Anybody read Bob Dylan "Chronicles"?

Just finished. Great book. No surpise, but Dylan is also a talented (book) writer. This wasn't a run-of-the-mill autobiography. His story, or part of it, was told with amazing imagery and detail, and some lines actually made me laugh out loud. If you're a Dylan fan, this is required stuff.

We saw the Dylan exhibit at the Experience Music Project while in Seatlle for the holidays. It basically covers just his 60s era stuff. It's a great exhibit and I highly recommend it if you're in the area.

Cool! I didn't know there was an exhibit. What kinda stuff did they have?

Famous photos, orginal sheet music and lyrics written by Robert himself, newspaper articles and reviews of early live shows. They had little listening booths of all his classic 60s albums, some guitars and harmonicas, and a really nice display of artifacts and info of his mentors and influences. The whole thing has excellent sound design as you move from one display area to another, and the listening booths are open, but the sound is very directional and isolated. It's a really sweet collage of sound that carries you around the displays and it works beautifully.

I used to work on museum exhibits so I'm a little biased toward noticing all the little details, but the lighting and flow of the displays and sound design are all first rate. I'm not a huge Dylan fan, and I thought, "what could a museum display offer that I can't get from just listening to his classic albums?" A lot! It was fascinating.

http://www.emplive.com/visit/galleries/dylan.asp

I was also impressed with Chronicles. I've also read Woody Guthrie's 'Bound for Glory' and I can see how Dylan's writing style, like his music, was influenced by Guthrie. Chronicles is definitely more readable than Dylan's first book, the collection of poetry titled 'Tarantula.'

I drove up to Hibbing, MN one day in the early 90's, mainly so I could say that I drove through Dylan's hometown - I was vacationing in Wisconsin at the time. I got pictures of both his high school and the home he lived in at the time, and experienced a bit of the feel of the iron mining that is still going on around there.

There are rumors that the Dylan exhibit will eventually make it to the Smithsonian here in DC - I'll keep my fingers crossed.

By the way, if you like Dylan, I highly recommend reading Guthrie's 'Bound for Glory' followed immediately by Joe Klein's biography on Guthrie.

Vern