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Bob Dylan got a Nobel prize for literature last year, and people, predictably, freaked out. (Earlier this month Dylan finally delivered his lecture to the Swedish Academy, a requirement for receiving the prize money. (You can listen to it online.)

Sometimes it seems like the Dylan fanatics outnumber the naysayers, but don’t be fooled. For every obsessive Dylanologist, there’s a corresponding hater, a Joni Mitchell who calls Dylan a crook, charlatan, a frog-voiced phony. So it will remain. And as the opposing sides face off, Dylan continues to travel the world, playing from his back catalog or delving into Frank Sinatra classics, or basically doing whatever the hell he feels like doing.

Dylan has spent a good part of the last 45 years or so of his career confounding people’s expectations. You want protest songs, he’ll give you country. You want folk rock, he’ll give you weird gospel, or wannabe reggae, or he’ll do his best to sound like a gravel-throated Texas blues singer. He’s said all along that he’s more of a Buddy Holly or Hank Williams type guy than a Phil Ochs or Pete Seeger pamphleteer.

He wants to be an entertainer, not some folkie. Dylan may still always seem like he’s wearing some strange mask, but that’s one of the things that makes him fascinating.

Bob Dylan performs at the Toyota Presents Oakdale Theatre, 95 S. Turnpike Road, Wallingford, Sunday, June 18, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $23 and up. 203-265-1501, livenation.com.