The Superhuman Crew (Getty Trust Publications: J. Paul Getty Museum)

They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town.
Bob Dylan, from "Desolation Row"
The Superhuman Crew brings together two visionary works of artJames Ensor's masterpiece painting Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889 and Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row." The result is a riveting visual and verbal experience.
Ensor's huge, vibrant, and startling canvas presents a scene filled with clowns, masked figures, andbarely visible amid the swirling crowdsthe tiny figure of Christ on a donkey entering the city of Brussels. "Desolation Row," from Dylan's classic 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited, presents its own surreal portrait of modern life in strangely similar terms. These two vast works share a vision of the contemporary world as anarchic, grotesque, and absurd, and The Superhuman Crew combines them in a surprising, thought-provoking format. This book includes a complete reproduction and numerous details of Ensor's painting, the full text of Dylan's lyrics to "Desolation Row," and a compact disc with his recording of the song.