All Go

We found ourselves in the wilds of Bishan earlier today, tending to the needs of our motor vehicle and arranging matters financial with enormous help from a nice lady from the DBS Bank. And soon we'll be off to Fuad's mother's to celebrate various birthdays and distribute largesse in the shape of 3 books for teenagers concerning how to study. I'm sure as a teenager I'd have been thrilled to be given such a tome. Not, as they say.

In the middle of all this I found myself in Bishan Library where I happened to pick up Alex Ross's Listen To This, a book I was sorely tempted to buy when last in Kuala Lumpur but didn't - for complex reasons involving lack of shelf space and a puritan bout of conscience. I couldn't actually borrow the book as I no longer hold a library card for the National Library. But I did read the chapter on Dylan which was full of insights making me even more tempted to break my own sanctions.

In the essay, written around when Time Out Of Mind came out, Ross notes that Dylan was irritating lots of folk by simply not going away and providing closure and a neatly packaged obituary. Imagine how annoyed they'll feel now with his last decade or so to process.