About halfway through an hour-long conversation on phone lines that occasionally crack and fizzle as if they are being gnawed, the talk turns to moles. 

"In the mole community, they honour and decorate moles for having tunneled beneath great rivers,'' Tom Waits says, a propos of nothing, in his inimitable dirt-road voice. ``They bring those moles flowers and food. They live out their life like a decorated soldier."