Marionette
by
Roderick Smith.

This is a wooden marionette I created  of Bob Dylan 
standing 24" tall with ten strings allowing for him to dance and strum 
while  singing and blowing his harp.  I have performed with the puppet 
at numerous west coast Dylan concerts.  A performance of "nly a Hobo" 
and  "He was a friend of Mine" in Seattle outside the Paramount for a 
small group of homeless folks was the highlite of this puppeteer's 
career.  Three men who sat down determined to disrupt my street 
perfomance "mildly" inebriated fell into a spell gazing into this 
little puppets face as he danced and twirled to the recorded songs of 
Bob Dylan. Two were in tears after "He was a friend of Mine" Between 
them  they collected two bucks in change, all that they had, and 
dumped it into the miniature guitar case on the sidewalk in front of 
the marionette. 

Bob Dylan actually saw this puppet though not in performance years ago 
in a boutique adjacent to his hotel.  He came into the shop wearing a 
long black leather coat out from which he pulled a cam corder and 
carefully scanned the marionette from top to bottom then silently 
walked back out of the shop.  I heard about this from the excited shop 
owner  who gave me a step by step account by phone.

When in performance he plays a three song set, standing on a persian 
carpet with microphone.

Reproduced with permission.

BDX

Expecting Rain

19990528