"Meet and Greet" okay?

I assume that you are not taking the bait to literalize a cipher?

The "I am a professor of such and such" is not really an argument, even in a classroom setting. It is especially weak online.

Please, counter my argument. You haven't yet, you have just claimed that I a do not understand (An assertion without backing, and thus, meaningless) and through your greater wisdom, you do understand (Again, without backing and thus meaningless, and arrogant to boot.)

I can argue logically, when presented with a real argument. Please, present me with an argument, don't present me with what for all I know, are fake university credentials in lieu of an argument.

I like winning an argument, I like fighting. My nature is such that I thrive in conflict, but I respect losing. Please, give me something to respect.

Well, you get my point.

Look, the direct meaning of the words are a moving take on the events of the war.

The child with the gun really does reference a common scene in a war, as does the general tone of loss.

The empty handed painter isn't painting with paint, it is with blood, the scenes put forward and the tone they are sung in are war scenes. They are very vivid war scenes, right down to the vision of the returning soldier at the end.

While there is a school of thought that treats it as being about Bob Dylan breaking up with his girlfriend and feeling loss over it, the truth is at that is actually the metaphor seeking interpretation in which the warlike and ominious scenes are tranposed onto the ending of a relationship.

The trouble with this interpretation is that it ignores the fact that there is nothing in the song that directly references a romantic relationship, up to the verse about "Your lover has just walked out the door..."

Baby Blue, uses a well known bit of colour symbolism (Blue representing virtue, honour, and innocence, which is why we have the ideal of the blue eyed boy in western society and why blue is often a colour associated with angels in western art) coupled with infancy to refine it.

As to the allusion to a lover, this can mean any number of things, and frankly, could be a symbol for losing political support as much as anything.

The stepping stones, the voice calls for you, the stones are deeds, the voice is memory. The dead are literal, and the vagabond is dressed in military fatigues just like the older generation wore when they went off to war.

And of course, the line of "strike another match go start anew" means, ultimately, that after all that a soldier has seen the soldier is expected to go on with life as if nothing has happened. It is often taken as a "Get over it" because it is more comfortable for people to say "Get over it" but it is more along the lines of "Get over it?"

When it comes to Dylan dealing with breakups, he does do it, and he actually does it pretty well, but he does it in songs like "It ain't me babe", and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right". Dylan, tended to take breakups fairly philosophically in his music.

And face it, the sixties wasn't that long ago. The language and the meaning hasn't moved that much, indeed I despair at the current generational musical dreck we are stuck with. "Rehab" anyone?

That said, favoured musician aside, I feel I owe you an apology but I would like to see you post your counter argument and maybe post under something other then anonymous (After all, it is a bit difficult at times to believe someone to be what they say they are if they are posting under a generic title.)

People do not fall over when being touched by an evangelical preacher. People fall over when being touched by a pentecostal preachers. All pentecostals are evangelical, but all evangelicals are not pentecostals.

You're welcome.

What does this mean - as used by Keillor "there is much that doubt cannot explain."

Is there something that doubt can explain? I admire Keillor's writing and performances but this phrase sounds like it is just jargon used to try to justify a religious belief. "We don't know all the answers therefore there is a god."

I would prefer that he use his talents to express some of the real confusion the teens (and others) have in trying to adapt their Christian dogma to a real world.

Art Armstrong

Especially the lyrics that Dylan was writing in 1965. Even he did not understand what he was writing. (Read Chronicles.) Just back off instead of attempting exegeses that are clearly beyond your skill set.

Dylan first addresses Vietnam explicitly (or "overtly," as you say)in 1984, with "Clean Cut Kid." That's it from him.

"Our frequent attempts at lousy ad-hominem and the general empty headedness of your posts you bloody poetry major"??

In my time with you, I have asked that you help me understand what (and why) you think about MLK, Country Joe, and Dylan. I have compared you with "the snippy adolescent" Stephen Daedalus and got all smartalecky with my persona piece from a typical comps committee. You have called me a "fucking dumbass" (ouch), a "total fucking moron. . . "(OUCH), and a "bloody poetry major" (okay: that sort of was the case a few years ago--except for the bloody)(probably). (I don't squander my own parents' tuition money; my students' tuition money, and the endowment, pays my salary.)

Have we perhaps both been intemperate and allowed the thread to drift off-course?

I am only saying that you might want to put your efforts elsewhere--that I really do know more about the sixties and its culture than you do, much the same way that you might know more about how passionately to present the neo-atheist position than I.

Prytania: Do I know you from the Chronicle of Higher Education fora? How is end of the semester shaping up?