The Never Ending Pool

don't get carried away

clairdelalune wrote:

QUOTE:
don't get carried away

Okay, then let us part as non-enemies.

On THAT happy note, the first post has been edited with the new update, on "Ballad of Hollis Brown". Enjoy!

clairdelalune wrote:

QUOTE:
"it"? what?

i'm not teaching your writing class. by making it clear that I didn't read all of it, I'm stating that I didn't view that piece as a "whole" and can't treat if "fairly" as such. I'm not doing a critique at all, I'm making comments on what I read.

I can see that Tony Ling has talent and has put some work and thought into the Dylan song pieces.

I'd like to see some of your writing.

i'm sure you would. perhaps you've read some already and don't even know it. however, having reviewed your "thoughtful" critiques of tony's work i don't think you're qualified to analyze literary fiction so i'll pass. you're certainly not qualified to teach anyone writing, that takes an ability to tactfully encourage the best from people, not just proofread a sentence.

the "it" is my perception of you. granted, it's not in person, and so much of who we are isn't in what we say... it's how we behave. your nasty slight to tony's gracious offer of friendship is just another example of the negligible amount of kindness that seems to radiate from you.

i have several published friends who are capable of reading my work and providing educated, insightful and most importantly constructive criticism of my work... they know how difficult it is not only to write, but to expose that work to other people who may or may not appreciate or understand it and confuse behaving like a jerk with giving "feedback."

this isn't the first time we've butted heads clair, and it possibly might not be the last. in each exchange though, my perception of you is that you're an asshat. plain and simple.

crystal clear that time?


i'm sorry to hijack your thread tony. i do hope it gets back on some sort of track after all of this.

you mean "this" time?

If you can't see the humour in my "brush-off" of Tony's last reply I can't do much to help you. And I've just been trying to draw you out, so I know we shall continue to bump fenders on this highway to hell.

oh, it didn't lack clarity before, I said your perception was wrong. I like Tony's writing enough to care about it.

perception is a funny thing. it lies as often as it is truthful. a smile, a laugh, a frown. written words said in jest can be taken as anger...just as written words said in anger can be taken as jest.

MoonlightAlone said

QUOTE:
i'm not sure if it's your computer or mine babyblue, but some of that that post is garbled

yea..i don't know what was up with that..but I edited it.

QUOTE:
if your congrats is sincere i thank you.

it was...

QUOTE:
i just thought many of the posts in this thread were pretty nasty and it pissed me off.

i did not see any nasty posts, seriously. just opinions.
perception....

QUOTE:
...i'm simply saying.... picking apart someone else's work in a destructive, nasty, negative way designed not to engender discussion but to belittle.

i don't think that was the intent...and further posts confirmed it wasn't. you need to read all that is said with an open mind. you are doing exactly what you perceive the person you are angry to be doing. discuss it. don't try to shut it down. isn't your calling names and treating someone like crap because you don't like their critique pretty much the same thing?

QUOTE:
i can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of times i've seen someone be kind or gracious...

i think if you read through the threads, you will find your perception is off...

QUOTE:
so i’ll keep trying for that elusive restraint of pen and tongue.

start here....

QUOTE:
i know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of cruel, nasty critiques about my work. one does have to develop a thick skin… but the ability to discern between a constructive critique and someone just being a jerk is also helpful.

again..i think it's your peception of what was written and the attitude you assigned to it...AND...your pre-conceived perception of the person writing the critique influenced you as well...i don't believe you came in with an open mind. at least that's what i perceived...

what was that next song Tony posted?

well since your congrats were sincere i thank you...

as for the rest. i'll have to disagree.... but such is life.

The Ballad of Hollis Brown you say goes on too long. Do you have an editorial suggestion on what you might delete? Really, the point you make about it going on so long as for the listening to become "a harrowing and desperate experience" -- well you can't get much better than that, can you?

I mean you're not saying it's just going on and it's mindlessly boring. It is draggin you down into it.

The Pretty Polly reference is well-known and seems apparent enough. There are other tunes and the overall stream of Appalachian ballads that this tune relates to. "John Brown" is written in a closely related structure. The Ballad of Hollis Brown also relates in form to the old tune "Poor Man".

I'll write some more at another juncture. maybe

Thanks for all your interesting writings, Tony!

If you're interested in the prehistory of songs like these you can always check the "Traditional Ballad Index"

For "Pretty Polly" (first collected version 1916, first recordings 1927)
http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/LP36B.html

The Cruel Ship's Carpenter/The Gosport Tragedy (the British precursor)
http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/LP36.html

Wikipedia has links to some original recordings avaialble at archive.org



British Broadside of "The Gosport Tragedy"
http://bodley24.bodley.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/acwwweng/ballads/image.pl?ref=Harding+B+3(33)&id=00283.gif&seq=1&size=1

American broadside of the "Gosport Tragedy"

both from the 1st half of the 19th century


By the way, I remember somehow that a year or two ago there was a report that someone had sued (or had threatened to sue) Bob Dylan for using the name "Hollis Brown".

right, was gonna mention that Lost Chords. Actually, it was the daughter of a man - Hollis Brown - who said her father Dylan "misrepresented" him by titling his song after him.

the thing is...it's quite the bone to chew, if you're aiming to shine a light on every song dylan has ever written.
it's nice for a hobby but you better have your shit in order 'cause there's people out there who do this for a living.
it's one thing to have a big circle-jerk (have your read my book?), it's another thing to lay it out there like it has some value that transcends what's already available. that's not tony's fault, he's just doing it for fun, but wake me up when something is said that hasn't already been said.

it's all been hashed over, by minds much greater than ours.

I'm gonna have to agree and disagree with you Marcel. I agree that this has all been done before, many times, and that nothing "new" or groundbreaking will come of it this time. However, how many of the posts on any of these boards are actually saying something that hasn't been said before? Aside from new Bob-related material, most of the discussion inevitably circles around familiar, oft-discussed topics.

So sure this blog is in some sense just rehashing the same old stuff, but rehashing the same old stuff is mostly what we do on these boards. We're gonna be debating the merits of "Summer Days" til the bitter end, that's for sure.

Apologies in advance for this post on short sleep, but that post was a cold bucket of water to the face.

There's a lot of light on Bob Dylan as it is...I will personally hire somebody to gut punch me if I suggest that I'm going to say anything new. All I'm trying to do, using this metaphor, is take a hand-held mirror and reflect some of that light onto different and interesting subjects. If I say something transcendent, it'll be almost entirely by accident. Then again, most people tend to say transcendent things almost entirely by accident. Out of the mouth of babes, and so on.

I'll tell you what - the day somebody pays me for my blog, there's gonna be a hell of a lot more research/editing/proofreading/and so on put into it, because people will demand professional quality, as they do of any professional site. Right now, nobody's demanding much anything except decent writing (and I hope I'm delivering) and a lack of outright falsehoods (knock on wood on THAT one), and that's kind of nice. This is not to say that I'm not putting thought into it, or doing a little research; it's more that I'm not doing enough that I'm not going to be caught out by somebody more knowledgeable in certain topics than I am. I accept this.

And I'm not sure if you directly meant to say this, and I apologize in advance for going back into a defensive crouch...but I do not believe that doing something for "fun" and attempting to say something worthwhile (if, again, maybe not totally new) are mutually exclusive things. Sure, smarter people than me have talked about the issues that I've tried to touch on, up to and including Dylan's catalog, but I'd like to think I might have a viewpoint that makes people go "yeah, okay, I get that" or "you know, I hadn't seen it that way" (which, once again, doesn't make it new - but if it's new to the person in question, that's the same thing). To blatantly aver that I will not (through your "I'll nap through this neophyte's attempt to find gold in a barren field" phrasing), well, damn.

If I'm just contributing one more log to the fire, so be it. The bonfire's pretty goddamn big as it is. One more burnt ember will not be missed.

now don't be disuaded by that kind of thing Tony Ling.

there are always fresh impressions. Keep 'em comin'

MoonlightAlone wrote:

QUOTE:
clairdelalune wrote:

QUOTE:
"it"? what?

i'm not teaching your writing class. by making it clear that I didn't read all of it, I'm stating that I didn't view that piece as a "whole" and can't treat if "fairly" as such. I'm not doing a critique at all, I'm making comments on what I read.

I can see that Tony Ling has talent and has put some work and thought into the Dylan song pieces.

I'd like to see some of your writing.

i'm sure you would. perhaps you've read some already and don't even know it. however, having reviewed your "thoughtful" critiques of tony's work i don't think you're qualified to analyze literary fiction so i'll pass. you're certainly not qualified to teach anyone writing, that takes an ability to tactfully encourage the best from people, not just proofread a sentence.

the "it" is my perception of you. granted, it's not in person, and so much of who we are isn't in what we say... it's how we behave. your nasty slight to tony's gracious offer of friendship is just another example of the negligible amount of kindness that seems to radiate from you.

i have several published friends who are capable of reading my work and providing educated, insightful and most importantly constructive criticism of my work... they know how difficult it is not only to write, but to expose that work to other people who may or may not appreciate or understand it and confuse behaving like a jerk with giving "feedback."

this isn't the first time we've butted heads clair, and it possibly might not be the last. in each exchange though, my perception of you is that you're an asshat. plain and simple.

crystal clear that time?


i'm sorry to hijack your thread tony. i do hope it gets back on some sort of track after all of this.

au contraire, writing can be learned, but it cannot be taught. a real writer would know this.

Marcel wrote:

QUOTE:
the thing is...it's quite the bone to chew, if you're aiming to shine a light on every song dylan has ever written.
it's nice for a hobby but you better have your shit in order 'cause there's people out there who do this for a living.
it's one thing to have a big circle-jerk (have your read my book?), it's another thing to lay it out there like it has some value that transcends what's already available. that's not tony's fault, he's just doing it for fun, but wake me up when something is said that hasn't already been said.

it's all been hashed over, by minds much greater than ours.

on that final statement, please speak for yourself