Bob Dylan and the Pope: Mystique and Politique

 

The French thinker Charles Péguy once remarked—I might not have the phrase quite right—that “everything begins in mystique and ends in politique.” In two recent films, both excellent, that remark is put to the test.

Conclave gives us a look inside the political machinations at the highest levels of an institution founded two millennia ago by an individual who enigmatically told a woman at the well, “whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.”  I’m referring to the Roman Catholic Church, of course. In Conclave, a pope has died and cardinals have been summoned from around the world to Rome to choose a successor.

The challenge presented to the individuals involved, and to the actors playing the roles, is to corral the impulses of piety, faith, and devotion toward furthering the “cause” while suppressing the personal ambition that often simmers just below the surface. Without having seen the film, it might be difficult to imagine Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow as two of the main protagonists, but they acquit themselves well. Ralph Fiennes is even better playing the dean of the College of Cardinals, strapped with the responsibility of conducting the conclave while suffering doubts about his own faith all the while. The film is riddled with intrigue and suspense, but it also succeeds in sustaining the element of sanctity without which it might easily have descended into satire or farce.    

 The recent biopic about Bob Dylan’s early career, A Complete Unknown, is also a winner. The script is sharp, the acting is superb, the rendering of the folk music scene in the early 60s is rich (unlike the café scenes in Inside Lewin Davis, for example), and the music is emotionally affecting. And to top it all off, Timothy Chalamet succeeds in bringing an element of appropriately mumbling weirdness, mystery, shyness, and semi-naïve self-aggrandizement to the central character.

I remember those times, not in Greenwich Village but back here in good old Minnesota. I don’t think I ever bought a copy of Sing Out magazine, but I watched Hootenanny occasionally. (I preferred Shindig and Hullabaloo.) I spent my grade-school years listening to the Kingstone Trio, Ricky Nelson, and Peter, Paul, and Mary. When Pete Seeger came out with “Little Boxes,” my family was living in a tract home in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. I didn’t “get it.”

 In short, I tried to like folk music, but it didn’t take. Too predictable, too corny. At camp we sang “Blowin’ in the Wind” along with other tunes such as “500 Miles” and “Michael Row the Boat Ashore,” the playlist enlivened at intervals by “Kumbaya” and “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” I preferred peppier numbers like “B-I-N-G-O” and “The Song of the Temperance Union,” which the camp director seemed to have a special fondness for.

In time, I bought a few Dylan LPs. The tunes I remember best are “Its All Over Now, Baby Blue” and “The Gates of Eden.” In the course of the film, Chalamet sings quite a few of the great ones, including “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gunna Fall,” “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” and “Like a Rolling Stone.” And we get to hear quite a few verses. In the context of the film these songs come across as expressions of genuine personal emotion rather than timeless classics heavily laden with Dylanology. I teared up more than once.

Many critics have noted the factual elisions, discrepancies, and fabrications in the film, but it’s easy to see how they carry the action forward and focus our attention on the essential elements of Dylan’s development. He is a true original, but his sources of inspiration—Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger, and others—are also front and center, along with Al Cooper and Mike Bloomfield, who helped him move on from the quaint world of traditional folk.

One of the films recurring themes is the struggle Dylan faced presenting himself to the world. He wanted to be famous, but he also wanted to be left alone, and the course he charted to sustain that effect left a lot of broken relationships in its wake. Director James Mangold’s achievement is to have rivetted our attention on the power of the music while leaving the questions about who Bob Dylan “really” was, or is, a pleasant mystery.

A half-century later, the "mystique" endures. Dylan himself recently offered a typically Dylanesque appraisal when he commented, before having seen the film, “Timmy's a brilliant actor so I'm sure he's going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me."

 

Gallery Hopping

The Cargill gallery, off the lobby at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, is just my size–that is to say, small. The items on display are usually new and invariably devoted to a single artist or theme. Last Friday Hilary spent an hour or two at the Institute with a friend, and when she got home she suggested we go back. She’d be happy to take a second look and thought I’d like some of the pieces. I did.

On exhibit were the pots of Santa Clara potter Jody Folwell, which have assumed many forms over her five decades of work at the wheel. I tended to like the early, naturalistic ones more than those that were covered with decorative representations of fish and mammals, but I also found it easy to admire her skills as a draftsman. 

I also liked the title of the exhibit,  “O’ Powa O’ Meng.” Translated from Folwell’s native tongue, it means “I came here, I got here, I’m still going.” Sort of like “Veni,vidi, vici” only a lot more humane.

We next visited a small exhibit on the third floor devoted to a few paintings and posters by Toulouse-Lautrec and his contemporaries. The man’s work is easy to pass over in the midst of any major impressionist exhibit; In this context it held up much better.

Back on the second floor, in one of the period rooms behind the theater, we finally found the newly assembled Tibetan temple. We sat on a bench against the back wall admiring the textiles, examined the gold votaries and icons, and soaking up the vibe while listening to an almost subliminal recording of chant-like vocal sounds. The room stands in dramatic contrast to the austere, nature-based elegance of the Japanese rooms just down the hall, and it occurred to me that its “tastefully” gaudy interior might have provided the kind of visual stimulation required to counterbalance a life spent largely on a barren, windswept, Tibetan plateau.

Out in the gallery a docent shared a few details about the sand painting hanging on the wall behind her, which a crew of Tibetan monks had been created 1991. She perked up when I mentioned that we’d been there at the time and had watched the monks doing the work.

"Oh, really? Which gallery were they in?” she asked. Alas, neither of us could remember. Warming to her topic, the woman went on to divulge numerous unusual details about how the collector had come upon the artifacts in the shrine and why the Institute had been chosen to house it. 

Making our way out of the labyrinthine building through the Asian collections we passed a gallery housing a few choice woodblock prints by Yoshida Hiroshi. A parting touch to a narrowly focused but memorable visit.  

With the weather warming, it might have been a good weekend for skiing, but the next morning, as we approached the Wirth Park Trailhead in the pre-dawn light, it was clear that something was afoot. We pulled into the parking lot alongside the striped wooden barrier and I rolled down the window.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

The man tending the entry leaned into the window. “The junior championships. But they’ll be over this afternoon at two. They’ve been grooming like mad so the skiing should still be excellent.”

 “Maybe we’ll just go out now and do a spin around the front nine,” I said.

“That’s a good idea,” the man agreed, as cordial as ever. “But you can’t park here. Just pull in and circle on around. This is the only way in or out.”

“Got it.”

So we retraced our route to the chalet, parked, walked across the road, and shuffled our way out across the snow and grass, watching the sky turn pink above the skyline. We had the place to ourselves.

Inspired by the previous day’s visit to MIA, we decided to visit the Cafesjian Museum on Highway 96, off amid the rolling hills of the northern suburb of Shoreview. It’s located in a low, one-story warehouse in a former industrial park. Founded by local connoisseur and collector Gerard Cafesjian, it’s best known for its collection of art glass, but the current exhibit is devoted mostly to an eclectic mix of representational paintings—landscapes, homey British interiors, cluttered still-lifes, city parks.

The gallery itself is modest in size, which is fine by me. Standing in silence in such an uncluttered space, proceeding slowly from one rendering to the next, instills a feeling of peace and reverence that often seems to be in short supply these days.

We had made our way almost around the second gallery when a docent passed by, and she shared a number of interesting details about Cafesjian himself. He may be best known to the general public for preserving the wooden-horse merry-go-round at the Como Zoo, but he’s also distinguished within the arts community by his long-standing interest in buying the work of local artists.

An oval-shaped room in the center of the warehouse, just beyond the lobby, serves as a small, airy  library of coffee-table books devoted to various artists and historical subjects. An elaborate arrangement of Chihuly’s famous marine art glass has been installed in the ceiling of a nearby side-gallery, a miniature replica of Tacoma’s Glass Bridge.

As we left the museum a question presented itself: Where were we going to eat lunch? Curious to explore the neighborhood further, we drove south on Lexington, crossed the freeway on an overpass, and grabbed a booth at a strip-mall Indian restaurant called Namaste India Grill and Brewhouse. Rich hot flavors for a chilly winter day, and the color palette bears a certain resemblance to blown glass.  

You might think we'd had enough, but we were just getting started. The next morning we paid a visit to the Minnesota Museum of Art, located in the Endecott Building in downtown St. Paul. They've recently expanded, and the two new galleries now exhibit a fine collection of painting, photos, and prints by artists well-known to locals, from Clement Hoppers to Wanda Gag, Mike Hazard to Dougie Padilla, George Morrison to Paul Manship, along with plenty of artists I've never heard of. I found the arrangement of portraits in the first gallery especially appealing. It encouraged us to admire the diversity of the styles and subjects first, then consult the labels identifying the artists and subjects that were grouped together over to one side.

Among the classic twentieth century works I took a liking to a painting by Cameron booth of a farmer, some horses, and some hills. Everything seemed just right spatially, while nothing was excessively stylized in the manner of Thomas Hart Benton or Grant Wood.

After enjoying our stroll through the galleries, we headed down to the train depot a few blocks to the east. I had remembered the lobby there as vast and drafty, but the restaurant that opened there recently was filling fast, and in the concourse leading to the railway platforms at least 200 people--children and adults--were engaged in a lively jigsaw puzzle competition. 

 

Considered in retrospect,  I was less impressed during our weekend of gallery-hopping by the genius of any individual artist or work than by the celebration of humanity exhibited throughout, and the desire of the artists involved, beyond matters of self-expression, to direct our attention in that direction. Bravo!  

I also remain confirmed in my opinion that the artwork being chosen for jigsaw puzzles has really gone downhill in recent decades. Ugh!

Ice Shanty Village

A cold, bright day. Easy enough to stay indoors, but we’d made a plan to run a few errands and then pay a visit to the Ice Shanty Village out on Lake Harriet. Our first stop was a warehouse across town in the Seward neighborhood called Free Geek, where we dropped off two old computer screens. One was so heavy that I began to wonder if it was an old television set.

Once we’d dropped off the screens in the lobby and paid our $10 disposal fee we continued on into the warehouse where the shelves were filled with used computers, DVD players, stereos, and speakers, many of them slightly scuffed and dusty, all of them reasonably priced. Another set of shelves held rows of small plastic laundry tubs full of VGA, HDMI, and other sundry cables and adapters at very low prices or free. It all reminded me of the much smaller but also much less well organized collection of cables, devices, speakers, and gadgets we have in the basement at home.

As we left the parking lot Hilary convinced me to cut across South Minneapolis on Lake Street by reminding me that we were only a few blocks from Ingebretson’s Scandinavian Gifts and Food. It’s been a long time since we stopped in, and I, for one, had a sudden hankering for a chunk of their chopped liver pate. 

We entered through the gift shop, which was amply stocked with textiles, pots and pans, gadgets, textiles, and a larger selection of books than I’d remembered. Maybe they’ve rearranged. I was drawn to one or two of the kitchy ceramic coffee mugs (made in China)--one with an aurora borealis theme and another that was covered with an array of small, colorful coffee pots in silhouette.

At Christmas times long lines form at Ingebretson’s, and the Star Tribune almost invariably carries a story about it, but today the butcher shop was deserted–not even a butcher or a bell to ring. We wandered back and forth for a few minutes, peering into the glass-fronted display cases, until Hilary noticed a small block of that caramel-colored Ski Queen goat cheese that we knew we had to buy. I wasn’t so sure about the pricey Swedish flatbread, but you have to figure in the old-country-nostalgia surcharge.

The drive west across town takes quite a while under any circumstances, but several stoplights were on the fritz, and the stop signs that had been put up to replace them hampered the flow. As we stutter-stepped along it occurred to me that there must be at least forty Mexican restaurants on Lake Street. How do they all stay in business?

Before heading south around the lakes we stopped briefly at Whole Foods to drop off a computer cable I was returning to Amazon. They’ve got that down to a science; a couple of Q-code scans and we were done. We ventured out on the floor and found ourselves in a bewildering world of off-brands with pastel labels and absurd prices. What happened to General Mills, Dole, Heintz, and Del Monte? The Whole Food chain prides itself on its selection of quality organic and New Age products, I’m sure, but they didn’t have the one thing we were looking for: Aunt Nelly’s Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage, the essential accompaniment to chopped liver. Yet the store was busy and no one seemed dismayed by the inventory. Yet another alternative universe.

By the time we reached Lake Harriet the temperature had risen to 11 degrees. We parked a few blocks from the lake next to Berry Woods, where Henry David Thoreau liked to stroll during his convalescent visit to Minnesota in 1861. From the rise a block away we could see lots of activity in the distance out past the bandstand. As we headed out from shore into the blinding sunlight we passed an odd but attractive pool of bright blue water that had collected on the ice. A small diamond-shaped sign on a three-foot pole said “Danger: Thin Ice.” It seemed inadequate. Then again, who in their right mind would walk over to examine a big pool of water on an otherwise snow-covered lake?

At the first shanty we passed, maybe eight or ten people were singing a song around a smoking campfire. I didn’t recognize the song, and there was no chance of getting close to the fire, so we moved on, passing one goofy or whimsical shanty after another, stopping to read the descriptive signs but entering inside only once or twice. Lines had formed in front of several of the structures. We crowded into one to find that it was already packed with people, many of them, I presume, trying to escape the wind for a minute or two, like us.

But half the fun is just wandering the ice on a brilliant day, mingling with other adventurous people inspired by the same spirit of creativity and good-natured irreverence. I almost wonder whether the appeal lies in connections to a long-forgotten ancestral past when life was nomadic and family connections were reinforced by ad hoc seasonal get-togethers?

Several people were flying kites in the distance, a bare-legged man wearing dreadlocks was setting a few mattes out on the ice for an upcoming yoga class, and a group of enthusiasts nearby were learning how to play ice lacrosse.

At the far end of the village a small stage had been set up on which visitors could lip-sync to their favorite songs. I asked the heavily bearded man running the sound system what was behind the shimmering curtain at the back of the stage. “Costumes,” he said with a grin. “Lots of costumes.”

I didn’t recognize the song the woman was singing, and I couldn’t see her lips, either, due to the glare of the sun, but I enjoyed watching four or five dancers on the ice just beyond the stage doing a highly choreographed routine consisting largely of jumping jacks.

As we made our way down the other side of the village we passed one structure sheathed in clear plastic with a large loom hanging from the ceiling. Another shanty consisted of a cozy open-air fireplace and a couch where visitors could read a selection of banned books. One shack had been designed so that you could make music by pounding on the wooden planks hanging from the walls.

The last structure we passed was a mirror/memory shack where, among other things, a blackboard had been installed so visitors could share an experience they’d like to relive, either because they’d screwed it up the first time, or more likely, because they loved it so much. One person had written, “This morning’s coffee.” Another had scrawled “Yesterday.” And a third: “My wedding, times three!”

Back on dry land, I stuck a bill into the plexiglas donation box and we wandered over to higher ground and the shelter of the food trucks. After one last look out toward the village, we made our way back to the car, well aware that we hadn’t explored the scene fully, but happy we’d made the effort. It was fun.

Our dinner that night was fabulous: Ingebretson's pate and red cabbage on flatbread, with a side of green beans cooked with lemon zest, ginger, and garlic.

Recipe to follow.  

Suburban Ramble

Perhaps it's just an urban myth, but it's an attractive one just the same: the neighborhood life characterized by the daily stroll down the street from your sunny walk-up apartment to the boulangerie, followed by the trip around the block to the charcuterie and the sidewalk farmers market, concluding with the kiosk where you pick up a copy of Le Monde, or the bookstore where the proprietor greets you with information about new releases she has a feeling you might like.

On some days my life is a little like that, American-style. That is to say, I do it in a car. My neighborhood auto mechanic on Stinson Boulevard tells me there's $3,000 worth of work to be done on our rusty 2006 Corolla—Bluebook value $1,200 at best. He makes mention of the clutch, exhaust, and oil pan. The last time we were in for an oil change I said, "Maybe you could just tighten up the heat shield by the gas tank so the vehicle will stop rattling so much."

But is still runs. I started it up one sunny morning recently while Hilary was at the pottery studio. I decided, with the empty and joyous vigor that often resurfaces on the first days of a new year, that it was time to get a few things done. Before leaving the house  I logged into the Great Clips at Turners Crossroads on my desktop and snagged a reservation. The next opening was 66 minutes away.

"Click here and we'll send you a text when you should head to the salon." No thanks. I have other plans.

My first stop during the interval was the credit union, where I deposited a few checks. There was no one in line, and a woman at the counter waved me over. Just then the woman doing the drive-through finished a transaction, turned around, and waved me over to her counter.

"She waved first," I said, pointing to the first woman.

"I'm hurt," the second woman said with a laugh.

My teller did the deposit, and at my request, she also laid ten tens out on the counter as a withdrawal. Severe, important-looking greenbacks. In the age of plastic,  that's enough cash to last 'til Fourth of July.

Continuing out of town on Highway 55, I took a left at 73 and negotiated the back roads through the Oak Knoll neighborhood, past the church where Hilary and I were married and out to a glorified strip mall north of I-394 called West Ridge Market. That's where my barber shop is located, along with a choice selection of other businesses. I still had a good 40 minutes to kill, and I knew just what to do with it. First stop, Michael's, where I purchased a pre-cut matte for a frame I'd measured that morning. (This is the kind of task I often think of doing, but rarely get around to doing.)

What am I going to put in it? I have no idea. But we've got so many old art books sitting around the house it won't be difficult to find something interesting.

Where am I going to hang it? Come on! One step at a time.

My next stop was Trader Joe's, a hundred yards east. I needed one thing—some split peas for a soup that would also include a generous heap of the ham chunks we bought in Two Harbors a few days ago.

I have a fondness for Trader Joe's, not only because of the reasonable prices and conveniently limited selection, but also the staff, who are cut from a different piece of cloth from your typical supermarket employee. They're older, they rotate tasks, and you get the feeling they've got other things going on in their lives besides merchandising carrots and bananas. Having worked for several decades in a warehouse with the same kind of people, I occasionally get a twinge of nostalgia as I see these women and men breaking down boxes or pushing carts of onions and avocados out from the back room through those big swinging doors. Quite a few are from other parts of the country, or the world. How do I know? Because at the resister they ask how your day is going, almost expecting a conversation to ensue, and it often does.

As I was standing in the aisle, scrutinizing the rice and the canned beans, a passing stocker, perhaps Japanese-American, stopped and said, "Can I help you find something?"

"Well, I'm looking for split peas." 

"I'm afraid all we stock here is lentils," she pointed to a bag on the bottom shelf.

"I'm not surprised," I replied. But that struck me as an insult, so I added, " I mean, you have lots of good stuff, but you can't stock everything."

Around the corner I picked up a chunk of suet at the Wildbird Store and arrived at the barber shop a few doors down to discover I was still number five on the list. The tall Brazilian woman who sometimes cuts my hair came over to the resister. "Are you signed in? What's your name? John T? There you are. Don't worry. It won't be long. Maybe ten minutes."

I didn't quite believe her, but I'd brought a book along: Zoroaster's Children & Other Travels by Marius Kociejowski. The selection of locales was ample; I could take my choice—Prague, Aleppo, Tunisia, Moscow. I picked an essay called "A Journey to the Sun's Grave" but hadn't figured out which country Kociejowski was visiting—Norway? Estonia?—by the time my name came up. A young woman from Medina (Minnesota, not Saudi Arabia) took me back to her chair. I didn't recognize her. She's been working there only a month. She told me a little about her two sons, I mentioned a concert we'd attended years ago at the Medina Ballroom—Los Lobos—and explained why I'd begun bringing a yoga mat on camping trips. And that was that. It doesn't take long these days for someone to cut my hair.

A sense of lightness invariably presents itself after a haircut, and when I left the salon the day seemed brighter than ever. In fact, everything was going so well that on the spur of the moment I stepped into the narrow Triple-A shop that I've passed by many times before. A middle-aged woman—red hair, thin face, friendly demeanor—was sitting at a desk just beyond the luggage display.

"Can I help you?" she said.

"I don't know," I replied. "I was just passing by and thought I'd drop in. I see you sell suitcases."

"Yes, that's the merchandise. Guidebooks too. We also provide maps, travel advice. Are you planning a vacation?"

"Not really. We just got back from England in September. Maybe there's a trip to Scotland somewhere on the horizon. Fly into Edinburgh, take a train to Inverness, do some hiking ..."

"I lived in Scotland for three years," she said enthusiastically. "But Susan, back there in the last desk, is an expert. She's been there many times, knows all the hotels. She could help you plan your trip."

"So they help you plan your trip, and then you pay them?"

"Are you a member? Well, then it's free. Here. Let me give you her card." We spent a few minutes discussing traffic circles,but eventually I discerned a worried look creep into her eyes that said, This guy has a load of stories, and he just wants to talk, so I thanked her for her trouble and returned to the car.

What a morning! What an outing! What a neighborhood! I admit, it doesn't seem much like Paris, the way I'm describing it, but that's not the point. It was fun. Besides, a flat in Paris the size of our modest, one-story house might easily cost two million Euros. And it wouldn't have a yard.