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and veil asking for pity and a ticket in a poorly disguised accent, for he had “come from so far.”Inside, the stage had instruments, a rocking chair and old couch (what for?), and an old-fashioned Tiffany lamp. Soon, the performers appeared, looking more like hip Wall Street executives than rock-and-roll stars.In fact, efficiency seemed to be the keynote of the concert: efficiency in getting the crowd in and out and in controlling the performance and crowd reaction with precise lighting techniques and fast-flowingPublic Meetings ScheduledThree public meetings will be held by the University of California, San Francisco, campus to discuss its plans for the School of Dentistry Building Program.*The Draft Environmental Impact Report will be considered at a Public Hearing to be scheduled by the University during the week of June 24, 1974. The campus has scheduled the following public meetings:Wednesday, March 6, 1974 - U.C.S.F. Campus, Parnassus Avenue, Medical Sciences Building, Cole Hall Auditorium, Noon.Wednesday, March 6, 1974 - Laeuna Honda Ele-deep into the personal world of each of his listeners. In fact, most of the lyrics were barely intelligible.Following intermission, Dylan played acoustic guitar and harmonica and sang without accompaniment. The audience loved it, not because he was so good, but because this was closer to the Bob Dylan with whom people identify; they came to see the Dylan of “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Desolation Row,” not “New Morning” or “Planet Waves.”The Band, a group composed of outstanding musicians, was superb throughoutterwards, I felt a strong sense of bewilderment. What had happened? Who is the Bob Dylan of the past? What had I expected, and what had I found? Why was the concert such a success?Was it simply a tribute to a hero of the past? Or was it a group of people gathered together to celebrate the memories of their youth; an attempt to recapture or remember what it was like to be younger, perhaps less cynical or more alive?Much has been made of Dylan’s new “apolitical” image, the suggestion being that when he lost his focus on theuipie in me vasiness oi nis creations, which Bob Dylan seems to have lost — outrage at the masters of the wars and the makers of the bomb shelters, the government, our society, his lovers, time, death, words, psychiatrists, and even himself.Dylan grew out of a different time and place. He is not a product of the love generation, but of the days of beatniks, New York coffee houses, and Woody Guthrie. Dylan was never a part of the utopianism of the hippy movement.He sprang from the very bourgeois, individualistic tradition of the Old Left, from a time when dissenters truly were an elite, persecuted minority. These dissenters sang out in anger and in hope, in that forgotten time before cynicism poisoned the land, and they were taken seriously, at least, as artists and popular poets.But of what relevance is outrage today, when popular polls tell us that 70% of the people disapprove of what is happening in the country, and yet it continues to happen? Outrage is passe, a subject for the comedians on the late night tv talk shows. Our current culture is too cynical to take it seriously.One feels a need for such a Figure today, the leader-out-cast, the rebel who tells us where he’s going and why, and lights the path for the vanguard of society who see that this is where they are heading, too. One still feels this need, but the currently prevailing commun-alism is historically not a fertile rr- 1 .......a iiiiiiui mii meat udp —“Deep Throat” or “The Exorcist?” Dylan’s direction seems to be moving away from the personal voice of the committed artist and into a world of formal music — country, jazz, and rock, on different albums. And with his retreat to forms his music has become less immediate, his songs less compelling. He writes:Looks like a-nothing but rain ...... Build me a cabin in Utah,Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout,Have a bunch of kids who call me “Pa,”That must be what it’s all about.So, in a way, it was entirely appropriate that the spotlights were on the audience as it went wild while Dylan sang “Like a Rolling Stone.” True, it was Bob Dylan standing up there on the stage, but it was not really his singing which generated the excitement. No, the energy came from the people in the audience, Bill Graham’s planning and lighting and Rolling Stone's program notwithstanding.The songs or the spectacle seemed to unlock a little of the old-time enthusiasm of innocent participation in people, not because of the performance, nor because of the slick production, but because of each person's memory of Bob Dylan and his songs, and of the time they represent.NIGHT TEETHING AT ANTIBEShard to —Keith Kapleaumaintain equilibriumin the dentist's office, the little swirl of descending water—Psycho.the green metallic medusa proffering a plate of pointed implements while my teeth are falling numb.the piped musak, the cautery, the coolant water, mouth lamp, mirrors on steel fingers all of this sleeping awaiting the dentist’s return while my teeth fall dumb.now,there’s a sucking tube under my tongue, a light is shining in my eyes musak sings:“all I have to do is dream dream dream ...” the dentistis some kind of rodent guarding his little empires of silver and porcelain.wouldn’t it be better, perhaps, to let our teeth rot and save our gums from a pale-fingered needling this dentist needs much more sun perhaps simply my teeth need a good tan.111. •. I____ 1____
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San Francisco Synapse
San Francisco, California, US
Thu, Feb 28, 1974
Page 15
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