Without him, the Dylan - Lifestyle Center opens in Tulsa

Faithful to the end of the message of his song "I'm not there", the person concerned did not show up at the ribbon cutting: it was therefore the turn of music luminaries close to him such as Patti Smith, who represented him ' to the Nobel, and Elvis Costello the task of giving prestige to the inauguration of the new Bob Dylan Center for the Arts, now open to the public in Tulsa, Oklahoma with the legendary secret archive of the enigmatic musician and poet.

The Center is within walking distance of the Woody Guthrie Center.

It is a symbolic twinning between Dylan and the singer-songwriter that influenced him so much during his formative years, but it is not a coincidence: the two institutions are based on the foundation of the oilman George Kaiser who in 2011 bought the cards of the singer-songwriter of "My Land is Your Land"

and shortly thereafter also those of Dylan.

The archive contains manuscripts, photographs, memorabilia and films: on a postcard from November 1978 Barbra Streisand thanks Dylan for sending her the flowers and suggests they make a record together.

A mid-1960s wallet holds Johnny Cash's phone number and Otis Redding's business card.

There is a digital jukebox with 162 songs chosen by Costello.

And a bag full of letters from fans that the "minstrel of the counterculture" has never read: among them one from Vietnam in which a soldier writes that he listened to "Blowin 'in the Wind" while mourning the death of three fellow soldiers.

The Center, which rejects the definition of a museum, offers a multimedia "full immersion" in Dylan's working methods and the reconstruction of the "

    the result of his work as an artist of metallurgy.

A month ago, in Tulsa for a concert, the Nobel laureate made no mention of the new initiative, nor did he visit the "work in progress" a few blocks away from the theater.

    (HANDLE).