[Buddha-l] On Dylan and Poetry (was "Greetings from Oviedo")

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Thu, 2005-09-29 at 03:13 -0700, Franz Metcalf wrote:

> When, during the first Gulf War, and Dylan played live at the Oscars or 
> Emmys (or some show in front of tens of millions of Americans), and he 
> sang "Masters of War," was he out of touch with conditions, or was it 
> the first President Bush?

"Masters of War" was one of his earliest songs. Yes, Dylan was in touch
in 1963. And if he sang the same song again during the first illegal
invasion of Iraq, that shows that what he was saying in the 1960s was
durable and still valid in the early 1990s (and early 2000s).

> Perhaps, Richard, you missed "Neighborhood Bully."

Yes, I've never heard of that one. I read somewhere that Dylan has
written several thousand songs.

> Hey, I don't like "Blonde on Blonde," either

At the time it came out, it was probably my favorite album. I played it
so many times the vinyl grooves turned white. (I could afford albums,
but I couldn't afford good phonograph needles.) But a lot of time has
passed since then, and I find nothing appealing about that album now. As
my former roommate said (to whom I referred in a recent message), "his
work doesn't move me." What he was referring to was Dylan's work after
he stopped being a Hebrew prophet.

> Have we not all published a clunker, at least once? 

Unlike most academics, I have never produced anything that was not a
clunker. 

> Did you give up on the poor fellow after one bad album? 

No, I gave him up after a string of really awful albums, such as
"Nashville Skyline", "Blood on the Tracks" and the a series of banal
Christian junk.

> Richard's logocentric rhetorical questions suggest that Auden is right 
> that executives of logic would not and perhaps should not want to 
> tamper with poetry.

True enough. I have never liked poetry much. I must admit I haven't read
any since 1966, when I escaped from the hell of being an English major.

> A person who seriously asks of poetry, "why waste 
> the time trying to make sense" of it, makes a kind of category error, 
> treating poetry as argument.

You are now begging the question. My point is, why waste time with
anything that is not an argument? Why waste time with anything that does
not help to improve one's character? Why let one's mind be filled with
noise and nonsense, as if they do no damage to the quality of one's
soul? You have given me no answer as of yet.

>  But I belabor the obvious. We all know all this, Richard included. We 
> agree that Dylan was a smart social observer; some of us think he 
> continues to be. But to listen to Dylan to keep up on the cutting edge 
> of political critique is a misuse of our valuable time. It always was.

In times like these, not to keep on the cutting edge of political
critique is a waste of time. We can't afford to be playing our fiddles
as Rome burns. (I know, I know, that is a poetic image, not a historical
fact.)

> Listen to Dylan because he moves you musically, or don't listen at all.

Thanks for the advice. I've been following it for years. Now explain to
us why any Buddhist would listen to music for the purpose of being moved
by it. This seems exactly the opposite of the advice to guard the doors
of the senses (one of which is, the last I heard, the ear).

-- 
Richard Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu> 
*** 
"Everybody's crying `Peace on earth--
just as soon as we win this war.'" -- Mose Allison