Daily Ramblings:
I Am A Lonesome Hobo ...05/13/2005 09:35:47 pm
This has to be a parody, right?
Someone named Molly, writing for Seattle University's
Specator Online, went to see the Experience Music
Project exhibit on Dylan's early years (described by
our friend Russ back
here). She riffs on McCarthyism and the great
lost opportunity for folk musicians to have cured
injustices back in the '50s (or something like that),
and on how the women in Dylan's life (Baez and
Rotolo) turned him on to social activism.
Then, inspired to the bone by experiencing Dylan's
music in this context, she "glided up Pine
Street" and encountered, apparently, a homeless
guy watching some construction work while eating an
ice cream sandwich - and she experienced a moment of
transcendent insight. At least that's how I read what
happened. Here's an extract - you decide:
After listening
to his music I became so connected with the
messages of social justice that I felt a
connection to all those that roamed the streets
when I departed the lecture. As I glided up Pine
Street on my walk home it was as though I too ate
the sandwich consumed by the voyeur presently
observing the complexities of heavy drilling.
There was a connection between him and me as he
enjoyed the small pleasures of life that did not
depend on mediums of Capitalism.
In this state of suspension, outside the economic
systems that control so many aspects of human
life, there was a transport back to the womb of
infantile innocence. We both absorbed the
complete consciousness of pure observation, while
at the same time remained untainted by the
constructs of a refined, conformed human society.
It was only after experiencing this juxtaposition
of complete freedom in the face of the capital
that oppresses human nature, that I chose to
embark on the rest of my journey.
Immediately following, I could understand the
freedom bursting from the heart of the man in the
black poncho cape as he nostalgically consumed an
ice cream sandwich.
Though his mode of escape from
“reality” as it has been culturally
defined to remain on the move, rather than linger
in a state of contemplation, it was not, however,
as though the tyrants of modern civilization were
pushing him. His choice to continue moving
stemmed from his desire to rekindle the wild
nomadic past locked away in the collective
subconscious of the human mind. He did not move
as though he was a human machine controlled by
the masters of production — it was his own
choice, an end in itself, not a tool used to
satiate greed through manufacturing.
Tell me that this is a parody. As such, it would
be one of the wittiest things that I've read in
awhile. I mean, lines like "the capital that
oppresses human nature;" "'reality' as it
has been culturally defined;" "freedom
bursting from the heart of the man in the black
poncho cape as he nostalgically consumed an ice cream
sandwich," and "his desire to rekindle the
wild nomadic past locked away in the collective
subconscious" - this stuff is priceless!
And yet, the whole thing ends with a sweet
"Thanks Bob," that insists to me that the
writer is only too serious. Could it be??
There goes another night's sleep.
Kind ladies and kind gentlemen,
Soon I will be gone,
But let me just warn you all,
Before I do pass on;
Stay free from petty jealousies,
Live by no man's code,
And hold your judgment for yourself
Lest you wind up on this road.
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