How Bob Dylan Blurred the Boundaries

It’s a small black imitation-leather dimestore notebook, about the size of a cell phone, like an address book or a day planner or a diary, but a bit more vague. “A Daily Reminder of Important Matters,” it says on the title page, and the inner pages are ruled. The calendar up front is for 1963, although the book seems to have been used in 1964. Its spine has been repaired, crookedly, with packing tape. Clusters of addresses and references suggest its owner might have been in Mississippi, New Orleans, Texas, Los Angeles, Paris, London, and San Francisco during the term of its use. It is about three-quarters filled, with spurts and sequences of writing appearing in various sizes and permutations of the owner’s script, inscribed with different implements and with varying observance of the ruling and the page orientation. It was written on the move, in short bursts, on trains and airplanes and in hotel rooms and the backs of cars.