As Todd Haynes’ film “I’m Not There” picks up good buzz from the Venice Film Festival, XM Radio gets ready to roll out a new season of Bob Dylan’s show, “Theme Time Radio Hour.” The first new episode will debut on Wednesday, September 19th.

Along with the show’s signature eclectic mix of songs related to a specific theme and entertaining stories about the music and topics of interest, listeners will hear contributions from special guests, including Luke Wilson, Amy Sedaris, Jack White, John Cusack and Richard Lewis. The sultry voice of Ellen Barkin, will continue to herald the start of each “Theme Time” episode this season.

The first episode of season two will be devoted to the theme “Hello,” with a typically wide, varied and surprising song list. Fans can expect to hear future episodes this season dedicated to themes such as “Young & Old,” “California,” the 2nd Annual Countdown Show, “Dreams,” “Fruit,” “Something,” “Nothing,” “Streets,” “Parties,” and “Mail.”

The same press release also covers the October 2nd release of the “career-spanning” three-CD retrospective, DYLAN, and the October 30th release of The Other Side Of The
Mirror - Bob Dylan Live At The Newport Folk Festival 1963 - 1965 on DVD. And then don’t forget the October 28th opening of an exhibition of Bob Dylan’s artwork at Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, in Chemnitz, Germany. It’s called “The Drawn Blank Series.”

Exclusively for this exhibition, Bob Dylan has produced more than 200 remarkably intense color variations on pictorial motifs from a book of drawings and sketches done from 1989 to 1992, which were published in 1994 under the title Drawn Blank by Random House.

In the book’s preface, Dylan explained that these works were intended as sketches for paintings which he eventually planned to complete. These now fully realized works - photo-lithographs transferred to deckle-edged paper - have been stunningly reworked by the artist in watercolor and gouache and will be displayed for the first time in Chemnitz.

And all this goes on while Dylan continues his day job — or rather, his night job, I suppose — of playing music to live audiences.

I’m exhausted just reading about and trying to list all this stuff.

The U.S. radio comedian Howard Stern used to call himself “The King of All Media,” based on having had some success on TV, in print and with a film, in addition to his radio gig. I don’t know if he still awards himself that title, but if he’s paying attention and if he’s honest, I think he would have to concede that lately he has been left in the dust by the true king of all media, Bob Dylan. The exhibition of his artwork in a prestigious museum in Germany really tips it over the edge.

In his most recent interview in Rolling Stone magazine, Dylan told Jann Wenner that he found Paul McCartney to be such a fantastic singer and performer that he wished he would “just quit” and give somebody else a chance. That’s taking graciousness to the point of hilarity, I think. But if anyone’s quitting might give somebody else a chance, it’s Dylan’s, obviously. And may God be between us and that day.

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