THE SUN WILL RESPECT EVERY FACE ON THE DECK

(1-1/2 hour "contour" drawing, 4:20 to 5:50 a.m., using a fairly recent photo of Bob Dylan, drawn using the Appleworks6 "Painting" program on an iBookG4, while listening to the soundtrack for "I'm Not There", downloaded from iTunes at the end of October.)

Yesterday I went downtown, somewhat apprehensively, to see Todd Hayne's film, "I'm Not There" at The Pickford. There was a sign on the ticket window with an apology. The film hadn't arrived in time for the 12:50 showing. I drove downtown again for the 3:40 show, where there were plenty of empty seats.

I was surprised at the level at which I was "moved" by what is certainly a peculiar and challenging movie. As I am writing this and listening to the soundtrack from "I'm Not There," Marcus Carl Franklin starts singing "When The Ship Comes In":

". . . A song will lift
As the mainsail shifts
And the boat drifts on to the shoreline.
And the sun will respect
Every face on the deck,
The hour that the ship comes in . . . "

The 37-song soundtrack introduces me to the music of a distinctive assortment of younger voices singing Bob Dylan songs, including a teenage actor from the film, Marcus Carl Franklin, as well the older voices of Richie Havens, Willie Nelson and Rambling Jack Elliott.

And I have no trouble at all understanding how a person could find nothing good at all to say about Todd Hayne's film or Bob Dylan and his music.

I'm one of those who never stopped listening to Bob Dylan, for good or for worse, because I felt a kinship with him that has survived since I was 14 years old. I began by idolizing him and grew to appreciate what I see as his qualities of being a vulnerable, unpredictable and creative human being. How could I not love the person who, as a young man wrote:

" . . . I'm just average, common too
I'm just like him, the same as you
I'm everybody's brother and son
I ain't different from anyone
It ain't no use a-talking to me
It's just the same as talking to you . . . "
(from "I Shall Be Free, No. 10")

and as a 65-year-old man wrote:

". . . They say prayer has the power to heal
So pray for me, mother
In the human heart an evil spirit can dwell
I am a-tryin' to love my neighbor and do good unto others
But oh, mother, things ain't going well . . . "

(from "Ain't Talkin")

Particularly moving for me were the parts of "I'm Not There" concerned with Bob Dylan as a husband and father:







(photo copyright by Elliott Landy)

No man can see Bob Dylan through a woman's eyes, just as no woman can see Bob Dylan through a man's eyes.

Perhaps that is the genius of Cate Blanchett playing the role of Jude Quinn / Bob Dylan in a way that is as unforgettable to me as Bob Dylan himself.

ON BEING AN ARTIST AND ON HAVING PARENTS WHO ARE ARTISTS

During the first week of November, I visited my middle sister who lives in the town of Ocean Springs on the Gulf Coast in Mississippi. While I was there, we participated in a yoga class at River Rock Yoga. On the wall of the entryway of the yoga studio were engaging drawings by Lief Anderson, a daughter of Walter Inglis Anderson whose art and life have been meaningful to me recently. It turns out that the yoga studio is owned by Moira Anderson Miller, daughter of Lief Anderson and granddaughter of Walter Inglis Anderson. Before the yoga class, as my sister and I filled out the forms required in order to take the yoga class, I had a brief conversation with Moira, in which we affirmed that yoga had brought healing into our lives and in which I felt I had met a kindred spirit.

Since then, I have enjoyed reading DANCING WITH MY FATHER, by Lief Anderson, described on the book jacket as "a daughter's remembrance of life with the eccentric genius and artist Walter Anderson." It makes me think of the documentary, "The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack" made by Rambling Jack Elliott's daughter, Aiyana Elliott, another daughter with an absent artist father. Both women's memories of their fathers remind me of my father and mother, who didn't called themselves artists but were artist nonetheless.

Although the painting I have posted today is titled "Imaginary Brother With Fish With Open Heart," I also think of it as a portrait of my father, a man who loved gardening, music and God. During my childhood, my father was frequently away on business trips and was present and distant in the same way my mother was. I am beginning to see how much I am like them, except that I don't have children. There is something about me that is present and distant, too. I am most at ease with people who have that quality of being both present and distant (bloggers, for example!) I spend much of my time in a joyful and creative and fulfilling solitude. The painting also reminds me of my first boyfriend, an artist who spent a year in Vietnam in 1970. I would like to post some of the artwork he did during his first days in Vietnam but it is not my place to post his work without his permission.