\n<\/p>\n
The question, alas, came right away. \u201cI was hoping the first question would not even have his name,\u201d laughs Joan Baez.<\/strong> Though the folk music icon has fought many battles, perhaps the longest has been her fight against being labeled Bob Dylan<\/strong>\u2019s ex.<\/p>\n \u201cI understand you can\u2019t help it,\u201d Baez continues. \u201cI know I can\u2019t. Once in my life, I had an interview that was just me. It was a German guy, and he gave a whole interview, and he never brought up the name. When we were finished, I said, hallelujah.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Now, 60 years after her relationship with Dylan\u2014legendary, turbulent, artistically powerful\u2014Baez is used to being asked about him. Not by Dylan himself, though. Last year Dylan gave his seal of approval to A Complete Unknown<\/a>,<\/em> a biopic starring Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet<\/strong><\/a> as Dylan and Monica Barbaro<\/strong> as Baez. Both got Oscar nominations for their performances.<\/p>\n \u201cI had an interview with Rolling Stone<\/em> the other day, and they said, \u2018Did Bob reach out to you [about the movie]?\u2019 And I said, \u2018You\u2019ve been working at Rolling Stone<\/em> long enough to know the answer to that question,\u2019\u201d Baez says. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t reach out to anybody. But I reached out to Monica, and to, I never remember his name, the one who played Pete Seeger.\u201d (That would be Edward Norton.<\/strong>) \u201cWe had a long conversation.\u201d Would it be possible for her to reach out to Dylan herself? Baez\u2019s answer is short: \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n The now 84-year-old Baez moves slowly and smiles widely, the usual thousand bangles clanging on her wrists. The voice that sang \u201cWe Shall Overcome,\u201d amid tear gas and marches on the bridges of Alabama, arrived in Milan recently to present her new book of poems and prose, When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance,<\/em> before visiting the Milanesiana to have a dialogue with Sandro Veronesi<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Though her legendary vibrato is still powerful\u2014she shares it at one point, singing a few lines from Janis Ian<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cOne in a Million\u201d\u2014Baez is done with live performance. \u201cI don\u2019t want to tour anymore,\u201d she says. \u201cToo tiring. The tour bus, the transfers\u2014I can\u2019t do it anymore. But writing? Writing is still a way to endure.\u201d<\/p>\n And to remember the past. A Complete Unknown,<\/em> Baez says, is \u201cnot a documentary, it\u2019s a movie. Some of it\u2019s beautiful. The music was beautiful, and some of the acting.<\/p>\n \u201cI think she did a good job,\u201d she adds, referring to Barbaro. \u201cI think he<\/em> did a very good job. What\u2019s his name? Chalamet. He just needed\u2014he was too clean, probably.\u201d<\/p>\n Baez\u2019s new book includes a poem dedicated to Jimi Hendrix\u2014\u201cI didn\u2019t know him well\u201d\u2014and a focus on her own childhood. \u201cEarly in my life, drawing gave me my own identity and was soothing to me. And then it was early childhood trauma. It was abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse. So all of my life, I had phobias, and I had troubles and anxiety, and I didn\u2019t understand why. But I had good therapists. They helped me function, but the deep problems were still there.\u201d Writing, then, provides her a different kind of therapy.<\/p>\n Childhood is referenced in the book\u2019s title. Baez also speaks of her father, physicist Albert Baez, who refused to work on the Manhattan Project for religious reasons. His influence led Baez to embrace civil disobedience. \u201cI was raised Quaker,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s the only religion that seriously does not go to war. Everybody says \u2018you shouldn\u2019t kill anybody\u2019\u2014then they strap on the guns and they go and fight. And the Quakers really won\u2019t do that. They say you can accept suffering, but you can\u2019t inflict suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a viewpoint she wishes more people in power shared. When asked whether she anticipated Donald Trump<\/strong> being elected president a second time, Baez replies, \u201cNo. But no matter what, nobody could have realized, nobody could write it. Nobody could dream it. What we have now is so fast and so destructive. We just can\u2019t let it destroy the heart and the art.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n