Peter Ames Carlin, Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon

Peter Ames Carlin, Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon
Henry Holt © 2016
ISBN 978-1-62779-034-5

A detailed account of the life and music of Paul Simon, the book left me with something of an empty feeling.  Carlin recounts the events of Simon’s live (as well as one can tell) accurately, but there’s a strange flatness to the book.  And some things one might have thought would have been mentioned earlier seem to pop up out of nowhere.  (For example, on p. 352: “Younger brother Eddie was the first to take up the guitar and became the better player of the two boys.”  Why leave this until the next-to-last chapter of the book?  Or, on p. 373—two pages before the book ends: “I heard from his co-manager and brother Eddie a few times…”)

I also came away from the book that Carlin, in the end did not much care for Paul Simon the man (start about half-way down p. 373 and to the first paragraph on p. 374, for one final example of that); I also got the feeling that, much as he tried to praise the music, he mostly got hat wrong as well.  (I’m not even going to try to get into that, because it’s a matter of how his discussion of the music feels, and that’s a fairly evanescent thing.)  (On the other hand, I think he’s much to kind to the songs that make up the failed musical The Capeman, although perhaps I should listen to it again.)

Unless you really a fan of Paul Simon’s music (and keeping in mind Joan Baez’s words from “Winds of the Old Days:” 

Singer or savior, it was his to choose
Which of us knows what was his to lose
Because idols are best when they're made of stone
A savior's a nuisance to live with at home
Stars often fall, heroes go unsung
And martyrs most certainly die too young)

I think you can skip this one.  Although I am glad I read it.

Leonard Cohen, 1934-2016

Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone.
They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on.
And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song.
Oh I hope you run into them, you who've been travelling so long.
Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control.
It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul.
Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned:
When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned.
-------------------------------------
 I cannot follow you, my love,
you cannot follow me.
I am the distance you put between
all of the moments that we will be.
You know who I am,
you've stared at the sun,
well I am the one who loves
changing from nothing to one.
------------------------------------
If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me
Your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free.

Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good so I never tried.

And Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear --
----------------------------------
And who by fire, who by water,
who in the sunshine, who in the night time,
who by high ordeal, who by common trial,
who in your merry merry month of may,
who by very slow decay,
and who shall I say is calling?
And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate,
who in these realms of love, who by something blunt,
and who by avalanche, who by powder,
who for his greed, who for his hunger,
and who shall I say is calling?
-----------------------------------
True love leaves no traces
If you and I are one
It's lost in our embraces
Like stars against the sun
---------------------------------
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love 
-------------------------------
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
-----------------------------
And I loved you when our love was blessed
and I love you now there's nothing left
but sorrow and a sense of overtime
and I missed you since the place got wrecked
And I just don't care what happens next
looks like freedom but it feels like death
it's something in between, I guess
it's CLOSING TIME
-------------------------------
Too late to fix another drink –
The lights are going out –
I’ll listen to the darkness sing –
I know what that’s about.
-------------------------------

From bitter searching of the heart,
Quickened with passion and with pain
We rise to play a greater part.
This is the faith from which we start:
Men shall know commonwealth again
From bitter searching of the heart.
We loved the easy and the smart,
But now, with keener hand and brain,
We rise to play a greater part.
The lesser loyalties depart,
And neither race nor creed remain
From bitter searching of the heart.
Not steering by the venal chart
That tricked the mass for private gain,
We rise to play a greater part.
Reshaping narrow law and art
Whose symbols are the millions slain,
From bitter searching of the heart
We rise to play a greater part.

------------------------------------
I got no future
I know my days are few
The present's not that pleasant
Just a lot of things to do
I thought the past would last me
But the darkness got that too
--------------------------------
I have to die a little
Between each murderous thought
And when I'm finished thinking
I have to die a lot
There's torture and there's killing
And there's all my bad reviews
The war, the children missing
Lord, it's almost like the blues
---------------------------------
If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game
If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame
If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame
---------------------------------

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

 Sincerely, L. Cohen

Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run

Bruce Springsteer, Born to Run
Simon & Schuster © 2016
ISBN 978-1-5011-4151-5

A fairly lengthy autobiography of one of the great pop songwriters and performers ever.  Like all autobiographies, it leave out a lot, but Springsteen if fairly open about things that have gone wrong (his first marriage), his ambition, and his very pronounced efforts to make sure we realize that it’s BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN and the E Street Band—that this is not a partnership, however close they might be personally and professionally, it’s his band, and, ultimately, his career.

What remains unclear, perhaps even to him, are a couple of things. 

Where did the ambition come from?  Lots of people played music, lots of people even started bands.  But few of them have the sort of ambition that he apparently had, from the very beginning, from age 15 or 16.  Was it a consequence of the sort of childhood and family life he had?  Maybe, but if it was, he does not show us how, or why.  The only role models, if you will, were the people, the bands, who had made it, and even that is a fairly muted part of the story.  The Beatles, the Stones, Roy Orbison, and more were there, and are a part of the background, but the sense that “If they can do it, so can I” is not really a part of the story.  Maybe that part of his life is still something of a mystery to him.

And where did the songwriting skills—the words, maybe, more than the music—come from?  He makes it clear that he was an indifferent student.  He says nothing about being much of a reader (there is, for example, no mention of any particular feeling for the rhythms and language of poetry).  But if you look at even the first album (Greeting From Asbury Park), yopu find things like this (“Growin’ Up” © 1973):

I stood stonelike at midnight suspended in my masquerade
I combed my hair till it was just right and commanded the night brigade

I was open to pain and crossed by the rain and I walked on a crooked crutch
I strolled all alone through a fallout zone and came out with my soul untouched
I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd but when they said `Sit down' I stood up
Ooh-ooh growin' up

The flag of piracy flew from my mast my sails were set wing to wing
I had a jukebox graduate for first mate she couldn't sail but she sure could sing
I pushed B-52 and bombed `em with the blues with my gear set stubborn on standing
I broke all the rules strafed my old high school never once gave thought to landing
I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd but when they said `Come down' I threw up
Ooh-ooh growin' up

I took month-long vacations in the stratosphere and you know it's really hard to hold your breath
I swear I lost everything I ever loved or feared I was the cosmic kid
Well my feet they finally took root in the earth but I got me a nice little place in the stars
I swear I found the key to the universe in the engine of an old parked car
I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd but when they said `Sit down' I stood up
Ooh-ooh growin' up
Ooh-ooh growin' up

Or this (“It’s Hard to be a Saint in the City” © 1973):

I had skin like leather and the diamond-hard look of a cobra

I was born blue and weathered but I burst just like a supernova

I could walk like Brando right into the sun

Then dance just like a Casanova

With my blackjack and jacket and hair slicked sweet

Silver star studs on my duds like a Harley in heat

When I strut down the street I could feel its heartbeat

The sisters fell back and said "Don't that man look pretty"

The cripple on the corner cried out "Nickels for your pity"

Them downtown boys sure talk gritty

It's so hard to be a saint in the city

I was the king of the alley I could talk some trash

I was the prince of the paupers crowned downtown at the beggar's bash

I was the pimp's main prophet I kept everything cool

A backstreet gambler with the luck to lose

And when the heat came down it was left on the ground

The devil appeared like Jesus through the steam in the street

Showin' me a hand I knew even the cops couldn't beat

I felt his hot breath on my neck as I dove into the heat

It's so hard to be a saint when you're just a boy

And the sages of the subway sit just like the living dead

As the tracks clack out the rhythm their eyes fixed straight ahead

They ride the line of balance and hold on by just a thread

But it's too hot in these tunnels you can get hit up by the heat

You get up to get out at your next stop but they push you back down in your seat

Your heart starts beatin' faster as you struggle to your feet

Then you're outa that hole and back up on the street

And them South Side sisters sure look pretty

The cripple on the corner cries out "Nickels for your pity"

And them downtown boys sure talk gritty

It's so hard to be a saint in the city

(And I’m not even going to think about “Blinded by the Light” or “Spirits in the Night.”)

And the songwriting only deepened; until you get something like this (“The River” ©1978):

I come from down in the valley
where mister when you're young
They bring you up to do like your daddy done
Me and Mary we met in high school
when she was just seventeen
We'd ride out of this valley down to where the fields were green

We'd go down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh down to the river we'd ride

Then I got Mary pregnant
and man that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat
We went down to the courthouse
and the judge put it all to rest
No wedding day smiles no walk down the aisle
No flowers no wedding dress

That night we went down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh down to the river we did ride

I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company
But lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy
Now all them things that seemed so important
Well mister they vanished right into the air
Now I just act like I don't remember
Mary acts like she don't care

But I remember us riding in my brother's car
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I'd lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she'd take
Now those memories come back to haunt me
they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse
that sends me down to the river
though I know the river is dry
That sends me down to the river tonight
Down to the river
my baby and I
Oh down to the river we ride

And while that is (maybe) what I think is (maybe) his best song, the following 30 years have seen a lot more high points.  Well, maybe there are no answers.

Springsteen does tell his story well, if episodically, and, as it is an autobiography, we are left, not in the middle of a life, but without an ending.  And maybe the ending is, finally, the music.

Will Thomas, Hell Bay

Will Thomas, Helll Bay
Minotaur Books/St. Martin’s Press © 2016
ISBN 978-1-250-07795-0

The eighth volume in the chronicles of Cyrus Barker, private inquiry agent in late 19^th century London, narrated by his young assistant Thomas Llewelyn.  In keeping with the previous books in the series, this is an excellent way to spend a few hours.

Barker is asked, by Lord Hargrave (who has some ill-defined position in the Foreign Office), to provide security for a week-long visit by the French ambassador (M. Gascoigne) to Hargrave’s home on a private island off the west coast of England.  The public purpose of the week is to try to find husbands for Hargrave’s two daughters; the real purpose is to negotiate an understanding with France to restrain Germany and Russia.  No one really expects any trouble, so what Hargrave is doing amounts to taking out insurance.

Until Hargrave is shot, by a high-powered rifle by an unseen marksman.  Now things become difficult.

For Hargrave, the island was a retreat.  Only his family and servants, and a lighthouse keeper live on the island.  When they need outside assistance, they either hoist a red flag as a signal for one of the boats from the nearby islands to make a call, or they send a signal from the lighthouse.  In short order, the flag has been stolen and the flagpole sabotaged, and the lighthouse put out of commission and its keeper killed.  And others begin to be murdered as well.

It remains unclear who is behind all this, and whether the motive is personal or political.  The house party consists of a rather ill-assorted bunch, providing Barker and Llewelyn ample scope for exploring possible motives.  Llewelyn is a fine narrator, and it’s only the knowledge that he is writing this account some years later that lets us know that the situation has been, somehow resolved—but not whether that resolution is acceptable.

The pacing of the book maintains the tension inherent in the situation, and if it is in some ways reminiscent of other stories of a group isolated on an island/by a storm (e.g., Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, under whichever of its titles you prefer), it’s not an imitation.  The resolution actually makes sense, and it does not wipe away the sense of looming disaster that the book evokes.  If you have not yet met Barker and Llewelyn, you should, and while you can start here, wherever you start, I think you will want to read them all.

Leigh Perry, The Skeleton Takes a Bow

Leigh Perry, The Skeleton Takes a Bow
Berkeley/Penquin, © 2014
ISBN 978-0-698-14320-3

Moving into her second semester as an adjunct at McQuaid University (and living in her childhood home, while her parents, both of whom are tenured full professors at McQuaid, are on sabbaticals), Georgia Thackery has enough on her plate—5 courses—when her daughter Madison (who had auditioned for the role of Ophelia) is cast as Guildenstern (in Hamlet).  And the resident skeleton, Sid, is cast as Yorick’s skull.  The plan is that Madison will take Sid’s skull (which can hear, see, and speak, and which somehow holds the entire skeleton together) to school, where she will stow him in her locker, and take him to rehearsal.  And bring him home at night.

Until one night, things get sort of frantic, and Madison forgets about Sid, who spends the night backstage in the auditorium/theater.  And overhears what seems to have been a murder.

There is, of course, no sign of a body, and no sign of a struggle.  But there is a dead body—a woman, who as these things happen had also been an adjunct at schools in the area.  But not the murder victim.  So, how and why did she die?  And where’s Sid’s murder victim? 

Absent a relevant corpse, it’s hard to get the police interested.  But Georgia persists, and turns up a shady foundation, possible ringers taking the SAT for local students (for a price…).  Perry does a fine job weaving all the strands of this plot together (including the life issues of yet another adjunct, Dr. Charles Peyton), and provides us with a quite suspenseful and stirring climax.  In which, I’m pleased to say, Sid plays a starring role.

I enjoyed the first book in this series (The Skeleton in the Attic), and this entry is a substantial step up in quality.  The characters are as real as they come, and the issues in their lives outside the murder are not imposed for the sake of the plot, they arise organically from who the characters are.  If you have not read the first one, go get it, and then get this one.  A very good read.

Steve Brewer, Bank Job

Steve Brewer, Bank Job © 2005
available as an ebook

Three small-time hoods, Leon, Roy, and Leon’s younger brother Junior, are cruising around northern California, looking for something to rob (Junior, frankly, just wants to go home).  They settle on robbing a liquor store near Redding, and Junior gets elected for the job; things do not go well (to say the least)—Junior is assaulted by two older women (the proprietors) wielding liquor bottles, and the trio has to make a quick getaway, with no loot.  Looking for a place to hide out for a while, they invade the home of Maria and Vince Carter.  Maria is a retired nurse, and Vince is a retired bank robber (they met in prison—Vince was an inmate and Maria worked in the prison clinic).

Leon hits on the notion of having Vince pull a bank robbery for them, to get them some cash.  Implicit is that Vince and Maria won’t be long for this world.  Vince agrees (mostly, it seems, as a stall for time, but partly because, well, maybe it might be sort of fun).

I think I will leave the plot outline at that.  Leon and Roy are fairly inept as criminals, and Junior probably wishes he had never come on that road trip.  Maria and Vince make a wonderful couple.  Given the setup, this could have been a fairly noir-ish novel in other hands.  But it’s Steve Brewer, so you know it’s going to have an off-beat slant on things.  Not that is is a domestic comedy caper novel, however.  There’s enough grit for anyone. 

I very strongly suggest that you get it.  You won’t regret it at all.

Leigh Perry, A Skeleton in the Family

Leigh Perry, A Skeleton In The Family
Berkley/Penguin, © 2013
ebook ISBN 978-01-101-62507-1

The first in a series featuring English instructor Georgia Thackery and the family skeleton Sid.  I generally am not aa big fan of books with a lot of paranormal in them, but I do like a good academic mystery, so I decided to take a shot at this one.  And I’m glad I did.  Georgia has landed a last-minute (well, technically, after-the-last-minute) part-time teaching gig at a small New England school (McQuaid University, where her parents, both tenured professors there, work; they are on sabbatical for the year, so Georgia has a rent-free place to live).  She and her daughter Madison move in (and Georgia has to work at keeping from learning of the existence of Sid, who mostly lives in the attic and is not yet ready to make Madison’s acquaintance).

Fairly soon after Georgia is beginning to get settled, Madison discovers that a manga convention (Mangachussetts) is happening on McQuaid’s campus, and she really wants to go.  Georgia agrees; the problem is Sid also really wants to go as well…how to get a skeleton into the convention?  Well, disguise him as a manga character that is a skeleton!.  So that works out.  But at the con, Sid sees someone he recognizes, maybe from when he was alive, and this troubles him greatly.  As a result, Georgia and Sid begin to track down his past.

But then they discover the body of the woman Sid recognized—a retired professor of zooarchaeology at a nearby college, Joshua Tay University, Dr. Jocasta Kirkland.  They decide to visit her to see if they can learn anything about Sid’s past…and discover her dead body.  Oops.  So now, in addition to trying to uncover Sid’s past, they are trying to catch a murderer.

The hunt winds up involving a couple of other adjunct faculty at McQuaid and Georgia’s sister Deborah (who is a local locksmith).  The whole thing is rather far-fetched, but enjoyable, and the solution is well-thought out and nicely woven into the rest of the story.

I had two minor quibbles, both of which involved the academic side of things.  But neither is all that important, and, unless you are an academic, neither will cause you even a moment’s concern.  (I’m going to mention them now.  I don’t think either one is a spoiler, but you might want to skip the next paragraph.)

The first thing is that Georgia is teaching five sections of English composition at McQuaid.  I know of no institution that assigns that sort of a course load to a single adjunct.  Everywhere I have ever been and everywhere about which I have knowledge limits adjuncts to no more than 3 (and usually no more than 2) courses per semester.  Heavier loads, again, everywhere that I know of, trigger full-time status and its attendant benefits.  I’m not saying that the course load is something that never happens, just that I know of nowhere at which that could occur.  The second thing is that somewhere, mostly in passing, someone says that Kirkland had been forced to retire because she hit the JTU’s mandatory retirement age.  Ah, no.  An amendment to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s, eliminated mandatory retirement rules (except for a few occupations, of which college professor is not one).  (As a result, any universities are trying to figure out how to get people to retire, because they can’t be forced to go.)  Again, minor and frankly irrelevant to the story, but annoying to me.

But this is a good start for the series.  I’m looking forward to #s 2 & 3, which Ialready have.  Read it and enjoy.