Culture

Bob Dylan

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

I can’t say when it occurred to me to write my own songs. I couldn’t have come up with anything comparable or halfway close to the folk song lyrics I was singing to define the way I felt about the world. I guess it happens to you by degrees. You just don’t wake up one day and decide that you need to write songs, especially if you’re a singer who has plenty of them and you’re learning more every day. Opportunities may come along for you to convert something — something that exists into something that didn’t yet. That might be the beginning of it. Sometimes you just want to do things your way, want to see for yourself what lies behind the misty curtain. It’s not like you see songs approaching and invite them in.—Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One

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On the Edge

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

I’m a damn sap.

Sometimes it’s the television ads. There are some that get me every time. “Aw, they’re getting a new kitten!” (Never mind what the ad is selling.) Or if a character in a movie—at any point in the movie—says something about wanting to “go home,” and at the end of the movie they walk through their front door and say they’re “home,” and the music swells and the credits start rolling, I’m a goner.
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‘Higgling, Haggling …’

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The title is a part of Adam Smith‘s description of the flaws inherent in any system of bartering: Once two parties have actually agreed to negotiate a swap of items or services, which is easier described than accomplished, how long will it take to negotiate value or price? Is my horse worth the same as your horse? Why do you think so? You must be hiding some detail. You must be trying to foist a sickly ill nag on me to ride off with my healthy animal. How dare you …

If one party thinks the other is out to cheat him—even if the other party is not out to cheat—he will over sell with the intent to make a profit. Further, if the other party also thinks he is about to be cheated, both parties will attempt to cheat each other in order to think they are protecting themselves. Hence Smith’s description of barter as “higgling, haggling, swapping, dickering.” The two bartering parties run the risk of spending the entire day in fickle negotiation rather than in work.
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