Have you heard the one about a stone rolling into a book fair, and leaving a complete unknown? Bob Dylan, music icon and Chalamet look-alike, is currently on a European tour and happened to find himself at publishing’s biggest book fair:
At the hotel in Frankfurt there was a publishing convention and every room was taken, parties all night. I didn’t know there were so many book publishers in the world. I was trying to find Crystal Lake Publishing so I could congratulate them on publishing The Great God Pan, one…
— Bob Dylan (@bobdylan) October 23, 2024
My first question was to wonder if this tweet was authentically penned by the Tamborine Man himself—there are a lot of imposters out there, and I tend to doubt the verified badge these days. But Vulture claimed that The King of Cafe Wah pens his own tweets earlier this month, which is good enough for me!
The tweet is just jammed with wonderful details:
– The coincidence of him booking a room at the same hotel as this huge convention struck me as kind of an odd oversight, but then again if there’s anyone that a hotel is going to bend over backward to make space for, it’s Freewheelin’ Bob.
– Very charming to imagine a titan and Nobel winner wandering a book fair by himself. Also, I’m kind of aghast that no one seems to have spotted him, or snapped a picture. Is Dylan old news in publishing? Was he in disguise? Maybe wearing a yellow hat over a wig, the signature “Blonde on Blonde” look?
– I love his amazement at the size of the publishing world. New York magazine should have asked him about the future of media for their big package! Would have made for a nice chaser after reading about media elites weird taste in podcasts.
– I also love that he knows the small horror imprint Crystal Lake Publishing and was poking around looking for them! Extremely cool!
– And that he wanted to shake their hand for reprinting a spooky Arthur Machen book from 1894!
– Sidebar: It’s a great book and well worth your time!
– And that he wanted to pitch them on some of his stories. I have to imagine that would be the fastest successful cold pitch in history. What kind of dark fiction or horror has the Highway 61 Revisiter been cooking up? Maybe something about a haunted harmonica that can tame ghosts?
– The fact that he got overwhelmed and bailed is extremely relatable. I’ve also been overwhelmed by book fairs, which means that by the transitive property, I’m also the voice of the 1960s counterculture.
Just a fascinating tweet, one of those short stories that sends your mind in a million imaginative directions. I guess that’s why he won the Nobel.
