11 Days Left to See Robert Patrick's Currents at the DAI

The Duluth-born artist Robert Patrick has been featured in the Duluth Art Institute's Morrison Gallery at the Depot. His current exhibit is called Currents, featuring large images that hang on the walls like tapestries. The roiling images are painted on canvas tarps, which is an unusual feature of the s

Note the stipple like detail

Detail from a mid-range perspective.

Related Links

Duluth Art Institute

Patterns

Patterns: Paul Simon's Prosaic Pathos

What's Worse, Misinformation or Loss of Freedom?

Photo by Louis Reed on Unsplash

It is easy to identify something in medicine that sounds fishy, but very hard to know what is indisputably wrong. This is especially true in the heat of the moment, when emotions are heightened, and when politics intersect with science.

That is why wise scientists are concerned that policing misinformation (particularly using blunt modern tools: censorship, shadow-banning and de-throttling) is dangerous. Policing is different than debating. It's different than rebutting. It's using the brute force of the modern algorithmic platforms to slow the spread of your opponent's ideas. I worry it has been misused.

--Vinay Prasad

* * *

In a world where truth is pliable as plastic, it is immensely helpful to have people who can lead us through the haze. Vinay Prasad is one of these whose insights I have come to value during these past few harrowing years. 

Here are some thoughts from a century ago about free thought and official propaganda in which Bertrand Russell asserts that we can't have freedom of thought as long as there are legal penalties for the expression of opinions. You can read an amplification of these ideas here:  Bertrand Russell's Free Thought and Official Propaganda Has Much to Say about the Current State of Cancel Culture

The following is a short bio from the website of Dr. Prasad:

Vinay Prasad MD MPH is a hematologist-oncologist and Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco. He runs the VKPrasad lab at UCSF, which studies cancer drugs, health policy, clinical trials and better decision making. He is author of over 350 academic articles, and the books Ending Medical Reversal (2015), and Malignant (2020). He hosts the oncology podcast Plenary Session, the general medicine podcast the VPZD show is active on Substack and runs a YouTube Channel VinayPrasadMDMPH. He tweets @VPrasadMDMPH.

* * * 

Related Links

Malignant: How Bad Policy and Bad Evidence Harm People with Cancer

By Vinayak K. Prasad

http://www.vinayakkprasad.com/

He Who Controls the Narrative Controls the People

Is It Time To Give Duluth A New Name? Let's Call It Dylan Town.

While doing archival research on another project recently I came across a Jim Heffernan column that was published thirty years ago when Duluth city councillors were again debating the naming of a road after native son Bob Dylan. (This debate went on for two decades, fwiw.) Heffernan, a journalist and humorist, responded by saying the city should honor Bob Dylan by naming giving the city itself a new name: Dylan. He writes:

Let's say we change the name of Duluth to Dylan in honor of the performer Bob Dylan who was born here in 1941. Duluth is such an old hat name anyway. Let's get with the '90s. Dylan, Minnesota 55802. It's got a ring to it, don't you think?

The thing about this Dylan idea that's so interesting is that it also starts with a D so it would work well to existing logos. The Duluth Dukes (a 1990s minor league baseball team here) would be the Dylan Dukes. Students' letter jackets for Central High School wouldn't even have to be changed. Take UMD the University of Minnesota-Dylan. The Bulldog teams could still be UMD.  

Hef also suggested that the City of Superior could be re-named Joan Baez, even though UWS (University of Wisconsin-Superior) would have to be changed to UWJB.

* * *   

There's risk involved when newspapers permit columnists to propose such radical ideas. I mean, there are quite a few locals who might seriously want to pursue this. If that happened, the City Council may get bogged down with debating it and using valuable meeting time that could be used to address our city's other problems like the shortage of affordable housing and the cost overruns of roundabouts. 

Nevertheless, Hef did build on his case for a rename noting that "First Bank-Dylan adapts well. Dylan Lighthouse for the Blind--it adapts social services." We could also end up with a Dylan News-Tribune (DNT),  Dylan Entertainment Convention Center (DECC) and a Dylan Missabe & Ir Railway (DM&IR), which all roll off the tongue rather nicely.

* * * 

Another major benefit of the city being renamed Dylan is that we'll no longer be confused with Duluth, Georgia, he wrote. I myself can't tell you how many times I've Googled a local store name and ended up with stores in our Georgia sister city. 

* * * 

One drawback, a minor one I believe, to this idea would be what to call our Duluth Dylan Fest should this proposal ever get adopted. Would Dylan Dylan Fest (DDF) be the new title for our weeklong celebration each May? It feels redundant, but if you only call it Dylan Fest, one might wonder if we're celebrating the city or the Nobel Prize recipient who was born here. 

In a digression, Heffernan presented a novel idea that might work well as an alternative method of conducting our singer/songwriter contest. Currently contestants sing one Dylan song and a song of their own. Hef suggested a "Freestyle" song competition "in which entrants can sing any Dylan song in a non-Dylan style (as in the rap version of 'Like a Rolling Stone')-- or sing any non-Dylan song in Dylanesque fashion."

Heffernan's column appeared in the DNT on 8/12/92. If I remember correctly, he closed with this witty barb:

There is another, admittedly selfish, reason to change the name of Duluth to Dylan. Duluth has such rotten weather.

Heffernan is a News-Tribune columnist and editorial page associate.

RELATED LINK
The Case for Celebrating Dylan's Home Town

The Beatles' Flying: A Pocketful of Insights by Tim Hatfield

"You deserve to have loving, supportive people in your life, friends." 

--Tim Hatfield

Phil Fitzpatrick at Dylan Fest
Art Show

I routinely start more blog posts than I publish. I mention this because when poet/Dylanologist Phil Fitzpatrick passed away last weekend I decided to assemble all my blog posts about him as a tribute. This is how I discovered Tim Hatfield's thoughtful reflections on the Beatles' song "Flying." It had been lying dormant, incomplete, on an idle page in my blog queue. Evidently it was in need of this special occasion to be brought to light.

I can't recall ever reading anything about the song "Flying" before, though I'm sure it must have been noted in one of the Beatles volumes I'd read. This past year Phil had shared with me what his Harvard buddy Tim Hatfield had written and I even went so far as to lay it out on this page. Phil also said I should interview Tim sometime since we are all Beatles fans. 

There's a great backstory behind the writing of this piece. In the midst of the pandemic, when things were most uncertain, Hatfield set about to write uplifting words of comfort and encouragement to his circle of friends to help them get through these difficult times. He'd committed himself to writing one email a day using Beatles songs as the seed for each daily missive.

It's only natural that a man who had made a career of counseling others and helping them get through hard times would in his retirement continue this habit of thinking of others. By the time he'd covered every Beatles song and added a few bonus tracks, he decided--perhaps was prodded--to package these thoughtful meditations into a book, aptly titled, The Beatles: All their songs with encouraging words for challenging times.

 

In the intro he tells how this little collection of reflections were initially sent to a circle of maybe 28 friends, but as the messages of love and hope continued the circle grew to near ten times that number. Now it's a Kindle eBook that you can read on any device by downloading the app.  

Sitting with Phil in the John Bushey Studio @ KUMD 

Reading these made me wonder if there will be a body of writing that gets tagged as Pandemic Literature. Part of the book's power is how it reflects the period it was written in. Hatfield wrote each missive as a means of lifting up the spirits of his friends.    

Having read the first thirty stories, here's the impression I get. The book strikes me as a series of daily love letters to Hatfield's readers. The words were written with tenderness and compassion. He's an able researcher who pulls together insights about the songs from several sources, not only for the benefit of Mr. Kite but for all of us. Simultaneously you can feel his love and admiration for the Beatles and their music. 

Even though the most trying times of the pandemic are behind us, the life lessons Hatfield conveys remain relevant.

Hatfield and our mutual friend Phil have been part of a circle of Harvard friends for near 60 years. Phil forwarded to me and (with permission) I'm sharing it here. Decades-long friendships are very special.

Tim Hatfield: Fitz, just as a reminder that you've been immortalized in the body of the Beatles book (as well as the "Acknowledgments" page), here you go. No tunneling today, sir. Keep pushin'. Love, Hats 

#182 “Flying” from Magical Mystery Tour

Full disclosure here – the hard work on this entry was done by my good friend, college buddy, and fellow Minnesotan and Beatles fan Phil Fitzpatrick. “Flying” is one of his favorite Beatles songs, and he not only wrote a very detailed and astute piece about it, but also sent it along to me with the understanding that I could use it in any way I wished. This is very luxurious, and a welcome breather from months of daily Beatles Uplifts. So, thanks very much to you, Fitz, and you’ll recognize your work here in abbreviated fashion, filtered through me.

Paul took the lead in composing “Flying” as incidental music for their made-for TV film “Magical Mystery Tour” in Britain. As an instrumental track, all four Beatles were credited as songwriters for “Flying,” which had the working title of “Aerial Tour Instrumental.” It is an intentionally simple twelve-bar piece, repeated three times as aerial shots of Icelandic landscape (originally outtakes from Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove) play on the screen in the film. Most notably, the dominant sound of the dreamy song is a mellotron, a kind of early synthesizer, which Lennon learned how to play from Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues. Lennon also played an organ, there were multiple tape tracks and sound effects (forward and backwards), and the only voice track was a series of chants by the group. 

The overall feeling from “Flying” is peaceful and relaxed, which I daresay we could use a little more of during these stressful, uncertain times of pandemic, social ferment, and binary politics. Be safe and be well, everyone. And for those of you who are fortunate enough ever to have ridden Soaring at Disney World, imagine yourself on that ride while you listen to this.

The above excerpt is from:

When We Find Ourselves in Times of Trouble: The Beatles

(All their songs with encouraging words for challenging times)

By Tim Hatfield

To purchase your copy, (strongly recommended to all Beatles fans) go to www.amazon.com, search “Tim Hatfield Beatles” 

or click THIS LINK

You can download a free app to read the ebook on your device.

Related Links
Hatfield, Tim. The Beatles: All their songs with encouraging words for challenging times. Kindle Edition. 

Nevada Bob MeetsThe Beatles and 14,000 Screaming Beatles Fans

Dutch Beatles Authority Chantal de Paus Addresses Beatles Conspiracy Theories and How the Fab Four Became So Popular

A Beatles Timeline, Three Beatles Trivia Quizzes and More

The 10 Most Expensive Vinyl Records Ever Sold

Remembering Phil Fitzpatrick, A Tribute

The world lost a very special human being this weekend. A man with many facets to his life, I got to know Phil through his involvement with Duluth Dylan Fest (DDF). A few years earlier he won the poetry competition at Hibbing's Dylan Days celebration. 

In addition to his career in teaching (Marshall School in Duluth, Mesabi Range College in Virginia), he was a lifelong poet, Dylan fan and author of A Beautiful Friendship: The Joy of Chasing Bogey Golf. and more recently a book of poems called Hawks On High. He's also been a volunteer on the Duluth Dylan Fest Committee this past few years, which is how I came to know him. Modest, considerate, intelligent and a very fine poet, he's a man of considerable accomplishments in his own right. His passion for literature impressed everyone who knew him.

Here are some blog posts I've written about Phil. The first is my overview of a talk Phil gave about Dylan in 2016. The second discusses the 2013 poetry event at DDF.  When Phil performed his Jeremiad in 2017, he showed not only his literary mastery but his skill as an orator as well. The last two links take you to his last completed project inspired by his activities on Hawk Ridge. 

Phil Fitzpatrick's Dylan Hour (Plus Fitz's Fave Fives)

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2016/09/phil-fitzpatricks-dylan-hour-plus-fitzs.html 

Poets Gather To Celebrate The Bard During North Country Dylan Week

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2013/05/poets-gather-to-celebrate-bard-during.html

Jeremiad: A Triptych, by Phil Fitzpatrick and a Heads Up About Wednesday's Dylan Fest Poetry Event
https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2017/05/jeremiad-triptych-by-phil-fitzpatrick.html

Phil Fitzpatrick Talks About His New Book of Poems, Hawks on High: Everyday Miracles in a Hawk Ridge Season
https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2019/09/phill-fitzpatrick-talks-about-his-new.html

Spirits Lifted at the Hawks On High Book Launch
https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2019/09/spirits-lifted-at-hawks-on-high-book.html

I'm grateful for the hours we spent together over the years. I'm certain that the friends from all his various chapters of his life feel the same gratitude. He is no doubt soaring with the raptors now.

Buddy Holly Poster Fetches $447K; Duluth Dylan House Was Much More Affordable

I read the news today, oh boy. A poster for the Buddy Holly concert that never was went up for sale and this week fetched the tidy sum of $447,000. The story of the sale gained wide circulation for a variety of reasons. Foremost is probably the amount of value placed on the poster. That's a lot of clams. Second, because of its rarity. This may be the only one in existence for that specific show, which took place on the very day of the plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valenz, J.P. Richardson (the "Big Bopper") and pilot Roger Peterson shortly after midnight. It's a  plane crash made legendary by Don McLean in his song "American Pie."

STOP THE PRESSES!

OK, so Artnet News published the figure of $447,000, but the headline on John Lamb's story on the front page of our Duluth News Tribune announced that the said poster sold for a record $477K. 

Yahoo News posted a CBS News story that also affirms the $447K auction transaction. That story, by Helen Ray, opens like this:

The rarest and only known Buddy Holly poster from "The Day the Music Died," when an airplane carrying Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper (real name J.P. Richardson) crashed and killed all three, sold at auction for a record-breaking $447,000.

Oops. On further inspection John Lamb got it right. Whoever wrote the headline got it wrong. According to advertising guru David Ogilvy, five times more people read the headline than the ad copy. This undoubtedly applies to news stories, I suspect, and some astute readers may notice the discrepancy.

BACK TO THE STORY

Poster for Buddy Holly's last concert at the Surf Club.

There are many layers to this story, though. Like many teens in the 50s and 60s, Bobby Veline had learned to play the guitar and formed a band with a group of friends, much like Bobby Zimmerman had with his Golden Chords. After the plane crash took the lives of three headliners, the Moorhead show promoters scrambled to find someone who could step into Buddy Holly's big shoes. Bobby Veline and The Shadows earned the opportunity to wear the mantle that night, a major kickstart for Bobby Vee's career.

It's well known that all these events have Dylan connections. On January 31, just days before the fateful crash, Bobby Zimmerman and his friend Louis Kemp worked their way to the front of the stage to watch Buddy Holly perform at the Historic Duluth Armory. The 17-year-old kid with big dreams of his own felt that an uncanny something passed between them that night when Holly looked at him. 

Young Dylan's amusing attempt to join Bobby Vee's Shadows has a become another bit of lore.

* * *
Though the Winter Dance Party posters were mass produced, they were left blank on top so that times and dates for the various venues could be filled in for each of the shows. How this particular poster came to be auctioned off as such a rarity can be found in the many stories published this past week. 

What I think is most interesting is how values get established. When Bill Pagel bought Bob Dylan's birth home here in Duluth a little over 20 year ago it was a steal. He got the whole house and property for less than $100K. I'm curious what the house might have fetched if it had been sold through a higher profile, better-connected auction house.  In 2019 Pagel went on to purchase the Zimmerman house in Hibbing as well. That one cost $320,000. In short, he got both houses for less than that singular poster. 

Here are couple other mementos from that week long ago, courtesy 

Floor board from Duluth Armory signed by Carl Bunch, 

drummer for who got frostbite when the bus broke down 

between Duluth and Green Bay.

Another Armory floorboard, this one signed by a number of

Buddy Holly contemporaries including Bobby Vee.

Here's a link to a half dozen stories I've published regarding 

Buddy Holly's final shows on that Winter Dance Party tour. 

Link to John Lamb's Duluth News Tribune story cited above.

.Floorboards courtesy Joe Mann. Photos by Ed Newman.

IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW ATTENDED THAT MOORHEAD SHOW WITH BOBBY VEE I WOULD LIKE TO TALK WITH YOU.  ennyman3@gmail.com

Love Poem to Wussow's and Last Night's Writer's Salon

Diorama in a Shoebox by Ann Marie Geniusz.
Note the frost on the windows, art on the walls.

Last night I went to the Writer's Salon at Wussow's Concert Cafe in West Duluth (across the street from the West Theater). The Writer's Salon is essentially the same as the pre-covid open mic in which local writers shared their work.  

The evening opened with featured poet Emily August's reading of poems dealing with intergenerational trauma, violence and healing. The poems she shared were part of a collection that is coming out sometime next year. 

Poems she read included The Healer, The Warning Wood, The Ancient Dream of the Evolutionist, and White Room at the World's Edge. The imagery was vivid and her sensitivity to the sounds of the words, and not just their content, produced aural effects that at times slithered like snakes. 

Guitar case features Wussow's-related stickers

Other readers included:

--Linda Lagarde Grover, who read from her book The Sky Watched.

--Dan ____, who briefly shared his love of travel and his trips to Turkey, Istanbul and the cradle of Christianity where caves contain iconic drawings and the rich history of this less commercialized region of the world. 

--Naomi _____, who read One Boy Told Me.

--Gavin Glenn, who also does stand up comedy, shared a hilarious piece called Never Ask Me To Interview Anybody for a Job along with a few other riffs, closing with Honks.

--(name that I missed), shared a humorous Bark, Bark, Bark and a clever piece called A Rock In My Shoe, both of which brought to mind some of my own experiences with barking dogs and pebbles that feel like boulders in one's shoe.

--Zachary's Driftwood Carp was easy to visualize.

--Jason Iwen shared a poem from a collection he's working on that involves writing a poem for each year of his life. Jason read his poem about the year 1982.

--Ryan Vine shared a piece called Sex Tap, and another titled Lake Erie & Light Rain. 

Tina Higgins Wussow hosted the event, interspersing the readings with a couple poems by Pablo Neruda and one of her own. "You die slowly if you do not change," was a line from the second Neruda poem.

I myself was also one of the readers, sharing a flash fiction piece I'd written titled The Gladiator, plus a couple other poems including two versions Athens Sunsets, the latter being with assistance from an A.I.

* * * *

Ann Marie

One of the highlights of last night's Salon was a poetry competition in which everyone was invited to write a love poem for Wussow's Concert Cafe. The winning poem would go home with a diorama of the front part of the cafe facing the street, a familiar space for all the regulars here with art on the wall, two tables set alongside the spacious windows. A diorama is a replica of a scene, typically 3-D, often in miniature, sometimes enclosed in a glass showcase.

The diorama I won was assembled in a shoebox by Ann Marie Geniusz, who manages the art displays for Jason and Tina. The fun part is that she created it inside a Size 12 Newport Retro shoebox, the shoes Jason wears. 

My Love Poem to Wussow's

Whether it rains or snows
each time I stop by it grows,
the warmth, like a fireplace, 
tickles my toes.

It comforts my bones,
and on my face it shows;
when I speak of this place
it gushes, and a firehose
burst of gratitude flows.

And so, and so, and so it goes.

(That last line is a tip o' the hat to Vonnegut.)

* * * 

EdNote: If you read this and know the last names of the poets who read last night please send leave a comment or send me an email or contact me through FB.  I will update. Thanks.

Test Your Wits: A Literary Trivia Contest

How well do you know your literary trivia?

It's intriguing how popular the game Trivial Pursuit became. Here's a bit of trivia you may not have known: the game has sold over 100 million units in 26 countries and 17 languages. What year was it created? I would never have guessed. Answer: 1981. It seems like it has been around forever.

I've always enjoyed creating games. Trivia is indeed fun to play with. During Duluth's Dylan Fest I've usually been the one to create the Dylan Trivia Contest each year. So while cleaning my garage a couple weeks ago I assembled this trivial excursion.

HERE ARE THE RULES
1. Take a piece of paper and number it from 1 to 15. 

2. Here's the challenge. For each name in the list below, name the book this character appeared in and the author who wrote it. (A few are plays, but I read them in book form.) 

3. To the right of the title and author, write the name of the actor who played this character in a movie version of the book or play.

Do not scroll below the photos until you fill out your answers.

CALCULATING YOUR SCORE
A) Score one point for each correct Book Title. (In one instance the movie has a different title but is based on the book.)
B) Score one point for each book author that you name correctly.
C) Score one point for identifying the actor who played that character in the movie version of the book.
D) If you correctly identify all fifteen book titles WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE CLUES give yourself a bonus of 5 points. The same goes for identifying all fifteen authors and the fifteen actors. TOTAL POSSIBLE SCORE is 60. 

EdNote: The Clues are below the two photos at the end of this list. For the Extra Points, don't look till you have given up.

* * * * * 

1. Atticus Finch

2. Rhett Butler

3. Stella Kowalski

4. Kurtz

5. Ishmael

6. Alden Pyle

7. Harry Lime

8. Ann Sullivan

9. Robert Jordan

10. Daisy

11. Winston

12. Billy Pilgrim

13. Henry Wilcox

14. Tom Hagen

15. R.P. McMurphy

EdNote: Some of these titles are red herrings.

CHOOSE TITLES FROM THIS LIST
Moby Dick, For Whom The Bell Tolls, 1984, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The Godfather, The Quiet American, The Last Tycoon, Chinatown, Slaughterhouse-Five, The Great Gatsby, Gone with the Wind, Howard's End, Heart of Darkness, The Miracle Worker, To Kill A Mockingbird, Bugsy, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Third Man

EdNote: Some of these actors are also misleading.

CHOOSE ACTORS FROM THIS LIST
Anthony Hopkins, Jack Nicholson, Gregory Peck, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Kim Hunter, Vivien Leigh,  Richard Basehart, Mia Farrow, Michael Sachs, Brendan Fraser, John Hurt, Louise Fletcher, Holly Hunter, Faye Dunaway, Orson Welles, Gary Cooper

ANSWERS ARE BENEATH THE PHOTO BELOW

"We're just waitin' here for ya to finish. Take your time. We'll wait."

ANSWERS
1. To Kill A Mockingbird--Harper Lee/Gregory Peck
2. Gone with the Wind--Margaret Mitchell/Clark Gable
3. A Streetcar Named Desire--Tennessee Williams/Kim Hunter
4. Heart of Darkness--Joseph Conrad/Marlon Brando (Apocalypse Now)
5. Moby Dick--Herman Melville/Richard Basehart,
6. The Quiet American--Graham Greene/Brendan Fraser
7. The Third Man--Graham Greene/Orson Welles
8. The Miracle Worker--William Gibson/Ann Bancroft
9. For Whom The Bell Tolls--Ernest Hemingway/Gary Cooper
10. The Great Gatsby--F. Scott Fitzgerald/Mia Farrow 
11. 1984--George Orwell/John Hurt
12. Slaughterhouse-Five--Kurt Vonnegut/Michael Sachs
13. Howard's End--E.M. Forster/Anthony Hopkins
14. The Godfather--Mario Puzo/Robert Duvall
15. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest--Ken Kesey/Jack Nicholson

Please leave your score in the comments, either anonymously or publicly. Was this too easy? Too hard? Or just right?

Photos on this page courtesy Gary Firstenberg

Current Readings: Hurakami, Dylan Thomas, Dunbar

I almost always have more than one book going at a time. One reason is because I have an audiobook going in my car while driving, most of the time. And then I am nibbling through two or three books at a time for my "evening meal" or "snack" before bedtime. Occasionally I find myself snakebit and have trouble turning off the light to get my needed shuteye, though it's been quite a while since the last time I read all night rather than get the rest I needed.

Here are my current reads:

Men Without Women: stories,  by Haruki Murakami. 
When Ishiguro won the Nobel Prize for Literature the year following Bob Dylan's achievement, I was not surprised. His work is stellar, has always been original, potent and rewarding to read. Strangely enough, I have been totally unaware of Murakami, for whatever reason, but like Ishiguro, he is a "wow!" His prose is breathtaking. The writing draws you in, and his stories always deliver. 

To be honest, this is my first Murakami volume, and so far I've only read the first four of the seven stories it contains. They were each so complete, so power-packed, so revealing, so mentally and psychologically stimulating that I don't know whether to keep reading, or re-read the stories I've already read. 

The title is actually misleading. Though it purports to be about men without women, each of the first four stories contains gems of insight about the complications of relationships with the other sex. 

Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas: The Two Dylans, by Jeff Toons and K.G. Miles
Dylan fans everywhere will want to read this insightful book. While it's true that there has been no definitive answer as regards how Bob Dylan chose to become Bob Dylan--as opposed to performing with his birth identity of Robert Zimmerman--this book unearths all manner of connections between the two giants, Welsh bard Dylan Thomas and Minnesota's Nobel Prize winner. 

Before long I shall be offering a more details overview of this book. Initially I approached it with a measure of curiosity. It didn't take long to find this book to be offering something more. And the more I learned about Dylan Thomas, the more I felt impelled to pick up some additional books from the library about him. One is an audiobook version of Thomas' play Under Milk Wood. Two others are books of literary criticism and the fourth a large volume of his collected works. For the past several days I've included a couple of his poems in my daily reading.

The Net Beneath Us, by Carol Dunbar. 

Carol Dunbar is a regional author who lives here in the upper midwest. We first met via Zoom as members of an advisory board for the UWS School of Writing. Her lifestyle intrigued me, a writer who lives in the woods. What impressed me, though, was her productivity. Our first meeting took place at the bookstore in Fitger's where she was doing a book signing. I was hesitant to purchase yet another book to add to my pile, but should not have been. From the start I was mentally stimulated by her use of language, original metaphors and vivid descriptions. I'm one-third through it, and it is an impressive first effort. If you have any doubts, check out the 42 reviews on Amazon, nearly all five stars.

* * * 

You can find all three of these on Amazon at the following links:

Men Without Women: Stories

The Two Dylans

The Net Beneath Us

Related Link: Ten Minutes with Carol Dunbar