Ronni Kurtz - Unsplash
While referring to Anne Frank – whose candid writings became a powerful symbol of Jewish suffering under the Nazi regime – as merely a "great girl" was undeniably facile, the bigger problem lay in his implication that, had she been alive, she would have been deeply obsessed with him. The diary entry made the rounds online, and near-pandemonium ensued.
The museum stood by the pop star's visit, writing on their website: "We think it is very positive that he took the time and effort to visit our museum. He was very interested in the story of Anne Frank and stayed for over an hour."
Bieber never responded to the backlash, and the internet, in turn, continued to implode with vilification of the singer. The backlash was not only about what Bieber said, but what his response implied about his ego as a whole. It was clearly a fleeting entry, one left by a toxically famous 19-year-old with a packed tour schedule, written in a last-minute dash before moving on to his next event. For a young man as privileged as Bieber had been for his entire life, it seems unfair to assume he would have been able to grasp the weight of a global atrocity that he wasn't even alive for, much less in one very publicized hour-long tour. Then again, that atrocity was the Holocaust.
Anne Frank House response to Bieber
Should we be surprised that an international pop star viewed, and still views, everything only in terms of how it relates to him? More importantly, is there actually a "suitable" response to experiencing a tourist attraction like the Anne Frank house? On the one hand, it is a striking monument that captures the unshakable signal of hope and goodness that Anne represented during one of history's darkest times. On the other hand, it is a bustling for-profit attraction that, prior to the pandemic, drew in 1.5 million people annually.
"When writing about the museum – just as when visiting it – there is an understandable expectation that one should tread carefully," wrote the Conde Nast Traveler. Clearly, that established expectation of wariness should extend to what people write in the guestbook.
Bieber's narcissistic note was inexcusable, but for a man who just admitted to GQ that his unshakable ego was birthed from our cultish obsession with him, isn't his lack of empathy at least partially our fault? Do we have a right to get mad at him when we made him this way?
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Why Bob Dylan Claims "I'm Just Like Anne Frank" in "I Contain Multitudes"
In his newest song, Bob Dylan compares himself to Anne Frank, the Rolling Stones, Indiana Jones, Edgar Allan Poe, and more.
Everything Bob Dylan writes has a timeless feeling about it, but his most recent two songs—his first in eight years—have an air of simultaneous urgency and mysticism.
It's as if he knows that we're going down, but he also knows that some truths transcend single lifetimes or even epochs.
His newest song, "I Contain Multitudes," follows the 19-minute ballad "Murder Most Foul," which climbed to number one when it came out in March. "I Contain Multitudes" is much shorter, but like "Murder Most Foul," the new song is a collage of reverential tributes. It both honors and critiques cornerstones of American culture, summarizing the complexity of what it feels like to be an American and a human being in a world that's constantly oscillating between horror and beauty. "I'm a man of contradictions, I'm a man of many moods. I contain multitudes," Dylan warbles over tangled waves of acoustic guitar.
He compares himself to William Blake and Anne Frank in one stanza, then talks about fast cars and fast foods in another. He sings of flowers and blood feuds; he paints both landscapes and nudes. It's Dylan at his rawest, telling the truth about his own identity by explaining its contradictions and its perpetually shifting, impermanent nature. We often see each other as separate beings, but the COVID-19 has revealed that every one of our actions has a consequence on another person. In that sense, we really are all a part of each other—so Dylan really is Anne Frank, and you are Dylan, and I'm you.
In his poem Song of Myself, Walt Whitman wrote, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large—I contain multitudes." And who among us doesn't feel the same?
We are living at a time of extreme fear and daring hope, but these contradictions have always defined the human condition. One only needs to look outside to see the simultaneous beauty and terror of being in all its fullness—the trash heaps beneath the cherry blossoms, the poverty, and the glorious displays of love.
And like nature isn't just one thing, throughout our lives, most of us are neither heroes or sinners. Most of us thrive sometimes and crash at other times, sometimes creating things we're immensely proud of and experiencing profound wonder, and other times falling apart and questioning everything. We all have the capacity to experience impossible grace, yet we all still have to clean our hands. Only Dylan could spin that universal experience into something so breathtaking and so instantly timeless.
Lyrics:
Today, tomorrow, and yesterday, too
The flowers are dyin' like all things do
Follow me close, I'm going to Balian Bali
I'll lose my mind if you don't come with me
I fuss with my hair, and I fight blood feuds
I contain multitudes
Got a tell-tale heart, like Mr. Poe
Got skeletons in the walls of people you know
I'll drink to the truth and the things we said
I'll drink to the man that shares your bed
I paint landscapes, and I paint nudes
I contain multitudes
Red Cadillac and a black mustache
Rings on my fingers that sparkle and flash
Tell me, what's next? What shall we do?
Half my soul, baby, belongs to you
I relic and I frolic with all the young dudes
I contain multitudes
I'm just like Anne Frank, like Indiana Jones
And them British bad boys, The Rolling Stones
I go right to the edge, I go right to the end
I go right where all things lost are made good again
I sing the songs of experience like William Blake
I have no apologies to make
Everything's flowing all at the same time
I live on the boulevard of crime
I drive fast cars, and I eat fast foods
I contain multitudes
Pink petal-pushers, red blue jeans
All the pretty maids, and all the old queens
All the old queens from all my past lives
I carry four pistols and two large knives
I'm a man of contradictions, I'm a man of many moods
I contain multitudes
You greedy old wolf, I'll show you my heart
But not all of it, only the hateful part
I'll sell you down the river, I'll put a price on your head
What more can I tell you? I sleep with life and death in the same bed
Get lost, madame, get up off my knee
Keep your mouth away from me
I'll keep the path open, the path in my mind
I'll see to it that there's no love left behind
I'll play Beethoven's sonatas, and Chopin's preludes
I contain multitudes