sexist lyric in "Things Have Changed"?
David Stenander
Have Changed":
"Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet
Putting her in a wheel barrow and wheeling her down the street"
she says she feel like Bob is trying to pick up any woman he finds to
show off the woman to his friends (putting her in a wheel barrow) and
totally controlling her (wheeling her down the street).
the Holidays are coming. any help here or should I just leave this one
out of the cd player til January?
Maya Allison
Okay, I can't resist responding (I'm on Google, so this may already
have been replied to, we only get updates when they feel like it)
I can see why she'd feel that way. Kind of like the
by-the-hair-to-the-cave thing, and not about the individual woman but
'in love' in the filling-a-void sense, and that poor
first-woman-he-meets, thinking Bob Dylan actually wants HER.
On the other hand, a recent rmd poster didn't seem to mind his
wheelbarrow antics ("I kissed Bob!") -- we bronzed that entry and put
it on the mantle! So sexism is in the eye of the hit-upon, perhaps.
That first-woman-he-meets might like the wheelbarrow (I could go a
long way with this one, but I'll stop).
To my still-in-training ear, the lyrics in question just make the
narrator sound incredibly alienated, angry, sad and lonely and so on
-- maybe you can appeal to your s.o.'s sympathy for his plight. And
the wheelbarrow could be a cute pastoral image (okay, maybe I'm
pushing it).
After all, in the end he's stuck being "in love with a woman who don't
even appeal to" him -- his just desserts for the unfortunate
wheelbarrow affair, and not unlike your average trophy-spouse mutual
misery.
Like a lot of Dylan's songs, he pulls the rug out from under the lines
above, by making the ugliness of it pretty clear, he's kind of
confiding in us about his dark sides, about how deeply miserable he is
(so miserable he feels like being a self-serving wheel-barrow-pushing
type).
So there's my minimally-informed response. But a dern good case could
made for this song having much woman-directed anger, so proceed with
caution in times of romantic celebration if this music's on the
stereo...
Maya Allison
Oh yeah, and, (ahem, pardon my total lack of research into past
threads before posting) you really should take a look on google at the
very entertaining thread from this spring entitled "Pussyfootin' with
Things Have Changed" -- in my stunning ignorance about all-things
Dylan I didn't even know it was the song to a movie. But I forgive
myself, so you don't have to. I'll just keep merrily tripping along
here with my off-the-cuff analysis.
And, I've gleaned from my in-depth research into the archives, there
is a wheelbarrow/wife thing happening in Mother Goose. Curiouser and
curiouser.
Anyone got more scoop on this for me?
karen
It can be about someone all alone and desperately wanting a
relationship. With someone other than the champagne drinking woman. In
TOOM and elsewhere he sees people in love, couples, and he is alone
watching and missing out on it. It can also mean he doesn't want to
go through the whole courtship getting to know someone and being
judged worthy phase. As for the wheel barrow it makes me think of the
butch cassidy sundance kid robert redford raindrops keep falling on my
head scene. It is a romantic notion. Sweeping someone off their
feet. Bob does have old fashioned notions about women at times, look
at the way he dresses on stage, and the jokes he tells.
Play her to ramona, love minus zero, please crawl out your window, all
i really want to do, and a host of others where he shows understanding
for women. There are some times he can seem a bit misogynistic
sounding in his lyrics. I have never been offended by Bob, even when
he says "can you cook, can you sew, make flowers grow". I think he
has an obvious soft spot for women most of the time.
I haven't thought this all through - i'm just shooting from the hip.
Maya Allison
I really like that more romantic reading.
David Stenander
thanks for your thoughtful response.
what hasn't helped her attitude about Bob's anger towards women is the
line in "Sugar Baby" that reads "There ain't no limit to the amount of
trouble women bring". . .
I guess I'll just avoid these songs for a while and put another log on
the fire!
ml...@columbia.edu (Maya Allison) wrote in message news:<932ccf44.01121...@posting.google.com>...
Mad Dan
>
> thanks for your thoughtful response.
>
> what hasn't helped her attitude about Bob's anger towards women is the
> line in "Sugar Baby" that reads "There ain't no limit to the amount of
> trouble women bring". . .
>
Well, the truth sometimes hurts. (And what's more, the truth is often true.)
(Just had a bit of a barney with the wife this morning, you see...)
Maya Allison
already figured things out with his sweetie. And I thought Tricia's points
on it were much more comfortingly romantic and reassuring, but for what it's
worth, here's what I wrote...
dsten...@yahoo.com (David Stenander) wrote in message
news:<1045ab69.01121...@posting.google.com>...
> my significant other cringes when she hears this line from "Things
> Have Changed":
>
> "Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet
> Putting her in a wheel barrow and wheeling her down the street"
>
> she says she feel like Bob is trying to pick up any woman he finds to
> show off the woman to his friends (putting her in a wheel barrow) and
> totally controlling her (wheeling her down the street).
>
> the Holidays are coming. any help here or should I just leave this one
> out of the cd player til January?
Okay, I can't resist responding:
Lloyd Fonvielle
processed by social constraints. Is there a woman out there who can honestly say she's never felt like falling in
love with the first man she meets, putting him in wheelbarrow and wheeling him down the street?
tom .
Maya Allison wrote:
> dsten...@yahoo.com (David Stenander) wrote in message news:<1045ab69.01121...@posting.google.com>...
> > my significant other cringes when she hears this line from "Things
> > Have Changed":
> >
> > "Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet
> > Putting her in a wheel barrow and wheeling her down the street"
> >
> > she says she feel like Bob is trying to pick up any woman he finds to
> > show off the woman to his friends (putting her in a wheel barrow) and
> > totally controlling her (wheeling her down the street).
> >
> > the Holidays are coming. any help here or should I just leave this one
> > out of the cd player til January?
>
> Oh yeah, and, (ahem, pardon my total lack of research into past
> threads before posting) you really should take a look on google at the
> very entertaining thread from this spring entitled "Pussyfootin' with
> Things Have Changed" -- in my stunning ignorance about all-things
> Dylan I didn't even know it was the song to a movie. But I forgive
> myself, so you don't have to. I'll just keep merrily tripping along
> here with my off-the-cuff analysis.
maya, there's really no need for pardon. you'll find that most of us here do not expect those new to the wonderful
world of dylanalogy to spend hours upon hours reading the rmd archives before joining in our little family here. in
fact, it's often quite refreshing to come across someone new to dylan who decides to share an observation which has
been frequently discussed in the past but which they have just discovered for themselves. it gives the rest of us a
chance to see the song or lyric or album with new eyes, so to speak, or hear it with new ears, as the case may be.
this process of renewal, if you will, often leads to additional discoveries and fresh new thoughts. with that said,
enjoy your stay here, and may i add -- maya is a very beautiful name. swedish, i presume?
> And, I've gleaned from my in-depth research into the archives, there
> is a wheelbarrow/wife thing happening in Mother Goose. Curiouser and
> curiouser.
>
> Anyone got more scoop on this for me?
well, there is the following, which i think is extremely relevant to the lyric in question and may be of some help to
the original poster and his little problem at home:
http://www.tantra.com/wheelbarrow.html
http://www.ohmygoodness.com/Kamasutra/Kapic012.htm
Erin L. Hamilton
interpreting many of Dylan's lyrics like this too literally. It is Mother
Hubbard-esque, but it could mean anything or nothing at all. It didn't even
occur to me to think it sexist. Huh...Glad I signed up here. Dylan does make
you think a bit, and now I suppose I will.
Erin
Mike Reid
> Being new to the list myself, I've reserved comment. I don't know that I'd
> interpreting many of Dylan's lyrics like this too literally. It is Mother
> Hubbard-esque, but it could mean anything or nothing at all. It didn't even
> occur to me to think it sexist. Huh...Glad I signed up here. Dylan does make
> you think a bit, and now I suppose I will.
It seems to me that some contributors to this thread are confusing the
character in the song with the author of the song. Can't there be a sexist
character in the song without us getting upset with the author? This is
(one of :-) the problems that artists like Eminem have. It's strange that
people have a lot of difficulty separating the songwriter/singer from the
song character, whereas they have no problem in novels or movies.
--
Mike Reid, M.R...@phys.canterbury.ac.nz.pacific [Delete the ocean]
Christchurch, New Zealand.
Tricia J
the worst woman I meet"
Aliza
Mike.Reid_ad...@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz (Mike Reid) wrote:
>Erin L. Hamilton (music4...@earthlink.net) wrote:
>> Being new to the list myself, I've reserved comment. I don't know that I'd
>> interpreting many of Dylan's lyrics like this too literally. It is Mother
>> Hubbard-esque, but it could mean anything or nothing at all. It didn't even
>> occur to me to think it sexist. Huh...Glad I signed up here. Dylan does make
>> you think a bit, and now I suppose I will.
>
>It seems to me that some contributors to this thread are confusing the
>character in the song with the author of the song. Can't there be a sexist
>character in the song without us getting upset with the author? This is
>(one of :-) the problems that artists like Eminem have. It's strange that
>people have a lot of difficulty separating the songwriter/singer from the
>song character, whereas they have no problem in novels or movies.
I take it all in stride. Listen we all have different sides to our
personalities and we react and act differently in many situations. We
may even react two different ways to the same situation given the mood
we're in at the time. Just because you might think about picking up
some woman and wheeling her down the street doesn't mena that is what
you would do every time or what you think would be right to do given a
change in the circumstances. Trying to figure out what frame of mind
the song writer has in mind is half the fun of listening to the songs
over and over again. Sexist my eye! We all have these little
personality trips that we don't show everybody all the time. The
beauty of Dylan is that he gives us a glimpse into what each of us has
as a human being. THe complexity that makes each of us unique. I find
that being honest about those passing flitting feeling and hearing
them in Dylan lyrics and music is one thing that just takes my breath
away. It makes me sit back and go' Oh man! He is so right on!'
I'll also admit to being rather new to all this but it is an amzing
journey so far! Thanks! ;-)
aliza
raven
David Stenander wrote:
Well you could tell her that Bob has read Erica Jong, so he may not be a
total sexist ;-)
President_dudley
tom . wrote in message <3C211BF0...@hotmail.com>...
>
>
>Maya Allison wrote:
>
>enjoy your stay here, and may i add -- maya is a very beautiful name.
swedish, i presume?
>
'deed it is... a very beautiful name... might be swedish, but also might be
hindoo for "illusion"
might be the name of a wheelbarrow manufacturer for all I know
remember
be here now
dudley
President_dudley
David Stenander wrote in message
<1045ab69.01121...@posting.google.com>...
>Maya:
>
>thanks for your thoughtful response.
>
>what hasn't helped her attitude about Bob's anger towards women is the
>line in "Sugar Baby" that reads "There ain't no limit to the amount of
>trouble women bring". . .
>
I'm among the first of male chauvinists to recognise bob's woman trubbles,
but...
I've spoken with a couple-few wimmenfolks of my acquaintance, each of 'em
strongwilled in the vein of mah Granma... none of 'em sees "anger" here &
allow the veracity of the statement
For example one direct quote:
"I'll admit to that"
Hope this helps but on the other hand it doesn't really matter to me... Got
a real gal I'm in love with, lord I'll love her till I die.
stay away from my door & my window too
dudley
>I guess I'll just avoid these songs for a while and put another log on
>the fire!
>
we'll build a fire
throw on logs
& listen to them hiss
Lloyd Fonvielle
NickE6
nature -- not necessarily his (Bob's) nature.
Tricia J
>On Thu, 20 Dec 2001 02:11:23 +0000 (UTC),
>Mike.Reid_ad...@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz (Mike Reid) wrote:
>>
>>It seems to me that some contributors to this thread are confusing the
>>character in the song with the author of the song. Can't there be a sexist
>>character in the song without us getting upset with the author?
> Just because you might think about picking up
>some woman and wheeling her down the street doesn't mena that is what
>you would do every time or what you think would be right to do given a
>change in the circumstances.
Mike is right that the character shouldn't be confused with the
author. Aliza is right that what we think about doing and what we do
are not always the same. So, the character in the song just _feels_
like doing that. Doesn't necessarily make him sexist.
Pete Oppel
dsten...@yahoo.com writes:
> "Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet
> Putting her in a wheel barrow and wheeling her down the street"
>
>
Naah! You need to use your visual imaginations when you listen to Dylan.
Remember the old silent comedies, the man would be standing on the street
facing screen left. A man would enter the frame screen right wheeling a
wheelbarrow, come up from behind the first man and nudging him from behind
with the wheelbarrow. That gentle nudge would cause the first man to fall
back into the wheelbarrow and the second guy would wheel him away.
Now take a writer with no imagination, like...say...Barry Manilow and he
would say "I am going to fall in love with someone at first sight, sweep her
off her feet and carry her away." A writer with imagination, like...say...Bob
Dylan, will say exactly the same thing in a new and refreshing way.
*************
"A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn't think he'd
remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to
Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry
pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white
dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her
for one second. She didn't see me at all, but I'll bet a month
hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl."
--Bernstein (Everett Sloane) in "Citizen Kane" (1941)
yadiyadiya
Well, except for the looks.
TonyKahl22
great or terrible..Anyone care 2 persuade me....p.s. looking for recent Dylan
gigs on tape..Good list 2 trade from..contact me at TonyK...@aol.com
Debra Lind
reminds me of when I was panomiming pushing a wheelbarrow at the rail at
a Bob concert this spring during the line and Bob came sidstepping over
and laughed and winked at me. Ya can't take all this stuff so seriously!
Mary J
wrote:
Well.... the thought of being put in a wheelbarrow and rolled away by
Bob Dylan is rather appealing to me.... but.... I've been in love with
him for 36 years.... :-)
--
M.
http://www.maryjorens.homestead.com
"It's for myself and my friends my stories are sung."
Bob Dylan
Maureen Barnes
> Have Changed":
>
> "Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet
> Putting her in a wheel barrow and wheeling her down the street"
>
sexist. But so are most other songs - including opera. Not much
point in expecting political correctness in this particular genre.
Does ths make Dylan sexist? Not necessarily, but on the other hand,
would it be that surprising? Born in the 40's, world famous since his
twenties, surrounded by sycophants and with women falling at his feet,
what would have taught him otherwise? Reading Erica Jong?
Like your wife I wince at some of the lyrics (though not the
wheelbarrow) but I don't stop listening. The pleasures of his talent
makes it forgiveable.
Maya Allison
"Lloyd Fonvielle" <navi...@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:3C211485...@compuserve.com...
> Dylan occasionally writes about the thoughts that pop into our heads from
time to time, before they have been
> processed by social constraints. Is there a woman out there who can
honestly say she's never felt like falling in
> love with the first man she meets, putting him in wheelbarrow and wheeling
him down the street?
YES. That's a joy of Dylan for me, the id is cuttin' loose. While I'm at
it, is there a woman out there who hasn't at least once sighed "I wish
someone would just come along and wheel me away"? (what about a guy, for
that matter?) Even though in reality, the swept away want to decide when
they get out of the wheelbarrow, so they aren't REALLY swept, i.e.
dis-empowered. And, in your point, reversing the genders may de-magnetize
the sexism aspect, but the minute my wheelbarrow hunk decides he doesn't
want to be wheeled down the street any more, if I don't let him out, then
I've become a controlling, objectifying type, worthy of reprimand.
Anyways, this person who thinks this is un-listenably sexist and backs it up
by referring to the "no end to the trouble women bring" -- well, come on,
hasn't she noticed that there's also no end to the trouble men bring? We've
all got beefs, and with Dylan it's like an alcoholic saying 'there's no end
to the trouble beer brings'. And I'm not comparing women to beer, I'm
comparing the high of romantic love to intoxication. Don't blame the drink.
Maybe these are the songs of a love-a-holic.
He's sick of love, and he's in the thick of it, but he don't want a watered
down love...
Because love is pleasing, love is teasing, love's not an evil thing.
Until you become drunk with it and crash trunk first into the bog.
Then, damn those women, bringing all this trouble. Wouldn'a crashed if it
hadn'a been for them...
KReilly
>It didn't even
>occur to me to think it sexist. Huh...Glad I signed up here. Dylan does make
>you think a bit, and now I suppose I will.
One should try to make a distinction between a sexist interpretation and a
sexist author or a sexist line. I'm sure there are plenty of creative folks out
there who have alternative readings of THC.
KReilly
> I don't think there's much question that many of Dylan's lyrics are
>sexist.
This is an issue I've wrestled with for years and I'm still not finished. With
Sinatra ("Wives and Lovers" etc) I put him in his context and don't completely
judge him with contemporary standards, the same is true of Muddy Waters (and
blues in general). However, I do point out to my daughter how sexist certain
lyrics are in a modern context. I'm not entirely comfortable with these
interpretive gymnastics but that's where I'm at right now. With Dylan, it's
very different because I find very few of his lyrics explicitly sexist. "You
cook and sew, make flowers grow." Is the narrator really saying this is the
role of all women (which would be sexist)? Or is he describing a particular
woman (which would not necessaarily be sexist)? More often than not,
interpretations are sexist and there are always more than one interpretation
for any text.
Kelly Huckeby
news:9vrhcb$nfi$1...@cantuc.canterbury.ac.nz...
It's strange that
> people have a lot of difficulty separating the songwriter/singer from the
> song character, whereas they have no problem in novels or movies.
This is not necesarily true....actors get type cast into certain roles because
audiences will only accept them as that character or that type of character.
As a whole, though, I agree, you can't always put Dylan into the lyrics, its
not fair and it's not accurate in a lot of his work. You have to distinguish
between the character/narrartor and the artist.
Peace, Tranquility, And Goodwill
Kelly
--
Posted from [205.138.230.91]
via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
Maya Allison
admirable, would we be so aware of this distinction?
"Kelly Huckeby" <downthe...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:6475981fd55be6ec09b...@mygate.mailgate.org...
Mike Reid
Maya Allison (ML...@columbia.edu) wrote:
> I wonder if he were singing songs with lyrics we found more noble and
> admirable, would we be so aware of this distinction?
But would you really want 40 years of "noble and admirable" lyrics? In my
view great literature (or even a good songbook) is sufficiently rich that
the listener can relate it to their own experiences, hopes, and fears. Not
by ramming it down the listener's throat, but by being sufficiently rich
and complex that there's something for everyone. Shakespeare would be
rather boring and irrrelevant if you took out all but the "noble"
characters. Who'd pay to see the play about MacDuff and Juliet's nurse in
the rest home? Or "Lord of the Rings revisited: Elrond and Galadrial on
forest management"?
When I spent a few months away from my family, the lines about "people in
the park forgetting their troubles and woes..." had particular
significance to me. I'm not currently in a situation where wheeling a
woman down the street is an attractive option, but if circumstances were
different I could imagine that those lines would be much more relevant to
me than 1000 Hattie Carrolls...
Maya Allison
then we aren't alone. There's something for everyone, and there's something
for the parts of ourselves that we aren't expressing... he's dancing around
out on the limb with the freedom we don't always give ourselves (this goes
back to the id thing again)...
"Mike Reid" <Mike.Reid_ad...@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote in
message news:a02ufd$3jd$1...@cantuc.canterbury.ac.nz...
Kelly Huckeby
news:u2a05ma...@corp.supernews.com...
> Absolutely, he's going down those roads we don't want to face alone. And
> then we aren't alone. There's something for everyone, and there's something
> for the parts of ourselves that we aren't expressing... he's dancing around
> out on the limb with the freedom we don't always give ourselves (this goes
> back to the id thing again)...
>
Exactly...but I want to pose a question since we're on the subject of disting
uishing between the art and the man. I know that sometimes we are are all
guilty of saying that the character/narrartor in a given song is Dylan, and in
the case of albums like Blood on Tracks or Street Legal, where the lines
between the narrartor and Dylan are blurred(obviously life and art were acutely
merging),how do you separate Dylan from the work? Are the realities of the
experiences that Dylan went through which helped create the art to be ignored?
Or is the ultimate purpose only the emotional resonance that the song provides,
and all else can be discarded or is not important?
Mike Reid
> [In] the case of albums like Blood on Tracks or Street Legal, where the
> between the narrartor and Dylan are blurred(obviously life and art were acutely
> merging),how do you separate Dylan from the work? Are the realities of the
> experiences that Dylan went through which helped create the art to be ignored?
> Or is the ultimate purpose only the emotional resonance that the song provides,
> and all else can be discarded or is not important?
I think that both are interesting, but in the end, it's the art itself,
and the response of the listener/viewer that's surely the really important
thing. It's certainly interesting and illuminationg to have some idea
which of Picasso's mistresses or wives it is in a particular portrait, but
in the end it's whether the painting reduces you to tears (or not!) that
counts. I'd say it's similarly with Dylan's relationships and songs. Sara
reduced me to tears before I had much idea who whe was. Listening to RTR
boots, knowing now that she was in the audience is fascinating to me, but
doesn't really change my emotional response.
Another example: Tolkien says explicitly (I can't quote accurately, some
idiot has borrowed my copy :-[) that he doesn't want readers to think
that Lord of the Rings is supposed to be "about" his particular views or
experiences, but that obviously his life (growing up with the mills,
serving in world war one, smoking a pipe :-) gave him useful experiences
to aid his storytelling.
Kenneth Wilson
line keeps it from sounding sexist. The "falling in love with the first
woman" part just sounds like desperation, perhaps with a self-mocking edge.
The wheelbarrow bit sounds like a wonderfully silly, romantic,
just-fallen-in-love thing to do. In fact it sounds like fun for old married
couples. I think my in-laws have a wheelbarrow. Come Tuesday ...
Ken
tom .
reason they are there. that's right -- the man's a hound dog. hello? do i need to
tell you the stories about the guy? him trying to pick up two half-his-age hottie
hoochie mamas the night of the grammy awards when he won for toom? hello? the
string of women he balled royally throughout the seventies while poor sara was stuck
home with those silver spoon brats jakob, jesse and the rest of the dylan clan?
hello? wake up and smell the coffee already. we're dealing with a major player
here. four wives, twenty three children, countless mistresses in every city, in
every port. enough with the beatification already. he'd feed you every line you'd
want to hear and bone you until the cows came home. and you'd never hear from him
again. so enough. stop it. you silly hopeful wide-eyed hens. snap out of it
already. oh and while i'm at it -- all you broads over 40? please. enough already
with publishing your menopausal sexual fantasies about bob? he wouldn't pee on you
if you were on fire - he enjoys fresh poon, ok? and, quite frankly, it makes the
rest of us kind of nauseous to imagine you in a sexual scenario. there's a reason
god created doors, you know. keep your dreams (and all displays of affection with
the men who will touch you) behind closed doors. thank in advance you for your
consideration.
Kenneth Wilson
> This is an issue I've wrestled with for years and I'm still not finished.
With
> Sinatra ("Wives and Lovers" etc) I put him in his context and don't
completely
> judge him with contemporary standards, the same is true of Muddy Waters
(and
> blues in general). However, I do point out to my daughter how sexist
certain
> lyrics are in a modern context. I'm not entirely comfortable with these
> interpretive gymnastics but that's where I'm at right now. With Dylan,
it's
> very different because I find very few of his lyrics explicitly sexist.
"You
> cook and sew, make flowers grow." Is the narrator really saying this is
the
> role of all women (which would be sexist)? Or is he describing a
particular
> woman (which would not necessaarily be sexist)?
That line has always made me cringe, but in the context of the song it
sounds not so much sexist to me as it does narcissistic -- "can you
understand my pain?" And to reference the sexist-THC thread, I'm glad Bob
has narcissistic moments.
> More often than not,
> interpretations are sexist and there are always more than one
interpretation
> for any text.
Not to revive an old disagreement, but I've never understood what the great
interest is in finding interpretations that aren't, at least at some level,
consciously or subconsciously, the author's, or at least performer's, own.
Not that everything's always autobiographical, and a writer may not
recognize all his influences. And it's different if you're playing or
singing the thing yourself. But if I'm reading or listening, I'm in
Tell-Me-A-Story mode. I don't have to understand the story, and not entirely
understanding is half the thrill sometimes, obviously. But I don't want to
have to make up my own story because I don't like his. That spoils it. But
anyhow, maybe I'm just misunderstanding you.
Ken
tom .
ok. look -- i was wrong. i just read what i wrote and i admit - i'm wrong. old women
are allowed to have and share sexual fantasies about bob too. i should try to stop
acting like the moderator of acceptable discussion here. if older female dylan fans
really want to talk about how they'd love to bang bob or how all they want for christmas
is a long lingering kiss from bob during which his old wrinkly liver spotted blue veined
hands fondle their flaccid drooping breasts and droopy shapeless buttocks, that's their
right. it's not for me to complain. and if middle aged female dylan fans want to talk
about how they would like to knock the boots with bob even though he goes for the young
heynannynanny, that's their right too. it's not for me to tell them to keep their
absurd fantasy lives to themselves. rmd was created here in america and is still
located here and if there's anything that's true right now in this day and age it's that
this fine country stands for the freedom of speech and the right to speak out about
anything, anything at all, even about senior citizen sexual fantasies, no matter how
gross or unappetizing the subject may be to the rest of us. as such, i hereby
apologize. i was wrong and ask for your forgiveness. thank you and good night. god
bless america. and god bless rmd.
ps: http://www.artseditor.com/media/september01/sep01_folk_pic3.jpg
http://home.datacomm.ch/gbieri/sq_dylan_bob_thing_have_changed_sny.jpg
Delia
"KReilly" <kre...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20011222153643...@mb-mi.aol.com...
I'm going to put Is Your Love In Vain to the side. Despite anyone's
rationalizations, I still find it sexist and, what may be worse, full of
self-pity, and basically, not a very good song. But that's my personal
judgment and it's about the only one.
But the more interesting question is that of the conventions of blues in
general. It's very sexual and more often sung by men than by women. So the
overwhelming majority of blues songs take the convention that women cause
the trouble in relationships and that women are there to provide pleasure
for men. When women sing the blues the conventions are reversed. Actually
in any pop love song the conventions are much the same; they're just not so
blatant. Bob Dylan, being male, uses the male conventions when he uses the
forms of the blues. So he can use a line like "There ain't no limit to the
amount of trouble women bring" and all the (male) idiots at the arena shows
can cheer as if he is slamming women when that is not his point in the song
at all. To me, at any rate, Sugar Baby is about the meaning of love in
human existence. The line comes from the conventions of the songs. But he
really completely alters the context and the meaning.
--
Delia
You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way.
Marcel
love...not an evil thing....."
marcel
dsten...@yahoo.com (David Stenander) wrote in message news:<1045ab69.01121...@posting.google.com>...
> Maya:
>
> thanks for your thoughtful response.
>
> what hasn't helped her attitude about Bob's anger towards women is the
> line in "Sugar Baby" that reads "There ain't no limit to the amount of
> trouble women bring". . .
Maureen Barnes
looks/talent/money/power to live like Dylan? Never mind, you can
always make yourself feel better by abusing women from the safety of
anonymity.
I could do without the fantasies too, but part of the charm of RMD is
the freedom to say what you like.
SDW
> [...] So he can use a line like "There ain't no limit to the
> amount of trouble women bring" and all the (male) idiots at the arena shows
> can cheer as if he is slamming women when that is not his point in the song
> at all. To me, at any rate, Sugar Baby is about the meaning of love in
Perhaps the men are cheering because they appreciate Dylan's
perspective on the meaning of love in human existence.
Stephen
__
"Across my foundering deck shone
A beacon, an eternal beam." --Gerard Manley Hopkins
tom .
Maureen Barnes wrote:
i'm confused. so we are in agreement then regarding the
inappropriateness of the constant sharing of sexual fantasies about bob?
but agree that we should put up with them because of the freedom of
speech we all enjoy here by virtue of the first amendment and rmd's
location here in america? very well, then.
regarding the baseless slurs in the first part of your message -- you
must not have read my follow up post containing my apology. and i guess
the freedom of speech doesn't apply to me in your world view. but no,
there's no projection going on here at all. i don't understand how
projection could even be at work here. bitter? no, not at all. i do
admit i was wrong when i complained about the sexual content of many of
the female rmd'ers posts. they have feelings too. and they should be
allowed to talk about them here. no matter how old they are. but
bitterness had nothing to do with that complaint. i was wrong. sure, if
they were younger i wouldn't mind so much...so i admit, i was being
ageist or whatever you call that. and if you consider that abuse, so be
it. you seem to agree with everything i said anyway. and i don't
understand what anonymity has to do with what i said. i'm not
anonymous. and i'd say the same thing in public...except for the fact
that i know realize they have a right to their sexual fantasies, no
matter how old. and i'll have you know, dear, that i have plenty of
money, talent and good looks! oh sure, mr. big shot bob dylan the rock
star gets laid a lot, oh sure, good for him. even when he was married.
but noooo, he can get divorced whenever he gets tired of the old ball and
chain and isn't stuck in the chains of marriage! well, la dee frickin'
da for him. well, hey there, missy, i choose not to cheat on my wife!
ok? or slap her around! even if she talks back! or even if she
complained about a strange woman at the breakfast table! how dare you!
is this the thanks i get? great, certain rock stars can treat women like
dirt and he's put up for sainthood but i point out how sexist it is to
treat bob like a piece of meat and i get this...how dare you, miss
barnes, how dare you.. harrrummmph. how dare you, mam! with that said,
merry christmas to all. except for the jews and the muslims and hindus
among us. and the atheists. sorry about all the jesus the savior is
born stuff. don't worry, it will all be over soon.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Not to revive an old disagreement, but I've never understood what the great
> interest is in finding interpretations that aren't, at least at some level,
> consciously or subconsciously, the author's, or at least performer's, own.
That approach will leave you in a hell of a mess with Shakespeare. He writes
each character -- even ones who are diametrically opposed to each other -- from
within their own point of view, then sets them at each other. Where is
Shakespeare in all this? If the drama works, who cares?
A1pump
>> amount of trouble women bring" and all the (male) idiots at the arena shows
>> can cheer as if he is slamming women when that is not his point in the song
>> at all. To me, at any rate, Sugar Baby is about the meaning of love in
>> human existence [...]
>
>Perhaps the men are cheering because they appreciate Dylan's
>perspective on the meaning of love in human existence.
>
>Stephen
>__
many women recognize and cheer there ain't no limit to the amount of pain men
bring? As living life and listening to Dylan show, there ain't much that brings
the amount of joy and pain that our love relationships bring.
Lloyd Fonvielle
tom is what psychologists call a "sick fuck", a condition he tries to
disguise or justify with humor (some of it funny, some of it pathetic).
The drama of his internal struggle between pathological exhibitionism
and intelligence is one of the continuing fascinations of rmd.
Kenneth Wilson
> "Delia wrote:
> > [...] So he can use a line like "There ain't no limit to the
> > amount of trouble women bring" and all the (male) idiots at the arena
shows
> > can cheer as if he is slamming women when that is not his point in the
song
> > at all. To me, at any rate, Sugar Baby is about the meaning of love in
> > human existence [...]
>
> Perhaps the men are cheering because they appreciate Dylan's
> perspective on the meaning of love in human existence.
Yes. And isn't this sort of line straight from the blues? I remember being
pissed at an Alberta Hunter show in Chicago's Grant Park years ago, when my
girlfriend cheered Alberta's gripes rather louder than I thought she needed
to. ;-)
Ken
tom .
> > [...] So he can use a line like "There ain't no limit to the
> > amount of trouble women bring" and all the (male) idiots at the arena shows
> > can cheer as if he is slamming women when that is not his point in the song
> > at all. To me, at any rate, Sugar Baby is about the meaning of love in
> > human existence [...]
>
> Perhaps the men are cheering because they appreciate Dylan's
> perspective on the meaning of love in human existence.
or perhaps they're as mad about eve and her big fuck-up as bob and i are.
p.s. norway/belgium freebie offer closed. a free copy, that's right, free, of 10/28/01 goes to first
person to email me. california rmd'ers only this time around.
Aliza
>
>Maureen Barnes wrote:
> no matter how old they are. but
>bitterness had nothing to do with that complaint. i was wrong. sure, if
>they were younger i wouldn't mind so much...so i admit, i was being
>ageist or whatever you call that.
>
How young would one have to be for you not to mind?
;-)
aliza
>
>
>
>
Delia
" tom ." <blin...@hotmail.com> wrote in message ...
>
>
> Maureen Barnes wrote:
>
> > Doing a bit of projecting here, Tom? Bitter that you don't have the
> > looks/talent/money/power to live like Dylan? Never mind, you can
> > always make yourself feel better by abusing women from the safety of
> > anonymity.
> >
> > I could do without the fantasies too, but part of the charm of RMD is
> > the freedom to say what you like.
>
> i'm confused. so we are in agreement then regarding the
> inappropriateness of the constant sharing of sexual fantasies about bob?
> but agree that we should put up with them because of the freedom of
> speech we all enjoy here by virtue of the first amendment and rmd's
> location here in america? very well, then.
>
> regarding the baseless slurs in the first part of your message -- you
> must not have read my follow up post containing my apology. and i guess
> the freedom of speech doesn't apply to me in your world view. but no,
> there's no projection going on here at all. i don't understand how
> projection could even be at work here. bitter? no, not at all. i do
> admit i was wrong when i complained about the sexual content of many of
> the female rmd'ers posts. they have feelings too. and they should be
> allowed to talk about them here. no matter how old they are. but
> bitterness had nothing to do with that complaint. i was wrong. sure, if
> they were younger i wouldn't mind so much...so i admit, i was being
> ageist or whatever you call that . . . . . etc.
Well, tom, just as long as your next diatribe is about all the men of about
the same age who fantasize on the ng about Britney and her stand-alone
boobs. I don't know if she's still pretending to be a virgin or not (which
is another weird psychological trip I don't want to explore) but you guys
gotta admit your chances with her are somewhere in the negative numbers.
tom .
Aliza wrote:
> >not Maureen Barnes (though she agreed with my basic point)....but it was
hmmmm...very good question, aliza. i'll have to think about that one. i
think the big change happens for most women around the age of thirty-two so
maybe....wait a second -- no, that's wrong. my current position is that
female rmd'ers of all ages have the right to share their tawdry sexual
fantasies about dylan. it's not for me to complain about how old they are.
sure, i wish they'd appreciate bob for his music, his art, his civilization
redeeming work, and not so much for his body, good looks, and enormous sex
appeal but hey that's their prerogative, isn't it. hey, i wonder how many gay
men bob has as fans and if they long for his loins as much as his female fans
seem to?
tom .
> Well, tom, just as long as your next diatribe is about all the men of about
> the same age who fantasize on the ng about Britney and her stand-alone
> boobs. I don't know if she's still pretending to be a virgin or not (which
> is another weird psychological trip I don't want to explore) but you guys
> gotta admit your chances with her are somewhere in the negative numbers.
> --
> Delia
certainly, ms. hansen. those men are equally deplorable...in fact, more
deplorable because britney fantasization is hardly very dylan-related.
however, thanks to the many brave men who fought and died for this country, rmd
is a place where we enjoy the freedom of expression and these dirty old
perverts are therefore also free to dream. by the way, if ms. spears says
she's a virgin i don't know why you'd say she isn't. sheesh, why are women
always so catty?
Maya Allison
Delia and Kenneth both brought this blues convention for lyrics up, and it
got me thinking... I think it goes right to the heart of what is so
delightfully confounding for me in Dylan. As is obvious by now, I'm very
new to listening to him with any seriousness, and one of the main reasons I
never owned any Dylan was that he seemed so self-absorbed, "angry young
man"-ish, dated and without much of relevance to my experience of life, even
at his best revolutionary singing. But then a friend started sending me
quotes from him, about him, etc., and I came across Love & Theft pre-release
samples, and BOOM, everything changed. Here I've been listening to blues
and old country and jazz, and never having these issues with THEM --
pardoned due to their era/culture. And Billie Holiday sings in the same
vein, and I of course love it when she moans about how, essentially, there's
no end to the trouble MEN bring...
The thing that I'm coming up against (and which I'm seeing in this thread)
is the use of a convention that is from a time and way of thinking that some
of us (I feel for people raising kids right now) have seen the harm in --
while we try to reject/ transcend/ overcome the destructive mindset that
makes it "all Eve's fault" (to address the ever-gentle and kind-hearted
tom's snipe) it lives on in traditions that are rich with American culture,
and these are just plain beautiful.
So I stumble for a moment, ouch, when Dylan goes down those roads,
especially when he gets into the Madonna/whore flip flops, but then he's
brought it into a new set of references, especially recently, singing in the
voices of all these male clichés (I've mentioned this before) -- warriors,
Romeos, drunks, rock stars, holy rollers... so that he's doing the same
thing to his characters narrating as they're doing in their laments about
women! -- reducing them to good/bad, strong/weak, etc. But in their
interaction some profound human experiences emerge, and that resonance of
recognition pulls me in.
I'm probably stating the obvious at this point, but when he says "the future
for me is already a thing of the past", sad nostalgic reading aside, it
occurs to me that he is making a new future out of things from the past
(obviously, duh, love and theft), and, like Delia says, the old stuff in new
juxtapositions creates new meanings. Somehow there's room here for me, with
all my sharp-edged opinions on patriarchal traditions, to find comfort,
sustenance and challenges worth engaging.
Even though I still am uncomfortable calling myself a fan... I think Bye
and Bye is my favorite song today.
Well, the future for me
Is already a thing of the past
You were my first love
And you will be my last.
Papa gone mad,
Mama, she's feeling sad.
Well, I'm gonna baptize you in fire
So you can sin no more
I'm gonna establish my rule
Through civil war
Gonna make you see
Just how loyal and true a man can be
Kenneth Wilson
Not me. But Shakespeare's dramas aren't "confessional" songs, and
confessional martial is what I was talking about. I don't expect or want
Dylan not to have characters, and to mean everything he sings, and mean it
on a simple and straightforward level. I just don't want to have to approach
a song consciously substituting my interpretation for the singer's own
because I don't like his.
Ken
Tricia J
<navi...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>
>tom is what psychologists call a "sick fuck",
thanks for giving us the scientific term, I have been wondering how to
describe his affliction -
>a condition he tries to
>disguise or justify with humor (some of it funny, some of it pathetic).
>The drama of his internal struggle between pathological exhibitionism
>and intelligence is one of the continuing fascinations of rmd.
and one of the most difficult exercises is _not_ replying to posts
which are nothing more than attention-seeking
Tricia J
days. The issue of gender in Dylan's songs is a very ripe field for
discussion, one which is rarely expounded on, perhaps mainly because
the 'major players' in the study of Dylan's songs are male, and the
prerspective is therefore constrained somewhat. This is not the right
time of year for me to spend hours discussing this, but I do hope that
some of the women on this list especially (you know who you are) will
keep this line of thought going. Which is not to say that the male
viewpoint is not sought either! May I just point out one line from a
'Love And Theft' song which seems to me most self-reflexive and also,
as so many times in the past, finds Dylan saying something about
himself through his description of a woman's qualities:
"My grandmother could sew new dresses out of old cloth"
I think that's a prefect description of the songs on Love And Theft.
The bottom line is that women are, and always have been, important in
Dylan's work, and not (usually) as constrained in traditional ways of
thinking as im most popular songs. It would be interesting to
contrast, for instance, "Love In Vain" (the most shocking of the
'misogynist' lyrics) with a song like "The Man In Me". His personal
viewpoint probably reflects his age, his upbringing, his social
milieu, his personal experiences, just like everyone else, and you'll
not find any "political correctness" in his treatment of the gender
issue, but I think many of his songs speak _for_ women in ways which
are unique in contemporary song. He would never, ever come up with
something like Lennon's 'Woman Is The Nigger Of The World', but he
_can_ invest 'House Of The Rising Sun' , "The Lonesome Death Of Hattie
Carroll" and "North Country Blues" with a remarkable empathy, which
goes beyond political sloganeering or deliberate courting of feminist
listeners.
Sorry, I've already used more time than I was going to. Love to
continue these thoughts when time is not so short! Thanks again, Maya,
for some stimulating thoughts.
tom .
Tricia J wrote:
> Lloyd Fonvielle wrote:
>
> >tom is what psychologists call a "sick fuck",
>
> thanks for giving us the scientific term, I have been wondering how to
> describe his affliction -
trish, i don't know why you're so mean to me. i understand lloyd's
problem. i know why he's always going out of his way to say mean things
about me. how he's always trying to engage me into getting into an
argument. i understand where his anger comes from...that whole hollywood
frustration thing. but i don't get why you always go out of your way to be
mean. you seem like a very nice lady most of the time.
> >a condition he tries to
> >disguise or justify with humor (some of it funny, some of it pathetic).
> >The drama of his internal struggle between pathological exhibitionism
> >and intelligence is one of the continuing fascinations of rmd.
>
> and one of the most difficult exercises is _not_ replying to posts
> which are nothing more than attention-seeking
patricia, nobody is asking you to reply to me, ok? or to give me any
attention. attention seeking? i go for months without making a post while
you fill the newsgroup with twenty posts a day. who's the one seeking
attention here? now look -- this is the second time in a matter of a couple
of days. last time you responded to me it was regarding something i posted
regarding dylan's art and what you said was obviously meant to start some
kind of argument between us about something involving wholly subjective
opinion. now, because this seems completely silly to me, an argument about
subjective opinion, i didn't take the bait and refused to reply to your
taunting. however, at least there was something of merit in your last
reply. but this time...this time you're just being plain mean. there isn't
anything even remotely substantive here. i do not understand why you
continually do this but if you continue in this vein i can only come to one
of three conclusions. yes. that's correct. anyway, it should be clear to
you by now that i do not want or seek your attention because despite your
repeated effort to engage me in debate and your frequent episodes of
downright meanness, i have not replied. but i can't take it anymore, ok?
so please stop replying to everything i say. i don't want to fight with
you. ok? or lloyd, for that matter. whatever is going on with him and
those god damned producers is not my problem. so please, i'm asking you for
the last time, stop saying all these mean things about me.
ps: the california offer is closed. next freebie - a copy of 10/9/01 to
anyone from florida, arizona, or texas. third email gets it. only winner
will be notified.
Maya Allison
semi-darkness on this group sometimes, I'm glad to hear I'm in a general
ballpark worth following.
I'm also running off to get more seasonal things done, but wanted to
highlight a note for future conversation:
"Tricia J" <tric...@aardvark.net.au> wrote in message
news:3c2688fa...@news.aardvark.net.au...
<snip>
> May I just point out one line from a
> 'Love And Theft' song which seems to me most self-reflexive and also,
> as so many times in the past, finds Dylan saying something about
> himself through his description of a woman's qualities:
>
> "My grandmother could sew new dresses out of old cloth"
>
> I think that's a prefect description of the songs on Love And Theft.
>
> The bottom line is that women are, and always have been, important in
> Dylan's work, and not (usually) as constrained in traditional ways of
> thinking as im most popular songs.
There's a goldmine here, especially the idea that he sometimes speaks of
himself in lyrics written about women... a lightbult went off when I read
that...
Delia
"Maya Allison" <ML...@columbia.edu> wrote in message
news:u2db5u...@corp.supernews.com...
> Thanks so much for the encouragement, I'm definitely feeling my way in
> semi-darkness on this group sometimes, I'm glad to hear I'm in a general
> ballpark worth following.
>
> I'm also running off to get more seasonal things done, but wanted to
> highlight a note for future conversation:
>
> "Tricia J" <tric...@aardvark.net.au> wrote in message
> news:3c2688fa...@news.aardvark.net.au...
> <snip>
> > May I just point out one line from a
> > 'Love And Theft' song which seems to me most self-reflexive and also,
> > as so many times in the past, finds Dylan saying something about
> > himself through his description of a woman's qualities:
> >
> > "My grandmother could sew new dresses out of old cloth"
> >
> > I think that's a prefect description of the songs on Love And Theft.
This is a brilliant observation, Tricia.
> >
> > The bottom line is that women are, and always have been, important in
> > Dylan's work, and not (usually) as constrained in traditional ways of
> > thinking as im most popular songs.
>
> There's a goldmine here, especially the idea that he sometimes speaks of
> himself in lyrics written about women... a lightbult went off when I read
> that...
>
Maya and Tricia, I'm very interested in this discussion as well, and like
you, running in a hundred directions at the moment. Let's get back to this.
frinjdwelr
"Kenneth Wilson" <kfw...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:00fa01c18bc2$5e485700$a0d4bfa8@u8f5h7...
> KReilly wrote:
With Dylan,
> it's
> > very different because I find very few of his lyrics explicitly sexist.
> "You
> > cook and sew, make flowers grow." Is the narrator really saying this is
> the
> > role of all women (which would be sexist)? Or is he describing a
> particular
> > woman (which would not necessaarily be sexist)?
>
> That line has always made me cringe, but in the context of the song it
> sounds not so much sexist to me as it does narcissistic -- "can you
> understand my pain?" And to reference the sexist-THC thread, I'm glad Bob
> has narcissistic moments.
>
Maybe I'm just narcissistic because these lines have never made me cringe at
all. But I always tend to listen from inside the song rather that from
outside if that makes sense. To me the song is not laying down any
philosophy of life or gender politics, but rather expressing what it feels
like from inside a certain situation. Isn't wallowing a bit in self pity and
being misunderstood by the opposite sex, a universal experience? Is it not a
valid perspective from which to write and sing a song? Must one always
check one's feelings for political correctness and then censor their
expression?
Eons ago at about the age of 14, I had an argument with a nun. She was
condemning that I Am a Rock, Paul Simon song from the, no man is an island
reasoning. My chum pleaded "but sister, don't you just sometimes feel that
way?" She argued that even so, it shouldn't be broadcast on the radio or
some such. That's what this thread reminds me of.
> > More often than not,
> > interpretations are sexist and there are always more than one
> interpretation
> > for any text.
>
> Not to revive an old disagreement, but I've never understood what the
great
> interest is in finding interpretations that aren't, at least at some
level,
> consciously or subconsciously, the author's, or at least performer's, own.
> Not that everything's always autobiographical, and a writer may not
> recognize all his influences. And it's different if you're playing or
> singing the thing yourself. But if I'm reading or listening, I'm in
> Tell-Me-A-Story mode. I don't have to understand the story, and not
entirely
> understanding is half the thrill sometimes, obviously. But I don't want to
> have to make up my own story because I don't like his. That spoils it. But
> anyhow, maybe I'm just misunderstanding you.
>
But Ken, can't you see that you're assuming you KNOW what the author's
story, intent or interpretation is? (ie. Masters of War is not an antiwar
song? Uh huh) Of course you have to make up your own story, because it's
really your only option. Everyone can come up with interpretations that they
THINK are the author's, but we're all always wrong. Add to that the fact
that in the case of Bob Dylan, he himself is telling a different story every
year, with the same songs.
Tricia J
<frinj...@charter.net> wrote:
>
>"Kenneth Wilson" <kfw...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>news:00fa01c18bc2$5e485700$a0d4bfa8@u8f5h7...
>> KReilly wrote:
> With Dylan,
>> it's
>> > very different because I find very few of his lyrics explicitly sexist.
>> "You
>> > cook and sew, make flowers grow." Is the narrator really saying this is
>> the
>> > role of all women (which would be sexist)? Or is he describing a
>> particular
>> > woman (which would not necessaarily be sexist)?
>>
>> That line has always made me cringe, but in the context of the song it
>> sounds not so much sexist to me as it does narcissistic -- "can you
>> understand my pain?" And to reference the sexist-THC thread, I'm glad Bob
>> has narcissistic moments.
>>
>
>Maybe I'm just narcissistic because these lines have never made me cringe at
>all. But I always tend to listen from inside the song rather that from
>outside if that makes sense. To me the song is not laying down any
>philosophy of life or gender politics, but rather expressing what it feels
>like from inside a certain situation.
Absolutely makes sense to me. That's always what the song was like for
me, a very _particular_ situation, and an honest expression of
_feelings_, with no regard for their "correctness" or otherwise.
KReilly
>Not to revive an old disagreement, but I've never understood what the great
>interest is in finding interpretations that aren't, at least at some level,
>consciously or subconsciously, the author's, or at least performer's, own.
I'm interested in art that has meaning for me. I've never understood what the
great
interest is in finding interpretations that are, consciously or subconsciously,
the author's, or the performer's.
KReilly
>Shakespeare's dramas aren't "confessional" songs, and
>confessional martial is what I was talking about. I don't expect or want
>Dylan not to have characters, and to mean everything he sings, and mean it
>on a simple and straightforward level. I just don't want to have to approach
>a song consciously substituting my interpretation for the singer's own
>because I don't like his.
This is a caricature. Do you ever "know" Dylan's interpretation of his songs?
How would one know this apart from asking Dylan? Are Dylan's songs
"confessional"? What does that even mean? I bet you were great at dodge ball
Ken.
Kenneth Wilson
I'm sorry you take a genuine interest in your thinking for picking a fight.
Ken
Kenneth Wilson
And you're great at suspicion and vitriol. I'm not interested in another
public discussion on that level.
Ken
Lloyd Fonvielle
> I'm interested in art that has meaning for me. I've never understood what the
> great
> interest is in finding interpretations that are, consciously or subconsciously,
> the author's, or the performer's.
When you communicate with a friend or loved one, are you only interested in what
their side of the conversation means to you? When you have a conversation with
someone you've never met, by mail or e-mail or newsgroup, are you only interested
in what their side of the conversation means to you? When you hear a politician
give a speech, do you have no interest in what that speech might tell you about
that politician's character, about the way that politician might act in the
future?
Of course not. You use your sympathetic imagination to try and reconstruct
what their statements mean to them, what they are trying to convey, what they are
feeling and intending and revealing (or concealing.) You can never be absolutely
sure about any of these things, but you make guesses based on what you know about
them, what they have said to you before, and on common conventions of
communication. Art is a peculiarly tenuous form of communication, but it is a
form of communication, and imagining it only as some kind of isolated text,
entirely dependent on you for its meaning, is unnatural and unhelpful. It tends
to discourage a full engagement with the work of art, since it gives primacy to
your reactions, which are preconditioned and self-referential, whereas what we go
to art for is second thoughts, extra-personal insights. It also tends to diminish
art's capacity to create community, which depends on a collective assumption that
the work of art has a meaning that transcends individual response.
The "voice" of the artist may be a kind of fiction, but the self of the
individual experiencing the art is also a fiction -- as indeed are the selves you
imagine all other people to possess. All are necessary fictions and become real
by common or mutual consent (always, of course, in process of negotiation.)
Tumulty
> >> at all. To me, at any rate, Sugar Baby is about the meaning of
> >Perhaps the men are cheering because they appreciate Dylan's
> >perspective on the meaning of love in human existence.
> >
> >Stephen
> >__
> Couldn't agree more. it is the cheer of recognition, not misogyny. Wouldn't
> many women recognize and cheer there ain't no limit to the amount of pain men
> bring? As living life and listening to Dylan show, there ain't much that brings
> the amount of joy and pain that our love relationships bring.
Say, if I were a girly, I'd cheer too. I worship my Mother and I know
the trouble she brings. Sisters too and I love 'em. Fat Nancy brings
trouble and plenty of it. Acknowledging in such a manner's just
facin' up to the truth. Glory to the girlymen, glory halleleuejah! I
mean, the next line isn't ,"because they've ruined every single
person's' life including one anothers that has ever walked this earth
by stealing every ounce of hope or pound of dignity and they should
all be beaten soundly with sticks and often." Godalmighty. Don't you
know? There are two kinds of people in this world and it's not men and
women. It's those who can laugh and those that won't.
T.
maxenglish
___
If anyone thinks Bob's lyrics are remotely "sexist" (a cultural
definition, as well as individual, to be sure) - just go back and
listen to all the Delta and Chicago blues lyrics that Bob revers - not
to mention those from the country field. There is an eternal struggle
between worshipping at the feet of a woman, and between subjugation
and conquering - as well as the whole Madonna/Whore copmlex thingey
that Dylan seems to have lived through in practice - wanting a
beautiful and devoted wife to come home to and take care of his kids -
but all the while going out on the road, heading for another joint and
fooling around with any curvaceous young thing that might strike his
fancy. That said, I believe the lyrics are offhand, from "Things Have
Changed" (I haven't heard LOVE and Theeft yet - I want to discover it
at a later date, savor the stuff). But anyone who thinks Dylan is
some pious monk who chooses sexual partners purely based on love
(theft) and mutual understanding on intellectual grounds is at least
half out of their mind. Heck, some of the women on RMD have openly
admitted their eagerness to recieve the Dylan treatment. Anyway, go
back and listen to some old Delta Blues records sometime - you'll see
the roots of a lot of Bob's recent work - and won't have to let Bob
distill those blues for yous...
Maya Allison
> What's wrong with being sexy? hahha...
___
> If anyone thinks Bob's lyrics are remotely "sexist" (a cultural
> definition, as well as individual, to be sure)
Main Entry: sex搏sm
Pronunciation: 'sek-"si-z&m
Function: noun
Etymology: 1sex + -ism (as in racism)
Date: 1968 [AFTER Dylan came into being]
1 : prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially :
discrimination against women
2 : behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of
social roles based on sex
- sex搏st /'sek-sist/ adjective or noun
> - just go back and
> listen to all the Delta and Chicago blues lyrics that Bob revers - not
> to mention those from the country field.
So his lyrics are sexist because he is fluent in the language of his
musical heritage (from another era), which has sexist lyrics? Okay...
> There is an eternal struggle
> between worshipping at the feet of a woman, and between subjugation
> and conquering - as well as the whole Madonna/Whore copmlex thingey
> that Dylan seems to have lived through in practice - wanting a
> beautiful and devoted wife to come home to and take care of his kids -
> but all the while going out on the road, heading for another joint and
> fooling around with any curvaceous young thing that might strike his
> fancy.
So his lyrics are sexist because of his personal problems? Okay...
> That said, I believe the lyrics are offhand, from "Things Have
> Changed" (I haven't heard LOVE and Theeft yet - I want to discover it
> at a later date, savor the stuff).
What? HAVEN'T HEARD IT YET??? Are you savoring his albums one per
decade? Exactly how long do you expect to live? Turn off your
computer. Leave the house. Go to a record store. Buy it. Listen to
it. Trust me, life will change.
> But anyone who thinks Dylan is some pious monk who chooses sexual
> partners purely based on love
> (theft) and mutual understanding on intellectual grounds is at least
> half out of their mind. Heck, some of the women on RMD have openly
> admitted their eagerness to recieve the Dylan treatment.
So we're crazy not to see him as sexist, relax and learn to love the
"treatment"? Lucky our past thread's originator didn't read your post
to his girlfriend, no more Dylan or no more happy girlfriend for
him...
> Anyway, go
> back and listen to some old Delta Blues records sometime - you'll see
> the roots of a lot of Bob's recent work - and won't have to let Bob
> distill those blues for yous...
So Bob is basically a distillery? Ouch.
Then, Love & Theft is the highest proof you'll ever taste, but Bob's
put tequila worms in there too.
Drink it up, and you'll find yourself having hallucinations of a world
in which old mistakes unwind into ancient tender truths, in which the
most entrenched sexist behavior becomes the catalyst for looking twice
at the no-end-to-trouble it brings. You'll end up drunk with the old
blues and country spirits, on the side of the road in your own
wheelbarrow, howling and cursing at the specter of Sugar Baby, who
offers you another drink, waiting for you to listen more closely.
At least that's what happened to ME last time I played that CD.
It warn't pretty.
maxenglish
> So his lyrics are sexist because he is fluent in the language of his
> musical heritage (from another era), which has sexist lyrics? Okay...
> So his lyrics are sexist because of his personal problems? Okay...
> Are you savoring his albums one per
> decade? Exactly how long do you expect to live? Turn off your
> computer. Leave the house. Go to a record store. Buy it. Listen to
> it. Trust me, life will change.
> So we're crazy not to see him as sexist, relax and learn to love the
> "treatment"? Lucky our past thread's originator didn't read your post
> to his girlfriend, no more Dylan or no more happy girlfriend for
> him...
> So Bob is basically a distillery? Ouch.
> Then, Love & Theft is the highest proof you'll ever taste, but Bob's
> put tequila worms in there too.
Beware of... Maya...
Lloyd Fonvielle
> So Bob is basically a distillery? Ouch.
>
> Then, Love & Theft is the highest proof you'll ever taste, but Bob's
> put tequila worms in there too.
>
> Drink it up, and you'll find yourself having hallucinations of a world
> in which old mistakes unwind into ancient tender truths, in which the
> most entrenched sexist behavior becomes the catalyst for looking twice
> at the no-end-to-trouble it brings. You'll end up drunk with the old
> blues and country spirits, on the side of the road in your own
> wheelbarrow, howling and cursing at the specter of Sugar Baby, who
> offers you another drink, waiting for you to listen more closely.
>
> At least that's what happened to ME last time I played that CD.
> It warn't pretty.
There ain't no limit to the amount of trouble "Love & Theft" brings -- and
this gal's got it bad. She needs a shot of railroad gin.
Maya Allison
engli...@rocketmail.com wrote on 12/31/01 8:17 AM:
(smile)
got that right.
Maya Allison
navi...@compuserve.com wrote on 12/31/01 12:58 PM:
(chuckling)
got that right. Just don't try to get me to take that Texas medicine.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> in article 3C30A741...@compuserve.com, Lloyd Fonvielle at
> navi...@compuserve.com wrote on 12/31/01 12:58 PM:
> >
> > There ain't no limit to the amount of trouble "Love & Theft" brings -- and
> > this gal's got it bad. She needs a shot of railroad gin.
> >
> (chuckling)
> got that right. Just don't try to get me to take that Texas medicine.
Trust me -- it would do you a world of good.
KReilly
I missed this one Lloyd! I was talking about my view of art. As far as other
discourse goes, I try to abide by the presumed rules of discourse. I stop at
red lights, I surmise intent in conversation. Perhaps we do live in the virtual
reality dream of "Open Your Eyes" but being a good Nietzschean, I act "as if."
I don't interpret art solipsistically like I think you implied. I interpret art
from within my historical context and from within my various communities. In
everyday discourse, certain presumptions are so "taken-for-granted" that they
seem natural and common sensical. These same presumptions are not operative for
me when I experience art.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Lloyd Fonvielle writes:
>
> . . . I was talking about my view of art. As far as other
> discourse goes, I try to abide by the presumed rules of discourse. I stop at
> red lights, I surmise intent in conversation. Perhaps we do live in the virtual
> reality dream of "Open Your Eyes" but being a good Nietzschean, I act "as if."
> I don't interpret art solipsistically like I think you implied. I interpret art
> from within my historical context and from within my various communities. In
> everyday discourse, certain presumptions are so "taken-for-granted" that they
> seem natural and common sensical. These same presumptions are not operative for
> me when I experience art.
I just don't follow this. Why is the discourse of art different from all other
discourse? Why don't you feel part of the tradition that has always seen art as
conversation and presumed an identifiable voice and intention in artists? Artists
converse with each other over chasms of time and culture, and this surely is part
of art's vitality. The notion that artists have a voice and identity that can be
engaged seems and has seemed for several thousand years natural and
common-sensical to everyone except modern academics.
Why do you want to experience art in a different way than you experience all
other human intercourse, different from the way artists experience art (Dylan
recently dedicated a song to Charley Patton, for example, and Charley Patton is
dead), different from the way the culture that produces the art experiences art?
It doesn't make sense.
KReilly
Art, as you know, has not always been seen as a conversation. Your claim that
"The notion that artists have a voice and identity that can be engaged seems
and has seemed for several thousand years natural and common-sensical to
everyone except modern academics" is not only a dramatic overstatement but is
richly ironic. The focus on authorial intent that is a result of academics.
Authorial intent is a very modern and elitist obsession that attempted to limit
what it perceived to be the dangerous proliferation of meaningful
interpretations. Does the artist really deposit a particular meaning into a
work of art that we are supposed to unearth? Does an author's intentions really
place constraints upon a work of art's possibilities?
Art is often commentary and criticism, which I would be hesitant to describe as
conversation. Conversation is typically two-way with the goal being
"understanding." The speaker wants you to understand his/her intentions and
vice versa.
When I look at DeKooning or Mondrian I have never wondered what they meant. The
question never even arises. I've never looked at DeKooning and wondered if he
hated women. I've been with people who've made those kinds of statements and
I've always been puzzled at how easily and even eager we sometimes are to
project our feelings and hunches onto the artist. The artist's presence is only
shadowy at best in the work of art itself. Why should I be haunted by the
artist? It seems to me that those who obsess over "intent" are not interested
in the work of art but rather would dismiss the art for a chance to interview
the artist. A close friend of mine is a painter in Chicago. I have a collage he
made hanging in my living room. I just now realized that I've never asked him
what he "meant" by it, not once in 15 years. We've discussed his work many
times.
The "art as conversation" position is really a form of expressionism which
historically has never been able to withstand the attack of formalism in
debate. (The "conservative" critic, John Hospers, wrote an excellent essay
dismantling expressionist assumptions.) Now, I'm no formalist and I'll admit
that there is some truth in expressionism despite it's problematic assumptions.
However, it seems to me to be a problematic place to start. Mondrian's
intentions are ancillary to my appreciate of his art. The myopic focus on
intentions is distracting at best, distorting at worst. There is a profound
truth in Beckett's question, "What does it matter who is speaking?"
Lloyd Fonvielle
KReilly wrote:
It's interesting that you mention only modern abstract artists in defense of your
view. Modern abstract artists have opted out of conversation with the culture at
large, and as a result appeal only to small, mostly academic elites who are
content to consume art only for its formal, intellectual content. This makes
sense, since it has no other content -- or rather, it offers the possibility of a
content which can be comfortably constructed in the mind of the viewer, without
the discipline of engagement and community demanded by conversation.
A notion of artistic meaning which focusses only on authorial intent, giving
the artist the right to define and limit the meaning of his or her work, is indeed
a recent phenomenon and equally sterile. But truly great artists, who are always,
in my mind, truly popular artists, submit to the discipline of conversation.
That's what I love about Dylan -- he doesn't just put his stuff out there and say
take it or leave it . . . though that's an image of Dylan people cling to. He
tries to reach people, as many as possible, in their terms as well as his -- and
the Eighties were a good example of how hard and desperately he will work at
this. "Love & Theft" is an example of the grandeur that can be achieved when such
an approach succeeds -- a great work of art with a Grammy nomination. It reminds
me of theater-owner Shakespeare raking in the bucks at the Globe, churning out the
hit plays one after another.
Beckett's line is not profound -- it misses the point . . . that the speech
is the identity of the speaker, in art as in all other forms of conversation.
Maya Allison
that makes engaging with a work of art meaningful to you? Why bother
looking at/listening to it when you could have a conversation with a
loved one or go into nature and watch the ocean or stars, or wander
the streets of a great city? The urge to make art is easier to
explain away than our urge to experience it, for me.
It strikes me that when a song, painting, sculpture, poem, novel or
film resonates for more than a few people, something is going on that
is deeper than an artist expressing her/himself, and certainly deeper
than a well-constructed, aesthetically intelligent arrangement of the
medium's elements.
When something transcends entertainment and good form, when it holds
our interest longer than tabloid gossip does, then it resonates with
that reason we seek out great art.
Mondrian is a great starting point, or control group (vs. Dylan)
because he's not figurative. There is no clear 'message' but Broadway
Boogie Woogie sings to my eyes. It is a record and a gift of visual
pleasure.
As I understand it, Italian painting before the Renaissance was NOT
identified with the artist at all, there was no artistic intention
whatsoever, and not even a genuine concept of "art" to be
distinguished from craft. The paintings and statues in churches were
meant to create beautiful representations of the bible's teachings,
gifts to God & his faithful, in a sense. They were also functional
for teaching biblical stories to the illiterate. And right when
realistic perspective and naturalistic form first hinted at evolving
(with Giotto), the black plague struck, and suddenly the naturalism
disappeared, not to resurface until after the plague -- the
explanation I've heard for this is that God was thought to be
punishing the people for becoming self-indulgent and pridefully
secular in their arts -- the glory of the artist instead of the glory
of God. It evolved from the Renaissance to Modernism, until finally
we had Picasso through Pollock, the ultimate glorified "godlike"
artists, who's word on the intent of their art was final.
I think there's something crucial in the fearful response Italian
artists had to the plague: it gets at an intuitive understanding of
what art is truly for, and why some of it works so damn well. The
reason Picasso was so great was certainly not because of his
intentions, his smart visual ideas, or his formal skill, but because
his paintings resonate with some part of us that can't be articulated,
a sensation of recognition of something we've known or sensed, that we
long to see reflected outside ourselves. The joy of "a-ha!", the
meditation on great beauty, the recognition of an expression in the
eyes of a person painted centuries ago... when an artist is being true
to their subject (even if, as with Mondrian, it is 'primary colors and
shapes'), something glows true and transforms it from simple
expression into a profound gift.
Simply put, I go to great work when I want to feel, profoundly, that I
am not alone in this world, and that there is hope.
Which is why we SO want to know who is speaking (to answer Beckett's
question), though it may not ultimately matter.
Yep, somehow, Bob Dylan does this for me, of all people. How he does
it is a whole 'nother thread.
kre...@aol.com (KReilly) wrote in message news:<20020105120438...@mb-mt.aol.com>...
tom .
> Simply put, I go to great work when I want to feel, profoundly, that I
> am not alone in this world, and that there is hope.
maya? i hope you know that when this old world starts getting you down and people are just too much
for you to face, you can always come here, to rmd. and we'll be here. and then you will always see
that you are not alone and that there is always hope. so please, when you walk through the storm,
hold your head up high. and don't be afraid of the dark. and please, always remember that at the
end of a storm there's a golden sky. and the sweet silver song of a lark. so walk on, maya, walk
on, with hope in your heart. and you'll never walk alone....you'll never walk alone.
thank you. and good night.
ps: what's all this talk about art? i thought this newsgroup was about bob dylan, an old rock and
roller who sings a little flat and never learned to play the guitar. so come on, let's stop all
this silliness, all this pretentious claptrap. and that goes for you too, bob. as charlie daniel's
song goes - you ain't never gonna be nothing but what you are.
Maya Allison
Thank you Tom. You are kindler and gentler this month.
This is a nice neighborhood.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Simply put, I go to great work when I want to feel, profoundly, that I
> am not alone in this world, and that there is hope.
That's it exactly. And a "text", and my personal interpretation of it, won't do the job. It is
vitally important that Bob Dylan is an individual human being, that the wisdom he transmits in his
work is wisdom earned by someone recognizable as an individual human being. If he can get there, I
can get there. The difference between a "text" and a work of art is that the blood, sweat and
tears of the individual artist are perceptible in the work of art.
yo, adrian
Lloyd Fonvielle <navi...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>The difference between a "text" and a work of
>art is that the blood, sweat and tears of the
>individual artist are perceptible in the work of art.
how about semen? or snot? or smegma?
i once met a girl who made paintings
with her own menstrual blood
Lloyd Fonvielle
How nice for you.
Kenneth Wilson
> It strikes me that when a song, painting, sculpture, poem, novel or
> film resonates for more than a few people, something is going on that
> is deeper than an artist expressing her/himself, and certainly deeper
> than a well-constructed, aesthetically intelligent arrangement of the
> medium's elements.
Both options make me think of the Biblical promise that someday we will know
as we are known. Paul surely means to suggest that whether we realize it or
not, we long for this. And of course we do. An artist's self-expression
helps us, obviously, to know ourselves and each other a little better, a
little fuller. Similarly, I think that a "well-constructed, aesthetically
intelligent arrangement of matter" -- a creation, small c -- helps us more
fully comprehend the Creation we find ourselves a part of. Both deepen our
communion with our fellow creatures and our creator. You went on to say
something similar, I think, much better than I have.
Ken
KReilly
What a thoughful and provocative post. I guess this question is addressed to
me? I'm largely in agreement with what you've written here. You want me to tell
you "what it IS that makes engaging with a work of art meaningful to [me]"? I
can tell you this, I can think of very few examples in my life where what I
understood to be authorial intent was what spoke to me. In fact, sometimes
reading a novel against the author's perceived intentions is very rewarding.
KReilly
>The difference between a "text" and a work of art is that the blood, sweat
>and
>tears of the individual artist are perceptible in the work of art.
>
AND, as you previously noted, this distinction is a "fiction" an imaginative
construal. More often than not, our perceptions of the author are little more
than projections.
Maya Allison
That's similar to what I'm getting at. A Buddhist friend of mine once
said that when you fall in love with someone, you are seeing the
"Buddha nature" in them (or God), and the part of you that intuitively
knows it awakes in recognition, and you are drawn to it, as expressed
in that person.
I believe this happens with art too, which is why there is a danger of
mistaking the artist for a god-like figure (and eventually becoming
obsessed with what he eats for breakfast), but also why the sense of
not being "alone" is so profound --i.e. spiritually nourishing. And
this is also why it doesn't ultimately matter to me "who" is speaking,
just so long as it is spoken.
The catch is that Dylan's music isn't distinct and seperate from his
life -- same as anyone's art, if it's any good. Part of what knocks
my socks off about him is that he's got some really rough stuff in his
conscience, but in spite of, or because of, the mines he's been
working, he's able to get up on that stage and let the light shine,
and somehow there is humility in that.
Maya Allison
> Maya Allison wrote:
>
> > Simply put, I go to great work when I want to feel, profoundly, that I
> > am not alone in this world, and that there is hope.
>
> That's it exactly. And a "text", and my personal interpretation of it, won't do the job.
Definitely not. I agree. My personal counter-interpretation of
magazine cover blurbs can be extremely entertaining, and can even
yield funny/strange/profound revelations, but to me that's ME
generating an "artistic experience" (sorry to sound so pretentious),
not the magazine blurb writer. A community of people building a
language of alternate, meaningful readings is artistically valuable in
a different way, and I suspect that this is where the small elite
world of art academics find their reward in the "unpopular" arts, kind
of like long running in-jokes among them and their artists. Kind of
like rmd-ers.
> It is vitally important that Bob Dylan is an individual human being, that the wisdom he transmits in his
> work is wisdom earned by someone recognizable as an individual human being. If he can get there, I
> can get there. The difference between a "text" and a work of art is that the blood, sweat and
> tears of the individual artist are perceptible in the work of art.
Hmm. What do you mean by perceptible? This could be taken a number
of ways, and does it apply to abstract art? What about music with no
lyrics? Dances with no narrative?
I could make a case for 'perceptible' traces of the artist's life in
abstract and non-figurative art/music, but I'm curious what your case
for 'perceptible' in these cases would be.
I certainly don't think it is only his blood sweat and tears that
makes Dylan so great. It's also his life and joy and tender
mischeviousness with it all. And if he can get there, I can get
there.
Lloyd Fonvielle
I think it was T. S. Eliot who said there was only one act of creation -- all
the rest is just invention and discovery.
Lloyd Fonvielle
KReilly wrote:
As are the "fictional" personae we construct for ourselves and our significant
others. It seems to me that you want to rob art of its ability to talk back and
challenge the fiction we construct for it . . . which is as bad an idea in art
as it is in everyday interaction . . .
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Lloyd Fonvielle <navi...@compuserve.com> wrote in message news:<3C3802DD...@compuserve.com>...
> > It is vitally important that Bob Dylan is an individual human being, that the wisdom he transmits in his
> > work is wisdom earned by someone recognizable as an individual human being. If he can get there, I
> > can get there. The difference between a "text" and a work of art is that the blood, sweat and
> > tears of the individual artist are perceptible in the work of art.
>
> Hmm. What do you mean by perceptible? This could be taken a number
> of ways, and does it apply to abstract art? What about music with no
> lyrics? Dances with no narrative?
To me, abstract art is a contradiction in terms, as is non-narrative dance. (Balanchine was once accused of
making non-story ballets. "What do you mean?" he cried. "There's a man, there's a woman, they get together,
they drift apart, they get back together. How much story do you want?" I cannot imagine "music" in which
blood, sweat and tears are not perceptible.
> I could make a case for 'perceptible' traces of the artist's life in
> abstract and non-figurative art/music, but I'm curious what your case
> for 'perceptible' in these cases would be.
Couldn't make one. All such traces would be mundane or programmatic, or would have to be invented by clever
academic critics.
> I certainly don't think it is only his blood sweat and tears that
> makes Dylan so great. It's also his life and joy and tender
> mischeviousness with it all.
And, sometimes, it's got a good beat -- you can dance to it.
> And if he can get there, I can get
> there.
Let's dance.
Maya Allison
> >I wonder if it would be helpful in this exchange, to ask what it IS
> >that makes engaging with a work of art meaningful to you? Why bother
> >looking at/listening to it when you could have a conversation with a
> >loved one or go into nature and watch the ocean or stars, or wander
> >the streets of a great city? The urge to make art is easier to
> >explain away than our urge to experience it, for me.
> What a thoughful and provocative post. I guess this question is addressed to
> me? I'm largely in agreement with what you've written here. You want me to tell
> you "what it IS that makes engaging with a work of art meaningful to [me]"? I
> can tell you this, I can think of very few examples in my life where what I
> understood to be authorial intent was what spoke to me. In fact, sometimes
> reading a novel against the author's perceived intentions is very rewarding.
(Sweeping bow) thank you. Actually I was addressing it to both you
and Lloyd, since I think I'm between your positions on this issue.
The question I'd ask then, is: what does "rewarding" mean to you?
And to get really post-modern on ya, is its status for you as 'art'
independent of whether its maker considers himself an artist? If
Dylan is laughing at all of us for calling him a great artist, then
are we reading his work against his perceived intentions as an
entertainer?
And what do you really mean by authorial intent?
It may be that the reason you go to art is for something very
different from what brings me to it, which is what is so interesting
about this whole debate.
Man, this is getting way too high-falutin'! But I'm intrigued.
Kenneth Wilson
> To me, abstract art is a contradiction in terms, as is non-narrative
dance. (Balanchine was once accused of
> making non-story ballets. "What do you mean?" he cried. "There's a man,
there's a woman, they get together,
> they drift apart, they get back together. How much story do you want?" I
cannot imagine "music" in which
> blood, sweat and tears are not perceptible.
I've always loved that quote, but as I remember it Balanchine wasn't
responding to a charge but correcting a common definition of his work. In
other words, he implied no criticism of abstract art, but simply noted the
inescapable narrative resonances -- even more striking in the even more
abstract work of Merce Cunningham -- in art built on living, ensouled human
bodies. I agree with you about music -- some minimalism perhaps excepted! --
but then the interesting thing is that, technically, instrumental music too
is abstract art. I was recently thrilled by a gallery show of very late,
seemingly entirely abstract, DeKoonings. Did he have Alzheimer's when he did
them? Who knows? But they're immediately recognizable as DeKoonings. No one
else chooses to paint that way, and in that sense they seemed very personal.
And they moved me.
Ken
Maya Allison
> Maya Allison wrote:
>
> > Lloyd Fonvielle <navi...@compuserve.com> wrote in message news:<3C3802DD...@compuserve.com>...
>
> > > It is vitally important that Bob Dylan is an individual human being, that the wisdom he transmits in his
> > > work is wisdom earned by someone recognizable as an individual human being. If he can get there, I
> > > can get there. The difference between a "text" and a work of art is that the blood, sweat and
> > > tears of the individual artist are perceptible in the work of art.
> >
> > Hmm. What do you mean by perceptible? This could be taken a number
> > of ways, and does it apply to abstract art? What about music with no
> > lyrics? Dances with no narrative?
>
> To me, abstract art is a contradiction in terms, as is non-narrative dance. (Balanchine was once accused of
> making non-story ballets. "What do you mean?" he cried. "There's a man, there's a woman, they get together,
> they drift apart, they get back together. How much story do you want?" I cannot imagine "music" in which
> blood, sweat and tears are not perceptible.
Fair enough.
> > I could make a case for 'perceptible' traces of the artist's life in
> > abstract and non-figurative art/music, but I'm curious what your case
> > for 'perceptible' in these cases would be.
>
> Couldn't make one. All such traces would be mundane or programmatic, or would have to be invented by clever
> academic critics.
Seems to me you already made a great case for them by pointing out (as
I would have) that there is no such thing as non-narrative. Even an
empty room is a narrative of sensations and associations, and a
history of a builder.
> > I certainly don't think it is only his blood sweat and tears that
> > makes Dylan so great. It's also his life and joy and tender
> > mischeviousness with it all.
>
> And, sometimes, it's got a good beat -- you can dance to it.
And howl along with it at the top of your lungs.
> > And if he can get there, I can get
> > there.
>
> Let's dance.
You're on.
Look at all those little ">" signs retreating and advancing up there.
We've been doing the double shuffle all along.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Lloyd Fonvielle <navi...@compuserve.com> wrote in message news:<3C38C9A7...@compuserve.com>...
> > Maya Allison wrote:
> > > I could make a case for 'perceptible' traces of the artist's life in
> > > abstract and non-figurative art/music, but I'm curious what your case
> > > for 'perceptible' in these cases would be.
> >
> > Couldn't make one. All such traces would be mundane or programmatic, or would have to be invented by clever
> > academic critics.
>
> Seems to me you already made a great case for them by pointing out (as
> I would have) that there is no such thing as non-narrative. Even an
> empty room is a narrative of sensations and associations, and a
> history of a builder.
Well, you could argue that nothing has meaning, nothing has real existence, except in so far as we read a story
into it. And if you want to argue that a Pollack has a narrative in the sense that an empty room has a narrative,
I'd agree. But a work of art is different from an empty room -- it's a story, in a sense, about the stories we
tell, about the process of telling stories . . . and I think it's academic absurdity to argue further that an
artist's refusal to tell a story is a comment on storytelling, and therefore a work of art. That's true in only
the crudest way. That kind of refusal is only a gesture, one-dimensional, instantly exhausted of meaning, whereas
a good story has inexhaustible meaning.
It's a question of words and categories which are useful in organizing experience and ones which aren't.
Recognizing a connection between the work of Dylan and Watteau and Fred Astaire is useful on many different levels
-- trying to concoct an intellectual connection between Pollack's work and Dylan's work is useful only as a kind
of academic game. It's only possible use is to diminish the resonance of Dylan's work, to turn it into the same
kind of one-dimensional gesture made by abstract artists.
(I can appreciate 20th-Century abstract art in the sense that I can appreciate fine textile design -- it can
be wonderful. But it's not the same kind of work Carpaccio did -- even when he was decorating walls. It's just a
different category of endeavor.)
> Look at all those little ">" signs retreating and advancing up there.
> We've been doing the double shuffle all along.
Why do you think I've been throwing sand on the floor?
Shirley Mirowitz
you all!
Maya Allison <ml...@columbia.edu> wrote in message
news:932ccf44.02010...@posting.google.com...
<snip>
> The question I'd ask then, is: what does "rewarding" mean to you?
>
> And to get really post-modern on ya, is its status for you as 'art'
> independent of whether its maker considers himself an artist? If
> Dylan is laughing at all of us for calling him a great artist, then
> are we reading his work against his perceived intentions as an
> entertainer?
>
> And what do you really mean by authorial intent?
>
> It may be that the reason you go to art is for something very
> different from what brings me to it, which is what is so interesting
> about this whole debate.
>
> Man, this is getting way too high-falutin'! But I'm intrigued.
I go to great art because I have no choice. If great art is anything, it is
compelling, as truth always is. It may howl the truth at us or it may
seduce us or entangle us, but once we experience it, once it has engaged our
perceptions, reached into our souls and grasped the center of our beings, we
do know. We do know the truth of the art, and more: we realize that it has
changed us; we are not the same as we were before we knew it. And so we
must return to that art again and again, and teach it to our children, and
our children's children, because that vision of truth -- that communion, an
experience far beyond "texts" and linear "communication" -- calls to us and
we can not help but seek it; we must re-encounter it and re-unite with it in
order to continue to be ourselves. In that way, great art transforms the
essence of what it means to be human.
Joyce called artists "priests of the imagination". He was absolutely
correct. There is a numinous quality to encounters with great art, an
ineffable sense that something holy is being revealed. The revelation is
not identical for every encounter, much less for every apprehender, but we
all share the sacred feeling of its importance and the knowledge that
somehow what is being revealed is also bound up with our very selves,
altering us irrevocably in the epiphany of the first encounter, restoring
that epiphany to us in later encounters.
For that reason, at least for me, great art is the greatest evidence of an
absolute reality that can unify all human consciousness. That Dylan can
help me to gain a glimpse of this reality is the greatest evidence that he
is truly a great artist.
H.
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Stephen Pickett
alright part of the time?
"Lloyd Fonvielle" <navi...@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:3C38C1C4...@compuserve.com...
KReilly
>> AND, as you previously noted, this distinction is a "fiction" an
>imaginative
>> construal. More often than not, our perceptions of the author are little
>more
>> than projections.
>
>As are the "fictional" personae we construct for ourselves and our
>significant
>others. It seems to me that you want to rob art of its ability to talk back
>and
>challenge the fiction we construct for it . . . which is as bad an idea in
>art
>as it is in everyday interaction . . .
I think our point of contention may be a matter of degree. Pragmatically
speaking, if I perceive my friend's comments as meaning I'm to put four sugars
in his/her espresso, I'm going to find out very quickly that she/he wanted no
sugars. On the other hand, if I think Dylan is a misogynist because of a few
lines in "Sugar Baby," not only is he not going to be telling me that I'm
misreading him but I'll more than likely find others who share my
reading/misreading.
I'm getting myself into trouble already because I'm uncomfortable with the word
"misreading." If the Fonvielles think that "Sugar Baby" is a secretly coded
recipe for potato salad, I might think they're all nuts but that might not stop
them from enjoying their "Sugar Baby Potato Salad" every Thanksgiving. My point
is that if you situate a work of art within interpretive communities then
interpretation is not solipsistic and the author, if she exists at all, is
reduced to an echo or an afterthought. However, the work of art, as understood
by each particular community, still retains a degree of autonomy. This is
precisely the cause of the conflict here on RMD everytime a Christian claims
some phrase on TOOM or L&T actually refers to Jesus. Well, among communities of
Christian readers it might. It might even for Dylan but does that mean that
those of us who read it differently are wrong? Even if the author's intentions
are not the goal of our interpretive efforts?