One of the most astute comments I ever did see on early Dylan:
“These debut songs are essayed with differing degrees of conviction,” writes music critic Tim Riley in 1999, “[but] even when his reach exceeds his grasp, he never sounds like he knows he’s in over his head, or gushily patronizing … Like Elvis Presley, what Dylan can sing, he quickly masters; what he can’t, he twists to his own devices. And as with the Presley Sun sessions, the voice that leaps from Dylan’s first album is its most striking feature, a determined, iconoclastic baying that chews up influences, and spits out the odd mixed signal without half trying.”
From “Inside the World of Rock” posted to Facebook, 2024-03-20.
My second quote of the day, from the NYTimes, on South Dakota Governor Kristi Noemi, who appears to be grooming herself for a shot at Trump’s VP:
This approach to political image-making has its roots in the pantomimed femininity of Phyllis Schlafly and Sarah Palin, where the promise of a powerful woman was defanged by her participation in the pageantry of traditional gender cosplay.
Wonderful.