Expecting Rain

OK, but I think there has been a fairly impressive effort by those involved to engage everyone else. So far, the posts have been great and they've sent me off trying to deal with what they imply. In fact, I'm still working through a few of them and planning responses.

I know that my posts have been long, and I think I might have split the last really long one into two parts, but the purpose of the thread seems to require longer posts. It seems like its the only way to get past simply stating a conclusion, and to get to actually analyzing the different claims that are being made about Dylan's "borrowing"/incorporating by Warmuth and others.

The longer the better - especially when those words are coming from you! You are a Godsend to the Dylan community!

I think we may be spinning off into the abyss..... which is the same problem that I run into when I read some of Scott's stuff..... If this is a "game" that Dylan is playing.... hiding stuff, just for the fun of it in songs and writings.... and that much I am willing go along with.... his additions are intentional and meant to be "found out"..... Isn't looking t-o-o-o deep for the meaning taking all the fun out of the game that Dylan may intend?

For instance.... Here’s the puzzle: On Chronicles p 115, Dylan says regarding the way he was perceived, “I was more a cowpuncher than a Pied Piper.” Why does Dylan say “cowpuncher” there?

could it be he used that word because it is a pretty cool word? and maybe he is saying the life of a cowpuncher is rather simple and straight forward and that is what he would like his life to be? (although I am not sure if he got that one on track.... )

I must admit I did not yet read the last post all the way thru.... but I gave it a pretty good skim, so I got most of it.... I will re-read in detail later..... but again, like Scott's work.... sometimes when you go too deep ..... you forget the point is to have fun in the water..... All the study in the world and finding of clues there is two things that I will not change my mind about...... Dylan is not out to lead anyone anywhere or change the world (although he has done that)..... and two, that he sure does write some pretty fine songs.....

But please one and all.... do keep posting..... but I will have to take it in at a slower pace..... I am having too much fun a bit closer to the shore..... but might go back out for a long swim again later....

I think often with paintings and literature and music people have an understanding of what they like and regar as great. However they fear being put down by experts as they can not describe their feeling about the work in the same way as the experts. And they feel as Boston says their feelings are not as valid.

Yes, please don't try to limit your posts, MMD - those of us who are avidly following this thread greatly appreciate your in-depth explanations - I am definitely not an academic, but I have so far managed to understand everything you've said.

I really appreciate your posts and the thoroughness of your explanations, MMD. I was initially suspect of scottw's research because I felt his approach was meant as more of an indictment and I'm still not convinced of his intent but I do believe that Bob's writings are worthy of literary criticism. So, thank you for continuing the discussion. I am paying attention!

While I’m broadly in sympathy with the aims of this thread, which I take to be an exploration of the possibilities suggested by Scott Warmuth’s investigation into Dylan’s sources and his use of them, nothing I have so far read here, fascinating though much of it is, has convinced me that we are gaining anything other than a slightly better understanding of Dylan’s methods of composition.

I’d just like to very briefly address the “code” question for the moment, and my objections to that idea may be loosely classified under two headings – aesthetic & practical.

Firstly, aesthetic – Dylan, to my mind, has always revelled in allowing multiple uncertain interpretations of his work, the idea that he would simply “codify” his references to allow a sufficiently knowledgeable person, someone in possession of a key, to arrive at a definitive “solution” which closes down all other possibilities seems to go against all his artistic principles.

Secondly, among many practical questions - How could he be sure that any code would be recognized or solved, and if he couldn’t be sure, why bother encoding his writing in the first place, whom is he addressing?

People often desire a “through line” when confronted by a vast mass of heterogeneous material, be it the works of Shakespeare, the events surrounding an assassination, or Dylan’s “biographical” writing and recent albums etc. To find a key, a grand cryptogram revealing the identity of the true author, a conspiracy that reaches all the way into the government, or in the case of Dylan, a set of coded references designed to lead only those truly worthy to his secret meaning is one way of keeping the cold wind of chaos at bay.

I'm thoroughly enjoying this thread, and would also like to pass on thanks and appreciation for all the painstakingly crafted and erudite work that MMD is putting into it. You go back to look at the quotes and passages that he/ Warmuth flags up in Chronicles, and begin to see them in a different light. They stand out more, and in some senses, almost become odd, freakish, manifestations of Frankenstein prose, made up from the corpses of other writers.

But Dylan is nothing if not adept at playing games with those that would attempt to reveal him or get him to reveal himself. Reading Warmuth's blog on Chronicles' apparent steers towards the writing of New York University's Professor of English, Perry Meisel, inspires the deliciously wicked thought that Dylan might, at certain times, be leading writers, critics, bloggers and professors through a danglingly complex maze that ultimately leads them back into the dead end that is themselves. And as a result, I just couldn't get these lines out of my head:

But the joke was on me
There was nobody even there to call my bluff
I’m going back to New York City
I do believe I’ve had enough

You've got to be careful with our Bob. He's a box of tricks, alright- which is a key element in making this the enjoyable game that is.

I don't think he could be sure hidden references or incorporations would ever be recognized (or solved, if there is some meaningful pattern to them). I always believe that an artist's primary interest is 'making the work - being in the process" - rather than having the finished piece that is a result of that process. When Dylan claims he writes or performs in order to "stop time" - I have always believed he is referring to his deep absorption in the process of creating which makes him unaware that time has passed during the period of creation. If that supposition is true, he would be "stopping time" just as much when he is writing or playing alone than he is when performing before an audience. Having an audience is just "gravy", not the primary reason for the enterprise.

If this is true - that artists create for their own pleasure in creating (and again, this is my supposition, although many artists have confirmed to me that this is true for them) rather than gaining a finished piece to present for the appreciation of others - then Dylan is ultimately always writing initially for himself. Of course he wants to be also to communicate to others - that's a given. Who wants to offer work in a public domain that doesn't register and that isn't appreciated? But if there is encoding or incorporation beyond the obvious, why can't it be there for no greater reason than that he enjoys including it? Perhaps it would make his process more interesting or amusing to him. If he wishes to work that way, is there any reason to question whether it's acceptable for him to do this? I believe that all literary works include meanings never known to anyone other than the author. Most people who publish novels, poems, stories, do not include footnotes or an appendix indicating possible alternative meanings to their work or information identifying private meanings that sources or references hold for them. Why would Dylan be any different? But given his long history of jokes, trickery, use of cliches, ambiguity, etc., it seems possible that Dylan may have included a great deal more in his writing than has yet been apprehended. And if he's enjoys doing this - well, that was the point. If it's not ever discovered by anyone looking at the work - what harm to him? The assumption that he would be somehow 'rewarded' by such a discovery is, I believe, misplaced. I think presenting the work just as it appears to be is reward enough for him. IMO the greatest reward is in the creation of the work, not in it's reception.

Therefore "why bother encoding in his writing in the first place, whom is he addressing?" For his own amusement. And because he believes his place in history is secure, he may assume that any 'decoding' or finding hidden incorporations or meanings will happen whenever/if they happen - perhaps not in his lifetime and possibly never. If this is true, the esteem in which his work is held will not suffer.

Can't you just see Bob, sitting on the back porch with nothing but a cold brew to keep him company (and oh yeah, a cig in his hand, I am sure)..... thinking about his place in history.... and seeing fast forward to a whole university study program taking all of his work apart, piece by piece... looking for the deep hidden meaning.... and then he breaks into rolls of laughter because he knows they is nothing to find!!!!!

one thing I think you can be sure of..... he will never directly and clearly address the question..... he will simple let the games go on..... .... which is just as well because if he says..... "they're songs..... I just wrote songs".... nobody gonna believe that anyway....

"..... big universities to study in"

Here is the critique of Warmuth's idea of "secret codes" -- IN the end, I don't think he's shown there are any codes at all.

As ever, revelator, I'm riding with you.

There's overwhelming evidence that Dylan is referring to the art itself stopping time - to it being an effect of the art. Here he is speaking to Matt Damsker, on the Blood On The Tracks songs : "the ones that have the break-up of time, where there is no time, trying to make the focus as strong as a magnifying glass under the sun". In the interview Dylan gives for Renaldo & Clara with Pierre Cottrall and Allen Ginsberg, he talks about how it is the work of art that stops time, and then specifically refers to the effect a work of art has as "stopping time" for the audience : "We try to make something better out of what is real. If we want to be successful as an artist, we make it better, and give meaning to something meaningless." Interviewer : What's your idea of "better" - your direction of "better"? "You can make something lasting. You wanna stop time, that's what you wanna do. [...] And if you succeed in doing that [stopping time], everyone who comes into contact with what you've done - whatever it might be, whether you've carved a statue or painted a painting - will catch some of that; they'll recognise that you have stopped time - they won't realise it, but that's what they'll recognise, that you have stopped time. [...] And this movie stops time in a way that no American movie ever has and I don't think will. What we've done is hold onto something which seemed to be escapable, and we captured it and made it real."
To Jonathan Cott on the same movie : "I also used that quality of no-time. [...] The movie creates and holds the time".

I think you have worked it out.

This is more about the 'Why?' than the 'What?'.

I think it includes the where as well. In that you need to know where the clues are.

CD,
1. With regard to your assessment of how far we've gotten in this thread: for my part, I am just at the beginning of my working through all of this and so what I am writing here is aimed at preliminaries -- are there incorporations? How would we know? I think this is pretty well settled. There are incorporations and while how Warmuth found so many remains unknown, I think we have a good sense of how one might do that.

And then, we have asked how me might approach incorporations if we believe that's what they are. That is, I think we have moved beyond just talking about Dylan's methods of composition. To my mind, Warmuth's approach, which focuses on what he calls codes, is an interpretation of what the incorporations mean. He seemed to be implying that the incorporations, and so Dylan''s writing, mean just what the answer to a secret code is.

Now, I don't think Warmuth has found any actual codes, only difficult to identify passages from other texts. And in that sense, we could say that, as I have understood Warmuth's work on his "codes", his interpretation looks to be unpersuasive and unfruitful.

Despite my real doubts about the whole "secret code idea", I have to admit that Warmuth's apparent failure to find them doesn't mean there isn't some kind of more complex puzzle in some or all of Dylan's writing. I don't think we can rule it out just because Warmuth's version hasn't panned out....yet.


2. As to your objections to the idea of there being puzzles at all in Dylan's writing, I disagree with your reasons -- that (a) you believe Dylan has sought multiple interpretations in the past, and that (b) you believe Dylan would not put in a puzzle if he could not expect people would find or solve them .

To your first objection: Since it's not possible to know what Dylan intends with regard to his work (or anything I suppose), we have to consider any sound argument for an interpretation of what Dylan might be up to with his writing. You may think it is less likely that Dylan has chosen to include coded puzzles, and so might I, but we're just arguing about greater or lesser probability. And the idea that Dylan has preferred there be multiple meanings to his writing is as much conjecture as the idea of puzzles. And even the, if we accept your position, it wouldn't make a change of heart by Dylan impossible.

To your second objection: I agree with revelator that the unlikelihood of the codes or puzzles being recognized and solved can't be seen as powerful evidence against their being there. If they exist, they may be only for a few friends. Or for no one but himself.

Revelator's points about why people make art or pursue projects are are right on the money. And we just can't know what motivation Dylan might have had for writing anything, and that applies to the supposition of there being puzzles. His reasons can only be supposed.

What is left is for a person who suspects that there are puzzles/codes to make a powerful case that there are such things.


For me, I am more inclined to believe that these many, many incorporations are an intensification of Dylan's practice of writing in a literary style -- of referencing other art and texts (while embracing "low culture") in a way that creates complex meanings, subtexts, and immense depth.

Train, I just want to say that the 'Why?" of the incorporations is assumed much more if one believes there are "secret codes".

If you want to argue there are codes, you have to assume that the answer to the question "Why did Dylan incorporate these lines from x, y, and z books?" is that "he wanted to create a puzzle that works like this ___ and whose answer is ___".

If one wants to argue there are no "secret codes" but instead an interaction between the incorporations and the rest of the writing that creates new meanings, then one doesn't have to assume Dylan intended anything specific. We can limit ourselves to assuming he broadly meant for there to be some real connection between the incorporated texts and other lines. But, we can even ignore the whole idea of what Dylan intended. In the most extreme case, he may have just liked the way they sounded, or randomly picked them out of a hat. Even then, we can just focus on what meanings emerge for us when we think about what we know about incorporated texts in relation to the Dylan song/book/movie. As with any art, if Dylan is going to be taken seriously as an artist in the conventional strong sense, we have to assume that he understood what he was doing and intended there to be some meaningful connection, that he was in control of it -- even if that means that he was experimenting with how lucky drawing out of a hat affects meanings (that would be enough to pass!). But, at any rate, we don't have to know what meanings or connections.

On the other hand, in the case of claiming there is a secret code, one has to settle in on a very specific, very concrete assumption of what Dylan intended: "he intended exactly this set of steps and exactly this answer."

That's why the "secret codes" argument has a far, far higher burden of proof than the more literary critical claim that Dylan set in play some broad set of ideas by the fact of his writing and incorporating (say Roman Empire decline or power with Ovid and American Empire decline or power with Pynchon or something).

I think Warmuth may very well be playing his own game!

thanks to boston and all- interesting to think about this stuff, isn't it. the google main page alan turing puzzle brings up some questions too for me about codes and how math can work and what path it can take- artificial intelligence and all.

from the christian science monitor-
The British mathematician and computer scientist, whose 100th birthday Saturday is commemorated on Google's home page, predicted in 1950 that, about five decades hence, computers will have advanced so far that, 70 percent of the time, an average person would be unable to distinguish a computer from a human after five minutes of continually exchanging messages.

that's the good, bad, and ugly of it i suppose, but as far as the true, good, and beautiful, i still don't quite understand how the academics have come up with those. and if they know it when they see it, how come their methods keep changing. do you mean it has to show that they point to canonical works, or that they originate from them. and how does the idea of the true work, when you say that the academy (who is that) say's they no longer accept that truth and objectivity are possible. this all gets pretty confusing for me. but maybe if i quote some great writers it will all become clearer, i will give it a shot- these are ovid, dante, and melville lines i am quoting, so don't anyone sue me ok.

A man is sorry to be honest for nothing.
He listens well who takes notes.
Heat cannot be separated from fire, or beauty from The Eternal.
It is not down in any map; true places never are.

hope those quotes are right

The True, the Good and The Beautiful -- those come to us from artists and thinkers...or the gods if you want. Academics either aspire to be artists and thinkers themselves, or else they try to understand what artists and thinkers have to say about those three things. But I think that's what we all do, right?

i thought part of the reason you thought dylan's new project was worthwhile is that it might allow dylan to be taken seriously by the academy, and the reason why he has not been taken seriously is because the scholars have not been able to connect him with the canon, which represent the ideals of the good, the true, and the beautiful. you say those are ideas which come from the artists, but it is the scholars that give the artists credentials within the academy. so in a way they are defining for the culture what is good, beautiful, and truthful. i'm not saying they shouldn't, those people are a lot more well read than me, but isn't it strange somehow- if he starts referencing all of these writers in his work, he will be given the thumbs up. ok, this guy is legit now- it just seems kind of funny. i probably am all mixed up. now that dylan influences can be tracked down, and he uses them to create something new, he can be taken seriously. but hasn't he been doing that all along, absorbing everything in the air, and creating something from it all in his own unique way. anyway, i'm just talking aloud and find this discussion really interesting

Another bond between Obama and Dylan...

Apparently Obama felt that writing an interesting compelling story for his memoir, even if it meant adding some fictional elements and making up some anecdotes, was better than sticking to a straight factual portrayal of his life. I guess it's true what they say...great minds think alike.

And now there's a researcher or two picking through the memoir and pointing out all the fictional stuff...
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012 ... as-memoir/

This was his first book, Dreams from my Father, which he wrote before the start of his political career and which Dylan said he really liked and even praised Obama as a writer.

Sorry to go off topic but saw this article and couldn't help but notice the similarity to all this stuff about Chronicles.

As I have a morbid dread of repeating myself (too often), and as exchanges on the internet frequently descend into barren point scoring exercises I seldom comment on responses to my posts - indeed, I hope that I have expressed my thoughts clearly and concisely, without jargon or prolixity and sometimes with a small degree of elegance the first time and generally leave it at that.

I’m happy to let my original post stand.

Everyone's in the entertainment business these days, aren't they?