...

thank god that bob dylan made 40 some albums including the bootlegs. and have been very generous in number of tracks per each album. let's face it: without a decent playlist that can move on on its own a thesis can not be written.

it's not aimed at anyone it's just escaping on the run

the unhuman amount of coffee, dylan's philharmonic hall 'halloween' concert (where he is unusually chatty if you must know) and a pile of old dusty yellowy books that constantly make my fingers itchy. thesis, thesis and thesis...

this land is my land

turns out what matters is not those you've set on the road with, but those you stand by at the end. had a sweet day today, a little dramatic with a lotta "final"s thrown around--but it was good--a final second esp. standing at the rooftop thinking "man this is the end"

thought i'd drop that down before moving on the some unpleasant studying.

Who I am, Who Bob Dylan is, and Who Bob Dylan is to me

The first time I met Dylan was when a friend of mine
liked a boy she thought similar to dylan.

the second time I met dylan was when I watched a movie about him in which a woman was
giving out an amazing performance. I was
far left behind what intellectually the movie
went for.
but I look back now to think it was
rather ironic that I met dylan the second time in a woman’s
portrayal. that’s what I’ve done all my life (if you count me a woman and what I do a portrayal).
I heard I want you and liked it immensely. I went ahead and bought several records.

yet when I truly met dylan for the very first time that is the dylan of mine was on a warm afternoon in a crowded bus waking up from a daze to find out that my!
those lyrics to just like a woman
could redefine life. as it is. as it was.
we met each other there. the bridge laid forth the city
underneath. and I met dylan on water where one walks
leaving no footprints behind
also ironic (if you call dylan one and what he does footprints).

then began a ambitious archiving project and long hours of
contemplation on his words. Have
I tried to understand? you bet. Who hasn’t?
so our relationship grew.
mostly on highways for I spend a lot of hours on highways. then
i fell in love a bunch of times and out of it and found dylan to be comforting. I made several mistakes
broke up with many friends
and witnessed multiple family catastrophes.
so dylan I went to to take a piece of mind but he never gives you that, but we managed to come to such terms:
either I was to screw up, cry
or intentionally plan to screw up, then cry
and he was to take me to somewhere where
people looked small. and ideas mattered little.
we smoke quietly on riverbeds
me and him in his young days
and the old him was hiding out in cool shades
looking at me like sayin’ “kid”
nothing else though. just kid.
the immense comfort of having a man to be a kid by.
I would say “life means little don’t it
bobby? I know I feel I see? don’t I know?”

he never answered. he always frowned. the young him
especially. never smiled.

the closest he got to revealing me what life meant and all
was on a dolmus ride back home past midnight. drunk I was
and battered (I am mostly drunk, and even more often battered anyhow) over that water where we first met in the truest terms
he then threw aimlessly a handful of gold coins
over my head. and had a habit of doing so afterwards everytime.
because I had learnt the gateway opens for drunks
and I began taking it.

then there was a night warm and summer-like
we came across each other for the first time in person
flesh and bone, I mean.

I walked around at 8 the next morning and in my long dress and overnight
weariness and stench of tobacco
I walked down the streets
smiling
perhaps bright as the morning star
saying to every lost soul I came across
“look look I meant to be what I meant to be”
walking down the hillside with lousy Istanbul on my right
“look look city of mine
I will be who I will be
for people fall through only the cracks they fit to fall through.”
Istanbul said “you’re still a bit high,
but enthusiastic, I’ll give you that,
if nothing else.”

oh and I had once a dream about him
where he stood mid stage as me and my friend discussed
whether it was him. he looked different. an old man
of any kind. but he looked up with his piercing (I happen to think that specific adjective works for only bobby’s eyes) eyes
and I knew it was him. but he was angry with me.
still don’t know why.
I should have asked, perhaps
but he scares me a little.

I made memories for each of his worlds. and discovered songs. even the ones I discovered I went back and discovered again. simple twist of fate for example, refelt that on my way home one spring afternoon.
just when the weather got warm.

we sat knees up to our chests
i wanted to be a kid


“kid”

I sparked

I was the kid
who never quite broke through
but hung midair dangling
acknowledging things will not change
but depending on them to do so.

at the age of 21 (which resounds of resentment, if you must know)

cursed with knowing just where
everyone ached. constantly.

dylan was vast. at best endless.
had enough juice to handle enough tragedy
and shelter one from the worst
by not caring. small matters. who cares.
I would drain my awareness into his harmonica
and would feel refreshed.


I knew he wouldn’t hurt anyhow

often I would dig my hands in my pockets and look up
into the foggy clouds and smile
no reason. just smile. at my own doorstep
thinking I looked very artsy. and poetic.
with books pressed against my chest.
and that dylan in my ear.


first storyline I managed to hold on for long
enough to really put down had a boy in it
who began as a bystander to the story
then became the lead.
a boy who played the guitar and had curly hair
and when I realized there really was no boy
but a vague imitation of dylan
I made him break up all relations
and marry a girl named Sara.
and he moved away. haven’t seen him since, though
I hear sometimes, at night
he made it big time.
like real big.


I also wanted to play the guitar.
dying to be a part of the process

needless to say, that didn’t happen.

but turns out
no guitar does not necessarily mean
no bob. instead it only means more of
kid
just kid though
nuthin else.


we’re separate processes it turns out and don’t know what you would say
but I think bob is ok with mine.
he kids me from time to time but that’s all.
he’s surprisingly tender.
never growls. never raises his voice.


they say now that you’re 70.
going fast down the lane, you know.

but I will chase you life after life
a tree a snail a banker perhaps finally
a king you’ll become
and I shall shift faces too

and then one day after endless endings
we will sit by one another
and I shall stretch forth a hand
to say

“dear soul
this part within
that once was a part of a child
whose soul too once a part of a whore
whose soul once a part of a cypress tree
whose soul once a part of an angel
whose soul once a part of a robin
whose soul eventually a part of the souls of a million other things

whose souls also parts of even more

and now multiplied a thousand times and a thousand times more
I have come and found you. but I always remembered
and always knew”

whatever you say back I shall hear:

“kid”

and nothing else.

happy birthday, bob.

...

thank you boys, thank you.

left him as epilogues

we're gonna be ok, ezra, we're gonna be just fine.

i wish i had a river i could skate away on

entire joni discography, 10 page paper on democratic peace theory and a couple of inbetweeners later it dawned on me: i need to get high. no kiddin' really need to wind down a bit with all these academic crap pilin' at my doorstep.

...

tore out about 20 pages of old writings of mine--tore them, folded in two and pushed them down the bin.
i need a voice.
i need a voice.
then spray painted guidelines in my head and pretended i fully knew who ezra was.

old friends

i am at peace quite strangely due to a few conditins i would say:

for starters i have a bunch of new albums coming my way--the whole of joni's studio miracles-- and a bunch of news ones that i've already listened to that i've been dying to hear-- bookends for example and pet sounds

also i have noticed that whatever attachment i had to the last remaining crowd of my soical life i had severed it. i'm missing a huge get together and truly i feel no remorse. not in a bad way, no, not in a suck-it way. i love a few individuals in there (and a few i loved back in the day) but the long tables and wine-driven conversation no longer bring us together but perhaps take us further apar--or take me, take me further apart. it is now beyond shifting dynamics, i would say. what we have felt for one another has been dealt with, and concluded. i wish there was a way of portraying how calmly i have noticed such, how at peace, but i guess 'sincerity' has been lost and never found, and there's nothing more normal than people questioning what i say just like i question theirs. it's just-- we share nothing anymore.

i am not built for friendships though. i really am not. can't fit them in. i think i may even further say that friendships and friends don't exist. there are lovers and then people you like seeing, you grow accustomed to, and people you would prefer not get hurt. i was on the bus yesterday overhearing this young woman fighting the hell out of her friend over the phone--who was right who was wrong who had been a bitch and so on--again who was sincere and who wasn't--and i wanted to tap on her shoulder and say, 'sugar, nobody cares anyhow but you, you yourself, you care the less" i didn't though. she seemed upset enough.

i have a ten page paper to get on with (not to mention my thesis) but i like the subject on that one so that's not too bad.

i just had an ice cream cake which i also again like dearly.

so i think at this point i'm ok. then again you may question why i tell you any of this but i tell you everything anyhow. i do really like to hear myself talk.

there was a great dylan song about all this. there is always a great dylan song about everything.

polite essays

"He would cajole, and almost coerce other men into writing well: so that often he presents the appearance of a man trying to convey to a very deaf person that the house is on fire."
T.S.E

the most wonderful thing about going through all this hastily is that i come across things that make me go nuts with pleasure--though mostly they are completely unrelated to what i should be looking for--but they complete the picture one way or the other. like that bit above. if you're read any pound you know exactly what eliot means. i mean you really really do.

but there are all sorts of gems--i saw one photo of ezra in a costume for a play or whatever, his bit of the annuals of his school, a photo full of kids and in the middle sits a blonde little boy with glasses--i don't know, all kinda strange things that you wouldn't think pound in his defiance and "literary frightfullness" would ever reveal.

i have a pile of books on my desk--on my right--the bright reds and blues--no letters or anything on covers just plain colors on hardcover. i love their look unorganized and untamed. and the thick sticky dusty feel at my fingertips.

let me remember things i love

let's see how all this comes down for i lack any entuhiasm to write these days. but i really don't wanna miss some of the stuff i saw/heard/tasted over the last few days and jack white thinks sometimes all you gotta do is to down to the studio to get a move on with your creativity. and who am i to challenge jack white?

a quick recap. my shakespeare ticket is paid for and done so 24th of june someone will be very happy in london. plus it's going to be my last night so i think it's a wonderful way to end the london week. been up to my neck in visa application--all very unpleasant, but helps you to see everything a bit more realistically (though i'm not sure if that ever helps anyone to accomplish anything). school's been--well, school-like. i have way too much more to do than i can ever put down in words but i don't see how complaining helps. i'm gonna lock myself down though, in the house, for the next 15 days or so, and won't be doing anything but getting my act together for ezra. still am waiting on the blakean vision though. would really appreciate it.

oh the big event of the past week: went to see the band that i was completely in love with back in my high school year. i still do love them and trace back whatever musical taste i have to their tunes. if one was to ask me when i first followed an artist--completely--you know, albums, shows, live tracks etc--it was them. my zeppelin and my doors and even my dylan have their roots in their poetic approach and true rock-n roll lives. plus i put a lotta gloomy teenage love into their words. when i was away they were the only music i took with me to the far away lands that reminded me of roots i once and always had and yet never fully came to terms with. so they meant a lot to me then and i do have to say on different levels they still mean a lot. it was wonderful to go back and revisit some of that, to see some hasn't changed a bit and some had evolved enormously. plus i went there with my high school buddy and ran into yet another high school friend of mine.

then we swung there left and right to some tunes we hadn't heard of before and some we had built memories around. then we moved on to the wonderful view and had a few drinks and all. then went home with a good friend who had generously offered me her couch for the night. some places are just different you know--i think subconsciously i thought that house reminded me of some other house i had been in for i felt not at all foreign but on the contrary almost perfectly at home. she made me a wondeful breakfast in the morning in a way that only people who are further away from the tastes of their childhood days can.

had a run the visa application center today. i walked for so long and got lost several time (still incredibly grateful to that man who knew where my street was and most wonderfully described it to me). i realized today again that time and I--we keep racing each other and trying to conquer one another and my whole life is a battle against time

then went back to school quick to load up my ezra's. running on less than 2 weeks now and i'm still completely blank as far as writing my thesis goes. got myself two more albums of joni, mama just made tea, and we'll see how this all goes..

...but I'd still like to see you sometime

Pack your suspenders
I'll come meet your plane
No need to surrender
I just want to see you again

enjoy the silence

don't think there's a specific reason why i'm keeping my quiet these days: none but constant haze, shitload of stuff to do and the frustrated unspringlike weather. i am drained even now but have a paper i have to get out of the way. if may don't kill me then i don't know what may (haha)

what's the matter here?

let's get the spring up and running shall we?

i went walking down by the river

think i just saw a mindless cat nibbling at the grass. or perhaps a revolutionary in its own world.

been hiding out in the library with my tunes on and trying get my union whatever videos in order for a presentation that i at least to a certain extend enjoy--i will refer to the lovely van ronk and seeger and others, as well. and bobby, obviously.

i wish i could blame the weather but you know how the song goes have faith in all kinds of weather and i do, at times. today is a bit weary but most certainly better than yesterday. now that i am staring down the faceless crowd of supposed intellectuals i feel like i should be putting down gigantic stuff--stories and poems that would knock people off. but truth be told i've been thinking a lot over the last few weeks of the extend of my talent. was talking to a friend today about how he was done with everything and the month of may was absolutely free for him, and I stared quite bitterly, since a death month starts for me from now on. but you know all that, it passes.

anyways, as you see, wanting the write is not necessarily a upbringer of lovely works. may as well cut this one here and know and leave of you of with this little baby song, which if you ask me is good enough reason to like the chimney ash grey sky.

see how they shine

like a bridge over troubled water
i will lay me down

the earth shatters and the child looks absent mindedly at the ground caving in under her feet. we all face challenges stubbornly at times yielding at others. i have fought on several fronts. some i have lost bleeding, some i won. i picked my pieces up afterwards, occasionally. more than not i stumbled, but kept walking.

yet the child must grow.

as a single tear drop finds its way down your cheek lying forsaken thinking of an old song sighing your last breath

may 3rd

happy birthday, dear pete seeger, wonderful man.

give the anarchist a cigarette

come out come out wherever you are zimmerman. i kinda need you tonight.

...

2 blocks tumbling down in a day. i tend to see myself justified in these things, but so does everyone else. it's just that all of it is so unnecessary.

May 1st

"They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn
But without our brain and muscle, not a single wheel can turn
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union* makes us strong"

Ralph Chaplin


here's a few tunes you may like to listen today of all days:

the wonderful guthrie:


just as wonderful dylan:


on a different note:



happy may 1st, everyone.


*i choose to take 'union' there on a greater notion--a union of human love and compassion--as well as the union on a standard basis. though the lenin way of seeing this whole union thing is quite logical to me, that has nothing to do with the issue of the workingman, with the unity of humanity.

ps: most certainly this post itself does very little, but people my age are quite reluctant to get out on the street on this very day. that is clearly no excuse. but next year--i'm really hoping i can turn around a few heads by then.