The Classroom Conservative

Barney Hoskyns, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits

Evidence of the well-documented weakness of Lowside of the Road can be found on the five pages of its second appendix: emails from Tom Waits' friends confirming that they would not assist Barney Hoskyns in writing this biography. To Hoskyns' credit, he demonstrates that an unauthorized biography need not be a hatchet job. But while some readers quibble with the conclusions Hoskyns draws in the absence of evidence, I sometimes question the direction in which he chooses to take his analysis. Just what is biography meant to do?

In his discussion of the first thirty years of Waits' life, Hoskyns is on firm ground. There are many people with whom to talk, and many of those people choose to do so here. Hoskyns speaks in great detail about Waits' folk roots in San Diego in the late 1960s and his move to L.A. What is but touched upon, however, is Waits' early family life. It is as if, out of respect for the musician's privacy, the biographer steers clear of anything beyond Frank Waits' drinking and the breakdown of his marriage to Alma Waits. Where this book is most vivid is in describing Tom Waits' early struggles in the music business, the difficulty in finding the musicians and the producer who could help him put on vinyl what he heard in his head. The image of the hobo under the streetlamp was first forged behind the piano in ridiculous gigs opening for Frank Zappa. Waits' own struggles with alcohol, his bohemian motel life in Los Angeles, and his personal life round out a sketch of his years on Asylum Records.

With his marriage to Kathleen Brennan and his switch to Island Records, Tom Waits traded the hobo for the carnival barker. With Waits, Brennan, and their three kids living an intensely private life, Hoskyns is unable to make the same connection, from 1980, between Waits the person and Waits the musician. And, yet, beginning with Swordfishtrombones (1983), Waits' music changed dramatically. As many critics have carped, the last half of Lowside of the Road reads as a series of album reviews; Hoskyns is remarkably skilled at describing the music, but thirty years passes pretty quickly with little more than a series of records to mark the time. I would have preferred that the second half of the book more contextualize Waits' achievement in the changing landscape of popular music. For example, how does someone who works with a broad canvas, song cycles on a large scale, fit in a world in which downloading has reinforced a shift back to a earlier, singles-based sensibility? To his credit, Hoskyns restrains any resentment he might feel about Waits' apparent attitude towards his research, showing spleen only perhaps in his criticism of Waits' latest albums. Similarly, he filters out any peevishness that might be felt from those Waits friends excluded from the current tightly-knit circle, those friends who would, then, speak to the author at great length about being discarded by a genius.

Still, I found this a very valuable book, for reasons that Hoskyns probably does not realize. I am a huge Waits fan, but -- ten years younger than the author -- I got interested in him with the release of Big Time (1988). Swordfishtrombones and Rain Dogs (1985) make perfect sense when you begin in the late 1980s. I enjoyed here learning more about Waits in the 1970s, running out and buying Nighthawks at the Diner (1975) in order to compare his live sensibilities with that of Glitter and Doom, my favorite record of last year. There is no huge transition for me to explain: the hobo is the carnival barker, and neither is Tom Waits at home in northern California. That is not to say that I would not like to know more about the influences behind the wonderful collaborations between Brennan and Waits, but I am happy to supplement the music with at least this much context.

One Man And His Outrage

"What difference can one person make?" I asked myself as I clicked the button to give, online, to Red Cross efforts in Haiti.

It is, of course, a common question. In this case, the Red Cross initiative is endorsed by our university, and I know that my colleagues are also participating. The government is matching charitable donations, and the media reports regularly on the totals raised. When we have the opportunity to support something, we seldom feel alone.

But it is more common for us to want to stand up to protest something, to withdraw our support, and that is a far lonelier undertaking. Yesterday, I watched on television a handful of Lethbridge citizens, out in the snow and out in the cold, protesting Stephen Harper's proroguing of parliament. I suspect that, as a practical measure, the protesters would have been better off making a donation to the federal NDP: few if any of them would vote for Mr. Harper, anyway.

Protests from the inside might be the ones that hurt. How many of the people who now say they would not support the federal Conservatives really represent lost votes? I have voted, at one time or another, for every national federal party, and while I am indifferent as to whether we decide the future of this government now or after the Olympics (and after a budget), I did write a letter of protest last year in opposition to the change in arts funding that will cripple many small magazines in this country. Interestingly, the mealy-mouthed response from the minister's office is as likely to influence my vote as the policy itself. (For the record, my local MP did not reply at all: he is retiring, it turns out.)

Maybe "the market" listens to lonely protests, though I do not think that struggling NBC will care if a household in Southern Alberta never watches Jay Leno in order to protest their shabby treatment of Conan O'Brien. Buying all my books from the university bookstore or the local independent did not slow Chapters.

As we pulled away from Tim Horton's last week, my wife asked, "Are they on the list?" I had to smile. We have a friend in Regina who, in his younger days, used to have "the list." He would methodically and with great discipline refuse to patronize businesses at which the service had been bad. When we made Claresholm on Sunday afternoon, parched and peckish, we were bound for disappointment: our order of pastry and teas was canceled when, after we had paid, the drive-thru manager wanted our food for a customer at her window. But would Timmy's really miss me if I started going to 7/11 for caffeine? Would it make any difference to their competition? More to the point: would I have the discipline never to visit again?

When I was in third grade, through my ninth year of life, our home room was directly across from the washrooms and the water fountains at Dawson Elementary School. From the first day of September, my classmates pestered Mrs. Moore with requests to be excused: "Can I go to the bathroom, miss? Can I get a drink?" Oddly, I resolved never to make use of the facility, waiting for recess, lunch, and the end of the day. It probably started as bashfulness, or a desire to ingratiate myself with the teacher, but -- over time -- it was a quiet challenge in discipline.

I think something similar is the key to protests. When it is not possible to bring about change by shifting allegiance in a meaningful way, we should still undertake our quiet, solitary protests. Writing a letter, sending an email, picking up the phone -- heck, I'll even grant you marching outside -- is good discipline. And if it saves us from seething in silence, all the better.

Nick Cave, The Death Of Bunny Munro

Would you wait 277 pages to read about the end of one of the most reprehensible characters encountered in contemporary literature? The book's title and its opening lines set up the demise of Bunny Munro, and so the only tension is whether it refers to grandfather, father, or son: all three share the same name. There is much depravity to go around, as the middle-aged Bunny Munro sells beauty products door-to-door and preoccupies himself in taking sexual advantage of his customers, a practice that drives Libby, his long-suffering wife, to despair. If Bunny Senior was not a lothario, he was certainly as bad a role model.

In some ways, the most interesting sequences in Nick Cave's new novel follow Bunny from assignation to assignation, as the reader marvels at the depths of depravity. The author has fun, too: how much time can one spend describing Bunny gleefully lighting cigarettes? But as Bunny has to take more responsibility for his young son, he must modify his behavior, grudgingly. Happily, this is not a simple bad-boy-makes-good story. The "new" Bunny has threatened his physical well-being, and that -- as much as anything -- changes Bunny's ways. Still, the ladies man does not go quietly, and his shambolic decline almost matches the energy of the book's first chapters.

Cave does a nice job drawing the sensitive, thoughtful Bunny Junior, a young man who thrives in spite of his surroundings. And while I would have liked a little more detail in the Brighton surroundings, it was great to read something set in one of my favorite British locales. And The Ass Saw The Angel, Nick Cave's first novel, was written in the baroque style of late Faulkner or early Cormac McCarthy, but The Death of Bunny Munro is more approachable, if no less disturbing. It is obvious that the creativity that feeds his best work with the Bad Seeds runs just as dark through his prose.

Not at all recommended for those sensibilities easily offended.

When You Do Not Know Where You Are, The Terrorists Win

We know, of course, that the damage caused on 9/11 spread immediately beyond Ground Zero. As an attack on capitalism, the destruction of the World Trade Centre was but a prelude to the real costs associated with our response, including the tremendous amount of money spent on new security measures. Cynical (neo-conservative) politicians, fearing that our habits would change, used the goodwill that arose after the attacks to reinforce a return to old patterns: if you do not shop, the terrorists win. But I am reminded that Al-Qaeda's lasting success, beyond hobbling entire systems by which we organize ourselves, is in changes that are made to the small, reassuring comforts that make life livable.

I am not a happy airline passenger. It is not that I grip the armrests with white knuckles, but I do not wake on the morning of a trip filled with the excitement of hurtling through the air at hundreds of miles an hour. I accept fully that if I want the convenience of flying, I will have to submit to a ritual undressing at security. The proliferation of hijackings through the twentieth century scribbled that writing on the wall. I accept fully that the financial pressures on the airlines, evident before September 11, 2001, will make it so that I cannot expect anything like creature comforts on the airplane, itself.

But for those of us who do not love to fly, the loss of control is much of the problem. I understand, and I really believe, that I am more likely to come a cropper on the highway between Calgary and Edmonton than I am to encounter real problems in the hands of Air Canada. But, psychologically, getting strapped to a small seat, facing forward, unable to see where I am going, as I shimmer and shake with turbulence, is difficult to endure. One of the small comforts I have had is the ability to track the progress of our trip. I used to be able to see on a map how close we were to our destination. After the failed exploits of the Christmas Underwear Bomber, this facility has been removed from entertainment screens on the seat-backs in front of passengers. Where, previously, I could watch an airplane roughly the size of the length of Saskatchewan move across the Great Lakes, I now get a "This Option Is Not Available," removing as well our height, our speed, and the "estimated time to destination" data. The idea, you see, is that a terrorist cannot use even this rough approximation to know when to time, for maximum effect, any act of mayhem.

On a recent journey from Calgary to Halifax, I knew only when we were planning to leave and when we should land at our final destination. Not reflected on my itinerary was the timing of a scheduled stop in Montreal. We left a little late, and I nodded off while my plane taxied. We were delayed on the tarmac, and we had a slight tailwind. About what seemed to me three hours into the journey, where were we? Were we almost to Montreal? Were we just half-way? Journey times include getting to and from the gate. How much of what happened on the ground in Calgary should be factored into my estimation?

Now, I recognize that, for many people, nothing I have written above compares to their discomfort at getting rubbed down at security, something I simply accept. But, for me, the response to the Christmas peril makes a real difference to my experience, without delivering anything tangible to safety, in my view. How long will it take before these new measures are quietly restored -- or before we acclimate once more to knee-jerk reactions? And the big question might be: are these changes simply designed to make us feel like someone is doing something, causing more harm than good in practical implementation?

Fewer Mass-Market Paperbacks In University Classes

Just before Christmas, we bought a couple of "leaning" bookshelves, those "A" shaped things whose tops rest firmly against the wall. One has a desk, which is convenient for work, and I welcome the opportunity to store more books. The two or three middle shelves are most dynamic, in that they can hold just about anything. But the lowest shelf is very deep, and the top shelf -- the one that rests against the wall -- is very narrow. In fact, it is only five inches deep.

A five-inch shelf will hold only mass-market paperbacks, and when I went hunting for some titles to relocate, I was surprised that we had very few. There are no romance novels lying about, as you might guess, and for recent titles in the smallest format I could find nothing more recent that Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace and Annie Proulx's The Shipping News. These must be at least ten years old. For older titles, I have a mass-market copy of Harry Hansen's The Civil War, and a memorable student once gave me a copy of Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men In A Boat.

Just about everything else, I discovered, was from my undergraduate days. I have copies of The Canterbury Tales and Cellini's Autobiography. The Canadian courses I took used mass-market paperbacks: Leonard Cohen's The Favourite Game, Margaret Lawrence's A Jest of God, and Alice Munro's The Lives of Girls and Women. Some American titles from those days, William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom, Herman Melville's Billy Budd, and John Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent, have been replaced in my teaching by trade paperbacks.

Now, if trade paperbacks are soft-bound from sheets from the hardcover edition, there is no obvious reason to elongate Virgina Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Yet, I hold in my hand two copies: one small, and one larger. And, yes, the larger one is as large as a number of the "new" trade paperbacks I bought last year. The larger one is more expensive, but much of that, I assume, has to do with the fact that the smaller copy is much older.

Some of the cheapest books you can order for classes -- wonderful Broadview editions and much-less-wonderful Dover reprints -- are larger than mass-market size. How did the old books we mark up, throw in our backpacks, and dog-ear during examination week get so big, anyway?

Back From The Republic Of Doyle

Before the second episode of The Republic of Doyle screens, I wanted to lend my voice of comment to the discussion about CBC's latest "slice of life" dramatic comedy from Newfoundland.

Like everyone else who has opined, I find series star Allan Hawco a worthy descendant of James Garner's beloved private investigator, Jim Rockford. But if the series stars are going to develop the kind of chemistry Rockford had with his father "Rocky," things will have to pick up between Hawco and Sean McGinley. The use of a veteran Irish actor is better casting than we usually see -- with earnest "come from aways" looking into the camera and asking, "How are you, then, my old cockie?" -- but in the first episode, at least, he was just one of Jake Doyle's dysfunctional friends and family members. On the other hand, if we must have a tedious "will he, won't she?" love story with Constable Bennett (Krystin Pellerin), I like it as two corners of a triangle -- with the third provided by Doyle's estranged wife, played with edgy elan by Rachel Wilson.

The plot of the first episode was script-thin, though, wasting an excellent performance from Shawn Majumder, reminding us yet again of his range. Pilots seldom have the luxury of proper exposition, so we could not expect (and did not receive) much more than an introduction to the players who will take us through the half-dozen episodes on offer. But if you expect me to believe that St. John's can make private investigation compelling, do not ask me to accept that a salacious murder/drug/sex scandal will fall open in a matter of minutes.

Ah, St. John's. I hardly knew you with your edgy pursuits and raucous party boats. How much things have changed in fifteen years. The city is a rightful co-star: so bright and colorful. But just tell me the weather will not always be so pleasant. Having solved his first case in the sunniest stretch the Old City has likely ever seen, Jake Doyle deserves some rain, drizzle, and fog.

Patricia Highsmith, Found In The Street

I have had languishing on my bookshelf for some time Found In The Street, a late Patricia Highsmith novel. The perception, of course, is that early Highsmith represents her strongest work, while her later stuff is derivative, at best. At loose ends over the holiday, I pulled it down and was quite surprised. I am a huge fan of her five "Ripley" novels, but this one more than holds its reader's attention.

Highsmith is described as a mystery writer, or at least that is how Heather Reisman would have her shelved at Chapters. In fact, there is no mystery to unravel here, no "whodunit?" quality. There is only one murder over these 277 pages, and that casual act of violence is only pieced together after the fact. Instead, Highsmith is concerned with the darker elements of the human condition. She questions how we get how we have become, and her prose marvels at the great diversity of humanity.

The protagonist of the novel is Jack Sutherland, born of a well-to-do family but shiftless, for the most part. Having run into a little trouble with drugs on a trip to Europe, he has spent the ensuing years trying to redeem himself in the eyes of his family; Jack is, himself, a fine father to his young daughter Amelia. After toying with journalism in New York, he begins to get some traction as an illustrator. What is unconventional in this story of respectability sought is Jack's marriage to Natalia, a fellow blueblood who splits her time between their apartment in Greenwich Village and her parents' home in Pennsylvania. Natalia has made it clear that she must stay unfettered, child or no child, and she drifts in and out, spending time with her friends. Her "soul mate" is Louis, a gay man of whom Jack seems quite jealous. But this irritation is displaced by the Sutherlands' new fixation, Elsie Tyler.

Ms Tyler is discovered by Jack in a local diner, talking with the neighborhood eccentric who found Jack's wallet and returned it without pilfering the hundreds of dollars it contained. Ralph Linderman is Jack's foil, a man whose paternalism masks a dangerous obsession with Elsie. As she is drawn into the Sutherlands' circle, Linderman assumes that Jack has coerced her into an affair. In fact, Elsie begins sleeping with Natalia, demonstrating that human relationships are far more complex than the puritanically judgmental Linderman can even imagine. And, interestingly, Jack is not at all jealous of either his wife or her lover, both of whom define his erotic longings. These disconnects, the discomfort the action hides, is the most intriguing part of the novel for me.

Highsmith describes in great detail the four or five streets in the Village where the novel is set. But her New York could be New York of the 1950s as easily as it might be the 1980s in which this action is supposed to take place. There are but awkward references to video cassettes and new wave music, and -- of course -- Linderman finds enough money to take Tom Ripley to Europe. So, it is as if Highsmith's narration, displaced from the 1950s, argues uneasily for a progressive tolerance of the Sutherlands and their friends that reflects her experience as an expatriated lesbian while Linderman, a figure who too seems to walk out of an earlier time in American history, cannot fathom at all the social realities of the contemporary United States.

Reviewing Teaching Evaluations In A Crisp, New Shirt

In advance of the start of the semester, I am reviewing the teaching evaluations for our sessional instructors in Calgary and Edmonton. We are very fortunate to have some fabulous teachers in those cities, individuals who are available and willing to undertake part-time work for us. Evaluations are not available to instructors until grades are submitted, of course, and so it is nice to provide quick turnaround on the data after that so instructors can make necessary adjustments early in the new semester.

For tenured and tenure-track faculty, there is no established schedule for reviewing evaluations. I like to look at mine as soon as they are available, but I will admit that they can be depressing if read, say, just before Christmas. I am fortunate to have had 97% positive responses over fifteen years, but one comment from a disgruntled student can stay with you through multiple egg nogs, I assure you. I have a colleague who compiles all his evaluations and has a look every two years, just before our progress reports are due with the Dean. Imagine the shock of ten or fifteen disgruntled students all presented at the same time.

Now, I am not suggesting that there is no practical value to these forms. Indeed, as I have said, I am reviewing them promptly so that their benefit may best be felt by our sessional instructors in the north. But evaluations are not without problems, and our faculty is looking to improve the questions asked. One of my pet peeves over the years has been how students have used more general questions to comment on the physical appearance of instructors.

Women and men, old and young, get the same feedback: complaints about hair, clothing, body odor. I think university instructors are less vain than your average professional, but having a nineteen year-old who lives in a cap comment on your favorite sweater seems to be universally galling.

As I was steaming my woolens and pressing my cottons over the holidays, I could not help but remember a spring day years ago when, walking between the physical education building and university hall, I ran into a graduating student, a young woman who had completed successfully, and with some elan, a number of my courses.

"You must be happy to be done," I said.

"Yes. No more having to listen to professors in cheap suits day in and day out!"

I was stunned.

"Cheap?" I thought to myself. "Cheap?"

Perhaps I am more vain than are my colleagues.