SEAN WILENTZ
Author & Historian
SW: Since back in L.A., I’ve been able to rest up from the most intense to-ings and fro-ings connected to Bob Dylan in America and settle in a little. Weekdays generally find me working at the Huntington Library, with its wonderful accumulation of manuscripts and rare books on U.S. history. And the weekends? This past one started out in Topanga Canyon, the closest thing I’ve found out here to Woodstock, NY, for a swap meet and chili cookoff. The sign pretty much sums it all up.
That’s Topanga, kids!
Sunday brought a rare private screening of the great director Les Blank’s film, “A Poem Is a Naked Person,” on Leon Russell in the early/mid 1970s. A wonderful movie, one of the best rock & roll films I’ve ever seen. It would be too bad if the snags still holding it up prevented it from seeing the light of day with the general public.
Now back to the work-week, before heading back to NYC — for Thanksgiving and, among other things, Bob Dylan and his Band at Terminal 5.
ALERT, though: For friends and others in the D.C. area, I’ll be doing a reading/conversation with Dana Gioia at the Aspen Institute on Dupont Circle on Tuesday, November 23, at noon. Details here.
SW:
I have been reading “BDIA” with great pleasure.
You may have been corrected far too many times by now regarding the late great Lord Buckley.
However, in the event that is not the case: he was not British but American all the way; a Californian.
JR
SW: Yes, a number of readers have pointed out that stupid slip, but thanks! Affecting an English accent, or something like that, it should’ve been. This is why God invented reprintings and second editions.
Sean: Like any American would call himself Lord Buckley. He’d probably demand a window table too.