{"id":130,"date":"2010-03-12T23:15:50","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T23:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/2010\/03\/12\/bob_dylan_at_imperial\/"},"modified":"2010-03-12T23:15:50","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T23:15:50","slug":"bob_dylan_at_imperial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/2010\/03\/12\/bob_dylan_at_imperial\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Dylan at Imperial"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s hard to believe, but Bob Dylan is at Imperial. Stranger than an eleven-dollar bill. But it’s true.\u00a0
\nNot in person you understand, that would be ridiculous. But his words are there, as the sub-text to an exhibition of photographs by Mark Edward illustrating humankind’s disconnection from the planet that we inhabit. The pictures are displayed on temporary boarding along one side of the Queen’s Lawn in the centre of the campus.
\n\"HR0-boarding.jpg\"<\/span>
\nIt might seem crass but the words and images work powerfully together. The exhibition is part of the Hard Rain Project<\/a>.
\n\"HR1.jpg\"<\/span>
\nThe inspiration apparently came from Edward’s weird experience of receiving hospitality from a Bedouin man in the desert in the 1970s. After providing food and drink, Edward’s host produced a tape-recorder, warmed up some elderly batteries and played Dylan’s song, _A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall_, to the photographer.
\n\"HR2.jpg\"<\/span>
\nDylan wrote the song at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. In his own words, “I was in Bleecker Street in New York. We just hung around at night — people sat around wondering if it was the end, and so did I. Would 10 O’Clock the next day ever come? It was a song of desperation. What could we do?”
\nDylan could at least articulate his terror and despair.
\n\"HR-HardRain.jpg\"<\/span>
\nI had noticed the exhibition<\/a> on my way into work earlier in the week. Finally today I decided to end my run (30 minutes!) and catch my breath while taking in the words and pictures. I’m glad I did. It is a moving collection of pictures, each forcefully amplified by Dylan’s mesmerising lyric. No less a figure than Christy Moore has already attested to the inspirational value of the composition.
\nThere are plenty of good things about the way we live today but, as the exhibition demonstrates, there’s a lot wrong too. The Cuban missile crisis may have passed but the nuclear threat remains palpable. And we are more aware that ever of the intractability of human conflict and our impact on the natural world.
\nThe answers to our major problems will not be easy. But the exhibition offers one piece of wisdom from a rather famous scientist:
\n\"HR-Einstein.jpg\"<\/span>
\nSomething to think about, as I headed back to my office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s hard to believe, but Bob Dylan is at Imperial. Stranger than an eleven-dollar bill. But it’s true.\u00a0 Not in person you understand, that would be ridiculous. But his words are there, as the sub-text to an exhibition of photographs … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}