Bob Dylan
Tarantula

Part I - Back in Time 

I turn off the light half asleep with nothing better to do than to review a book, delve into the depths of my soul, internalize, I want to be part of the de-illiterates, and I would like these de-illiterates to always meet at a gathering point, perhaps the bar under Debaser or, why not, in the company of various human cases - and obviously no, I haven't drunk too much, never done it, never will, because if the story that Jefferson Airplane never did drugs is true, then it will also be true that, as I have already said (written, if we want to be precise), I have never lifted the elbow - besides, I'm polite, and to the jerk who enjoys honking when you're in line and there's no chance of moving, I've never even gracefully raised my middle finger: we can conclude that all this has nothing to do with the book in question (but can we call it a book?!), or rather, niet.

Anyway, for my harebrained essays in school, I always used the same juicy excuse -
teacher, I'm in full stream of consciousness - yeah, right, see you in September, my dear September - But, Joyce did it!!! - You are not Joyce, my dear... eh Yes, thanks a lot.

Or I could have said that my sarcastic and semi-nihilistic tone (how can you be semi-nihilistic?? Bahh...) was due to the huge influence exerted on me by a certain Marquis (who the hell is this guy?) ...ah ah ah, a few years later I would retract this stupid question and would appreciate this American humorist and writer, who not by coincidence had a huge influence also on Zimmie, Yes, him, Zimmerman... and with thoughts we go back in time, a visit to Trieste, me and my mother, I was 8 or 9 years old (if only my memory had 512 gigabytes)...we stop for ice cream, I think I chose strawberry, or was it black cherry? Ambòh, anyway we are on a bridge (Ok ok, I check it out, it’s called Ponterosso of the Grand Canal), I see this commemorative statue, my naivety formulates a unique thought, indeed: this is a monument to a homeless burned in this place – years later, no, my god, I discover it is a statue of...James Joyce! In Trieste... wow, oh.

Well, various digressions on a very simple theme – nothingness.
But I swear to you, I haven’t been drinking. And neither has Jimmy Page ever been with a groupie, nah.

Part II - Frantic Dance, Female

Tarantula was born like the Songbook of Francesco (not the DJ of that masterpiece of American songwriting with techno undertones, in Dead C style, which is "Bella di padella"), rhymes and assonances on scattered sheets, then gathered, called drafts, called popular sayings - the morning has gold in its mouth.
It is not so difficult to imagine a Dylan, recovering from a sleepless night praying Mr. Tambourine to take him away, waking up in the morning and starting to write. Dylan was born to crack the sheet with the fiery ink he uses - reading "Tarantula," you realize that Roberto was right when he said: << My thoughts come faster than the hand that has to write them down, like when I wrote Hard Rain... damn, I thought I wouldn't be able to write down everything that crossed my mind >> ... word games, linguistic pirouettes shoot tennis balls at a hundred per hour, reflections, mirrors, reflections hidden behind apparent humor or sarcasm - yet, the catch is, it’s all poisonous: it touches on themes of Vietnam, the sexual revolution, there's devotion for Aretha Franklin, the muse, the purest sound, the one without a backbone, angel of the heavens, eternal Aretha, Dylan slobber-kisses at work...

The dollar becomes lettuce, superficial or conceited people are Nose-less, the keys play the main role of opening hidden doors, transparent paths to an uncertain future, conjectures about events that never happened - falsehood warmly embraces these beautiful continents and the people who live there - at times Dylan literally burns the paper he writes on:

In the room, there's a sign that says SILENCE;
No one respects it: I believe this is what
makes people different from signs.

Part III - Room Full Of Mirrors

The continuous battle against bigoted plasticity - Dylan knew it well, and as he said in Rainy Day Woman (...meanwhile Jager sang Mary Jane), in '66: They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to be so good, they'll stone ya just like they said they would ... could it be he referred to the Newport Festival of '65? It was a disaster... right, Seeger?

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more... people wanted Dylan to continue singing about how justice sucked (but has it ever been different?), to sing about vague answers in the wind... in the wind polluted by people. Yes, Hattie Carroll is dead, this world sucks!

I extract one of the many Keys:

Yesterday, at the vegetarian assembly,
I sang my new song against meat...

And they all lived happily ever after.

Recapping - 1/ this book is fantastic 2/ it's liner notes for a record that doesn't exist, but if you really want to have a complete picture, make yours the following tank of Art: Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Blonde On Blonde (1966), Tarantula (1971)... you understood that, right?

I lingered, of course, I didn't say anything because about a book (I repeat: can it be called a book?) like this you could talk for days, as no one has ever understood it fully, eh, because as Joyce said:

"Professors are obsessed with riddles: I filled my Ulysses with so many riddles, professors will be busy for the next two centuries"

It should be something like that, now honestly, unlike Silvia, I don't really remember.

With all due respect, I repeat.