What I’m Reading...

INVISIBLE REPUBLIC : BOB DYLAN'S BASEMENT TAPES By Greil Marcus : Picador 1997. Partly because I have an ongoing interest in the troubadour who has been with me all my life and partly out of a loyalty response to a stinging attack by one of my favourite female musicians, Joni Mitchell, where she really laid it in to Bob in a recent interview. I thought she sounded drunk and old and bad tempered and I don't think that any good is ever achieved in life through this kind of attack. They both can do outstanding, insightful and moving work. Let them both do it.

ANNE FRANK : THE DIARYOF A YOUNG GIRL Edited by Otto Frank & Mirjam Pressler : Penguin 1997. Mostly for research on my current novel which has a girl character passing through this time as Anne Frank recorded so well and partly because the poignancy of the cutting short of the life of the girl/woman who was Anne Frank shines stunningly out of these pages and reminds us there are signs in the current world of easy judgementalism, fear and oppression by the rationalist moralists that are downright scary. Remember we have been saying over many decades: Never Again.

And watching...

BLACK & WHITE NIGHT: DVD: Roy Orbison with Jackson Browne, T Bone Burnet (Yes, he did the music for the recent CRAZY HEART movie), Elvis Costello, kd lang, Bonnie Rait, JD Souther, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits and Jennifer Warnes. Warner Vision / Image Entertainment / Orbison Records 1999. If you need me to tell you more about this with this particular list of names you're no longer alive.

Best. LW.