55. At the end of the rainbow
I.
The incomparable Laura Tenschert is one of my favourite Bob Dylan interpreters. In her latest Definitely Dylan-podcast discusses the song When I Paint My Masterpiece. It is one of the few old songs that Bob Dylan plays during his Rough and Rowdy Ways tour. Striking, says Tenschert. But also logical. It says a lot about Dylan himself. And why, at an advanced age, he continues to write songs and carry on touring.
Tenschert quotes Bob Dylan on When I Paint My Masterpiece from an interview with historian Douglas Brinkley:
> It’s grown on me as well. I think this song has something to do with the classical world, something that’s out of reach. Somewhere you’d like to be, beyond your experience. Something so supreme and first-rate that you could never come back down from the mountain. That you’ve achieved the unthinkable. That’s what the song tries to say, and you’d have to put it in that context. In saying that though, even if you do paint your masterpiece, what will you do then? Well, obviously you have to paint another masterpiece. So it could become some kind of never-ending cycle, a trap of some kind. The song doesn’t say that, though. > >
You can’t help but keep chasing your true masterpiece. That’s why Dylan is never finished with his own songs. Even album versions remain snapshots that are breathed new life into in the years that follow. The songs grow, take on a different meaning. During concerts, you might suddenly hear Dylan sing a line differently or be surprised by a different lyric that puts everything into a new perspective.
Bob Dylan keeps reinventing himself. I read the word ‘masterpiece’ in various reviews of the album Rough and Rowdy Ways. For us mere mortals, that is certainly the case. But Dylan must carry on, in search of the next masterpiece. He knows that time is running out for him, but he won’t give up. “Someday, everything is going to be beautiful,” he sings at the end of the track on Shadow Kingdom. “When I paint my masterpiece.”
---II.
I’m following the current Fantastic Four series at Marvel. It’s in good hands with writer Ryan North, whom I still know from his humorous webcomic Dinosaur Comics. He’s still making them!
Issue 15 of Fantastic Four is based on a thought experiment dating back to the 1960s: the China Brain. What would happen if every Chinese resident simulated a single neuron from a brain? Would they ultimately form a functioning brain capable of thinking, reasoning and feeling as a whole?
In Fantastic Four, this experiment has become reality. There is a kind of AI programme that is trained by everyone who uses their smartphone. The network learns to see the world through the eyes of its users and develops self-awareness. The brain is called the Metamind (which must be a nod to Mark Zuckerberg’s company). Eventually, the brain begins to speak through the smartphone owners, who walk the streets like zombies.
A good concept for the comic and a fine piece of social commentary. On social media, everyone is parroting one another. It’s no secret that influence is being exerted on a massive scale. It works. We laugh at the woman who reads fake news on Facebook and starts rioting. We laugh so as not to cry.
In Fantastic Four, of course, everything turns out fine. Mr Fantastic gets angry, stretches himself out once, and then it’s sorted. If only real life were that simple.
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---PS.
McSweeney’s on aggressive paywalls. ‘I am The New York Times’ paywall, and if I let people without a subscription through, they’ll kill my family.’
A free short animated film in the vein of the Spider-Verse films. In The Spider Within, dark thoughts, stress and anxiety are Miles Morales’ greatest enemies.
---Social media hasn’t ruined the internet; better connections and browsers have. At least, that is the argument put forward by Ian Bogost of The Atlantic. “The World Wide Web of the 1990s was a place you visited briefly, until it spat you out,” he writes. “It was a finite activity, and that end came when someone needed the phone or when your eyes started to hurt. It came when the virtual ocean offered no more waves to surf. Now the internet goes on forever.” Isn’t that precisely what we need to move away from?
One consequence of an infinite internet (and algorithm feeds that never stop) is that nobody can concentrate anymore. Sabrina Cruz of Answer in Progress sets out to investigate.
---John Herrman from New York Magazine goes in search of the origin of all the ‘Pussy in bio’ spam messages on X. He ends up at a Dutch company.
The municipality of Utrecht has selected new buildings as young heritage. My favourite is Woonhuis de Waal by architect Ton Alberts. Also known as: the Apenrots.
Eddy Burback tries out the Apple Vision Pro and ends up in a dystopian nightmare. (Flashback to when I had an AI girlfriend.)
---Jerry Seinfeld is directing his first film, in which he also stars. Unfrosted is about the rivalry between the breakfast brands Kellogg’s and Post in the early 1960s. Coming to Netflix in early May.
---Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe and Yorgos Lanthimos have teamed up again for a new film following the Oscar-winning Poor Things (I still haven’t seen it). Kinds of Kindness is due out in June and will be a collection of three short stories.
---I’d missed it at the time, but last month a shocking incident took place in the world of puppets. Larry David attacked Elmo during a live broadcast of TODAY. “Someone had to do it!” he shouts off-camera afterwards. A moment later, he apologised with a laugh. Unapologetically. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” he said later in an interview with Seth Meyers. It was the high-pitched voice; he couldn’t stand it. This week, the puppeteers from Fraggle Rock responded. They were dismayed by the action, with which David could have injured the Elmo puppeteer.
---Lars and I read chapters 7 and 8 of Ian McEwan’s book Lessons. Every week we discuss two chapters on our podcast Kaftwerk. A mini book club. There are two more episodes to come after this, and then we’ll have finished the book. We’d love it if you had a listen!