Sunday 1 November 2015

Life's Screenshots - A Dylan Tribute (of sorts)

One of the things Dylan's lyrics seem to do again and again is to simply report a scene or an image that seems completely random. Often, that scene will be quite curious, like a boy standing beside a dead pony (or whatever the exact lyric is - i forget).

Well, here are my Dylan images. First:


This is the pedal keyboard from an organ. You have two keyboard 'manuals for the hands (sometimes 3 or 4), and one for the feet. This is the one for the feet. Not sure quite what happened here. I was walking to the Palace Green by Durham Cathedral to go study some music and happened to pass this abandoned piece of craftsmanship. Can't imagine why this had been left to rot on the pavement. Where is the rest of the organ? What I can say with some authority is this was (and remains) the only time I had ever seen an organ pedal manual on a pavement. The image was quite striking. Half of me wanted to take it home and preserve it - to show care and respect for an item created with love and precision, which has produced sounds of numerous variety. The other half, which prevailed, couldn't think how I'd carry it, or where I'd keep it, and what I'd do with it.

Second:


It is possible I am going a little mad. For some reason, I couldn't resist sticking this address label (which was very sticky) over my mouth. I can't say why, I don't know. But I thought I'd take a picture of the act. By the way, the label came from a parcel containing a baton I'd ordered recently. But can you really see a character like this being allowed the sacred responsibility of conducting an orchestra or a choir? me neither.

So those are my Dylan moments. I have yet to set them in song.