Like A Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads

This book was kind of lame. Not so lame that I had to rent a digiplayer on my flight home from New York, but that’s primarily because I slept almost the entire 5 and a half hours. And also because the only movie showing was "What Happens in Vegas" starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher. Barf.

For years, Jeff’s family has been raving about a Bob Dylan biography they all read and for some reason I thought this was it. Why it didn’t dawn on me that Bob Dylan probably has like a bazillion biographies I’m not sure. In my defense, I bought the book after a lovely dinner in New York with friends (read – wine was consumed) and hardly read the back cover before purchasing. I have a long standing obsession with documentaries about Bobby D. and the cover photo on this book lured me in. Also, I will confess to feeling a little New-Yorky and like reading a book about Bob Dylan while hanging out in his old hood would somehow make me cooler. In fact, I think it might have had the opposite effect of making me look like a poser, but oh well. Hindsight is 20/20.

To be fair, after reading the first 60 pages or so, I mostly just skimmed the rest. But in my defense, I feel that you would have done the same. I wanted details about Bob’s childhood, love life, his friendship with Joan Baez and his misadventures in the 60s. Instead I got aimless ramblings about music in general and lots of quotes from random songs in particular.

Moral of the story – if you want to read a biography about Bob Dylan that doesn’t suck, check with Jeff’s parents first to find out the actual title of the book.

Goodbye New York

I'm currently sitting in Newark airport waiting to board my plane home. What is it about flying that makes me hate all humanity? Why is everyone so much more annoying when I know I'm going to have to spend the next 5 hours with them? And why do I ALWAYS forget my iPod?

In the way of reading, New York was a bit of a debacle. I say this only because I started Eventide by Kent Haruf on the plane and was loving it. But then I took it with me on the subway to Brooklyn to visit friends and accidentally left it at their apartment. Genius.

Thanks to Amanda's great advice I did visit Housing Works bookstore yesterday and had a great time. It's this really great non-profit bookstore in an old library like building (balconies, high ceilings, and ladders to reach the high shelves) and all their proceeds go to non profit orgs. I bought a book there but then never felt inspired to start it and can't even remember the name of it right now. I think American hotel beds have magnets inside them that attract my butt, because I can watch hours of HBO and pay-per-view movies when staying in a hotel. For this reason, I never read as much as I think I'm going to when travelling in the US. International travel is different mostly because their beds tend to be less comfortable and then there's the whole I-can't-understand-foreign-TV thing. So anyways, instead of reading my new book, I watched like 3 hours of what is now my new favorite show on the BBC channel called Skins, have you seen it?

THEN, last night I went to dinner in the West Village with some friends who live in New York and they walked me around the neighborhood. We went to Magnolia Bakery and right across the street is this great book store that was still open at 10:30 last night. It was here that I picked up Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan at the Crossroads by Griel Marcus. For some reason it called to me and I hope it doesn't suck because it's my only reading material for my upcoming flight and I don't want to have to rent a digiplayer.