This antique image arrived in part as a kind of graphic comment on the previous posted picture. Is it coincidental, or are we drawn to replicant romance, and rusting, recherché robots in a kind of Jungian subconscious preparation for The Singularity, when man (and of course woman) merge with the machinery and the micro processors? And is the night still made for lovers be they flesh, metal or both? (Of course, believing in the extinguishment of everything on 12.21.2012 means you don't have to wprry about The Singularity.
The secret question is Why?
Paul Marsh -- RIP
What passes for sex, as well as love in our culture these days is robotic and plastic enough. Plenty of people seem like machines already. Maybe the draw isn't attraction but recognition.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking it's why the Dylan VS spot comes off so strangely schizy, and somehow dull. Pairing all that feeling and intimacy in the song with the predictably uninteresting sexy-a-la-Playboy female is a real disconnect. It's like they wanted to use what Dylan's song offers, but don't really get what that is. The real, the deliciously real, is disappearing. The robotic is everywhere.
Of course the whole thing could've been a deliberate send up of vacuousness, with Dylan getting the last laugh. Who knows.
But that doesn't seem to hold for the cadillac commercial. He actually seems to be behind it. But again, who knows. It has that same schizy quality... the glaring mismatch. Either way I see him laughing all the way to the proverbial bank.
Re this selling out thing, maybe we've over-idealized the man.... not fair to anyone, and he's said as much. The songs are incredible, but nothing's balck-and-white, much less perfect.
If you go way back, watch the documentaries, watch No Direction Home, there was always that stubborness almost ruthlessness in addition to the youthful sense of innocence and the unassuming understatement. And there was always a streak of opportunism, like using Van Ronk.
He was strong and focused and nothing stopped him doing his thing thank god and maybe it's no different now. Dylan's just being Dylan, and it's take it or leave it, like it always was. I guess I'm saying, the feeling out there is it's disappointing cause he's changed, but maybe he hasn't. Maybe it's part of why the songs always come out so true... he makes no excuses.
You seem like an unusually forgiving person Kass. I don't meet many. (Any?)
ReplyDeletekass: yes!
ReplyDeletelefty and some girl,
ReplyDeleteThanks. Nothing like being understood.