I restacked Poetic Outlaw’s post (subscription only to read it in its entirety) about when Henry Miller met George Orwell. I’m tempted to subscribe just to read it, but I’m poor and can’t spend money on extraneous entertainments.
However, it reminded me of Bob Dylan’s liner notes from Bringing It All Back Home. I grew up in an era that spoiled me. Albums had 12” covers. Some had amazing artwork, or iconic photographs, and most included lyric sheets, or posters (The Beatles), or had liner notes on the back cover. Plus, you could use the cover to clean your weed. However, the vinyl LP was usually of crappy quality with many clicks, pops, and scratches. A great medium marred by bad materials. I am glad we have digital, but CDs really ruined album art and all the rest. 30 page booklets set in 7 point type just didn’t cut it. Maybe, at some point, digital music files will also include liner notes and other data in their formats.
Dylan’s albums had liner notes up to Blonde on Blonde. He also published books of poetry. He won a Nobel Prize for literature. For the price of an LP you’d get approximately 40 minutes of music and Bob’s writings. There were long poems, strange musings, and short stories. I miss all that.
henry miller stands on other side
of ping pong table an' keeps
talkin' about me. "did you ask
the poet fellow if he wants
something t' drink" he says t'
someone gettin' all the drinks.
i drop my ping pong paddle
an' look at the pool. my worst
enemies don't even put me down
in such a mysterious way. 1
Happy Monday! Shalom!
We still have a large LP collection that is loaned out on occasion. No longer own anything to play them on though.