Friday, May 25, 1973
THE SUMMER DAILY
Page Five
B ringing it all back home,
on the coffee table
WRITINGS AN!) DRAWINGS, by Bob Dy-
Lan. Alfred A. Knopt, $6.95.
By N.T. CANTAB
Well, here's a strange thing . . an ex-
qoisite coffee-table hook for wiat is (or
shod be) the post-coffee-table generation;.
the institutionalization of an anti-institutiosn
ido) twhn-p to now-h-is pretty well eluded
the itchy pal mof copy-hungry. publishing
hooses.
lthere are, of corse, things to be said for
the idea. 1or a start, Dylan has with mad-
denins; consistency refrained from printing
his onrics tn his album sleeves, probably
knosieg damn well he is the foremost re-
cording artist to warrant such attention. Sec-
ond, some of his best songs ("Tears of
Rage," "I'll Keep It with Mine," etc.) he
has left to others to record, hence condemn-
ing them to relative obscurity. Third, and
perhaps most significant of all, his period of
greatest popularity is past, and, like it or
not, it is time for those retrospective assess-
ments a book such as this allows.
Myself, I don't much like it, and it would
be nice to think that this is a publisher's
put-on - not an idea fostered by Dylan him-
self. Which is another way of saying, this
book preaches to the converted-sadly re-
minding thesm of good times past-and will
win few nro admirers among those who get
off on Alice Cooper or (pre-Dylan) once got
off on Frank Sinatra.
B'ssically, the Zimserman saga falls into
three cleor stages: sotstic protest, electric
angst, comntrv lv-back. Most idol-ators would
agree thtt's it is the middle period-"Bringing
It All Back Home" to "John Wesleyv Hard-
ing" - which is the best, albeit before
N. T. CANTAI, obviously a nom de
p/snte, doesn' twant to have i/ known that
he knots o anything a! all aboutt pop crusic, a
matter that is open to debate any-vay.
("I o't Think 'wice It's Alt Right") and
after ("lesy ldy Ly") there are reslt jss
left toacioted for. The least excitisg is
the I-st
At his pr-k tDyt-m stoatd sinig:
Ito wrrites evryting's b e e n returned
whihl wras owed
(1st th+ wb'ck of the fish track that loads
sthile my conscience explodes
Th- h-'rmnricas play the skeleton keys
and the rain
An tlh-se visinns of Johanna are now all
tht.I rei' in.
')1, -cr+-,ial motoreyle accident, onie m-r-
r±age, a -d seeral kids later, Dylain hts side-
:tepped:
Ontside of the gates the trucks
were unloadin',
The weather was hot, a-nearly 90 degrees.
The man standin' next to me, -his head
xsvs exploding.
Well, I was prayin' the pieces wouldn't
fall on me.
Well, we all grow old and it don't mean
this isn't a nice book to have--rocking in our
racking chairs, feet on the fender, and assr
sninds back there somewhere in the frenetic
sixties. It's jst that since those days the
song-writing laurels seemed to have passed
to others (Van Morrison? Rod Stewart?) and
one doesn't care, maybe, to have it ruboed
in.
Dylan blew open all those "moon-Trine"
ephemera, made pop music grow up, and
his since retired from the field in any real
-rnse. Perh)ps we who worshipped him need
these writings and drawings to realize we
have grown tsp too. But just remember those
E'lizabethan lyricists who wrote for musical
accompaniment never expected to have their
words ripped from their aural'context, never
envisaged the static finalities of the printed
page, never realized that they, like ytan,
might be unfairly judged for only half their
achievement.
Bob Dylan
Outer space gods made us wise?
By JOEL SCHERZER
They came from a distant star
many thousands of years ago,
these awesome giants, and spark-
ed intelligent life on this planet.
The notion that extra-terrestial
space travelers visited warth,
mated with prehistoric man and
left him with the technology to
build the pyramids and the wis-
dom to write the Bible is ad-
vanced in a series of controver-
sial books by German author
Erich Von Daniken.
His proof? sThe baffling stone
faces of Easter Island, cave
drawings depicting helmeted as-
tronits and fantastic flying ma-
chines, a 3,000 year-old bottery
that still generates electricity-
and hi'tdreds of other prehistoric
mysteries.
"It's not a theory, " the self-
edutcated a-thor said in an inter-
viev. "It's much more than
that. "
In Chariots of the Gods? and
Gods from Outer Space, Von
Compiled by Publisher's Weekly
FICTION:
Once Is Not Enough - Jacqueline Susann
The Odessa File -Frederick Forsyth
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three - John Godey
Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach
The Matlock Paper - Robert Ludlum
Green Darkness - Anya Seton
The Digger's Game - George Higgins
Evening In Byzantium - Irwin Shaw
Law And Order - Dorothy Uhnak
The Defection of A. J. LeWinter - Robert Litell
NONFICTION
Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution - Robert C. Atkins
The Implosion Conspiracy - Lquis Nizer
The Joy of Sex - Alex Comfort
I'm O.K., You're O.K. - Thomas Harris
The Best and The Brightest - David Halberstam
Hour of Gold, Hour'of Lead - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Life and Death of Adolf Hitler '- Robert Payne
An Untold Story - Elliott Roosevelt
The Rape of the Taxpayer - Philip Stern
My Life in the Mafia - Vincent Teresa
Daniken claims that beings from
another civilization somewhere in
the universe came to earth sev-
eral times in the remote past
and encountered modern man's
distant ancestors. The "giants"
managed to breed with a select
group through genetic manipula-
tion and give the offspring some-
thing new to earth-intelligence.
But when the spacemen left for
a time, all did not go well on
earth, Von Daniken says. The
"creations" were warned not to
mate with others (hence the later
notion of original sin), but they
did anyway and were "corrupt-
ed." The space travelers event-
ually returned, ad chose to de-
stroy the imperfect ones. They
did this twice. Once with The
Great Flood and again at Sodom
and Gomorrah.
But finally the seed of intel-
ligence took hold, and the "gods"
were able to teach ancient man
the secrets they brought with
thes from their own planet. Man
was soddenly able to grind
lenses, do sophisticated mathe-
matical calculations, move mas-
sive stones, and record what hap-
pened in what were to become
our religioss texts. After the
"gods" left for the last time,
oan construed huge landmarks
(the great stone faces of Easter
Island and the pyramids, for ex-
ample) and air strips in the hope
that they would return.
How did such a mind-boggling
idea present itself to Von Dani-
ken, a non-scientist by his own
description?
The 38 - year - old Swiss - born
writer says it all began with his
Catholic high school education.
Certain Old Testament passages
puzzled him, stch as the refer-
ence in Genesis to God creating
man "t our image." ("Why
our' i m a g e and not my'
image?" questions Von Daniken.)
Other Bible stories fueled his
imagination. In Ezekiel's vision
a fabulous flying craft is de-
scribed which, Von Daniken says,
a NASA scientist asserts could
actually fly if reconstruced to-
day.
Some of the ancient enigmas
that the author cites are:
-An electric battery on dis-
play at the Bagdad Museum
which has been dated at 1,000
Summer Daily
on its head. The monolith has
steps and ramps, he says, as well
as decorative spirals and holes.
He says the Incas lacked the
technology to remove it from its
quarry and overturn it.
Von Daniken admits that most
scientists reject his theory. In
Germany alone, there are as
many as five books that seek to
refute his ideas. But the tide is
slowly turning, the author says,
B.C. and can still produce 1.5
volts.
-An Assyrian lens nearly 3,000
years old which he alleges can
only be duplicbted today with
highly technical equipment (on
display in the British Museum).
-A 14,000-year-old bison skull
found in Russia containing a hole
which because of its size and the
uniformity of its circumference, -
Von Daniken identiifes as a bul-
let hole.
-Various cave and tomb illu-
strations which he maintains de-
pict astronauts, complete with
helmets, spacesuits, and even
aircraft with control panels, en-
gine sand exhaust systems. These
he says can be found in South
America, China, Western Europe
and elsewhere.
-A 20,000-ton block of stone
which he claims was elaborately
carved by the Incas, then turned
and more and more scientists,
particularly astronomers, are be-
ginning to agree that he may be
on to something.
The author believes that one
da irref-table proof his theory
will be 'nearthed. Ie speculates
that the "gods" came to earth
in the hare that they might find
a new home, perhaps because
their own pl-net had become isn-
inhabitable--or perhaps because
they had fled a "war in heaven"
on their own star.
Bot shat if the "giants" reltirn
some day) Will they again be dis-
appointed in oor devel ment?
Will thre be a-other gr'at ,lsod?
Von Daniken doesn't think so.
"I think they'd be pleased," he
says.
Joel Shercr is a fraturr writ-
er for Reuters Newerice