thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
humor.PLAYBOY: That's throughout the ages. What about women now?DYLAN: Well, here's the new woman, right? Nowadays, you have the concept of a new woman, but the new woman is nothing without a man.PLAYBOY: What would the new woman say to that?DYLAN: I don't know what the new woman would say The new woman is the impulsive woman....PLAYBOY: There's another line in your movie about "the ultimate woman." What is the ultimate woman?DYLAN: A woman without prejudice.PLAYBOY: Are there many?DYLAN: There are as many as you can see. As many as can touch you.PLAYBOY: So you've run into a lot of ultimate women?DYLAN: Me, personally? I don't run into that many people. I'm working most of the time. I really don't have time for all that kind of intrigue.PLAYBOY: Camus said that chastity is an essential condition for creativity. Do you agree?DYLAN: He was speaking there of the disinvolvement with pretense.PLAYBOY: Wasn't he speaking of sexual chastity?DYLAN: You mean he was saying you have to stay celibate to create?PLAYBOY: That's one interpretation.DYLAN: Well, he might have been on to something there. It could have worked for him.PLAYBOY: When you think about rock and the rhythm of the heartbeat is it tied into love in some way?DYLAN: The heartbeat. Have you ever lain with somebody when your hearts were beating in the same rhythm? That's true love. A man and a woman who lie down with their hearts beating together are truly lucky. Then you've truly been in love, m' boy. Yeah, that's true love. You might see that person once a month, once a year, maybe once a lifetime, but you have the guarantee your lives are going to be in rhythm. That's all you need.PLAYBOY: Considering that some of your recent songs have been about love and romance, what do you feel about the tendency some people used to have of dividing your work into periods? Did you ever feel it was fair to divide your work, for example, into a political period and a nonpolitical period?DYLAN: Those people disregarded the ultimate fact that I am a songwriter. I can't help what other people do with my songs, what they make of them.PLAYBOY: But you were more involved politically at one time. You were supposed to have written Chimes of Freedom in the back seat of a car while you were visiting some SNCC people in the South.DYLAN: That is all we did in those days. Writing in the back seats of cars and writing songs on street corners or on porch swings. Seeking out the explosive areas of life.PLAYBOY: One of which was politics?DYLAN: Politics was always one because there were people who were trying to change things. They were involved in the political game because that is how they had to change things. But I have always considered politics just part of the illusion. I don't get involved much in politics. I don't know what the system runs on. For instance, there are people who have definite ideas or who studied all the systems of government. A lot of those
people with college-educational backgrounds tended to come in and use up everybody for whatever purposes they had in mind. And, of course, they used music, because music was accessible and we would have done that stuff and written those songs and sung them whether there was any politics or not. I never did renounce a role in politics, because I never played one in politics. It would be comical for me to think that I played a role. Gurdjieff thinks it's best to work out your mobility daily.PLAYBOY: So you did have a lot of "on the road" experiences?DYLAN: I still do.PLAYBOY: Driving around?DYLAN: I am. interested in all aspects of life. Revelations and realizations. Lucid thought that can be translated into songs, analogies, new information. I am better at it now. Not really written yet anything to make me stop writing. Like, I haven't come to the place that Rimbaud came to when he decided to stop writing and run guns in Africa.PLAYBOY: Jimmy Carter has said that listening to your songs, he learned to see in a new way the relationship between landlord and tenant, farmer and sharecropper and things like that. He also said that you were his friend. What do you think of all that?DYLAN: I am his friend.PLAYBOY: A personal friend?DYLAN: I know him personally.PLAYBOY: Do you like him?DYLAN: Yeah, I think his heart's in the right place.PLAYBOY: How would you describe that place?DYLAN: The place of destiny. You know, I hope the magazine won't take all this stuff and edit-like, Carter's heart's in the right place of destiny, because it's going to really soundPLAYBOY: No, it would lose the sense of conversation. The magazine's pretty good about that.DYLAN: Carter has his heart in the right place. He has a sense of who he is. That's what I felt, anyway, when I met him.PLAYBOY: Have you met him many times?DYLAN: Only once.PLAYBOY: Stayed at his house?DYLAN: No. But anybody who's a governor or a Senate leader or in a position of authority who finds time to invite a folkrock singer and his band out to his place has got to have . . . a sense of humor . . . and a feeling of the pulse of the people. Why does he have to do it? Most people in those kinds of positions can't relate at all to people in the music field unless it's for some selfish purpose.PLAYBOY: Did you talk about music or politics?DYLAN: Music. Very little politics. The conversation was kept in pretty general areas.PLAYBOY: Does he have any favorite Dylan songs?DYLAN: I didn't ask him if he had any favorite Dylan songs. He didn't say that he did. I think he liked Ballad of a Thin Man, really.PLAYBOY: Did you think that Carter might have been using you by inviting you there?DYLAN: No, I believe that he was a decent, untainted man and he just wanted to check me out. Actually, as Presidents go, I liked Truman.PLAYBOY: Why?DYLAN: I just liked the way he acted and things he said and who he
said them to. He had a common sense about him, which is rare for a President. Maybe in the old days it wasn't so rare, but nowadays it's rare. He had a common quality. You felt like you could talk to him.PLAYBOY: You obviously feel you can talk to President Carter.DYLAN: You do feel like you can talk to him, but the guy is so busy and overworked you feel more like, well, maybe you'd just leave him alone, you know. And he's dealing with such complicated matters and issues that people are a little divided and we weren't divided in Truman's time.PLAYBOY: Is there anything you're angry about? Is there anything that would make you go up to Carter and say, "Look, you fucker, do this!"?DYLAN: Right. [Pause] He's probably caught up in the system like everybody else.PLAYBOY: Including you?DYLAN: I'm a part of the system. I have to deal with the system. The minute you pay taxes, you're part of the system.PLAYBOY: Are there any heroes or saints these days?DYLAN: A saint is a person who gives of himself totally and freely, without strings. He is neither deaf nor blind. And yet he's both. He's the master of his own reality, the voice of simplicity. The trick is to stay away from mirror images. The only true mirrors are puddles of water.PLAYBOY: How are mirrors different from puddles?DYLAN: The image you see in a puddle of water is consumed by depth: An image you see when you look into a piece of glass has no depth or life-flutter movement. Of course, you might want to check your tie. And, of course, you might want to see if the make-up is on straight. That's all the way. Vanity sells a lot of things.PLAYBOY: How so?DYLAN: Well, products on the market. Everything from new tires to bars of soap. Need is-need is totally overlooked. Nobody seems to care about people's needs. They're all for one purpose. A shallow grave.PLAYBOY: Do you want your grave unmarked?DYLAN: Isn't that a line in my film?PLAYBOY: Yes.DYLAN: Well, there are many things they can do with your bones, you know. [Pause] They make neckpieces out of them, bury them. Burn them up.PLAYBOY: What's your latest preference?DYLAN: Ah-put them in a nutshell.PLAYBOY: You were talking about vanity and real needs. What needs? What are we missing?DYLAN: There isn't anything missing. There is just a lot of scarcity.PLAYBOY: Scarcity of what?DYLAN: Inspirational abundance.PLAYBOY: So it's not an energy crisis but an imagination crisis?DYLAN: I think it's a spiritual crisis.PLAYBOY: How so?DYLAN: Well, you know, people step on each other's feet too much. They get on each other's case. They rattle easily. But I don't particularly stress that. I'm not on a soapbox about it, you know. That is the way life is.PLAYBOY: We asked about heroes and saints and began talking about saints How about heroes?DYLAN: A hero is anyone who walks to hi' own drummer.PLAYBOY: Shouldn't people look to other to be heroes?DYLAN: No; when people look to other for heroism, they're looking for heroism in an
imaginary character.PLAYBOY: Maybe that in part explains why many seized upon you as that imaginary character.DYLAN: I'm not an imaginary character, though.PLAYBOY: You must realize that people get into a whole thing about you.DYLAN: I know they used to.PLAYBOY: Don't you think they still do?DYLAN: Well, I m not aware of it anymore.PLAYBOY: What about the 1974 tour? Or the Rolling Thunder tour of 1976?DYLAN: Well, yeah, you know, when I play, people show up. I'm aware they haven't forgotten about me.PLAYBOY: Still, people always think you have answers, don't they?DYLAN: No, listen: If I wasn't Bob Dylan, I'd probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.PLAYBOY: Would you be right?DYLAN: I don't think so. Maybe he'd have a lot of answers for him, but for me? Maybe not. Maybe yes, maybe no. Bob Dylan isn't a cat, he doesn't have nine lives, so he can only do what he can do. You know: not break under the strain. If you need someone who raises someone else to a level that is unrealistic, then it's that other person's problem. He is just confronting his superficial self somewhere down the line. They'll realize it, I'm sure.PLAYBOY: But didn't you have to go through a period when people were claiming you had let them down?DYLAN: Yeah, but I don't pay much attention to that. What can you say? Oh, I let you down, big deal, OK. That's all. Find somebody else, OK? That's all.PLAYBOY: You talked about a spiritual crisis. Do you think Christ is an answer?DYLAN: What is it that attracts people to Christ? The fact that it was such a tragedy, is what. Who does Christ become when he lives inside a certain person? Many people say that Christ lives inside them: Well, what does that mean? I've talked to many people whom Christ lives inside; I haven't met one who would want to trade places with Christ. Not one of his people put himself on the line when it came down to the final hour. What would Christ be in this day and age if he came back? What would he be? What would he be to fulfill his function and purpose? He would have to be a leader, I suppose.PLAYBOY: Did you grow up thinking about the fact that you were Jewish?DYLAN: No, I didn't. I've never felt Jewish. I don't really consider myself Jewish or non-Jewish. I don't have much of a Jewish background. I'm not a patriot to any creed. I believe in all of them and none of them. A devout Christian or Moslem can be just as effective as a devout Jew.PLAYBOY: You say you don't feel Jewish. But what about your sense of God?DYLAN: I feel a heartfelt God. I don't particularly think that God wants me thinking about Him all the time. I think that would be a tremendous burden on Him, you know. He's got enough people asking Him for favors. He's got enough people asking Him to pull strings. I'll pull my own strings, you know. I remember seeing
a Time magazine on an airplane a few years back and it had a big cover headline, "IS COD DEAD?" I mean, that was-would you think that was a responsible thing to do? What does God think of that? I mean, if you were God, how would you like to see that written about yourself? You know, I think the country's gone downhill since that day.PLAYBOY: Really?DYLAN: Uh-huh.PLAYBOY: Since that particular question was asked?DYLAN: Yeah; I think at that point, some very irresponsible people got hold of too much power to put such an irrelevant thing like that on a magazine when they could be talking about real issues. Since that day, you've had to kind of make your own way.PLAYBOY: How are we doing, making our own way?DYLAN: The truth is that we're born and we die. We're concerned here in this life with the journey from point A to point Z, or from what we think is point A to point Z. But it's pretty self-deluding if you think that's all there is.PLAYBOY: What do you think is beyond Z?DYLAN: You mean, what do I think is in the great unknown? [Pause] Sounds, echoes of laughter.PLAYBOY: Do you feel there's some sense of karmic balance in the universe, that you suffer for acts of bad faith?DYLAN: Of course. I. think everybody knows that's true. After you've lived long enough, you realize that's the case. You can get away with anything for a while. But it's like Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart or Dostoievsky's Crime and Punishment: Somewhere along the line, sooner or later, you're going to have to pay.PLAYBOY: Do you feel you've paid for what you got away with earlier?DYLAN: Right now, I'm about even.PLAYBOY: Isn't that what you said after your motorcycle accident-"Something had to be evened up"?DYLAN: Yes.PLAYBOY: And you meant. . . ?DYLAN: I meant my back wheel had to be aligned. [Laughter]PLAYBOY: Let's take one last dip back into the material world. What about an artist's relationship to money?DYLAN: The myth of the starving artist is a myth. The big bankers and prominent young ladies who buy art started it. They just want to keep the artist under their thumb. Who says an artist can't have any money? Look at Picasso. The starving artist is usually starving for those around him to starve. You don't have to starve to be a good artist. You just have to have love, insight and a strong point of view. And you have to fight off depravity. Uncompromising, that's what makes a good artist. It doesn't matter if he has money or not. Look at Matisse; he was a banker. Anyway, there are other things that constitute wealth and poverty besides money.PLAYBOY: What we were touching on was the subject of the expensive house you live in, for example.DYLAN: What about it? Nothing earthshaking or final about where I live. There is no vision behind the house. It is just a bunch of trees and sheds.PLAYBOY: We read in the papers about an enormous copper dome you had built.DYLAN: I
don't know what you read in the papers. It's just a place to live for now. The copper dome is just so I can recognize it when I come home.PLAYBOY: OK, back to less worldly concerns. You don't believe in astrology, do you?DYLAN: I don't think so.PLAYBOY: You were quoted recently as having said something about having a Gemini nature.DYLAN: Well, maybe there are certain characteristics of people who are born under certain signs. But I don't know, I'm not sure how relevant it is.PLAYBOY: Could it be there's an undiscovered twin or a double to Bob Dylan?DYLAN: Someplace on the planet, there's a double of me walking around. Could very possibly be. PLAYBOY: Any messages for your double? DYLAN: Love will conquer everything-I suppose.
"That night in Switzerland," says Bob Dylan, "it all just came to me. All of a sudden I could sing anything. There might've been a time when I was going to quit or retire, but the next day it was like, 'I can't really retire now because I really haven't done anything yet,' you know? I want to see where this will lead me, because now I can control it all. Before, I wasn't controlling it. I was just being swept by the wind, this way or that way."As Dylan speaks, we are seated at a small table in a comfortable hotel suite, located on the beach at Santa Monica. Dylan is dressed in the sort of country-gentleman finery he has tended to favor in recent years -- a nicely stitched white Western shirt and sharp-looking black slacks with arrows embroidered at the edges of the pocket seams. Dylan has been talking about a crucial turning point in his life and art, during the time since ROLLING STONE published a lengthy interview with him in 1992. In several of those years, Dylan produced erratic and mixed-up work - and he is the first to admit it. But increasingly, those years also featured some of the most resourceful and remarkable creativity in Dylan's forty-year recording and performing career -- and that progress, it is only fair to say, was sometimes less noted than it should have been. All that changed in 1997. In that year, Dylan fell sick with a rare fungal infection that caused severe swelling around his heart. It was a painful condition that temporarily debilitated him, and it could have proved fatal. Around the same time as his illness, Dylan finished and soon released his first album of original material in seven years, Time Out of Mind. It was a work unlike any other that Dylan had created -- a trek through the unmapped frontier that lies beyond loss and disillusion -- and it was heralded as a startling work of renewal. Time Out of Mind went on to win the Grammy for Best Album of the Year - Dylan's first such honor in that category.In September, Dylan released another collection of new songs, Love and Theft - his forty-third album. Love and Theft sounds at moments like Dylan is unearthing new revelations with an acerbic wit and impulsive language -- in much the same way he did on his early hallmark, Highway 61 Revisited -- though Love and Theft also seems to derive from ancient wellsprings of American vision and concealment, much like John Wesley Harding or his legendary 1967 Basement Tapes sessions with the Band. Dylan, however, bristles at such comparisons. Love and Theft, as he puts it, plays by its own rules.The 1980s saw Dylan lose his focus. He mounted widely publicized and well--attended tours with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and the Grateful Dead -- but these were tours in which Dylan seemed to be casting about for a sense of connection and intent. To many observers, Dylan gave the impression that he was adrift. In
recent years, he has told the story of an event -- a moment of awareness - that came to him onstage in Locarno, Switzerland. He said that a phrase struck him -- "I'm determined to stand whether God will deliver me or not" -- and in that moment, he realized that it was his vocation to rededicate himself to his music and its performance. Dylan didn't make any public pronouncements about this realization and how it had changed his purpose as a singer, musician and songwriter. In a low-key yet determined way, Dylan invested himself in his music's sustaining power perhaps more than ever before. As good as Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft may be, the live shows that Dylan has been playing for years with an evolving, carefully selected band (which presently consists of bassist Tony Garnier, drummer David Kemper, and guitarists Larry Campbell and Charlie Sexton), make the case that his essential art can be found onstage even more than on record. Indeed, Dylan -- who turned sixty this last May -- seems to have adopted a viewpoint similar to the one favored by jazz trumpeter and bandleader Miles Davis for most of his career: namely, that the truest vital experience of music resides in the moment of its performance, in the living act of its formation and the spontaneous yet hard-earned discoveries that those acts of creation yield. The next time the musicians play the same song, it is not really the same song. It is a new moment and creation, a new possibility, a newfound place on the map, soon to be left behind for the next place. These live shows are the quintessence of Bob Dylan and how he has moved into the new century, bringing with him what he values most from the music of the last century, even as night after night he takes us to unfamiliar and transfixing understandings of what we once thought we knew so well.It was a Tuesday in September when Dylan and I sat down to discuss his recent art - two weeks to the day after the shocking attacks that destroyed New York's World Trade Center buildings. (The tragedy's date, September 11th, was also the release date for Love and Theft.) As we talked, Dylan and I were near the room's open balcony doors and windows, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The Los Angeles airport is just down the highway, and every few minutes you could see an airplane in its ascent as it embarked on its journey. Once or twice, we just watched without comment, but there was a sense that nobody will ever look at the commonplace sight of a plane moving across the sky in quite the same way again. It would be unfair to Dylan to make the claim that anything in his music anticipated the horrific turn of recent events. And yet clearly he has been writing about dread realities and dangerous likelihoods for four decades now, from the end-times vision of 1963's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" to his current remorseful
statement about personal and national spirit in Love and Theft's "Mississippi." Bob Dylan may no longer be the young firebrand who tore through the world with such energy and disdain in the 1960s, but he is still a songwriter, singer and literary artist of continuing power and depth. If there was any principal meaning to Dylan's early music, perhaps it was that it is hardly trouble-free for a smart, conscientious person to live in times that witness the betrayal or inversion of our best values and dreams. To live through such times with scruples and intellect intact, Dylan has declared in his music, one has to hold an honest and fearless mirror up to the face of cultural and moral disorder.Dylan was convivial and confident as we talked on this day, but in his speech, just as in his songs and vocals, one senses that he carries a dignified knowledge of enduring mysteries that probably unsettle him every bit as much as his awareness of them distinguishes him. And in conversation, just as in his music, Bob Dylan lets go of his insights in constantly surprising and singular turns of phrase and temperament.In 1998, when you received the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, you said something that surprised me -- maybe surprised other people as well. You said, "We didn't know what we had when we did it, but we did it anyway." That was interesting because Time Out of Mind plays as an album made with purpose and vision, with a consistent mood and set of themes. Was it, in fact, an album you approached with forethought, or was its seeming cohesiveness incidental?What happened was, I'd been writing down couplets and verses and things, and then putting them together at later times. I had a lot of that -- it was starting to pile up - so I thought, "Well, I got all this -- maybe, I'll try to record it." I'd had good luck with Daniel Lanois [producer of the 1989 album Oh Mercy], so I called him and showed him a lot of the songs. I also familiarized him with the way I wanted the songs to sound. I think I played him some Slim Harpo recordings -- early stuff like that. He seemed pretty agreeable to it, and we set aside a certain time and place. But I had a schedule -- I only had so much time -- and we made that record, Time Out of Mind, that way. It was a little rougher. . . . I wouldn't say rougher. . . . It was . . . I feel we were lucky to get that record.Really?Well, I didn't go into it with the idea that this was going to be a finished album. It got off the tracks more than a few times, and people got frustrated. I know I did. I know Lanois did. There were myriad musicians down there. At that point in time, I didn't have the same band I have now. I was kind of just auditioning players here