“Well, my shoes, they come from Singapore,” Bob Dylan sings on “Union Sundown”, one of the singles from Infidels. I don’t have shoes from Singapore, but maybe I will in a couple of days. I fly tomorrow to take part in the Cultural Industries and Convergence workshop at the National University of Singapore. My silence of the last two days is not reflective of a lack of interest in the Dylan year, so much as it has been a rush to get set to go on this trip and to spend some time with my son before I leave.

Dylan has only performed in Singapore twice: in 1994 and in 2011. That’s two more times than I have been there. I leave my house tomorrow at 5:30am and I arrive on Monday night at 11:00pm, losing a day along the way. I hope to write up my final thoughts on The Basement Tapes on the plane, and will probably listen to the five hours of tapes one last time along the way.

I have no idea how good my internet access will be on this trip – though I should have it in my room at NUS, so with luck the only interruption in blogging will be due to the time change and the jet lag. 1969 is another not very busy Dylan year, but I still plan to blog about it.

The weirdest part is definitely going to be the temperature shift. As I write it is -18C in Calgary, and it is 32C in Singapore. Tough to dress for that kind of change.

Since Dylan doesn’t have an appropriate song, let’s turn the stage over to Tom Waits. He’s got a song for almost any occasion: