It's no coincidence that the Duluth Dylan Festival is paying a bit more attention to the literary aspect of its favorite son's career, now that he's a Nobel laureate.
Last weekend, David Pichaske, author of Songs of the North Country: A Midwest Framework to the Songs of Bob Dylan presented the John Bushey Memorial Lecture, and this Saturday's lecture in the same series features author and Harvard professor Richard F. Thomas, who wrote Why Bob Dylan Matters.
Writer and member of the festival's planning committee, Phil Fitzpatrick, says the controversial award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Dylan is absolutely justified. "The significance of being human - we don't all get it right away," says Fitzpatrick. "(Bob Dylan is) one of the rare people who can step back and comment on it."
