Mixing Up The Medicine: Exclusive Preview
Upcoming Book From The Bob Dylan Center Archives
Calloway Arts & Entertainment, in cooperation with The Bob Dylan Center, held an absolutely gorgeous event to pre-launch the upcoming ‘Mixing Up The Medicine’ by Mark Davidson and Parker Fishel. Release Date: Oct 24, 2023 (Press release)
THE BOOK: FIRST REACTION
The Bob Dylan Center has produced an absolutely incredible book, documenting Bob Dylan’s life and career leveraging the vast Dylan Archives and two dozen respected writers and essayists. But not only is the content of the book mind-blowing, the editorial effort - to identify and curate Bob’s story out of the mountain range of items at their disposal - to impressively chronicle such a long and eventful career and telling the big story while endlessly diving into details that will thrill hardcore fans - is almost unimaginable and yet they nailed it. And beyond that, the production quality of the book itself - from the thick cardboard covers and hefty/impressive box-like case, to the fine matte paper and incredible print quality, and the shocking overall size (it’s delightfully larger than an old Manhattan phone book) will not only drop the jaw of any serious Dylan fan, it will effectively paralyze them for days, perhaps weeks.
The idea of The Bob Dylan Archives and Dylan Center is pretty incredible: 100,000 things Bob collected and saved over 60 years put in one place and professionally curated, many displayed in compelling ways. Yet anyone who’s been there knows that a visit is somehow even better than this dream scenario sounds like it will be. And now there is a take-home version of the Bob Dylan Archives, one that is in its own way every bit as great at the Center, and in some ways better. There just aren’t any superlatives adequate for this book.
It has only one flaw - the $100 price is ridiculous; they should re-price it at $175 or even $250. It looks, feels, browses, reads, and is something worth so much more than $100 that I honestly feel like the price degrades it. They should rethink and raise the price. Not kidding.
PS: The publisher mentioned the First Printing is likely to sell out fast. I believe him. Order Yours.
This post shares a bit about the event and a bit about the book. It is not a full review - the book demands very thoughtful and elaborate commentary, which will come in the future. We’ll also have some cool interviews related to the book on the podcast.
THE EVENT
What kind of event can live up to and be appropriate for a book like the one I just described? The one they held last night in Bridgehampton NY.
More about the book, what’s inside, the event, and more photos & video below.