Had Mr. Dylan’s 1966 motorcycle accident killed him, he could have gone out as a prophet, the voice of his generation, and all the other lazy phrases from the land where op-ed sonorousness meets a P.R. flack’s hyperbole. Instead, Mr. Dylan became deeply inconvenient. Which is why, when he shrugged off years of indifferent or lazy albums in the early 90’s and started making music that mattered again, it was baffling to some to have to treat him, after all these years, as something besides a has-been or an oldies act.

UPDATE: Marcus also pops up in a Dylanology essay in The Nation. (Via Arts & Letters Daily)