Tuesday, January 18, 2005

YOU DON'T NEED A RASTAMAN TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS: According to this New York Observer review of Curtis Sittenfeld's "big-buzz debut novel, Prep," the book's narrator, a 14-year-old "fresh from Nowhere Indiana, trying desperately to blend into the woodwork of her exclusive Massachusetts boarding school," is "inexperienced with taxis, can't pronounce Greenwich, doesn't know Bob Dylan from Bob Marley."

Now normally that kind of cheap, pop culture shorthand drives me nuts. C'mon, she doesn't know Dylan from Marley. You can play her "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Get Up, Stand Up" back-to-back and she just gives you a vacant look? And wouldn't it be more relevant, though less symmetrical, if, say, she didn't know the Strokes from the White Stripes? Or Dylan from Bright Eyes? Or even Bob Marley from Ziggy Marley, the latter whose infectious theme to "Arthur," no doubt invaded her childhood even in the hinterlands of rural Indiana.

But then I stumbled upon this Washington Post correction at Regret the Error, a newspaper correction blog that has picked up where Frank Sennett's late Slipup.com left off.
In the Jan. 9 Sunday Source entertainment listings for Prince George's County, the "Highlight" on guitarist Derek Trucks incorrectly said that he is 23 years old and has toured with Bob Marley. Trucks is 25 and has toured with Bob Dylan.

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