CSotD: Age is just a three-letter word
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Cartoonist Jeff Danziger (68) with a salute to Bob Dylan which I assume editors got in time to run yesterday though it only went on-line this morning.
A college friend noted the landmark on Facebook and I remarked that, the funny thing is, it doesn't seem that old to me anymore. And another from that cohort — and in fact who plays in a band with the original poster — asked, "How many music 'celebs' of today will people still be listening to when they're 70?"
Which raises the question, how many people are actually listening to Dylan himself these days, compared to people who are listening to people cover Dylan, or to people writing songs that wouldn't have been written without Dylan?
Now, granted there is that group who can't get past the fact that the guy doesn't sing like Caruso. But most of them are so unhip that, when you mention "Caruso," they think you're talking about David Caruso, whoever he is. The kids ain't got no culture.
But there's also that group of bright, thoughtful but still unformed kids who stumble over Dylan the same way college sophomores stumble over Rousseau and at the same age, and are blown away by the sorts of expansive concepts that bright, thoughtful kids ought to be blown away by.
And they need to hear the songs from the master, in order to get it, because that's where it started, that's the first-generation original source, even though it's encouraging when they branch out and also argue whether the best cover of "Tangled Up In Blue" is by The Indigo Girls or KT Tunstall. Or why the best covers of a first-person narrative by a male character are by women, which is part of the thing.
And the thing is, it's not all about the music and it's also not all about Bob Dylan, either. If anyone embodies Whitman's containing of multitudes, it's Dylan, who isn't so much a chameleon as simply one of those figures who is whoever you think you see, and then some other things, too, that you're gonna see some other time, if you take another look.
I remember being disillusioned by Pennebaker's documentary, Dont Look Back, because he came across in it as such an arrogant prick. But then I realized he didn't care what I thought about him, and I liked him more for that.
Dylan doesn't have to still be around to be influential, and most of what he's going to do to change the world has probably already happened, but it's nice that he is still on this side of the turf and that he still tours and people can still go see him if they'd like.
As for Danziger's cartoon, it's good we're still around, too, but the scene is pretty much imaginary. Fact is, it's been a long time since we've all sat around the table like that.
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