One last stand on the stage

Dylan, photographed by John Cohen

"So I find it very strange that you had such contact with Bob Dylan but never played together, did you? Did you two ever get together to play?"

"There was one time," John Cohen started. "It was 1962 - the Cuban missile crisis."

"It took the Cuban missile crisis for you two to play together?" Nora Guthrie (Woody's daughter, Arlo's sister) said.

 "Literally did. I got home, saw what was happening on TV, and thought this is the end of the world. The thing was, I didn't want to die there all on my own. So I headed over to the Gaslight and Dylan was up on stage. I said, "hey lets play some songs," and he said "sure what you want to play?" I said "You're going to miss me when I'm gone." You see? It was ironic, there was going to be no one to miss us."

Magicians at the Border

"You sure you're not smuggling cocaine? Cocaine or ebola or something?"

"I'm positive."

He starts thumbing my passport, pulling out all the papers that had ended up there: a paper coin for good luck, ticket stubs from old flights, a witch-doctor's flyer.

"Ai, Karamba," he says, puts it down and gets back to my passport. "Is this from Laos? This stamp from Laos?"

He had this NYPD cop thing that made every question mark feel like a finger to the chest or lightbulb in the eyes. I'm thinking this might be a problem but I can't lie or anything, it's right there: LAOTIAN VISA. So I hesitate, but say 'yes, yes it is.' And he goes:

"It's a beautiful stamp." I thank my paper coins and breathe a little easier. "Only problem is it takes a whole page.
"What were you doing there?
"Visiting?
"Alone?
"So I guess you're adventurous?
"Do you sleep under palm trees and stuff?
"And this?" He asks waving the flyer. "Do you call Professor Karamba when you go to Laos? Everytime you fly?"

And out of nowhere he starts translating it. Word for word - almost.

"There are no problems without solution. Spiritualist and scientist. Great medium psychic. Helps solve problems big or small in 7 days like love, failure, depression, business, injustice, marriages." He stops and looks up genuinely impressed. "Oh, wow. He solves sexual impotence too."

Silverstein himself once remarked of his itinerant lifestyle, “Comfortable shoes and the freedom to leave are the two most important things in life.”

The Giving Tree at fifty, by Ruth Margalit in The New Yorker