Dylan at Work

More Blood, More Tracks is a revelation.

The limited edition boxed set invites us to  follow the evolution of a masterpiece — Blood on the Tracks — from the first tracks Dylan recorded with just his guitar and harmonica in New York to those he laid down with a rollicking band in Minneapolis three months later.

The six discs in this remarkable collection include, in chronological order, all 87 takes that have survived (82 from New York and five from Minneapolis).

Along the way we get to witness the many ways in which Dylan experimented with the pacing and phrasing of each song — the results often brilliant but in different ways.

The New York sessions ended in what everyone thought was a finished album — indeed copies were circulated to reviewers — but Dylan was having second thoughts. Rightly so, as it turned out. The five tracks from Minneapolis, essentially recorded live in the studio at the end of 1974, boost the energy level of the whole enterprise.

Without them, Blood on the Tracks would still be a great album, but not the masterpiece it became. 

The delay also gave Dylan time to further refine his lyrics. Consider, for example, "If You See Her, Say Hello."

In New York, he sings: "I knew it had to be that way. It was written in the cards. But the bitter taste still lingers on. It all came down so hard."

On the final version, he sings: "Whatever makes her happy, I won't stand in the way, though the bitter taste still lingers on from the night I tried to make her stay."

Much better, right?

Rave on, James Frey

I was hoping that Katerina would mark a return to form for James Frey, whose books had, in my estimation, gone steadily downhill since A Million Little Pieces. I started reading and I thought it was, wasn't, was, wasn't, was.

As I turned the pages, the narrator's bad-boy bravado quickly wore thin. Likewise his distain for ordinary workaday life and his burn-it-down posturing. Through it all, his insecurity and self-loathing came shining through. He couldn't hide it and didn't try.

Even as he worshiped excess, intensity, and passion, he yearned for peace. His grandiose ambitions belied his longing for domestic bliss.

Of course Katerina, a novel named for a woman, is at its core a love story. Both Frey and his narrator (who he pointedly intertwines) are romantics. But then so am I, and it's the love story that makes the book, despite its many glaring faults, worth reading.

I both loved and hated it.

End of an Era

Sadly, Luminis Books is no more. The publisher of "Meaningful Books that Entertain" has closed up shop. This was the outfit that brought you Precarious, Sabrina's Window, The Possibility of Snow, and Then We'd Be Happy. It was, I think, a bold and noble venture, and I will always be grateful to Luminis for making my writing available to readers across the country and beyond.

The we in Tumbleweed

Photo by Leland Zaitz

To the girl born with a pack on her back:

Entwine your pulled-up roots with mine

We'll turn ourselves into a tumbleweed

And ride the wind wherever it takes us

My (One) Time as a Foreign Correspondent

Found this dispatch among some old papers in my office at home ... published in my college newspaper back in January of 1976.

Middle East contrast: faith breads violence 

BY AL RISKE

JERUSALEM - Everyone was silent when Dr. Gordon Frazee’s “New Testament Land Seminar” drove to Portland Airport, Jan. 7. We were like reservoirs waiting to receive the flow. Besides, it was 5 a.m. and no one is talkative at that hour.

Our bird’s-eye view of the continental United States is mostly undercast. Clouds or snow, all we is white. The Minnesota farmland looks like a white quilt; cities look more like maps than the real thing—those black-and-white things on gas station walls.

We fly out of New York without seeing anything outside of Kennedy Airport. Six hours later, the sun poking its Kilroy nose over the Atlantic horizon means we’re nearing London. I’d like to come back when I can see more than the airport lounge.

The first I see of the Promised Land is a stand of cypress trees on the plains of Israel’s only airport, Ben Gurion. From there, our tour group boards a bus for the hour and a half drive to Jerusalem. The driver is introduced as “Moses.” Dan Rasmussen pipes up, “Okay, Moses, let’s see you part traffic.” And so it begins.

Night blankets the city and we bed down at the Eyal Hotel without much idea where we are, having been shuffled from airport to airport to bus. In the morning I walk into Zion Square with the feeling I could hop in a VW and drive to McMinnville. The weather is Southern California.

Alex, the tour guide, leads his disciples through the Old City. Everything looks older than it is, made of desert-colored stone. Rebuilding is underway around every corner of the narrow streets. Alex says the new is being blended with the old. What can be restored, will be. New buildings combine modern touches with the basic style of the past. (“There is some religious symbolism in there somewhere,” says one of the students.)

Jerusalem looks war torn. All kinds of buildings, from banks to hospitals, are bullet-riddled, fallen bricks clutter the street, here and there green-clad men carry machine guns. At various gates, our bags are checked. Put it all together and the visitor can see why the Jewish idea of heaven is “Shalom” or peace.

At the end of the day, tour members have a hard time listing all the places visited. Some stand out. At the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, we see the traditional site of Christ’s burial. Dan Rasmussen says it can’t be the real site—not enough headroom. “Imagine Jesus rising from the dead,” he says, “and bumping his head.”

Alex is careful to point out that no one can be sure of exact locations, only approximate ones. Even then, some are based on misinformation. “But religiously it makes little difference,” says the young Jew with the English accent. “It’s a symbol.”

In a land rich with religious history and symbolism, the seminar students can hardly assimilate all the information. Even so, some time is left for “personal exploration and discovery,” as the itinerary puts it. The time is spent wisely … shopping at the Arab markets. Or not so wisely, depending on your skill at bartering.

Packing souvenirs in her backpack, Debbie Watson pulls out a beautiful, patterned brown scarf. 

“Where did you get that?” asks Dave Massey, thinking of getting one as a gift.

“Nordstrom’s in Portland,” she laughs.

All Systems Go

Update from today’s followup with my cardiologist: All systems go. Coffee in the morning? OK. Beer or wine with dinner? OK. Yoga tonight? Yes. In short, life is returning to normal.

What a Weekend

I woke up at 5 a.m. Friday with what felt to me like maybe heartburn. Never had that, though. Pain got bad enough that I nearly threw up. 

Went to ER around 7. EKG ... chest X-ray ... blood work ... everything looked normal. But by then the pain was coming in waves. I could feel it coming on, intensifying, then vanishing. All in the absence of any doctor or nurse in the room at the time. 

 Finally a nurse and then a doctor saw what I was going through. But they still could not be sure: was it cardio or gastro? 

My body didn’t respond to morphine or nitro. It should have. But everyone is different. Lucky for me someone decided to try a drug usually prescribed for anxiety. No more pain. 

Subsequent blood tests began to show more and more of an enzyme associated with heart attacks. So they admitted me to the hospital for overnight observation. 

Imaging test the next day showed several severe blockages, and the doctor was ready with stents—four in all—which he immediately inserted, going up through my wrist to my heart. 

Took a long time, though, and I was getting claustrophobic toward the end. 

So glad it’s over now. Back home, feeling very good. Very blessed. 

Could use a beer, though that may not go well with all my new medications.

Ubiquitous

Great cappuccino at Caffe Nero, the Italian Coffee Co., which, it turns out, has locations all over London — like Starbucks in the States.  Served in real cups, with saucers, by the way.

Then a long stroll along Piccadilly with the wind nipping at our noses. Love all the old brick buildings. It's still early so nothing much is open. But there's lots of traffic — both cars and people.

The highlight of our walk is the garden outside St. James's Church (where there is another Caffe Nero).

Walking in Mayfair

London. Bitter cold. No rain, though.

It's been 14 hours since we left our home in Sunnyvale. More, now that we've ordered room service: pizza, beer, a banana-raspberry smoothie, and chocolate peanut cake.

We're staying at the Sheraton Grand Park Lane Hotel. Tiny room. No view. I've turned up the heat but nothing is happening.

Finally we go out where it is much colder and walk around snapping pics of double-decker buses and red phone boxes plastered with pictures of half-naked girls advertising their services.

Once we get off Piccadilly, we notice nifty little places to eat. Lots of them. Places we should have gone for dinner and will tomorrow.

In fact, we plan to go back to a cute little Italian place, a corner cafe, for due cappuccini in the morning.