Total Pageviews

Podcast 1951 Roving I

 



1951
What's So Funny Podcast Review of The Roving I



Finding your own Moveable Feast 










1950




How one word can change a book















 1949



They may think you're funny for the wrong reasons 













1948



Sometimes the Packaging is Everything













Podcast 1952 Salt-Box

  


1952




Learning to love instability 












1951
What's So Funny Podcast Review of The Roving I



Finding your own Moveable Feast 










1950




How one word can change a book















 1949



They may think you're funny for the wrong reasons 













1948



Sometimes the Packaging is Everything













Podcast - 1953 Baltinglass







1953




How the Basics of Politics Never Change 













1952




Learning to love instability 












1951
What's So Funny Podcast Review of The Roving I



Finding your own Moveable Feast 










1950




How one word can change a book















 1949



They may think you're funny for the wrong reasons 













1948



Sometimes the Packaging is Everything













My Hiebert Hero

One of the most thoughtful people I encountered in researching the Leacock Medal books works at the University of Saskatchewan. 

Joel Salt carries the formal title of “Library Assistant.” But I regard him as my “Paul Hiebert Hero.”

A few years ago, when the University Library started developing its Digital Collection, Joel pushed to have it include the manuscripts and memorabilia donated to the university by Hiebert, the author of the 1948 Medal winner Sarah Binks .  Hiebert’s stuff had to compete with the papers and paraphernalia associated with literary luminaries like Al Purdy and Irving Layton.  At the time, many people had not heard of Sarah, and fewer saw much research potential in the Hiebert manuscripts. 

But Joel, a big fan, saw things differently and set out to digitize material which included the original manuscript of the Sarah sequel Willows Revisited as well as a carbon copy of the original Sarah Binks. He added it to the university content management system, created a “Paul Hiebert Splash Page,” and wrote contextualizing information for the website.  This led people to donate more Paul Hiebert accoutrement to the U of S and more writing, posting, and linking for what is now an amazing resource.  Still, I had to ask Joel whether he and his colleagues didn’t think it was a bit ironic.

“After all, the book was written in Manitoba by a Manitoban and makes fun of Saskatchewan using a fake Saskatchewan town,” I said.  “Don’t you think it funny that Hiebert would direct his stuff to a Saskatchewan institution?”  

“Well, Dr. Hiebert sent it to us unsolicited with a very funny cover letter calling it old stuff from his attic and adding that he had no idea why anyone would want it,” Joel said in an email to me. “As far as I know, he had just decided that Sarah Binks belonged at U of S because of the content.”

Joel believes that “like Leacock in Sunshine Sketches, Hiebert is mostly saying ‘I’m one of you’ when poking fun at rural Saskatchewan.”

I noted how Hiebert, a chemistry researcher, had mocked the humanities with the book.  But Joel suggested that the author may have really been laughing at the “scientific” trend in English Criticism in the 1940s.

One no longer read a book for pleasure, it seemed, but to intellectually demystify it,” my learned friend explained. “And I think Hiebert is gently mocking academia and not literariness specifically.”

Joel also sees similar battles in the 21st century literary academy around what Harold Bloom sneers at as “cultural studies” of things that are dubiously dubbed literature.

“I think Hiebert’s book tackles that issue so astutely and with such precision and good humour, that it remains relevant today,” my Hiebert Hero concluded.  “Of course, the other reason is that it’s genuinely very funny.”

Like I said, Joel Salt “Library Assistant” is a thoughtful, erudite guy.  His insights probably deserve their own place in a review of Leacock Medalists.

 But for now, they will have to be satisfied with sharing space with mine.


 TRIVIAS HUMOROUS - Sarah Binks


Sarah Binks and the National Research Council in Ottawa

 


DBD 

January 2016

How a Book of Humour Shaped Modern Canada


I felt inspired.


After hearing Professor Symons describe the impact of his father’s book Ojibway Melody, I imagined myself writing an essay, maybe even a learned paper, on how a book of humour had shaped modern Canada.  The thought amused me.

Professor Tom, son of humorist Harry Symons, established institutions, advised politicians, mediated thorny issues, and may have done more than anyone else to create the field of Canadian Studies.  He told me that his father’s self-published Leacock Medal winner had influenced that life and career profoundly. All I had to do was roll up the evidence and frame it with a few quotes.   Still, I needed some help with the details.

This prompted me to contact another Professor, one closer to home.

Ralph Heintzman, a former senior government official and now a prof at the University of Ottawa, knew my subject well and even edited a highly regarded essay collection Tom Symons: A Canadian Life.  We met at his office one afternoon in the spring of 2015.

Heintzman, a man honoured for his commitment to integrity, ethics, and service, has a hard time being unkind.  But he might have been justified in this circumstance.

“Well, it’s an interesting idea,” he said after I laid out my proposal. “Tom Symons is a romantic though - and might also have had motive in attributing things to his father’s book.”

We commiserated about government and governing and talked a lot about the subject at hand, but I left the office unsure.  Had I received a light endorsement or a kindhearted pat on the head?  Regardless, I resolved to re-read A Canadian Life.

My first reading, in 2013, was a search for biographical bits about Harry Symons for reference in my book on Leacock Medal winners, and I found a lot.  But this time, I focused on the son not the father and realized that the argument I wanted to make in my imaginary paper had already been laid out thoroughly and gracefully in this essay collection.

The book not only documents how Tom Symons pioneered the academic and multidisciplinary study of Canada, but also his leadership in establishing Canada’s first department of Native Studies, his political policy work and his contributions in promoting French-language education in Ontario and human rights in Canada and abroad.  It also frames these subjects with reference to the philosophy and tone found in the pages of Ojibway Melody, which Heintzman read as it should be read, sitting in a chair by a cottage on Georgian Bay. 

Referencing quotes from the Leacock Medal book, Heintzman says directly that its “stories are filled with appreciation for certain human qualities of kindliness, gentleness, integrity, and courage” and the kind of character recognizable in the life and work of the humorist’s son Tom.

I learned a lot from re-reading Tom Symons, A Canadian Life including that Ralph Heintzman is too polite to ask “Did you really read my book?”
 
DBD
January 2016