reading room
Looking back / the most important book i ever read / the one that had the most influence on my writing / was not / the journey to the east / nor / the little prince / nor / slaughterhouse five / nor / anything by buk / it was / bob dylan lyrics
i read that book from cover to cover / a thousand times / before i ever heard a single song by bob / i was given that book / by a stripper who worked at the blue waters hotel / where my mother worked as a receptionist / and i used to come home from school / durban preparatory boys high school / and devour that book / like it was manna / and imagine to myself what the songs would sound like / and it was only years later that i first heard blonde on blonde / and fell in love with blood on the tracks
as a teenager i discovered james joyce / but nothing i read / ever displaced bob from poll position in my estimation / not even leonard cohen / certainly not ezra / who sometimes / came close
of course reading books / is considered a quaintly retro activity / by the facebook generation / for whom the fun wall is de rigueur / but I am proud to declare that / I don’t have a fun wall yet / and I don’t care who calls me top friend / neither do I want to be creative / and express myself in fun ways / with videos pictures and messages / on my and my friends’ fun walls
years after bob recorded all his best work / he surprised himself and me / by recording an even better work / called time out of mind / and then, a couple of years later, / even topping that, with his most beautiful / song ever / ain’t talkin’
# Aryan Kaganof is the author of the critically acclaimed 2007 release, 12shooters.
first published by the sunday times on feb 24 2008
February 25th, 2008 at 11:27 am
..'’of course reading books / is considered a quaintly retro activity / by the facebook generation / for whom the fun wall is de rigueur / but I am proud to declare that / I don’t have a fun wall yet / and I don’t care who calls me top friend / neither do I want to be creative / and express myself in fun ways / with videos pictures and messages / on my and my friends’ fun walls'’…
you are a facebook junkie;a user in denial..
February 25th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
evas…aren’t we kagabloggers all…we’re just klaas-y-ya…