The Knows

I was reading an article about the bonds between memory and smell when suddenly the air in my subway car was filled with the scent of a wood fire and I was instantly and simultaneously transported to this summer and a Fourth of July barbeque in Michigan; to a camp fire in Bryce Canyon seven years ago; to many winter nights by the fireplace when I was young. "The passage of time, which rots and corrodes the content of visual memory, has no measurable impact on the olfactory senses," the article explains. Strangely, while we are very bad at recalling smells, nothing triggers a recollection as surely as the smell to which it is linked. Indeed, "the ability of specific smells to trigger episodic memory," as the article points out, is immortal as well.

Many authors have explored the layers of memory that a sensation can produce. Proust, Faulkner and Sebald, to name a few, have produced famous sentences and paragraphs and pages and novels excavating the mental strata revealed by the fissure a particular taste or sight opens up. But has any author reproduced the instanteity of those recollections - the experience of being in several places and times piled on top of one another, resonating with one another? What would that look like?

I've long thought that we only feel at home in a place when we become accustomed to its smell. It is as if the unconscious says this does not smell like home - I can not feel at home here. I could never quite get comfortable at a friends' houses that didn't smell right to me.

Scent's memories may be immortal, but scents are not. Before I can locate the phantom subway campfire, its odor evaporates from my consciousness. "Smells are fleeting," the article points out; "the smell of violets is famous among perfumers for persisting for only about half the duration of an inhalation." The scent becomes as unnoticeable as the gray of the car or the rumble of the tracks.

Verse on the Tracks

You know that line in Dylan's "Tangled up in Blue" about the Italian poet from the thirteenth century? Apparently a few other people have wondered who that poet might be, and it seems Bob wasn't too sure either. There's been some intense online debating about it. One guy tried listening to every live version of the song, and somewhere in December 1978 things start getting weird:

ORIGINAL ALBUM RECORDING:

She lit a burner on the stove and offered me a pipe
"I thought you'd never say hello," she said
"You look like the silent type."
Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century.
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burnin' coal
Pourin' off of every page
Like it was written in my soul from me to you,
Tangled up in blue.

--

Source: 15 November 1978, Forum, Inglewood, California, USA.

Then she opened up a book of poems
And she started quotin' it to me
It was either written by Charles Baudelaire
Or some poem from the 13 century

--

Source: 23 November 1978, Lloyd Noble Center, Norman, Oklahoma, USA.

It was either written by Charles Baudelaire
Or some Italian poem from the 13th century

--

Source: 2 December 1978, Municipal Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.

Then she opened up the Bible
And she started quotin' it to me
Jeremiah, (??),
Chapters 1 & 33

--

Source: 9 December 1978, Carolina Coliseum, Columbia, South Carolina, USA.

Then she opened up the Bible
And she started quotin' it to me
Jeremiah, chapters 32,
Verses (21 & 33)

--

Source: 10 December 1978, Charlotte Coliseum, Charlotte, North Carolina,
USA.

"You know, you look like you could be the silent type"
And she opened up the Bible
And she started quoting it to me
Jeremiah, chapter 17,
From verses 21 and 33

--

Source: 12 December 1978, The Omni, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Then she opened up the Bible
And she started quotin' it to me
Jeramiah, chapters 37 (& 38,)
Verses 29 & 33

--

Source: 13 December 1978, The Coliseum, Jacksonville, Florida, USA.

She lit a burner on the stove
She was wearing a housecoat made out of stars and stripes
"Thought you'd forgot how to-know how to say," she said
"You look like the silent type."
Then she opened up the Bible
And she started quotin' it to me
Jeramiah, chapters 10 & 20,
Verses 21 & 33

--

Source: 15 December 1978, Civic Center, Lakeland, Florida, USA.

She was dressed in a dress had stars and stripes
"Thought you'd never say hello," she said
"You know, you look like you could be the silent type."
Then she opened up the Bible
And she started quotin' it to me
Jeremiah, chapters 36,
Verses 21 & 33

--

Source: 16 December 1978, Hollywood Sportatorium, Hollywood, Florida
[=Miami?], USA.
This was the last performance before the "Gospel era".

She was wearing a housecoat made of stars and stripes
"Thought you'd never say hello," she said
"You know, you look like you could be the silent type."
Then she opened up the Bible
And she started quotin' it to me
Jeremiah, chapter 31,
Verses 9 to 33

--

All the following performances omit this verse altogether!

Source: 4 June 1984, Sportpaleis Ahoy, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
This was the first post-Gospel performance.
Source: 9 June 1984, Ullevi Stadion, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Source: 11 June 1984, Stadion Bierberer Berg, Offenbach, West Germany (as
it then was).
Source: 13 June 1984, Waldbuhne, West-Berlin, West Germany (as it then
was).
Source: 19 June 1984, Roma Palaeur, Rome, Italy.
Source: "Real Live", 29 November 1984 (performed 7 July 1984, Wembley
Stadium, London, England).
Source: 8 July 1984, Slane Castle, Slane, Ireland.

Bob weighed in during a 1978 interview:
Dylan:       I like that song. Yeah that poet from the 13th century....
Interviewer: Who was that ?
Dylan:       Plutarch. Is that his name ?
Interviewer: Yeah.

The Year in: Vampires

Part III

About the time I started listening to the Vampire Weekend album I noticed a red and white mug in my office kitchen. It featured a picture of Vlad Tepes, the fifteenth century Romanian prince who sometimes called himself "Dracula." Next to the picture were the words "Dra-Cula" in a red-and-white design meant to imitate the Coca-Cola logo. On the bottom of the mug was a circular stamp with the words "Marca Inregistrata in Transylvania" encircling a bat. While this mug didn't make any specific reference to vampires, it perfectly illustrated the frequent conflation of Vlad Tepes with the fictional character of Dracula which I had run into again and again in the research for my article on vampires and tourism. Vlad Tepes (whose name means "Vlad the Impaler" but who had nothing to do with vampires) was born in the Transylvania region of Romania. Bram Stoker used his nickname - "Dracula" - for the name of the Transylvanian vampire count in his Victorian novel. Ever since then, westerners have mixed up the historical Vlad Tepes with the fictional Count Dracula. And over the past few decades Romanians have figured it out and started to capitalize on it. Selling red and white Vlad Tepes mugs is just one example.

Aphorism (on Biking)

The road is always roughest at intersections.

The Year in: Japanese Food Packaging

On the outside: a golden butterfly. On the inside: foul-tasting brown beans coated in a sticky goo. Some cooking may be necessary. Awaiting translation.

The Year in: Retro Pornography

On a friend's bedside table, Bushwick.

The Year in: Gay Literature of the Street

This truck is parked on the same block in Chelsea every day.