Only Bob Dylan has forged a comparable career in contemporary music that follows an idiosyncratic trail led along by both the dictates and whims of the muse. And his autobiography is as enlightening and winning in its honesty as Dylan’s Chronicles in helping us understand the man and his genius. Its tone is almost conversational and the way it rambles about (yet always eventually returns to wrap up all the stories he tells and topics he touches on). Modest enough to not believe his music will change the world, he delves into his non-musical pursuits that he hopes will make a difference, such as developing alternatively-powered vehicles on a macro level and saving the Lionel toy train company, and on a personal level with his efforts to enhance the life of his son Ben, born with cerebral palsy, and others with special needs with The Bridge School he and recently-divorced wife Pegi founded in San Francisco. Rarely if ever has a star shown himself with such openness, and in a way that enhances the pleasure of listening to all of the many musical endeavors he has done.
Canadian filmmaker and Cree Native American Neil Diamond (not the singer) sets off from the rez “On the Trail of The Hollywood Indian” – as the movie is subtitled – on the road in his car. And along the way explores the portrayal of the North American First Peoples in cinema and the changes in how their central role in cinema created a cultural iconography pungent with contradictions and outright falsehoods. Its tone bears no bitterness or anger about all the wrongs done while setting the record straight in breezy yet potent piece of until now unwritten history.
The 1985 sale at auction of a bottle of wine purported to be a 1787 Chateau Lafite Bordeaux from the collection of Thomas Jefferson for $156,000 – an unprecedented price – to the family of Malcolm Forbes is the inciting event in a compelling mystery tale about its disputed provenance, and all that surrounds it: snobbery, status, wine expert competition, suspicions of fraud and fakery, the follies of the über-wealthy and more. Yet at the same time this tome also serves as a primer on wine and its history and a not-so-flattering look into the rarified world of rare wine collectors. It masterfully captures the allure of the beverage and how it proverbially intoxicates the human imagination and soul as well as more base desires and pursuits.
From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2015
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