Defend the indefensible - Bob Dylan.

it’s 2021

ok I’m off my high horse

I like Trader Hand. It’s even more wild west than my real handle.

It’s always confusing and horrible when someone whose art you’ve loved is accused of something terrible. I get it. How do you process it? What do you do?

I think we owe it to the board to be really careful about how we process it. Going on and on about the different ways that you think the alleged victim’s story doesn’t add up is grotesque. THAT is the “attack” - on every victim of sexual assault. And yeah it’s going to provoke some strong reactions. Or at least it had better.

Considering buying materials in order to continue the sleuthing I think is probably a sign that you are too invested in your image of Bob Dylan as a good guy to have a fair judgment about it. Why go to these lengths? Who possibly could have a fair judgment about it right now? We have to live with this shitty stink around Bob Dylan for awhile and no amount of sleuthing of going to counter that, unfortunately.

I probably have been over-invested in following every angle here - but not because of some image of Dylan a "good guy" (I've never been too interested in his private life) but because the claim is so horrible (and the available details so minimal - we don't even know the plaintiff's "story," just how it's being characterized in the brief) that yes it would be devastating to me as a fan of his music if it has truth to it. Honestly I think you're underplaying the magnitude of what's being alleged. I won't post any more "sleuthing" if it's not welcome here though.

I would get personally skeeved out if people were trying to dig up personal details of the accuser, but I haven't seen anything like that on this thread.

Going on and on about the different ways that you think the alleged victim’s story doesn’t add up is grotesque.

No one is going on about the victim's story, because we don't know the vicitm's story. We do know a lot about the person accused of these crimes, and where they were, and that's what I think some people are not understanding. No one's calling the story into question, we just know about the accusation.

And shaming people for buying a book is not a good look imho

ILX is not perfect but from what i've seen, posters have responded to the numerous accounts of abusive/predatory behavior from musicians in the last few years with sympathy and support for the victims and anger and disappointment towards the musicians, and I have not seen much in the way of demanding more proof or mounting defenses of the accused. I do think this case is an outlier - the alleged offense being 56 years ago, how famous the accused is and was at the time, and the question of whether this could even have taken place as described based on the facts that exist. I totally understand being uncomfortable with 'sleuthing' but I don't think it's terrible, or an attack on all victims of sexual assault, to admit skepticism about the accusation as it stands now. My opinion may change if/when more facts emerge, and perhaps I would need to re-examine my judgment.

And my perspective is that searching for and publicly distributing exculpatory evidence—for whatever motive or however non-prejudicially—contributes to rape culture by sending a message that victims of sexual assault need to make sure their accounts of inherently traumatizing and psychologically altering experiences are airtight before coming forward.

But this is essentially just what our legal system does, and this is a lawsuit that the lawyers want addressed in court. And when those lawyers respond to issues that are certain to come up in court with "we've got blogs" I think there's some reason for skepticism.

not that i'm trying to defend how awful and traumatic our legal system is to victims of sexual assault btw.

I heard a rumour on this very thread that Bob Dylan "makes" people shovel bees down their dick.

oh great comedy just what we need

xp you're right the legal system reproduces rape culture. i don't understand the point or what it has to do with how ordinary people should talk about a case although the legal system is a great example of *how not to do it*

If anyone needs some comedy, it's you

i know i need to lighten up and take a joke and stop being so easily offended eh

the accusation exists in the context of a lawsuit, in our legal system. I think it's reasonable for people to wonder how something is going to hold up in court, especially when the lawyers provide a buffoonish non-answer to pretty obvious questions.

Have you wondered enough yet?

yeah I’ll shut up now

i dont post bc news like this makes me shut down

i can’t even give my energy to speculation of ~any~ kind because it’s just so sad in and of itself

i think that’s the bigger picture as i see it - not that anyone’s accusing or exonerating anyone

but ilx collectively just has this way of intensely interrogating things immediately re subjects that leave me reeling and sometimes it’d be good if you all just took a breath FIRST and read the room as a whole subject-wise, instead of getting all grassy-knolled out about literally everything all the time

thank you VG, otm

vg otm

I haven't been posting because - frankly - I'm very much in the "I hope he didn't do this" camp, and I've felt sick ever since the story broke. And tbh I'm grateful to the people posting about the conflict of dates etc. because it gives me some hope that's letting me, like, go about my day and eat meals and not just curl up in a ball as I wait for more information to emerge. Because as a woman - and speaking only for myself - I would feel devastated and betrayed if it turned out that a male artist whose work I love, and who I've felt a deep sense of personal gratitude toward at many points in my life, turned out to have done something like this. So I'm strenuously hoping he didn't do it, awaiting more information, and doing my best not to completely lose it in the meantime. And I haven't posted because I'm afraid if I say something like that I'll be called a rape apologist, and I'm not good at being in internet fights, I tend to take them personally.

Also, one of the things I generally like about ilx is that people know each other and don't have to make the kind of assumptions of bad faith that you see in, like, large-scale Twitter arguments. And yet on this thread I get the impression people are reflexively assuming bad faith anyway, and that bothers me. So I've stayed quiet because I'm uncomfortable when ilx gets like this. It doesn't have anything to do with thinking ilx is supporting rape culture. Maybe for other people it does, idk. We women are not a monolithic group.

i feel that *hoping they didnt do it* element too, definitely going through a bit of that as well
lily, thank you for stating that so eloquently

that's real, lily <3

I'll be in the camp of "now that we've had a full circle of accusations (Bob Dylan, lawyers, biographers, internet, twitter, ILX, legal system), can we stop panicking, go back to being patient, and leave the alleged victim and accused their full respective rights ?" Or does it have to be a shitstorm all the time.

Personally I won’t post about it (unless/until I guess something definitive happens, if it ever does). Posting here was my way of “processing” and dealing with the pit in my stomach. I have more I could discuss about the emotional impact but I guess we have other threads for that, and the time may not be ripe for a while.

The lawsuit has been permanently withdrawn after the plaintiff asked the federal judge overseeing the case to dismiss it “with prejudice,” meaning it will be permanently closed and cannot be refiled. The move came after she was accused of deleting key messages and threatened with monetary sanctions.

peak Dylan

https://archive.org/details/s-08b_full/02.+THE+MAN+IN+ME.flac

nice!

that's a mean cold irons bound too

This show is pretty freaking great. Can anyone recommend me a complete live show on archive I need to hear from the Larry Campbell-Charlie Sexton period?

If I had to pick one, the one at Halle Münsterland in Münster, Germany on October 1, 2000.

Or, if you prefer Dylan on piano, the one at Pauline Davis Pavilion in Red Bluff, CA, USA on October 7, 2002.

great recordings thank you

i love that live album with the flute. budokan. that is my idiosyncratic favorite.

he appreciates the plasticity of his own songs and is essentially devoted to live performance. i love that.

elsewhere on this site i have written about being at the 1999 show at tramps in new york, which was great (elvis costello was there and got on stage for an encore, singing 'i shall be released'). great audio from the soundboard. incredible version of Visions of Johanna. crowd VEWRY rowdy.

https://www.wolfgangs.com/music/bob-dylan/audio/20022342-814.html?tid=54412

https://www.boblinks.com/072699r.html

i'm sure i remember the flacs being available somewhere, or on youtube

Bizarre Bob Dylan melody -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBe8zZ0OKlk

Only actor/singer George Maharis is credited, but there's also folk duo Joe and Eddie, Dionne Warwick and the Animals (their classic line-up) doing a very not-like-the-Animals-at-all rendition of "It Ain't Me, Babe."

Enjoying “philosophy of modern song” and an accompanying playlist on YouTube.

Extraordinary

hoping for some defenses of the indefensible: bob dylan today