Thinking about when the federal prison had been on Alkatraz Island, it struck me how the tantalising view of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge must have made it so much harder for the inmates. Stuck on a little rock of land spending most of the day in a tiny dark cell, the outlook to the vibrant city would have been a constant niggler about what they were missing. No wonder so many of the prisoners were nut cases.

It starts with the sound of rain and a woman’s weighty voice: “it’s night time in the big city. Outside the dogs are barking. A woman walks barefoot, her high heels in her handbag. It’s theme time radio hour with your host Bob Dylan.”

Then comes a man’s growly and gravelly voice, the whisky-drenched voice that makes you feel as if you’re drunk or as if you should be, right now. "It's time for Theme Time Radio Hour. Dreams, schemes and themes." The voice of Bob Dylan, the disk jockey.

Throughout the next hour the most iconic recluse in the music business introduces his favourite records from his collection, with a new theme each week. So far themes have included coffee; jail; divorce; summer; flowers; cars; the devil; eyes; dogs; the Bible; maps; school; water; time; guns; dance; sleep; food; Tennessee; moon; women's names; hair; musical instruments; luck; and tears.

In a seamless and natural way Dylan combines logically linear words with abstract ones; light-heartedness with seriousness, intellect with kookiness, and topical information with playful anecdotes. With songs as diverse as Merle Haggard's Mama Tried with LL Cool J's Mama Said Knock You Out (as in the program, Mothers), he taps America’s wide musical heritage. He is eagre to share his impeccable taste and encyclopaedic knowledge of song, and is clearly having a ball behind the mic.

XM satellite radio finally signed Dylan for the program last year, after three years of persuasion. They provided the 65-year-old with a digital recording kit so that he can record and present from home, studio or tour bus. Subscription-based, ad-free satellite radio is growing rapidly in popularity and XM also carries shows presented by Tom Petty, Oprah Winfrey and Snoop Dogg.

The eclectic brew of blues, rockabilly, soul music, bebop, rock-and-roll and pop on Theme Time Radio Hour is interspersed with poetry recitations, scripted commentary on the music, film snippets, recipes, random oddities related to the themes, and email readings.

In the Baseball program he reads an email from Jamie Christionson, Nevarda: “She writes, ‘dear Theme Time, I enjoy listening to the ballgames late at night but my boyfriend says the radio keeps him up – what should I do?’ Well Jamie, you should do what I used to do: when I was supposed to be asleep I would take the bedside radio and slip it under my pillow … press you ear close to the pillow, which is what you’re supposed to do with pillows anyway, and listen to the game without bothering any body else in the house … I hope you do hat with Theme Time radio hour, thanks for your letter, press your ear up close to the pillow Jamie.”

Dylan has told us before how important radio had been to him. In Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home, he recalled how radio had given him his first sense of an American musical culture that reached far beyond his hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota: "We'd have to, like, listen late at night for other stations to come in from other parts of the country," he said. "Johnnie Ray,

he had some kind of strange incantation in his voice, like he'd been voodoo'd, and he cried, kind of, when he sang ... it was the sound that got me, it wasn't who it was ... I began to listen to the radio, [and] I began to get bored being there [in Minnesota]."

The Baseball program closes with the song Heart by Damn Yankees (the Original Broadway Cast) and the following sign off: “In baseball, as in life, you need heart. You gotta have heart. Gotta have a lot of things. Gotta have something on the brain. Gotta have correct postage. Gotta have a dog you can trust. Gotta have a dry hat and your lawyer’s phone number. Gotta have your girlfriend’s credit card. You gotta have it all together. You gotta have room to move. Gotta have what it takes. Gotta have a hot meal and a warm place to sleep. You gotta have heart.”

I don’t know why they’re called bliss balls. They’re certainly not visually bliss enducing. Bliss is too big a call. They should be called nice balls instead. Actually, the balls part isn’t great either, maybe nice round things...
But I made some and gave them to friends and they appreciated their sticky sweet nuttyness, so here’s the recipe for about a dozen.

First combine:
- A handful each of dates, figs and dried apricots, mashed up in he food processor
- A handful each of almonds, macadamias and any other nuts you want, some ground and some coarsely chopped for texture
- The juice and grated rind of one orange
- A pinch of cinnamon
- A splash of vanilla essence

Then roll into balls (round things, rather) and coat with a ground up bar of carob or chocolate. You can freeze them and palm them off slowly.

Here’s another fragment of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya: Sonya speaking of the doctor Astrov...

"He says that forests are the ornaments of the earth, that they teach mankind to understand beauty and attune his mind to lofty sentiments. Forests alleviate a stern climate, and in countries where the climate is milder, less strength is wasted on the struggle for existence, so that men and women are gentler and more affectionate. In such places people are handsome, tractable and sensitive, their speech is elegant and their movements are graceful. Their philosophy is joyous, art and learning flourish among them, and their treatment of women is full of exquisite nobility."

Anton Chekhov with Leo Tolstoy

Last week I saw Chekhov’s classic tale of wasted life, melancholia and tangled love, Uncle Vanya. The legendary Maly Drama Theatre of St. Petersburg was here for the Sydney Festival and gave a moving performance of the play in the original Russian (with English subtitles). Written in 1895 as tension was building at the brink of revolution, the play combines comic scenes of daily life, scathing attacks on the idleness of the upper classes and acute observations of humanity. I wish I saw theatre like that all the time. The plot, characters, settings and all that are uncomplicated but the ideas are multi-layered, potent and vivid. I have to reproduce some of them here, because everyone should think about these things. Everyone. Each and every one of the twenty readers I have.

... Each of these quotes are from the character Doctor Michael Astrov, at various points in the play:

“The peasants are all alike; they are stupid and live in dirt. And the educated people are hard to get along with. They make me so tired. All our good friends think their shallow little thoughts and have their shallow little feelings, but not one of them can see farther than the end of their own nose. In one word, they are dull. And the brighter one’s who have a bit more to them are hysterical and go for all this morbid introspection, all this whining, hating and slandering. They sneak up to me sideways, look at me out of a corner of the eye and then proclaim 'that man is a lunatic,' 'that man is a wind-bag.' Or, if they don't know what else to label me with, they say I am ‘strange’. ‘He’s a strange fellow, strange’. I like the woods; that is strange. I don't eat meat; that is strange, too. Straightforward, decent, free relationships relations with nature or other people do not exist. That’s gone entirely.”

“A human being should be entirely beautiful: the face, the clothes, the mind, the thoughts. Your step-mother is, of course, beautiful to look at, but don't you see? She does nothing but sleep and eat and go for walks and charm us, and that is all. She has no responsibilities, everything is done for her - am I not right? And an idle life can never be a pure one.”

“Life here I so dreary and stupid and sordid. It gets you down, this life does. You’re surrounded by the oddest people, because that’s what they all are – odd. Spend a couple of years among them, and you gradually turn into a freak yourself and don’t even notice it. That’s bound to happen … Look at this, I’ve grown a huge moustache. An idiotic moustache. I’ve become a freak.”

“Life holds nothing for me; my race is run. I feel so old. I am tired, I am trivial; my sensibilities are dead. I don’t feel things keenly anymore and could never attach myself to any one again. I love no one, and never shall! Beauty alone has the power to touch me still. I am deeply moved by it. Helena could turn my head in a day if she wanted to, but that is not love, that is not affection.”