Ring Them Nobels

Big NYT op-ed just up by Bill Wyman (no, not the Stones' bassist) on Bob Dylan's strong candidacy for Nobel Prize.  I've pushed Leonard Cohen for this, since unlike Bob he is an honored novelist and poet (beyond song poetry).  Anyway, Wyman lists the strikes against him and the many plusses.

Concludes:

If the academy doesn’t recognize Bob Dylan — a bard who embodied the most significant cultural upheaval of the second half of the last century — it will squander its best chance to honor a pop poet. What other songwriter would remotely qualify? Joni Mitchell or Leonard Cohen? Perhaps. Randy Newman? Chuck D? (In truth, the only other pop artist with work as timeless as Mr. Dylan’s is Chuck Berry — but that’s an argument for another day.) With his superstar peers either silent or content to collect the big bucks playing ingratiating stadium shows, this artist, iconoclastic and still vital, demands that we take the product of his muse on his own terms, and refuses to go so gently.