Idiot Wind

[poliphilo]

Thanks to that Scorsese film I'm immersing myself in Dylan right now. I picked up the new Autobiography, Chronicles I, at the supermarket for some perfectly silly price and it's a good read. If you were ever tempted to think the guy was a phoney, as I have been, then this'll set you straight. OK, he's been a jerk. W.B. Yeats was a jerk. Picasso was a jerk. The greatest artists often are.

You gotta beware of them. They're not like other men. They're the guys with a tight connection to history. Everywhere they go its all flashing bronze and the shrieking of eagles. Anything they touch turns to myth.

Comments

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Except...I cannot help but wonder if they were jerks simply because people let them get away with it. "Oooooo, he's so-and-so, he's a "Great Artist" so he can act any way he wants." It all goes back to the prima donna behavior we hear whispers about on movie scenes, etc. People behave that way because others let them.

I don't think that being an artist means there is something in your genetic makeup that gives you a "jerk" personality - I think it's all about ego, and letting people's praises of you go to your head and thus you start acting like an arrogant a-hole.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I also think that great artists are so focused on their "work" that they tend to disregard other people and ride rough-shod over them. And they get away with it because they're such intense and commanding personalities.