I see, but even without that explanation you have been gloriously prolific and I am sure I am not the only reader, while being grateful for it, amazed by your stamina.
It's not that long until the thirtieth anniversary of TOOM's sessions. You could resurrect the Mississippi thoughts then for an expanded book on TOOM (Andy suggests, greedily.)
You are a force of nature, Graley, possessed of superhuman energy. Cincinnati series, Philosophy of Modern Song series and also this (and others!)and not rushed, but carefully thought out and researched. Where do you find the time? (Andy asks, jealously.)
There's so much to take in here, that I won't comment on the whole, especially as I need to absorb "Hadestown" before re-reading. Some comments are hard to suppress until then, however, anmd so I'll quickly note that the section on memory irresistibly evokes resonances with Dylan musing on how he suffered creative 'amnesia' but then remembered his song-writing gifts, here and elsewhere - almost throughout - I keep hearing Dylan (or is that Orpheus, I hear?) sing "you can always come back, but you can't come back all the way".
Also, I wanted to quickly express thanks and to agree with:
"And Dylan surely doesn’t share Macbeth’s closing nihilism: “it is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying nothing” (5.5.26-28). That may be the view from Dunsinane Castle, but not from Dylan’s Shadow Kingdom, and for that matter, not from Mitchell’s Hadestown. The darkness is never absolute and the negation is never complete."
Yes, Macbeth's view is not Bob's, nor is it shared by Shakespeare, come to that (as I know, you appreciate). To be fair to Macbeth, things weren't exactly looking rosy from "the view at Dunsinane Castle." Your comments here reminded me of Dylan opposing the ending to 'Easy Rider' because it offered no hope.
This was me trying not to comment. Ha! I can't help myself, so many thoughts are occurring.
Thanks, Andy! It's exciting to see that my piece set so many wheels in motion for you, as your work has always done for me.
I'll admit that I've actually been taking notes for a few months on this underworld idea, and it then took me a few weeks to write the whole thing out to my satisfaction, start to finish. When I saw how long it was running, I realized I needed to split it into multiple installments. I figured it might be better to release them in close proximity so that the interconnections might be fresh in readers' minds. So even though it may look like I wrote all of this in a single week, that isn't at all the case. Hopefully I didn't overstay my welcome in members' inboxes. I definitely won't be churning stuff out at this pace on a regular basis.
I hear the same Orpheus/Eurydice echo you do on "Mississippi," Andy. I have something about that in my notes, but it fell by the wayside when I narrowed the focus to three Dylan albums. You're right that "things weren't exactly looking rosy" for Macbeth at Dunsinane Castle; interesting that the singer is looking for Rosie in "Mississippi." Maybe Macbeth stayed in Scotland a day too long!
This three part series is a triumph Graley, thank you so much! I'm honoured that my work on recent Dylan could act as a jumping off point!
I see, but even without that explanation you have been gloriously prolific and I am sure I am not the only reader, while being grateful for it, amazed by your stamina.
It's not that long until the thirtieth anniversary of TOOM's sessions. You could resurrect the Mississippi thoughts then for an expanded book on TOOM (Andy suggests, greedily.)
You are a force of nature, Graley, possessed of superhuman energy. Cincinnati series, Philosophy of Modern Song series and also this (and others!)and not rushed, but carefully thought out and researched. Where do you find the time? (Andy asks, jealously.)
There's so much to take in here, that I won't comment on the whole, especially as I need to absorb "Hadestown" before re-reading. Some comments are hard to suppress until then, however, anmd so I'll quickly note that the section on memory irresistibly evokes resonances with Dylan musing on how he suffered creative 'amnesia' but then remembered his song-writing gifts, here and elsewhere - almost throughout - I keep hearing Dylan (or is that Orpheus, I hear?) sing "you can always come back, but you can't come back all the way".
Also, I wanted to quickly express thanks and to agree with:
"And Dylan surely doesn’t share Macbeth’s closing nihilism: “it is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying nothing” (5.5.26-28). That may be the view from Dunsinane Castle, but not from Dylan’s Shadow Kingdom, and for that matter, not from Mitchell’s Hadestown. The darkness is never absolute and the negation is never complete."
Yes, Macbeth's view is not Bob's, nor is it shared by Shakespeare, come to that (as I know, you appreciate). To be fair to Macbeth, things weren't exactly looking rosy from "the view at Dunsinane Castle." Your comments here reminded me of Dylan opposing the ending to 'Easy Rider' because it offered no hope.
This was me trying not to comment. Ha! I can't help myself, so many thoughts are occurring.
Thanks, Andy! It's exciting to see that my piece set so many wheels in motion for you, as your work has always done for me.
I'll admit that I've actually been taking notes for a few months on this underworld idea, and it then took me a few weeks to write the whole thing out to my satisfaction, start to finish. When I saw how long it was running, I realized I needed to split it into multiple installments. I figured it might be better to release them in close proximity so that the interconnections might be fresh in readers' minds. So even though it may look like I wrote all of this in a single week, that isn't at all the case. Hopefully I didn't overstay my welcome in members' inboxes. I definitely won't be churning stuff out at this pace on a regular basis.
I hear the same Orpheus/Eurydice echo you do on "Mississippi," Andy. I have something about that in my notes, but it fell by the wayside when I narrowed the focus to three Dylan albums. You're right that "things weren't exactly looking rosy" for Macbeth at Dunsinane Castle; interesting that the singer is looking for Rosie in "Mississippi." Maybe Macbeth stayed in Scotland a day too long!