erik lundegaard

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Saturday February 01, 2025

Bob's Brass Tacks

I'm reading Bob Dylan's memoirs again, “Chronicles: Volume One,” and it's as good as I remember it, and includes all the fascinating stuff James Mangold's movie left out.

It's 1961, Dylan's in New York and finally playing at the Gaslight (Dave Von Ronk got him in), and listening to whatever he can and reading what he can while staying in different people's homes. Sometimes he gets a couch, sometimes a room. He's a rambler and a gambler. One of his favorite places is at Ray and Chole's on Vestry Street in lower Manhattan. They were well-read so he was well-read while he stayed there. He mentions reading a biography of Thaddeus Stevens, the anti-slave Radical Republican of the 19th century who didn't suffer fools, the one played by Tommy Lee Jones in Spielberg's “Lincoln.” He also read “Vom Kriege” (“About War”) by Carl von Clausewitz and says this:

Clausewitz's book seemed outdated, but there's a lot in it that's real, and you can understand a lot about conventional life and the pressures of environment by reading it. When he claims that politics has taken the place of morality and politics is brute force, he's not playing. You have to believe it. You do exactly as you're told, whoever you are. Knuckle under or you're dead. Don't give me any of that jazz about hope or nonsense about righteousness. Don't give me that dance that God is with us, or that God supports us. Let's get down to brass tacks. There isn't any moral order.

Read that this morning. Seemed relevant.

Posted at 08:23 AM on Saturday February 01, 2025 in category Books