"No Direction Home..." B. Dylan

I'm on to another book about Bob Dylan, this one by Greil Marcus, about Dylan's strange and extraordinary song, "Like a Rolling Stone." Of course, it's about more than that, Marcus examines Dylan in the pop cultural stream of America. It's kind of a musical history of this big, confounding land.

As I'm reading the book it occurs to me that I have "absorbed," Dylan, the myth, the man, to such an extent, I am so deeply saturated with his story, his songs, my life has been so wrapped up and enriched by his journey, his example, my own working methods, my view of my own work, my music, my plays have been steeped in Dylanology.

Also, this never-ending quest to be always onto the next thing, to not succumb to other's definitions, to resist being placed in a "box," to refuse simple explanations, to try to let the work speak for itself, to not be "pinned down," to always challenge and confound an audience, is deeply embedded in my own being.

I don't know the man. He is a mystery, a treasure, a quirky, flawed human being, who has an uncanny ability to absorb the world, and to put words and music together in a jagged, ragged, configuration. He opens doors and windows, in a world that needs the "openess, the space, the light..."