A. J. Weberman stood near Bleecker and Elizabeth Streets recently, telling the story of how Bob Dylan got mad at him. It was the spring of 1972, according to Mr. Weberman, when Mr. Dylan grabbed him and shoved him angrily before riding off on a bicycle.

For years, Mr. Weberman had been rooting around in Mr. Dylan's trash, looking for insight into the songwriter's sometimes oblique lyrics. He had promised to stop the snooping, but had been visiting the trash cans again, he said, incurring Mr. Dylan's displeasure.

"I deserved it," Mr. Weberman said the other day. "I don't hold it against him."

The anecdote, to whatever degree accurate or apocryphal, provides a prism through which to view two main themes in the life of A. J. Weberman, 61, a Yippie, author and longtime "Dylanologist," who also helped to popularize the practice of garbology, or searching through trash for journalistic clues.

In November, Mr. Weberman's new book, "Dylan to English Dictionary," was published by the Yippie Museum Press, with an initial print run of 1,000 copies. In the 536-page book, he seeks to analyze the metaphorical and allegorical language used by Bob Dylan.