Armour

[poliphilo]

Personality is armour. Artists- volatile and sensitive individuals whose work involves much exposure to public gaze- often develop particularly baroque personalities. This really isn't surprising.

Consider Bob Dylan. I think, from all I've been reading lately, that he's actually quite a nice, shy, ordinary little guy at heart. It's a measure of the fragility of the man that the personality he projects is so monstrous.

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Just a personal opinion, I knew Dylan a bit in the 60s during his Village years. He was a dick! People can and do change with age.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"he was a dick"

He-he- I'm sure he was.

I've know men who, I suspect, were very like the young Dylan- ambitious, insecure, bull-shitting, pretentious, scrabbling for attention- the only difference being that he had talent and they didn't.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I heard, third hand or so, that he really abused Dave Van Ronk's hospitality and generosity.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

He ripped people off, especially things like clothing and LPs, or so I heard. I didn't know him real well, just met a couple of times. I was quite young and he scared me, but I did hear about people who would help him and he'd take stuff from them.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There was some of that in the Scorsese film. He "borrowed" a whole lot of records from some guy and the guy went round to put the fear of God into him and they had this long weird conversation that got so interesting that the guy kept forgetting that he was trying to terrorize Dylan and according to a witness it was really funny to watch.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He stole House of the Rising Sun from Van Ronk, but from the way Van Ronk was talking in the Scorsese film it seemed like he'd forgiven him.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

From what I've heard about Van Ronk, he was a very forgiving sort. A better musician, too, at least in my opinion. (Still trying to get my fingers around St. Louis Tickle)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He seemed like a nice guy in the movie.