Fact #61551
When:
Short story:
On a day off from his Rolling Thunder Revue tour, Bob Dylan visits the gravesite of beat generation writer Jack Kerouac, near Lowell, Massachusetts, USA.Full article:
Allen Ginsberg (beat poet) : There's a giant statue of Christ described by Kerouac. Dylan got up near the statue and goes into this funny monologue, asking the man on the cross, 'How does it feel to be up there?' ...Dylan was almost mocking, like a good Jew might be to someone who insisted on being the Messiah, against the wisdom of the rabbis, and getting himself nailed up for it. Dylan said: 'What can you do for somebody in that situation?' I think he quoted Christ, 'suffer little children,' and I quoted part of 'Forever Young,' which is Dylan's hip, Americanese paraphrase of Christ's 'Do unto others.'
So there was this brilliant funny situation of Dylan addressing this life-size statue of Christ, and allowing himself to be photographed with Christ. It was like Dylan humorously playing with the dreadful potential of his own mythological imagery, unafraid and confronting it, trying to deal with it in a sensible way. That seemed to be the characteristic of the tour: that Dylan was willing to shoulder the burden of the myth laid on him, or that he himself created, or the composite creation of himself and the nation, and use it as a workable situation.
(Source : not known)
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So there was this brilliant funny situation of Dylan addressing this life-size statue of Christ, and allowing himself to be photographed with Christ. It was like Dylan humorously playing with the dreadful potential of his own mythological imagery, unafraid and confronting it, trying to deal with it in a sensible way. That seemed to be the characteristic of the tour: that Dylan was willing to shoulder the burden of the myth laid on him, or that he himself created, or the composite creation of himself and the nation, and use it as a workable situation.
(Source : not known)