Monday, June 28, 2004
Looking at Ken Burns' Yale Speech...from a Buick 6
A message from M. out on the West Coast:
Thanks to JarJarNixon for pointing me to Ken Burn's blueblooded commencement address at Yale. It was worth savoring, and the wonderful Elizabeth Cady Stanton quote was new to me. At the same time, Ken Burns has always been long on sentiment, short on insight as a historian, and maybe just a mite tendentious. So read it with cognac and savor, but keep this antidote in mind -- Bob Dylan's (now Dr. Dylan, having just received an honorary doctorate from Oxford) response to an honorary degree from Princeton in 1970, in "Day of the Locusts":
"I put down my robe, picked up my diploma,
Took hold of my sweetheart and away we did drive,
Straight for the hills, the black hills of Dakota,
Sure was glad to get out of there alive."
Damn straight, Ken, a little skepticism is a good thing. Thanks.
M.
A note on the Oxford degree: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040624/en_afp/afplifestyle_britain_us_040624171358
Thanks to JarJarNixon for pointing me to Ken Burn's blueblooded commencement address at Yale. It was worth savoring, and the wonderful Elizabeth Cady Stanton quote was new to me. At the same time, Ken Burns has always been long on sentiment, short on insight as a historian, and maybe just a mite tendentious. So read it with cognac and savor, but keep this antidote in mind -- Bob Dylan's (now Dr. Dylan, having just received an honorary doctorate from Oxford) response to an honorary degree from Princeton in 1970, in "Day of the Locusts":
"I put down my robe, picked up my diploma,
Took hold of my sweetheart and away we did drive,
Straight for the hills, the black hills of Dakota,
Sure was glad to get out of there alive."
Damn straight, Ken, a little skepticism is a good thing. Thanks.
M.
A note on the Oxford degree: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040624/en_afp/afplifestyle_britain_us_040624171358
