Is Bob Dylan overrated?

Is this different from what Margaret Atwood (and I assume other authors) did, where she signed books in other cities using some kind of remote-control arm and pen? Those seemed to be regarded as real signatures?

Dylan’s Own ShishetSweet cigars

There is a John Updike story in which Henry Bech is supposed to sign like a thousand pieces of paper that will later be tipped into books. He goes to a beach house with his girlfriend, procrastinates, and gets like a third of the way through and has to sepnd the last few hours hurrying. After writing "Henry Bech" a hundred times it gets to Hen Bch, then H B, then just, like B---.

Some years ago, a well-meaning relative gave me a "signed first edition" (created for the non-existent "Signed First Edition Club") of Witches of Eastwick. I looked at the signed flyleaf and knew instantly how it had been made.

I mean it IS your signature but it's not signed by you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5VB8DuZMv8

Dillon is cleverly evoking deep American cultural history, per his norm: http://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php/Duplicating_Polygraph

Xpost

Well, I bought a fully signed Echo and the bunnymen album, "Songs to learn and sing", some were signed "Ian McCullough" but most were "Ian Mac"

(my above autocorrect error is a happy-accident allusion to Bob's original pseudonym:

According to Dylan biographer Robert Shelton, the singer first confided his change of name to his high school girlfriend, Echo Helstrom, in 1958, telling her that he had found a "great name, Bob Dillon".

– interestingly, that's a different high school girlfriend than the recipient of those recently auctioned letters. player!)

xp FWIW Richard Thompson is a good example of someone whose signature has devolved over time to make signing quicker and more painless. What originally looked like a full cursive name gradually turned into a pair of indistinct squibbles. When I got a signed copy of his memoir, the latter is what I got - I was curious as to whether this was his usual signature (he posted a photo of him signing an enormous stack of books piled on to a long conference table) and I found someone who was able to document that development with a large collection of signed Thompson albums.

I can actually link to some examples - see below, but I think these signatures were all done around the time of the signed item's release:

https://i.ibb.co/njH93tk/01.jpg https://i.ibb.co/LC6GLYk/02.jpg https://i.ibb.co/PZHwRng/03.jpg

A couple times I saw John Wesley Harding (Wesley Stace) do an incredibly deft move with a ball-point pen to open, sign, and close a shrink-wrapped CD jewel case in one fluid movement. To this day I have no idea how he did it. I guess the answer is frequent practice.

When I was a card-collecting kid the in the '90s, I remember a baseball card mag running an article about a company rep going on a long sportsman's weekend with the then-hot prospect Ryan Klesko to ensure he signed 1000 insert cards, some of which were autographed in rowboat while the player was fishing, while others were done in a deer stand whilst hunting--the overall point being how hard it is collecting the signatures for such endeavors.

I would think a baseball player would be wary of cramping up his hand (or a musician, come to think of it)...

That was pretty much a Seinfeld episode, wasn't it? Where Jerry hates endorsing his enormous stack of paltry royalty checks because of what it does to his wrists?

Apparently the same Dylan signature used for the books have also been used on expensive "signed" art prints sold through various art galleries. It feels like a surefire class action lawsuit.

Michael Ondaatje’s signature is just a wiggly line. It used to be an arguable M and a wiggly line, but apparently that’s become too difficult.

https://www.biblio.com/book/divisadero-signed-dated-nyc-ondaatje-michael/d/1131007102

this guy has been pulling the football of his authenticated identity away from his fans over and over and over again since 1965 and every time it happens they make a face like it's the first time

And then there's his "signature" bourbon, Heaven's Door...

bourbob

Official Statement:

To my fans and followers,

I’ve been made aware that there’s some controversy about signatures on some of my recent artwork prints and on a limited-edition of Philosophy Of Modern Song. I’ve hand-signed each and every art print over the years, and there’s never been a problem.

However, in 2019 I had a bad case of vertigo and it continued into the pandemic years. It takes a crew of five working in close quarters with me to help enable these signing sessions, and we could not find a safe and workable way to complete what I needed to do while the virus was raging. So, during the pandemic, it was impossible to sign anything and the vertigo didn’t help. With contractual deadlines looming, the idea of using an auto-pen was suggested to me, along with the assurance that this kind of thing is done ‘all the time’ in the art and literary worlds.

Using a machine was an error in judgment and I want to rectify it immediately. I’m working with Simon & Schuster and my gallery partners to do just that.

With my deepest regrets,
Bob Dylan

Fair enough, he is 81 years old. They shouldn’t have sold these as “signed” obviously but I don’t think it’s a huge scandal.

Yeah, me neither. More than one person really f-ed up by claiming this was okay, but regardless of who that may be, at least Dylan is admitting the mistake and working on fixing it.

very much a statement written by Bob Dylan, has all the hallmarks of his voice

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh
jokermaaaaan

he needs a crew of 5 to sign books?

don't worry they all dress up like bob dylan

He is elderly. If someone shipped my arthritic mother 900 books to sign, she’d definitively need help, and if it was just me, the labor would be a lot (especially the re-packing and shipping back).

obv he has to apologize cuz it was fraud but as the useless item advertised was materially identical to the useless item delivered one sort of wants to suggest to anyone willing to pay $600 for the assurance that this 9000-year-old man really does spend part of his days sitting in a room writing the same thing over and over like bart simpson that they consider taking this experience as an opportunity to reflect on what exactly it is they are trying to possess here

I would pay $600 for that signed apology note.

i wish i was there to sign 'em
but i'm not there; i'm gone

booming post dlh

Vertigo?

https://i.imgur.com/uFbte9G.jpg

The vertigo probably explains why on his recent tour he was mostly perched at the keyboard and would get up and sort of dance in place for just a minute or so at a time.

(stewart there gazing down at his collection of signed bob dylan paraphernalia xp)

very much a statement written by Bob Dylan, has all the hallmarks of his voice
irl lol

just for a moment "to my fans and followers" has it, in consonance if not in sentiment

The vertigo probably explains why on his recent tour he was mostly perched at the keyboard and would get up and sort of dance in place for just a minute or so at a time

Maybe he heard the hidden Balearic beats in "Blowin' in the Wind."

The vertigo probably explains why on his recent tour he was mostly perched at the keyboard and would get up and sort of dance in place for just a minute or so at a time.

Honestly, he was doing this almost every time I saw him a bunch in early '00s.

It takes a crew of five working in close quarters with me to help enable these signing sessions

Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and Ben Whishaw

dlh otm

Thought the dancing was a tribute to Thelonious Monk, just like the cover of The Basement Tapes.

What

I don't get it.

this?

http://www.amiright.com/album-covers/thelonious-monk-underground-parodies/

I only got
Aaaa shirt to go
---Vertigo.

Dan Chiasson's New Yorker reviews turned me on to some good poetry (better than most New Yorker poetry), and his review there of a Joni Mitchell bio was also astute---this Philosophy of Modern Song coverage starts great, makes me want to subscribe and read whole thing:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/12/08/road-maps-for-the-soul-philosophy-of-modern-song-bob-dylan/

It is surprising to find the bratty sneer of “My Generation” (“I hope I die before I get old”) moved to an assisted-living facility. Dylan, though, is “being wheeled around” not by nurses but by buses, as he moves from town to town and continent to continent on his Never Ending Tour...

I thought that ended some time ago

NFT embedded in splinter of the true cross of Blonde on BLonde

ok, I know Dylan imitations are typically shit but this is pretty great

James Austin Johnson sings “Jingle Bells” as Bob Dylan through the decades. #FallonTonight pic.twitter.com/kuPegi5Dhw

— The Tonight Show (@FallonTonight) November 29, 2022