Late Friends: Remembering Michel Foucault, Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, Wassily Leontief, Alan Lomax, William Kunstler and Others Who Changed Tense (review)

In this book of essays, Bruce Jackson offers character sketches of twenty-one remarkable individuals who "changed tense" (passed away) between 1976 and 2005. Only a few of them are folklorists. Others include writers, political activists, a baker, an economist, a film historian, and four memorable dogs.

Jackson observes that as we grow older, we find ourselves engaging in "constant communion and conversation with the dead who are gone but who are not only not forgotten, but not, in our heads, the least bit silent" (p. 102). Two such deceased folklorists are Richard M. Dorson and Benjamin A. Botkin, whose feud has resonated in the annals of folklore scholarship. In his tribute to Botkin, Jackson suggests that "Dorson's proselytizing was institutional; his mission was institutional. Ben's proselytizing was personal: to the other person in the room, to the recipient of the letter, the reader of the book" (p. 14). Arguing that Dorson should have used Botkin as a positive example of outreach to the public, Jackson suggests that academic folklore has been "replaced by the kind of cultural studies Botkin said all along was what the field should have been about" (p. 11). Of course, academic folklore has not disappeared; students still line up to enroll in folklore classes at a number of universities, including the one where I teach. However, Jackson's point about the field's shift in direction is worth noting.

Similarly, in his tribute to Alan Lomax, Jackson emphasizes how important it is for folklorists to collect contemporary versions of ballads and folksongs rather than limiting themselves to old variants of Child ballads. Lomax insisted, "Listen to what people are singing now" (p. 84). Most folklorists understand the magnitude of Lomax's contributions to American folksong scholarship, but fewer know of his skill as a raconteur. Jackson vividly describes the best evening he ever spent at an academic society meeting, when Lomax entertained him and several other folklorists for hours with irreverent stories. All of them missed a plenary session they had planned to attend, but none of them minded; Lomax's stories mattered more.

One of this book's greatest strengths is its expression of heartfelt appreciation for friends from all walks of life. We read about Lionel Poilâne, the baker who "made French traditional breadmaking honorable and artistic again" (p. 75); James Card, "one of the world's four great film preservationists" (p. 51); and Leslie Fiedler, whose words were "always at home" (p. 100). The four friends eulogized in the last essay are dogs—Jerusalem, Penelope, Fido, and Randolph Scott—who, like James Thurber's dogs, delight the reader with their unique personalities. My favorite is Randolph Scott, who repeatedly broke through a set of French windows in Jackson's house in an effort to bite the Wall Street Journal newspaper carrier. Cancellation of the Journal (which, Jackson said, he never liked anyway) was the only way to stop this dog from leaping through glass.

There should be more books like this one. I hope that Jackson's essays will encourage others to write about friends of their own, both inside and outside of the field of folklore.