And Then It Happened, That Queer Sensation

From Bob Dylan’s radio show, Theme Time Radio Hour.

Speaking of Bob Dylan, Korrektiv Press has a novel waiting in the wings, Bird’s Nest in Your Hair, by Brian Jobe, which takes its title from an obscure Dylan song, “Trouble in Mind.” The song appeared on the b-side of the biggest hit single of Bob’s evangelical phase — “Serve Somebody” — and the protagonist of Brian’s novel (well, the primary protagonist, in my opinion — it’s open to debate because there are several protagonists) is a young woman, a bartender named Diana, who loves listening to Dylan songs on the jukebox and is in the tentative, uncertain process of throwing her lot in with the Catholic Church.

An early draft of Bird’s Nest was pseudonymously serialized on Korrektiv some time back, but the author has busted his butt with major revisions, and rendered himself, like Hoagy Carmichael and Bob Dylan, a plaything of the muses. The result is a tome of befuddling beauty and double and triple reflections wherein startling glimpses of star dust intermingle with the dark tangles of the devil who would make a bird’s nest in your hair. Coming soon to a book dealer near you!

NB: There is some name/identity confusion hereabouts, to be sure. Let me help clarify the matter for you. JOB stands for Joseph O’Brien, and his book of poems is next up, after Bird’s Nest, on the Korrektiv Press assembly line. Brian Jobe is a different person, completely distinct from the other JOB (although both JOB and Jobe have suffered some trials like their biblical namesake). Brian writes here on the blog as Quin Finnegan and he has sometimes written under the pseudonym Jeb O’Brian. (See the different spelling from the other aforementioned O’Brien?) JOB lives in idyllic camping country “nestled amid the mytho-geographical possibilities of the Mississippi, Wisconsin and Kickapoo Rivers” (his own words) and is a prodigious father of many children. Jobe is a bachelor (and a highly eligible one, ladies) who resides smack dab in the middle of downtown Seattle and has not, to his knowledge, fathered any children at all. Does that help? Then there are the two Jonathans, also two different fellows. Jonathan Webb is a tall 50-year-old father of four who smokes big cigars, drinks Wild Turkey, and lives in the Tuscany-like environs of the Snohomish River flood plains north of Seattle. Jonathan Potter (i.e. myself, who has sometimes written under the name Rufus McCain) is a medium-size fellow in his late forties, also a father of young-uns, who lives among the rocks and pine trees of Spokane, Washington. Southern Expat is woman of refined sensibility who isn’t sure she should be affiliated with the likes of us — especially the likes of Matthew Lickona, who was almost famous once but opted for a penitential life of toil and pain and obscurity. And that rounds out our ragtag kollektiv. This is the last time I’m going to explain this, so I hope y’all are paying attention. Any questions?