamation from the >mountaintop of St. Bob. Probably comes down to Dylan being an American from the ignoroidal Protestant Midwest vs. Cohen being a Canadian from literate Catholic Toronto. >course, anything is possible when it comes to taste -- you can certainly find >many random people on the street who would prefer "Oops, I Did it Again" to >"River Deep, Mountain High" I'd go with Ike & Tina over Britney myself, but I'd also point out that no less magisterial a performer than Richard Thompson has done a cover of "Oops" but not, to my knowledge, "River Deep." >Michael "I don't advocate shooting even mediocre actresses in the mouth, but, >really, Phil Spector's defense attorney should have just played 'River Deep, >Mountain High' for the court and asked for probation..." Sweeney Or just about anything else..the Ronettes, Righteous Brothers, the Crystals, Darlene Love, etc., etc... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 10:47:56 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: On yet another note.... On 11/19/07, Michael Sweeney wrote: > > > So many of Cohen's songs sound like a letter being read to you from an old > friend (which may be why "Famous Blue Raincoat"'s "sincerely, L. Cohen" is > one > of the most perfet closing lines EVAR), rather than a proclamation from > the > mountaintop of St. Bob. I don't disagree about the Cohen-intimacy thing on his earlier work, although some of the (again) later stuff seems to me to be more direct social commentary than (most) Dylan. I don't know the "newer" stuff as well, but things like "Democracy" and "Everybody Knows" seem more like omniscient (albeit slippery) commentary than personal communiques. But that's an interesting thing about Dylan and the wildly varying ways people ingest him. There's very little outside of the very earliest of Dylan's stuff that I take as proclamatory (declamatory?)... all that language seems to me to be something that does make sense to him, and he seems to feel obliged to get it out, but I tend to think that he could give a shit whether or not it makes sense to everyone else and I basically like it that way. Obviously, scads of fans think he's sagely laying things out there for us to decode, so what do I know... people take their Dylan all kinds of different ways. I do pretty much outright scoff at people who ponder the political meaning of Dyan past the '60's, and assume that he's still trying to be some kind of cultural leader conveying covert messages to the troops and that he'll come back with some overt dissertation yet... I hope not, anyway. I like to think of him as usefully insane, I guess. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:06:45 EST From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: Re: On yet another note.... if you are interested in trying to figure out what dylan is saying in his songs - and where it all comes from - i'd strongly suggest Michael Gray's SONG AND DANCE MAN VOLUME 3 : The Art Of Bob Dylan the author can be a bit overbearing at times but it is the best book on music i have ever read oh - and it's close to 1000 pages ! (It goes up to TIME OUT OF MIND which was released 10 years ago) In a message dated 11/19/2007 1:49:57 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, spottedeagleray@gmail.com writes: But that's an interesting thing about Dylan and the wildly varying ways people ingest him ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:19:07 -0800 (GMT-08:00) From: kevin Subject: From the Environmental Impact Desk I smell a J.G. Ballard novel in embryo: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/5314118.html I like the name "The Waveyard;" you can just see the sun-bleached remains of this project in 20 years, when nobody goes there except bored teenagers looking to get high and locals call it "the graveyard"... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:48:27 -0800 (GMT-08:00) From: kevin Subject: Re: On yet another note.... >things like "Democracy" and "Everybody Knows" seem more like >omniscient (albeit slippery) commentary than personal communiques. Favorite more-or-less contemporary Cohen tune is something he's never released - a live performance of "Closing Time" from some late-nite Canadian TV show I picked up while recording a lot of the (uncensored!) Kids In the Hall shows from the BBC out of Vancouver back in the 90s. It's a lo-fi tape of a mono broadcast but it just smokes. Leonard was hot that night and the band was tight - two fiddles, cheesy keyboards and all. It manages to be intensely personal and a prophetic rant at the same time. Get goosebumps whenever I play it, which is usually by accident since I really don't know which of a dozen aging video cassettes it's on... >I do pretty much outright scoff at people who >ponder the political meaning of Dyan past the '60's, and assume that he's >still trying to be some kind of cultural leader conveying covert messages to >the troops Just refer them to "Wedding Song," all the way back to 1974 (when you could smell the heads festering in the back yard). Trouble is that Americans really don't learn how to read, especially poetry, and thanx to our famous Protestant heritage they assume it's appropriate to apply Biblical exegesis to literary language, which is about as apples-vs-oranges as you can get. np: Beach Boys / Sounds Of Summer (the ultimate BB comp, once you delete "Kokomo" & a couple other late-period disasters) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:22:33 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: On yet another note.... On 11/19/07, kevin wrote: > > > > Trouble is that Americans really don't learn how to read, especially > poetry, and thanx to our famous Protestant heritage they assume it's > appropriate to apply Biblical exegesis to literary language, which is about > as apples-vs-oranges as you can get. I've heard of deviled eggs, but never exegesis. Apparently it's accompanied by apples and oranges. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:31:51 -0800 (PST) From: Benjamin Lukoff Subject: Re: On yet another note.... On Mon, 19 Nov 2007, kevin wrote: > >So many of Cohen's songs sound like a letter being read to you from an old >friend (which may be why "Famous Blue Raincoat"'s "sincerely, L. Cohen" is one >of the most perfet closing lines EVAR), rather than a proclamation from the >mountaintop of St. Bob. > > Probably comes down to Dylan being an American from the ignoroidal > Protestant Midwest vs. Cohen being a Canadian from literate Catholic > Toronto. Setting aside for the moment whether it's really that fair to paint an entire region of the US as "ignoroidal," does Minnesota really fall into that category? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:39:01 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: On yet another note.... On 11/19/07, Benjamin Lukoff wrote: > > On Mon, 19 Nov 2007, kevin wrote: > > > >So many of Cohen's songs sound like a letter being read to you from an > old >friend (which may be why "Famous Blue Raincoat"'s "sincerely, L. Cohen" > is one >of the most perfet closing lines EVAR), rather than a proclamation > from the >mountaintop of St. Bob. > > > > Probably comes down to Dylan being an American from the ignoroidal > > Protestant Midwest vs. Cohen being a Canadian from literate Catholic > > Toronto. > > Setting aside for the moment whether it's really that fair to paint an > entire region of the US as "ignoroidal," does Minnesota really fall into > that category? I was going to comment that despite that "Protestant Midwest" and "Catholic Toronto," both artists are Jewish. Anyway - even if "ignoroidal" might be a bit strong, it's certainly true that Hibbing - or even Duluth - is far less a cosmopolitan, worldly city than is Toronto. And I think that means that Dylan's literary aspects are far more eccentric and self-taught - whereas Cohen's more or less comes with the environment. I confess to knowing a lot more about Dylan's background than Cohen's, so I could be wrong here. But certainly, the places they're from differ considerably - and that probably had some influence on their use of language. For fun, throw in another contemporary songwriter and compare influence of background - Paul Simon. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:04:56 -0800 (GMT-08:00) From: Carrie Galbraith Subject: Re: On yet another note.... - -----Original Message----- >I was going to comment that despite that "Protestant Midwest" and "Catholic >Toronto," both artists are Jewish. > >Anyway - even if "ignoroidal" might be a bit strong, it's certainly true >that Hibbing - or even Duluth - is far less a cosmopolitan, worldly city >than is Toronto. And I think that means that Dylan's literary aspects are >far more eccentric and self-taught - whereas Cohen's more or less comes with >the environment. I confess to knowing a lot more about Dylan's background >than Cohen's, so I could be wrong here. But certainly, the places they're >from differ considerably - and that probably had some influence on their use >of language. Cohen is from Montreal and his grandfather was a Talmudic Scholar. In Cohen's own words: "I had a very Messianic childhood, I was told I was a descendant of Aaron, the high priest." I always thought he considered himself more of a poet than a songwriter. I have several volumes of his poetry in my collection. Oh, and you could call me a classic (West Coast) WASP and I have loved poetry since I was a child. So not sure that the blanket Protestant=non poetry oriented person really holds. Be Seeing you, - - c ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:18:26 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: On yet another note.... On Mon, 19 Nov 2007, kevin wrote: > Probably comes down to Dylan being an American from the > ignoroidal Protestant Midwest vs. Cohen being a Canadian from > literate Catholic Toronto. Setting aside whether or not Duluth and/or Hibbing deserve to be described as "ignoroial," I'm pretty sure that Montreal -- the city where ol' Lenny actually grew up -- doesn't like being called Toronto. "I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirize George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporize them." -- Tom Lehrer "The eyes are the groin of the head." -- Dwight Schrute . ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:39:00 -0500 From: lep Subject: Re: On yet another note.... Carrie says: > I always thought he considered himself more of a poet than a songwriter. that's likely the aspect that makes me like him more than dylan. plus the style. he's got a bit of bryan ferry. but with a sense of humour. xo - -- - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "People with opinions just go around bothering one another." - The Buddha ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:15:09 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: On yet another note.... On 11/19/07, Carrie Galbraith wrote: > > > Oh, and you could call me a classic (West Coast) WASP and I have loved > poetry since I was a child. So not sure that the blanket Protestant=non > poetry oriented person really holds. I don't think that statement was being made, but it does nod towards a general truth. I was a Protestant Middle American kid myself, and although I hope it doesn't apply to me-- nor would I expect it to hold for anyone of a similar background who ends up on this list-- I see a lot of evidence that Middle America, which correlates as Protestant, is pretty literalist. Whether or not those two things are related, I don't know... I mean, a lot of your Dylanologists are probably more or less Godless Hippie Commies or some such, but they seem to fall into the literalist trap at least as often as Joe Born Again. And I am, of course, being hideously reductivist here myself. Middle America happens to think a certain way, and Middle America tends to be Protestant, is all. Dylan himself is anomalous enough to give the lie to the generalization, but the way his work is received by (some of) his followers tends to support it. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:29:18 -0800 (GMT-08:00) From: kevin Subject: Re: On yet another note.... >Setting aside whether or not Duluth and/or Hibbing deserve to be >described as "ignoroial," I'm pretty sure that Montreal -- the city >where ol' Lenny actually grew up -- doesn't like being called >Toronto. My bad. I must have been thinking of another Canadian songwriter often associated with T.O. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:31:12 -0800 (GMT-08:00) From: kevin Subject: Re: On yet another note.... >I've heard of deviled eggs, but never exegesis. > >Apparently it's accompanied by apples and oranges. And you continue to be the punniest commenter in this bunch, nyuk nyuk. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:32:08 -0800 (GMT-08:00) From: kevin Subject: Re: On yet another note.... >that's likely the aspect that makes me like him more than dylan. > >plus the style. he's got a bit of bryan ferry. but with a sense of humour. Snappy dresser, too. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:38:22 -0500 (EST) From: Carrie Galbraith Subject: Re: On yet another note.... - -----Original Message----- >From: lep >plus the style. he's got a bit of bryan ferry. but with a sense of humour. And his voice!!!! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:41:32 -0500 (EST) From: Carrie Galbraith Subject: Re: On yet another note.... - -----Original Message----- >From: Benjamin Lukoff >Setting aside for the moment whether it's really that fair to paint an >entire region of the US as "ignoroidal," does Minnesota really fall into >that category? I hear Minnesota is a happening place! The art scene is pretty vibrant up there. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:47:29 -0500 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: On yet another note.... kevin wrote: > > ... Cohen being a Canadian from literate Catholic Toronto. Except, y'know, Cohen being from the (then still more-or-less anglophone) Catholic/Jewish Montreal, when Toronto of the time was so protestant it had huge orange marches ... Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:01:59 -0800 (GMT-08:00) From: kevin Subject: Re: On yet another note.... Jeez, what did I start this time...? >> Setting aside for the moment whether it's really that fair to paint an >> entire region of the US as "ignoroidal," does Minnesota really fall into >> that category? Actually I was expressing an opinion, not trying to be fair. And as a product of as deep-fried a trailer-trash background as you could wish for (ask me sometime about my high-shool dropout aunt and her third husband the Okie truck driver and the snake-handling Babtist church they went to), I have some serious issues with the Bible Belt, which is where a great deal of Bob's material ultimately comes from even if the man himself doesn't. And while you're right, objectively - Minnesota is fairly civilized for the Midwest - it's still my sense that small-town rural America is pretty much the same wherever you go, and that's the America Bob grew up in. >>I was going to comment that despite that "Protestant Midwest" and "Catholic >Toronto," both artists are Jewish. Granted - but I was looking at where their backgrounds differ, not at what they have in common. One came from the Midwest (and you'll note that he's tended mostly to stay far away from it since), and has produced a lot of work saturated with biblical imagery as might be expected in someone from that culture (or lack of it). The other came from a more sophisticated, urban environment and his writing reflects that environment. >For fun, throw in another contemporary songwriter and compare influence of >background - Paul Simon. Not a lot I care to say there. I haven't really liked much of Simon's work since 1973. Just doesn't speak to me. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:36:43 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: On yet another note.... On 11/19/07, Carrie Galbraith wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > >From: Benjamin Lukoff > > >Setting aside for the moment whether it's really that fair to paint an > >entire region of the US as "ignoroidal," does Minnesota really fall into > >that category? > > > I hear Minnesota is a happening place! The art scene is pretty vibrant up > there. Don't think it was in the fifties, though... - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:40:42 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: On yet another note.... On 11/19/07, kevin wrote: > > Jeez, what did I start this time...? It's the end of the world, fucking World War III - and you're *just like Hitler*!!!!!!!! >>I was going to comment that despite that "Protestant Midwest" and > "Catholic >Toronto," both artists are Jewish. > > Granted - but I was looking at where their backgrounds differ, not at what > they have in common. One came from the Midwest (and you'll note that he's > tended mostly to stay far away from it since), and has produced a lot of > work saturated with biblical imagery as might be expected in someone from > that culture (or lack of it). The other came from a more sophisticated, > urban environment and his writing reflects that environment. Well, yeah...but what I do know of Cohen, his writing makes generous use of biblical imagery (both Judaic & Christian)...so, uh...I think I had a point here, but now I lost it. Actually, you know, I pretty much agreed w/you - I just think the word "ignoroidal" pressed a few buttons. Not that it's actually a word or anything. PS: if it helps, re the "deviled eggs" thing, you have to imagine Chico Marx saying "exegesis"... >For fun, throw in another contemporary songwriter and compare influence of > >background - Paul Simon. > > Not a lot I care to say there. I haven't really liked much of Simon's > work since 1973. Just doesn't speak to me. I know what you mean - but that's a decade before then to deal with anyway! I do like some of Simon's stuff afterwards - I'm kinda surprised at the fact, but I still like a lot of _Graceland_. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:05:06 -0500 From: lep Subject: Re: On yet another note.... kevin says: > Jeez, what did I start this time...? > > >> Setting aside for the moment whether it's really that fair to paint an > >> entire region of the US as "ignoroidal," does Minnesota really fall into >> that category? > > Actually I was expressing an opinion, not trying to be fair. etc, etc. anyway, if you try to fair, it's not as funny. as ever, lauren - -- - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "People with opinions just go around bothering one another." - The Buddha ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:06:42 -0800 (GMT-08:00) From: kevin Subject: Re: On yet another note.... >Be Seeing you, >- c I keep forgetting to ask if that's a reference to The Prisoner...? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 02:00:13 +0000 From: Michael Sweeney Subject: RE: On yet another note.... Rex wrote: >On 11/19/07, Michael Sweeney wrote: >>So many of Cohen's songs sound like a letter being read to you from an oldfriend (which may be why "Famous Blue Raincoat"'s "sincerely, L. Cohen" is one of the most perfet closing lines EVAR), rather than a proclamation from themountaintop of St. Bob. << > There's very little outside of the very earliest of Dylan's stuff that I take as proclamatory (declamatory?)... all that language seems to me to be something that does make sense to him, and he seems to feel obliged to get it out, but I tend to think that he could give a shit whether or not it makes sense to everyone else and I basically like it that way. Obviously, scads of fans think he's sagely laying things out there for us to decode, so what do I know... people take their Dylan all kinds of different ways. I do pretty much outright scoff at people who ponder the political meaning of Dyan past the '60's, and assume that he's still trying to be some kind of cultural leader conveying covert messages to the troops and that he'll come back with some overt dissertation yet... I hope not, anyway. I like to think of him as usefully insane, I guess. < ...Pretty much agree there. Also. I always thought of his "cultural" leadership as a fortuitous mixture of his undeniable genius, the times (and timing), AND various variables (the war, pharma, etc.) -- and was something granted to him (assigned to him?) rather than something grabbed and embraced by Bob. Thus, by not necessarily knowing what to even look / listen for, the semi-alienated "Voice of a Generation" crowd may well be missing the excellent latter-day "dissertations that are "Time..." and "L&T"... Also...another big diff between Bob and Lenny? I could be wrong, but I just don't think we're ever gonna see L. Cohen join up with, like, Dave Davies, Phil Everly, Barry Gibb, and John Mellencamp as, say, the Unravelling Pillsburies or something like that... Michael "I know those Willburies equivalents are not quite right, but -- SInging Poet, Secondary Brit Invasion Guy, '50s Iconic Voice, Oft-Bombastic Performer / Producer, Ameri-Rocker -- eh, it's close enuff..." Sweeney _________________________________________________________________ Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/connect.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_newways_112007 ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V16 #405 ********************************