There is no real place to start or stop with an artist like Bob Dylan. A hummingbird of the mind, he has flitted from style to style over the years and chances are that you could fall entirely in love with one or two of his albums. If he is ...

It is not often that I feel like a cultural alien. My formative years, which afforded me the priceless opportunity to forge a fine intellect and noble character, were instead spent imbibing cable TV, movies, magazines and every significant album in the rock and rap canons. I therefore know the weight and nuance of the associations borne by words such as ʻNascarʼ and ʻCristalʼ and can deploy them to well calibrated effect. In the past year, however, I have felt myself socially crippled when faced with jokes, insights and analogies that hinged on understanding of the nature and habits of a human type known as ʻThe Hipsterʼ, a type with whom I was only vaguely acquainted.

To an unbeliever, most Christian thinking, beginning with the proclamation of the cosmic kingship of an executed Palestinian carpenter, must seem like an insane, if touching, attempt to rationalize tragedy and failure. Yet the history of my romance with the greatest of all composers concretely and compellingly illustrates the ancient Christian doctrine that God’s Providence brings good out of every evil.