andy

For the longest time I thought 'til tuesdays one hit went "even downtown/voices carry" instead of "keep it down now/voices carry"

have I said this before?

Hey since both Bob Dylan and Anton Chekhov were namechecked by Mark, perhaps he can answer me this: In an excerpt from "Chronicles", Dylan says he recorded an entire album based on Chekhov short stories which critics thought was autobiographical. Now since Mark is the expert on both perhaps he can tell me which album is Dylan refering to? My first guess was "Blood on the Tracks" but then I thought it might also be "Street Legal" then I thought Dylan could be lying.

It's a good time in music for old people like me. My top two fav songwriter types (Paul Westerberg and Nick Cave) just released new CDs. PJ Harvey just dropped one (she's been playing small clubs in my area but they sell out within minutes dammit!) Plus there's Tom Waits on the horizon and the return of American Music Club (I think only Tom Willecome and I are familiar with the latter). Heck I might even give the old superstars (U2 and R.E.M.) a shot if I like what I hear. New stuff from all these musical veterans makes the soft food go down that much easier.

I've also been going back to some of my favourite novels ever...the Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser. Hilarious, witty, convincing, and informative - what more could you ask for? If you haven't heard of them, they're the alleged memoirs of Sir Harry Flashman, (the callous, amoral and cowardly bully from 'Tom Brown's Schooldays'), depicting his involvement in most of the major historical battles of the latter half of the 19th Century and beyond. He's (fictionally) one of the most admired figures in Victorian England, a brave, patriotic selfless hero...but in reality, he's still as vile as he was in 'Tom Brown'. As well as being absurdly funny and affecting, they're also a fine reader in late Victorian history - the historical research is magnificent, and with the exception of Flash Harry himself, almost every event described in the books is pretty close to historical fact. All but the latest one (Vol. XI: Flashman and the Tiger, in which he meets Sherlock Holmes - a terrible mistake, which reminds you for the first time in the whole series that these are, after all, just fiction. It's less brilliantly-written than the others, too) are utterly sublime, and are hopefully available from your local library now. Say I sent you. :)

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For ages I've been meaning to sit down and read some Flashman books as I've heard nothing but good things about them from a wide variety of people. I'm always a bit hesitant when historical figures are used in modern fiction but if it's well researched and the author doesn't make too many assumptions about the person then I can't complain.

On this note, I'm currently looking forward immensely to 'Chronicles Vol. 1', the first installment of Bob Dylan's memoir (extract available at the Newsweek website, along with an interview - thanks, Charlie), which is due out next week.

I picked up the new Newsweek with Dylan on the cover which contains a good interview and the book excerpt. When I first heard of this book I assumed it would be a incoherent mess like "Tarantula" or "Masked and Anonymous" but it seems to be a pretty straightforward account of his life and times without it ever getting too personal. It should be an interesting read nevertheless...

To be honest the "incest" line could still refer to something else rather than John's breeding with Rose.

The Demon Constantine is the one with Negral's bloodline from what I understand.

So far there's nothing yet stated that directly contradicts what happened in Jenkin's run.