rockon

Rock on

by Bob on October 6, 2007

James Dean. A brilliant yet enigmatic personality and actor. A cult following has always been there.

I really wonder what James Dean thought about life. I could learn a lot. Perhaps a little Albert Camus or Jean-Paul Sartre would do. Or Bishop George Berkeley and "immaterialism".

Recalling the 1973 song by David Essex, "Rock On". He mentions James Dean.

And Dennis Stock took the classic nihilistic outsider photo of James Dean in the 1950s in New York City in its Times Square on a rainy day where alienation reigns.

Maybe that's why Bob Marley, when asked what he was doing in town, used to answer "Just passin' through, Mon". Bob knew how fickle life was. And perhaps that it was an illusion.

As David Essex sang ... "Where do we go from here?". Where, indeed ? James Dean and Bob Marley or even Jimi Hendrix weren't worried about it. Like lilies in the field, they neither toil nor spin. But they are beautiful. Despite Franz Kafka. "The Metamorphosis" or more importantly, "The Trial". Waking up one morning as a giant insect, Kafka wrote. It's all written there symbolically.

Dennis Stock's classic photo of James Dean in Times Square in New York City. 1955.