A thought experiment: imagine that you -- yes, YOU -- were in your home, and someone you weren't expecting suddenly broke down your front door, barged into your home followed by a crowd of journalists with cameras and microphones, tossed $1000 in cash into your lap and demanded that you stand up and dance, and you didn't stand up. Who would be the impolite and arrogant party in such a case?
Bob Dylan's failure to acknowledge his Nobel Prize in literature is "impolite and arrogant", according to a member of the body that awards it.
Well, I'm sorry Per Wastberg feels that way.
The way I feel about all of this is: the people who are expressing outrage at Dylan being awarded the Nobel Prize are, at the very best, worse than impolite and arrogant. It's none of your business whom they give their prizes to. They're not your prizes to give.
And I think that Per Wastberg is being worse than impolite and arrogant in expecting a certain response from Dylan.
I'm not upset with Dylan at all about the prize or about his lack of response to it. Because I think that it's none of my business, and also none of Per Wastberg's business, what Dylan does or says about the prize. I wonder why he hasn't responded. But I don't think he owes me or anyone else an explanation of his silence.
Here is exactly what I think Dylan owes me, and you, and Wastberg: absolutely nothing. And that's exactly what, in my opinion, celebrities in general owe their fans: absolutely nothing. And it's also what Wastberg and the other Nobel people owe to the public, or to the people you think they snubbed, and it's also what any of the Nobel laureates owe any of the people at the Nobel organization: absolutely nothing. None of the above ever pledged that they owed anything to anyone, with the possible exception of the people who award the Nobel Prizes, and if they ever made any such solemn pledge, to the public or to the prize winners or to whomever, well, they shouldn't have.
When I'm (FINALLY!) awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, if and when I publicly react to the news of the award, and how I react, will be none of your business. Whether or not I take the money will be none of your business, and if I take it, what I do with it will be strictly between me and the Internal Revenue Service, and whether or not I show up at the award ceremony will be none of your business, and whether or not I give a Nobel Lecture will be none of your business, and if I give a lecture, what I say in that lecture will be none of your business. If the lecture consists of the 5 words "thnk yu verr mutch pleez" and you are outraged that that was my Nobel Lecture, you have my hearty permission to blow that outrage out of your ass.
And here's why: that agreement we came to about all of these and all related matters? That never happened. You hallucinated that.
Those of you who are outraged at Dylan for not making a statement about the prize: has it occurred to you that he may have been silent so far because he honestly doesn't know how he should react, and he's taking his time and thinking it over very carefully before he says anything? (Maybe in part because he knows that whatever he says will be blown out of all proportion by millions of idiots, and that there will be no way of coming close to pleasing them all?)
I have no idea why he hasn't responded, I'm just speculating. I'm not too worried about it one way or the other. It's none of my business. I just feel for someone who has so many complete strangers expecting so many different things from him for absolutely no sane or otherwise justifiable reason. For his sake and for the sake of many other famous people, I wish all of you judgmental, moronic creeps would just get your own damn lives. But it doesn't seem that anything remotely resembling that will happen soon.
Showing posts with label steven bollinger nobel prize 2017. Show all posts
Showing posts with label steven bollinger nobel prize 2017. Show all posts
Saturday, October 22, 2016
Friday, October 21, 2016
What 31 Years Did
I just found out that last June, a man I used to know and profoundly annoy personally was named the first-ever Poet Laureate of Knoxville, Tennessee.
I... Don't know how to feel about this.
The first time I ever heard him, or heard about him, for that matter, was in 1985, when he suddenly showed up at a small private party in Knoxville, playing guitar and harmonica and also a tambourine he'd attached to one foot somehow and singing Bob Marley's "Redemption Song." It was also the first time I'd ever heard that song.
The song and the man have never sounded better to me than they did at that moment back in 1985. Yeah, all downhill from there. Kidding. The beer and the weed and party and the newness of him and of the song all had a lot to do with how he sounded to me at that moment.
And now he's Poet Laureate of Knoxville. I guess it goes to show you... something.
For 31 years I've wondered whether he was singing at that party because, living nearby, he heard a party going on and just decided to drop in and jam, or if they paid him to play. It wasn't his fault, not in the slightest, but I happened to be homeless and starving at the time. In large part because I was profoundly clueless about economics. Economic things such as whether that was him dropping in on friends or a paid gig. Like whether the people who'd invited me to the party were rich enough to summon musicians whenever they felt like it, as if they were Medieval monarchs, or whether they seemed rich to me because I was homeless and missing meals... and clueless about economics... and it has occurred to me just very lately that I'm still profoundly clueless about economics, and very lucky to no longer be going hungry, and profoundly clueless about who knows what all else... I constantly wonder about things which I assume are not all that mysterious to some others.
Such as about how a guy goes from hanging around (not a lot. Like I say, I annoyed him. Sorry. Really, I am) with the likes of me to becoming Poet Laureate of the Great Bermuda Triangle of the Appalachians, la-dee-freakin-da, while I became... well -- while I became The Wrong Monkey, whatever that is.
So give me my freakin Nobel Prize already because I used to hang out with and annoy the very first Poet Laureate of Knoxville, Tennessee.
The last time I talked with him, or the last time I remember, was in 1992, and although usually he had been very nice to me, very patient, this time, for the first time, he completely lost his patience (Or -- another example of the sort of thing I wonder about all the time -- had he completely lost his patience with me quite often before this, and this was just the first time I'd noticed?) and exclaimed, "What's wrong with you?!" and I told him I didn't know. I guess I know now that it was autism, and that is was being undiagnosed and not knowing that it was autism, not knowing that I could learn about my condition and thus mitigate it at least to a certain extent, knowing that there are certain things the vast majority of people tend not to like.
I don't blame him for exploding at me like that, really I don't. But since then I haven't wanted to be his friend either. I don't blame him for hurting me, but all the same, it hurt. And I wondered, and I've wondered since then, if we ever were friends before that or if it only occasionally seemed that way to me. I wonder whether that moment was at all memorable to him. And if so, what was it like? Like nothing much at all? Or did it make him feel bad that he lost his temper? Or did he feel good because it seemed I'd finally, finally gotten the message: "Fuck off!" ? Or was that not the message, not then and never? Have I greatly overstimated (or underestimated) the annoyance I caused him?
And I wonder how to wind up a weird blog post like this one. I wonder about so many things. All the time.
I... Don't know how to feel about this.
The first time I ever heard him, or heard about him, for that matter, was in 1985, when he suddenly showed up at a small private party in Knoxville, playing guitar and harmonica and also a tambourine he'd attached to one foot somehow and singing Bob Marley's "Redemption Song." It was also the first time I'd ever heard that song.
The song and the man have never sounded better to me than they did at that moment back in 1985. Yeah, all downhill from there. Kidding. The beer and the weed and party and the newness of him and of the song all had a lot to do with how he sounded to me at that moment.
And now he's Poet Laureate of Knoxville. I guess it goes to show you... something.
For 31 years I've wondered whether he was singing at that party because, living nearby, he heard a party going on and just decided to drop in and jam, or if they paid him to play. It wasn't his fault, not in the slightest, but I happened to be homeless and starving at the time. In large part because I was profoundly clueless about economics. Economic things such as whether that was him dropping in on friends or a paid gig. Like whether the people who'd invited me to the party were rich enough to summon musicians whenever they felt like it, as if they were Medieval monarchs, or whether they seemed rich to me because I was homeless and missing meals... and clueless about economics... and it has occurred to me just very lately that I'm still profoundly clueless about economics, and very lucky to no longer be going hungry, and profoundly clueless about who knows what all else... I constantly wonder about things which I assume are not all that mysterious to some others.
Such as about how a guy goes from hanging around (not a lot. Like I say, I annoyed him. Sorry. Really, I am) with the likes of me to becoming Poet Laureate of the Great Bermuda Triangle of the Appalachians, la-dee-freakin-da, while I became... well -- while I became The Wrong Monkey, whatever that is.
So give me my freakin Nobel Prize already because I used to hang out with and annoy the very first Poet Laureate of Knoxville, Tennessee.
The last time I talked with him, or the last time I remember, was in 1992, and although usually he had been very nice to me, very patient, this time, for the first time, he completely lost his patience (Or -- another example of the sort of thing I wonder about all the time -- had he completely lost his patience with me quite often before this, and this was just the first time I'd noticed?) and exclaimed, "What's wrong with you?!" and I told him I didn't know. I guess I know now that it was autism, and that is was being undiagnosed and not knowing that it was autism, not knowing that I could learn about my condition and thus mitigate it at least to a certain extent, knowing that there are certain things the vast majority of people tend not to like.
I don't blame him for exploding at me like that, really I don't. But since then I haven't wanted to be his friend either. I don't blame him for hurting me, but all the same, it hurt. And I wondered, and I've wondered since then, if we ever were friends before that or if it only occasionally seemed that way to me. I wonder whether that moment was at all memorable to him. And if so, what was it like? Like nothing much at all? Or did it make him feel bad that he lost his temper? Or did he feel good because it seemed I'd finally, finally gotten the message: "Fuck off!" ? Or was that not the message, not then and never? Have I greatly overstimated (or underestimated) the annoyance I caused him?
And I wonder how to wind up a weird blog post like this one. I wonder about so many things. All the time.
Friday, October 14, 2016
Reactions To The Award To His Bobness
I've calmed down a little bit since yesterday, when I was vowing to cut off contact with any of my friends who dared to mock Bob Dylan. I've calmed down, and realized that it's not as if I have too many friends. (After I win the Nobel and phony friends start coming out of the woodwork -- THEN I can start hastily cutting people off.)
The number and stature of people who have praised the awarding of the Nobel to Dylan has also calmed me down. It may be just a coincidence that I ran into a bunch of the h8ers first thing yesterday morning -- or maybe it was no coincidence. Maybe the h8ers were more in a hurry to express themselves than the Dylan fans.
The beginning of an article in the New York Times, the part showing on the Google News page was so cheesy -- "Now, Mr. Dylan, the poet laureate of the rock era, has been rewarded with the Nobel Prize in Literature, an honor that elevates him into the ..." -- that I had to click and see who had written it -- Nat Hentoff, maybe? No, it wasn't Hentoff, it was several people I'd never heard of. In the first paragraph I read:
Some prominent writers celebrated Mr. Dylan’s literary achievements, including Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates and Salman Rushdie, who called Mr. Dylan [...]
-- and I didn't want to read much more. This is a great example of why I hate the New York Times so much: mentioning a great writer like Salman Rushdie, who I hope wins the Nobel soon, in the same sentence with someone like Stephen King. That literally made me nauseous, Times. Thnx a lot!
But of course, the Times can do much worse still: check out Why Bob Dylan Shouldn't Have Gotten a Nobel by someone named Anna North if you want to read something so inept that it's hilarious:
Yes, Mr. Dylan is a brilliant lyricist. Yes, he has written a book of prose poetry and an autobiography. Yes, it is possible to analyze his lyrics as poetry. But Mr. Dylan’s writing is inseparable from his music. He is great because he is a great musician, and when the Nobel committee gives the literature prize to a musician, it misses the opportunity to honor a writer.
As reading declines around the world, literary prizes are more important than ever [...]
CBS News reports: Writers divided on Bob Dylan's Nobel honor. They cite a bunch of heavyweight writers expressing approval of the award, a few silly twits being silly ("A musician won the Nobel! Does this mean I have a chance at a Grammy?" Not if you can't write better than that.), the Vatican newspaper disapproving -- does this mean that Francis also disapproves, or that Francis needs to clean house at his newspaper as he's cleaned house elsewhere? -- and the truly amazing pile of bile over the award spewed by Irvine Welsh, the guy who wrote Trainspotting. (What, did Welsh think HE might've gotten it this year? Hahahahahaha...) No, seriously, what Welsh has said about the Nobel going to Dylan is profoundly disgusting. I don't want to quote it, you can find it easily if you want to with Google.
More unintentionally funny anger over the prize ("I get it: writing books is hard.") has been collected by the New York Post under the headline "Bitter critics slam Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize."
In my opinion, in all seriousness, if the giving of an award, any award, to someone -- anyone -- makes you bitter, you should go see a doctor right now, because that bug up your ass has grown dangerously large and your life is dangerously devoid of depth and joy. An award can be an occasion for joy. If it's an occasion for bitterness, yr doin it wrong. I looked at the Amazon sales ranks for Irvine Welsh and Anna North, and wow, I can understand them being bitter, but it's not Bob Dylan's fault that their stuff isn't selling. Bob Dylan's books are selling a little better than they did yesterday -- and significantly better than Welsh' and North's -- but also nothing spectacular. His records, though -- wow. Surely this must be a big boost from the news of the Nobel. If his records have been selling as well as this, day in and day out, year in and year out, then the $900,000 from the Nobel wouldn't amount to a week's pay for him, maybe not even a day's pay. But surely, the current situation represents a big bump from the Nobel. (Another illustration of the Tom Petty Its-Ab-So-Lute-Ly-Bass-Ack-Wards Law of Microeconomics.)
The number and stature of people who have praised the awarding of the Nobel to Dylan has also calmed me down. It may be just a coincidence that I ran into a bunch of the h8ers first thing yesterday morning -- or maybe it was no coincidence. Maybe the h8ers were more in a hurry to express themselves than the Dylan fans.
The beginning of an article in the New York Times, the part showing on the Google News page was so cheesy -- "Now, Mr. Dylan, the poet laureate of the rock era, has been rewarded with the Nobel Prize in Literature, an honor that elevates him into the ..." -- that I had to click and see who had written it -- Nat Hentoff, maybe? No, it wasn't Hentoff, it was several people I'd never heard of. In the first paragraph I read:
Some prominent writers celebrated Mr. Dylan’s literary achievements, including Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates and Salman Rushdie, who called Mr. Dylan [...]
-- and I didn't want to read much more. This is a great example of why I hate the New York Times so much: mentioning a great writer like Salman Rushdie, who I hope wins the Nobel soon, in the same sentence with someone like Stephen King. That literally made me nauseous, Times. Thnx a lot!
But of course, the Times can do much worse still: check out Why Bob Dylan Shouldn't Have Gotten a Nobel by someone named Anna North if you want to read something so inept that it's hilarious:
Yes, Mr. Dylan is a brilliant lyricist. Yes, he has written a book of prose poetry and an autobiography. Yes, it is possible to analyze his lyrics as poetry. But Mr. Dylan’s writing is inseparable from his music. He is great because he is a great musician, and when the Nobel committee gives the literature prize to a musician, it misses the opportunity to honor a writer.
As reading declines around the world, literary prizes are more important than ever [...]
CBS News reports: Writers divided on Bob Dylan's Nobel honor. They cite a bunch of heavyweight writers expressing approval of the award, a few silly twits being silly ("A musician won the Nobel! Does this mean I have a chance at a Grammy?" Not if you can't write better than that.), the Vatican newspaper disapproving -- does this mean that Francis also disapproves, or that Francis needs to clean house at his newspaper as he's cleaned house elsewhere? -- and the truly amazing pile of bile over the award spewed by Irvine Welsh, the guy who wrote Trainspotting. (What, did Welsh think HE might've gotten it this year? Hahahahahaha...) No, seriously, what Welsh has said about the Nobel going to Dylan is profoundly disgusting. I don't want to quote it, you can find it easily if you want to with Google.
More unintentionally funny anger over the prize ("I get it: writing books is hard.") has been collected by the New York Post under the headline "Bitter critics slam Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize."
In my opinion, in all seriousness, if the giving of an award, any award, to someone -- anyone -- makes you bitter, you should go see a doctor right now, because that bug up your ass has grown dangerously large and your life is dangerously devoid of depth and joy. An award can be an occasion for joy. If it's an occasion for bitterness, yr doin it wrong. I looked at the Amazon sales ranks for Irvine Welsh and Anna North, and wow, I can understand them being bitter, but it's not Bob Dylan's fault that their stuff isn't selling. Bob Dylan's books are selling a little better than they did yesterday -- and significantly better than Welsh' and North's -- but also nothing spectacular. His records, though -- wow. Surely this must be a big boost from the news of the Nobel. If his records have been selling as well as this, day in and day out, year in and year out, then the $900,000 from the Nobel wouldn't amount to a week's pay for him, maybe not even a day's pay. But surely, the current situation represents a big bump from the Nobel. (Another illustration of the Tom Petty Its-Ab-So-Lute-Ly-Bass-Ack-Wards Law of Microeconomics.)
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