Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan!

Evidently today is Bob Dylan's birthday. Now, I'm not a relative or an acquaintance, nor have I ever even stood in the same city block as the man (yes, I shamefully admit I have never seen him in concert either)... but I have enjoyed my fair share of Bob Dylan's music.

So, Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan!
We'll just pretend like we're having cake.

I probably first knowingly heard a Bob Dylan song by watching a rerun of "Fame" back when they used to show reruns of fame at like 4pm on UHF channels (which, if you have never owned a television that did not operate via remote control you may not be familiar with). I'm sure the cast of Fame was protesting something serious (yes, I'm being sarcastic) - anyway, someone was sitting on a lunch table with a guitar singing "Blowin' in the Wind." (At least that's how I remember it).

Before that, I think I only knew of Bob Dylan via parody - you know, things that sound like Bob Dylan singing - which, you know, isn't like smooth jazz...

I believe my second encounter was via an 8-track tape. If memory serves me correct it was "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan." You know, the album that "Blowin' in the Wind" is on. I'm not sure I ever made it all the way through the 8-track, because quite frankly as a 12-year-old Styx's "The Grand Illusion" was a more palatable 8-track...

My first real "Dylan" musical encounter actually came via Dr. Demento. He played "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" on his show... and that was probably also the first time I ever went to the library (how antiquated) and looked up anything about communism...

Somewhere around the age of sixteen I think I bought "Greatest Hits 3." I think I bought it for "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and "Tangled Up In Blue." I was more interested in buying the Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull catalogs at the time, so, while every teenager is required to know a little rock history, well, priorities... It was via that album that I became very fond of "Changing of the Guards" and "The Groom's Still Waiting At the Alter."

When I went off to college, I bought "Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits" and I was mostly interested in "Mr. Tambourine Man" — albeit not for off-beat drug references, but because I really liked the line:

Though you might hear laughin', spinnin' swingin' madly across the sun
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'

 I have a propensity for just liking a line of a song...

Anyway, around the year 2000 I finally bought "Blonde on Blonde." I remember bringing it home and popping it in the cassette player and not really feeling compelled to sit through an entire song... and I say this as someone who will listen to Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull albums all the way through.  It took a really long time for that album to grow on me.  But eventually I became very fond of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat," "Visions of JoHanna" and "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands."

Next came "Blood on the Tracks" and "The Bootleg Series: Vol. 1-3." The Bootleg Series, as it turns out - was the only album that "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" had ever occurred on, and thus I had to own it. I've heard that Dylan isn't a fan of those Bootleg series albums - but I really love that one, particularly disc 2. It was probably via that album that I started to subsequently buy the rest of the Bob Dylan catalog...

Needless to say, I own more Dylan albums than I've actually listened to. I bought "Modern Times" when it came out, but still haven't exactly gotten around to listening to it some 7 years later... I'll get around to it someday.  I mean, hell, the man recorded 34 studio albums — that's a lot of music, plus the 13 live albums and all the compilations... plus, at 71 years of age — he does have 39 years on me.

Anyway, of all of the Dylan albums I have ever bought — "Desire" is my favorite, hands down. I enjoy "Isis," "Mozambique," "Romance in Durango," and "Black Diamond Bay." But for purely selfish reasons, my favorite Dylan song of all is "Sara." I know it's about his ex-wife... but it's still (phonetically) my name, and really, my favorite of all the 'Sarah' songs.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan! Thanks for the music.

Outside: magnolia

Magnolia, oh magnolia, you dear dear bush...

magnolia fantasia

magnolia cascade

magnolia skies

intricate magnolia

As I have mentioned before, here in Michigan when the magnolia finally blooms it then usually immediately snows. So, the bushes look fabulous for about a day, and then they are covered with snow and turn all brown and sad looking... and then all the petals fall off in a spectacular mess.

Well, we had 80˚F weather here for a week in March, so, I got my time with the magnolias.  It is a balmy 53˚F presently as I type this.  It rained during the night and the forecast predicts more rain. So, there-yah-go — we had our brief week of spring, and now it's back to weather as usual.

brief almost connected to the post musical interlude: Grateful Dead "Sugar Magnolia"

I was never a Dead-Head, per se, but "American Beauty" is an album that I happen to own. I'm one of those people who usually buys an album for one or 2 songs, and then eventually ends up listening to the entire thing, and well, I become fond of all the songs.  And "American Beauty" was one of those albums that followed that pattern. I'm pretty sure I probably bought it solely for "Sugar Magnolia." But I became quite fond of "Ripple," "Till the Morning Comes," and "Operator." But actually it was "Box of Rain" that I became completely smitten with. (Oh, and I'm pretty sure everyone has heard "Truckin" and "Friend of the Devil," unless, like, you live under a rock or were born after 1990)

Anyway, I could put "Box of Rain" on repeat for hours, I love that song. So, you know, buy the album, you'll eventually find all the good songs.

Anyway, as it is every year with the magnolias:

"Such a long long time to be gone

And a short time to be there."

—Robert Hunter

Enjoy your weekend!

so beautiful or so what

So beautiful or So what? So, I'm a little behind on my musical releases... that's just kind of how I am. You know what? I didn't go out and buy skinny jeans whenever those became "stylish" again. It is what it is. Right now I have this song —  so beautiful or so what — stuck in my head. So, that's so what.

 Paul Simon's website...

Truth be told, I just took a shower. So, as I type this I'm waiting for my hair to dry.  Normally, I default to TRESemmé shampoo and Pantene conditioner.  I'm a creature of habit. But every once in a while one must be adventurous, or just wash all the residue out of one's hair. So, I liked the way this smelled. Yes, as a consumer of hair care products, these 2 Herbal Essences products had all the necessary marketing tricks:

√  purple stuff comes out of the bottle

√  the bottle is purple

√  alleges to smell like "wild cherry"

√  use of the word "orchid"

Okay, so I actually think it kind of smells like grapes. But, well, it made my hair all snazzy when I used it. In the event that it's not apparent — violet (and by proxy all purple derivatives) is my favorite color. I love cherries, and I have long curly hair.

 

I also like cake. Strawberry with cream cheese frosting... mostly because that's what I found in the cupboards. Mmm, cake.

I decided, on a whim, that I wanted to do some watercolors... which might have something to do with the sudden influx of watercolors to my sarahknight etsy shop.  You know, when I list them I have to leaf through the pile and make sure that I've scanned them, and then I'm probably day dreaming about my fantasy house with all my paintings on the wall or something.

Anyway, yesterday  when I got home from work I sat down and caught up on the last 2 episodes of Californication and cleared off a good area on the floor in order to get out my case of paints, the box of watercolors, the box of gouache, the set of gouaches, the watercolor palette, the gouache palette, the bowl of salt... and then I spent a good 10 minutes cleaning up paintbrushes so that I would have something with which to fling wet pigment at the parchment...

I highly recommend Californication as a series.  I always enjoy being surprised by the plot twists on this show... and like Hank, I can't exactly say I have any fondness for Tyler...

I painted 14 yesterday, and four so far today. And now I'm waiting for them to dry. That's probably the hardest part.  There's a difference between the way they look when they're wet and how they look when they're dry. And even though I've been using this painting technique for 12 years — there's always an element of surprise, and it's usually the good kind.  I already scraped the salt off the 14 I painted yesterday, and it's going to be hard to not put most of them in the "keep pile."

Some notable keep pile escapees... here, and here, and here, and here...

It's unseasonably warm here in Michigan right now. A couple days ago I got my bike out of the shed and pumped up the tires. The first ride after the winter lay off is always the toughest... anyway, the crocuses have already bloomed, and now the daffodils, the forsythia, and the magnolia are going at it. I'm convinced it's going to snow tomorrow, even if the calendar indicates that spring has now begun.

Anyway, I recommend having a nice slice of cake and then going out to wander about and look at all the springy things popping up here and there... and maybe catch up on some Paul Simon too.
: )

Look into the sun

I think the first song that I truly realized was my favorite song was "Jack and Diane" by John Cougar Mellancamp (because he was JCM back then). Now, I was about 8 years old at the time — 6 years after it came out in 1982. I think I had to ask my Mom what 'Bobbie Brooks' were.

Anyway, by the time I was 11 Pink Floyd was my favorite band. I distinctly remember being on the playground when Lisa & Jessica announced that they had tickets to the New Kids on the Block concert and me realizing that I had to act excited for them. My parents had the good fortune of never having had to take me to a concert. Pink Floyd toured at some point in the early nineties, and believe me - as an adolescent I tried very hard to win the free tickets from the radio station - because I had no money to buy them and my parents sure as hell weren't getting them for me. Usually, when attempting to win tickets I'd just get the busy signal - since the only rock stations were long distance... but there's still something exciting about being caller number 11 when you're 14.

Needless to say, many years later as an adult I shelled out a lot of money to sit in the nosebleed seats to see Roger Waters in concert. And I knew every frigging song.

Anyway, when I was a teenager was when music transitioned from being on cassette tape to CDs. Remember when CDs were the new thing? Yeah, way back when. So, a lot of the first CDs I bought were by this little band you may have heard of: Jethro Tull.

As a teenager who wasn't being 100% contemporary with music, I listened to a lot of classic rock, so I was familiar with the Tull, as it were. And it was around this time that WRIF would occasionally do something over the weekend where they would play the entire catalog of a band in alphabetical order (I remember them doing Rush, Pink Floyd, and Jethro Tull; I'm sure there were others, but those were in my top 10 favorites). So, as someone who wasn't actually alive when all their albums came out - I got to hear their songs...

Anyway, I also bought a lot of Tull CDs because they were an economical $7.99 (at the time I was standing in Best Buy). When you're young and you have no job or allowance and you need to stretch that $20.00 from Grandma - that's like 2 Tull albums or 1 Oasis album plus maybe $6 + change. So, yeah, I own the majority of the Tull catalog.

Why am I rambling on about some old rock band that you may or may not care about? Because when I went on my paper bowl making extravaganza a few weeks ago I pulled out some early Tull on cd and listened to the albums all the way through. Ah, album rock. Particularly "This Was," "Benefit," and "Stand Up."

I've made a lot of artwork while listening to Jethro Tull actually, particularly their early stuff - because those albums just flow and I know every song. Anyway, there's a song on "Benefit" called "Look Into the Sun," and looking at the suns I tend to paint on my bowls reminds me of the song. Plus, I easily have it stuck in my head from listening to it while making the bowls. Oh, circular logic.

Anyway, the sun has always been there in my artwork.
So, these are some shots of some of the new menagerie of bowls in progress...

inside of a small bowl


the inside of a large bowl


another large bowl

I still have to paint trees on them, which is, perhaps, the most tedious part. Trees require the smallest brushes and the most runny paint, and the surface of the inside of the bowls is lumpy... and well, sometimes there are good branches, and sometimes there are accidents, and sometimes nature just takes its course.

To see finished bowls, look here.

"So when you look into the sun
and see the words you could have sung:
It's not too late, only begun.
Look into the sun."
Ian Anderson