Theophobia

[IanEye]

Can we rename this thread 'Bobophilia'?

Strange how people who suffer together have stronger connections than people who are most content

I don’t have any regrets, they can talk about me plenty when I’m gone


You always said people don’t do what they believe in, they just do what’s most convenient, then they repent

And I always said, “Hang on to me, baby, and let’s hope that the roof stays on”

[vanlose kid]

THERE WAS DUST ON THE MAN IN THE LONG BLACK COAT:
DYLAN AND HEROIN

"Howdya like to do some dugi" Dylan version of Guthrie's Car Car 19--61

Bobby Dylan has had a long-term substance abuse problem dating back to 1961. In Chronicles 2004 Dylan wrote that Ray Gooch the man whose apartment (crib) Dylan was a guest at (crashed at) for the most extended period of time when he first came to New York City was “an opium smoker…burning little kilos of bricks until they became like gum.” A kilo is 2.2 pounds and Dylan wrote that Ray was heavily armed so he was obviously a middle-echelon dealer. Dylan did not write that he sampled Ray’s product, although I believe that he did and became an opium smoker and a “joy popper” at a very early age and an addict by 1966. These lines in Tarantula may refer to Gooch, who worked in Brooklyn, and was a “non-integrationist” - a euphemism Dylan invented for segregationist: “Barbara Allen - she smuggles Moroccan cinders (a rectangular hollow building block similar to a brick) into Brooklyn twice a month & she wears a sheet - (in For Dave Glover Dylan wrote, “It’s the time a the white collar shirt an the white sheeted hood”) she takes many penicillin shots.” It is also my opinion Dylan first looked to Judaism to help him overcome this medical problem and when it failed, he turned to Christianity. When Christianity failed, or he failed it, I believe Dylan went back to his addiction.

ain't no secret a man has to make some kind of money somehow, but some men think somehow means just about anyhow as long as it's money they're making.

*

[vanlose kid]

Can we rename this thread 'Bobophilia'?


I'm beginning to hear voices and there's no one around.

Well, I'm all used up and the fields have turned brown.

I went to church on Sunday and she passed by.

My love for her is taking such a long time to die.

+1

*

[justdrew]

In that video Dylan says (bolded), in answer to the question

"Why do you still do it, why are you still out here?"
"It goes back to that destiny thing. You know I made a de.., bargain with the ... you know. Long time ago, and I'm holding up my end."
"What was your bargain?"
"To get where I am, am now."
Dylan looks thoughtful and serious, perhaps a little sad.
"Should I ask who you made the bargain with?"
Dylan laughs.
"With.. with.. with.." laughs "With you know, the Chief, er, the Chief Commander."
"What, on this earth?"
Interviewer smiles, perhaps assuming Dylan means God.
"On this earth, and in the er, the world we can't see."

He might mean God, or the Devil. But when he says the bargain was to get where he is now, that implies his success, his wealth, his celebrity and so on. Worldly things, things of this world. Does one normally make a bargain with God to acquire fame, success, wealth? I think not.

I'm not sure he means the Devil either, of course, at least not in any half way literal sense. You can clearly hear him start to say the word "Devil;" he gets as far as "De.." quite clearly, slurred though his speech is. Perhaps he means, by chief commander, the commander in chief, the President of the United States. Perhaps his protest songs were carefully scripted for stage managing US military psyops on the young. Laurel Canyon, of course.

Nice pick, Tazmic.

so he was about to make a metaphor and realized his words would be mistaken, and changed them. as for "where I am" isn't it more likely he meant his level of artist achievement? Such Speakers if they're in the world are always going to be under attack

[vanlose kid]

^ ^

deals with the devil:

...Fariña was a paradox: a talent eager to be heard, and a political consciousness aware of the danger in being too outspoken. In the tradition of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger (with whom he would appear on TV), Fariña would yoke his political rhetoric and his musical talent to find his audience. l take his sister–in–law Joan Baez’s vision of him as "blatantly ambitious" to mean ambitious within the System, by virtue of his talent. While Fariña would imply some connection to the Cuban and Irish rebels (which would be good for his image, hence sales), l do not know of any hard evidence linking Fariña with the violent revolutionary groups of the sixties. Fariña was a bit of a self–promoting hustler, repeatedly insinuating himself into the eye of the storm, whatever storm. He was always on the make for publicity and recognition, and he did not mind courting danger. Any storm in a court, as long as they spell your name right, seems to have been his operating code.

Yet Farina’s political consciousness, formed like Pynchon’s during the McCarthy era, was a dark and fearful one. In "Baez and Dylan: A Generation Singing Out" (originally published in 1964), Fariña expressed some of his fears:

It was as if the undergraduates had been whispering of his [Dylan’s] imminent arrival [at Berkeley] for months. They seemed, occasionally, to believe he might not actually come, that some malevolent force or organization would get in the way. . . . Catch him now, was the idea. Next week he might be mangled on a motorcycle.

Subsequent revelations of the government’s ColntelPro (Counter–Intelligence Program against dissenters of the 1960s) gave this not–too–thinly veiled assertion more credibility. "Next week" for Dylan came in July 1966, when he survived a near–fatal motorcycle accident. It is a great irony, not unnoticed by Pynchon, that Fariña himself died in April 1966, "mangled on a motorcycle."

(17)

On the "About The Author" page at the end of Long Time Coming, the Random House editors wrote: "Two days after the publication of Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me, Richard Fariña was killed in a motorcycle accident near Carmel, California." "Was killed," implying agency — not "died as a result of injuries" — nourishes the germ of intelligent, not paranoid, suspicion. In Gravity’s Rainbow, dedicated to Fariña, Pynchon writes: "Prophets traditionally don’t last long — they are either killed outright, or given an accident serious enough to make them stop and think, and most often they do pull back." Pynchon seems to be referring to both Fariña and Dylan, believing, fearing, suspecting (which is it?) that Fariña was "killed outright," and Dylan "given an accident."

...

http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/ppolitics.htm

*

[American Dream]

[hanshan]

^ ^

deals with the devil:

...Fariña was a paradox: a talent eager to be heard, and a political consciousness aware of the danger in being too outspoken. In the tradition of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger (with whom he would appear on TV), Fariña would yoke his political rhetoric and his musical talent to find his audience. l take his sister–in–law Joan Baez’s vision of him as "blatantly ambitious" to mean ambitious within the System, by virtue of his talent. While Fariña would imply some connection to the Cuban and Irish rebels (which would be good for his image, hence sales), l do not know of any hard evidence linking Fariña with the violent revolutionary groups of the sixties. Fariña was a bit of a self–promoting hustler, repeatedly insinuating himself into the eye of the storm, whatever storm. He was always on the make for publicity and recognition, and he did not mind courting danger. Any storm in a court, as long as they spell your name right, seems to have been his operating code.

Yet Farina’s political consciousness, formed like Pynchon’s during the McCarthy era, was a dark and fearful one. In "Baez and Dylan: A Generation Singing Out" (originally published in 1964), Fariña expressed some of his fears:

It was as if the undergraduates had been whispering of his [Dylan’s] imminent arrival [at Berkeley] for months. They seemed, occasionally, to believe he might not actually come, that some malevolent force or organization would get in the way. . . . Catch him now, was the idea. Next week he might be mangled on a motorcycle.

Subsequent revelations of the government’s ColntelPro (Counter–Intelligence Program against dissenters of the 1960s) gave this not–too–thinly veiled assertion more credibility. "Next week" for Dylan came in July 1966, when he survived a near–fatal motorcycle accident. It is a great irony, not unnoticed by Pynchon, that Fariña himself died in April 1966, "mangled on a motorcycle."

(17)

On the "About The Author" page at the end of Long Time Coming, the Random House editors wrote: "Two days after the publication of Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me, Richard Fariña was killed in a motorcycle accident near Carmel, California." "Was killed," implying agency — not "died as a result of injuries" — nourishes the germ of intelligent, not paranoid, suspicion. In Gravity’s Rainbow, dedicated to Fariña, Pynchon writes: "Prophets traditionally don’t last long — they are either killed outright, or given an accident serious enough to make them stop and think, and most often they do pull back." Pynchon seems to be referring to both Fariña and Dylan, believing, fearing, suspecting (which is it?) that Fariña was "killed outright," and Dylan "given an accident."

...

http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/ppolitics.htm

*

Unpacking the above requires an involved & convoluted arabesque, as there are partial truths, half-truths, wanting-to-be-truths poetic licence & metaphorical projection, etc.; in addition to the shadows of language, & incomplete memories.
The editors "conclusions" are so much after-the-fact nonsense, i.e., self-aggrandizing horsesh*t, revisionist garbage.

Hajdu provides some reliable history:
http://tinyurl.com/4xdh7zm.

Fariña foretold his death in Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me.

http://tinyurl.com/3ok8fet

Haven't read the reprint so can't predict how badly it was mangled[i] (if...)

the following quote has the '69 cover (go to link;don't know how to screenshot)

Richard Fariña: A Case of Criminal Neglect
Thursday, May 6th, 2010
Halfway through Céline’s Death on the Installment Plan the ellipses started floating under my eyelids like retinal flotsam. I needed a break, a breezy intermission. Browsing the stacks I came across Richard Fariña’s Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me:
snip

My copy of Richard Fariña’s Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me. New York: Dell Publishing, 1969

Oh yeah. I keep meaning to read that. It’s got a Pynchon quote on the back. As it turns out, Been Down So Long has some of the most haunting prose I’ve ever read. Why did I neglect this book for so long?...

http://styleskilling.com/2010/05/06/richard-farina-a-case-of-criminal-neglect/#more-1084

...

[Canadian_watcher]

AD,

My comic strip rebuttal would be in four panels, as such:
1. Perhaps voting will help fix the problem,
2. Perhaps demonstrating will help fix the problem,
3. Perhaps running for office will help fix the problem,
4. Perhaps opening charitable organizations will help fix the problem.

[American Dream]

AD,

My comic strip rebuttal would be in four panels, as such:
1. Perhaps voting will help fix the problem,
2. Perhaps demonstrating will help fix the problem,
3. Perhaps running for office will help fix the problem,
4. Perhaps opening charitable organizations will help fix the problem.

C_w, I'm glad that you have politics.

With all due respect, I don't think that voting, running for office, opening charitable organizations, or even protesting per se will be enough.

This doesn't mean don't do them, but I do think that progressive change will only be truly effective to the degree that it furthers more fundamental change of our social institutions.

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

[Canadian_watcher]

C_w, I'm glad that you have politics.

Why did you believe otherwise?

With all due respect, I don't think that voting, running for office, opening charitable organizations, or even protesting per se will be enough.

that's what I was getting at. They never have been enough. They might just be part of the problem.

I do think that progressive change will only be truly effective to the degree that it furthers more fundamental change of our social institutions.

Right, and what could be more fundamental a change than changing each individual into the sort of person who believes that they are responsible for the greater good at all times?

[norton ash]

Anyone post this yet?

The Christian paradox:
How a faithful nation gets Jesus wrong
By Bill McKibben

What it means to be Christian in America. An excerpt from this report appeared in August 2005. The complete text appears below.

http://harpers.org/archive/2005/08/0080695

[American Dream]

C_w, I'm glad that you have politics.

Why did you believe otherwise?

With all due respect, I don't think that voting, running for office, opening charitable organizations, or even protesting per se will be enough.

that's what I was getting at. They never have been enough. They might just be part of the problem.

I do think that progressive change will only be truly effective to the degree that it furthers more fundamental change of our social institutions.

Right, and what could be more fundamental a change than changing each individual into the sort of person who believes that they are responsible for the greater good at all times?

So C_w, if you think that voting, running for office, opening charitable organizations or protesting "might just be part of the problem"- then where do you see solutions?

Also, what do you mean when you say, "what could be more fundamental a change than changing each individual into the sort of person who believes that they are responsible for the greater good at all times?"

[Canadian_watcher]

^ AD -
well, I'm sure that there are some minor changes that can be made through any of the means listed but I think the fundamental change has to be within each individual.

People should be encouraged to listen to that inner guiding voice and put down their earthly wants in order to always be true to that inner guiding voice.

Courage, in other words. People should be more courageous.

Obviously this might mean be courageous in voting or demonstrating or running for office or any of those means. But people continue, day after day, to do work that hurts others. They continue to stay in situations that hurt themselves and others. This, to me, is unacceptable.

[American Dream]

^ AD -
well, I'm sure that there are some minor changes that can be made through any of the means listed but I think the fundamental change has to be within each individual.

People should be encouraged to listen to that inner guiding voice and put down their earthly wants in order to always be true to that inner guiding voice.

Courage, in other words. People should be more courageous.

Obviously this might mean be courageous in voting or demonstrating or running for office or any of those means. But people continue, day after day, to do work that hurts others. They continue to stay in situations that hurt themselves and others. This, to me, is unacceptable.

I'm not sure if you understood what I'm talking about.

I referred to " fundamental change of our social institutions".

What would this mean to you?