Mary Lee Kortes is a massive Bob Dylan fan. As she is a folk musician in her own right, perhaps that’s not very surprising, considering he defined, destroyed, then redefined the folk music genre. She wanted to pay tribute to her inspiration, but recording an album of covers just seemed a bit cliché; besides, she’d already done that, having recorded a critically acclaimed free creation of his 1975 classic Blood On The Tracks. Why not write a book? Yet even that idea has been done to death, so she hit upon a unique angle.
Dreaming of Dylan: 115 Dreams About Bob is about as original an idea as you could get. Approaching friends and family, she asked if they had ever had dreams involving Mr. Tambourine Man. Surprisingly, many of them did, and the results of this research proved to be absolutely hilarious. Ranging from the silly to the sublime, Dylan as dream specter proved to be quite a delight.
Naturally, of course, there are a number of dreams involving Dylan as a lover––anything from a one-night stand, ménage a trois, to a lifelong soul partner—but those are perhaps the least interesting dreams here, simply because the celebrity as a sexual partner fantasy is about as basic as you can get. Dreaming of Dylan gets interesting when the dreams turn to conversation in bars over the quality of the bar band, the life advice given to a stressed out White collar worker, or the Bob Dylan as President/Presidential candidate. Some of the dreams are surreal, such as Bob wearing angel wings and hovering over a Wallflowers concert, Bob Dylan appearing to be a 10 year old girl in a department store singing his songs, and Bob Dylan being a night nurse.
Dreaming of Dylan offers so, so much more than that, but I don’t want to spoil the joy and delight that reading it will bring. You don’t even have to be a Bob Dylan fan or particularly well-versed in his history to appreciate it, either. Fan fiction can be very dicey, but in this instance it is nothing but a pleasure to read, and in its own way reveals just how influential and beloved a cultural figure Bob Dylan has become.
The Recoup 
Leave a Reply