Arts & Letters

The Eyes, I’m Rowed Out (1965)

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When I was young and skinny I ardently wished I had been born about 1947 in England and that I got to see the Who and the Stones at little clubs in London before they were big and rode a Vespa scooter and went to groovy parties with cool people unlike (most of) my high school classmates and the world was wall to wall with cute girls who had exquisite taste in music (they liked the same stuff I liked!), who went shopping for groovy mod clothes, at places like the one in this video … .
 


 
(My adolescent mod dream utopia was set in 1965-66, and this video looks more “Swinging London” 1967-68, but still, close enough).

(Dig the boots on the guy at :33. Nice.)

(The Eyes totally rocked. I previously posted their brooding proto-psychedelic gem When the Night Falls.)

What Started the Fight in Finnegan’s Wake?

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So, I’m listening to the Dropkick Murphy’s version of Finnegan’s Wake (best version ever) and it struck me that I really don’t understand what triggers the fight that spills the whiskey on Finnegan.

The relevant lines are:

His friends assembled at the wake
And Mrs. Finnegan called for lunch,
First they brought in tea and cake
Then pipes, tobacco and whiskey punch.
Biddy O’Brien began to cry
“Such a nice clean corpse, did you ever see?
“Arrah, Tim, mavourneen, why did you die?”
“Ah, shut your gob” said Paddy McGee!
Then Maggy O’Connor took up the job
“O Biddy,” says she, “You’re wrong, I’m sure”:
Biddy gave her a belt in the gob
And left her sprawlin’ on the floor.
And then the war did soon engage
‘Twas woman to woman and man to man,
Shillelagh law was all the rage
And the row and the ruction soon began.

Is Biddy O’Brien saying that Finnegan doesn’t look dead and Paddy McGee takes offense at the raising of false hope? (Back in the day, it wasn’t always evident that people were dead. Typhoid in particular produced a paralysis that could be mistaken for death.)

Does Biddy O’Brien punch Maggy O’Connor just because O’Connor gainsaid her or is there some subtle insult implied?

I know we Irish are quick to fight but I think there is more to the story. Anybody know?

Worthwhile Reading and Viewing

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(Every week or so, I post a collection of interesting links at Photon Courier under the above heading. There’s so much interesting stuff this week I thought I’d post it here as well)

Erin O’Connor on California’s universities and their role in the state’s economic debacle.

Climategate: it was an academic disaster waiting to happen. Interesting and contrarian thoughts about the role of peer review.

Richard Fernandez wonders if World War III has already started…without many people even noticing. (via Isegoria)

Solar arbitrage in Germany. (via Maggie’s Farm) It’s hard to believe he will really get away with this, but still pretty funny. See also this related post from Evolving Excellence: Better Call the Waaaahmulance!

AnoukAnge writes about ambition. (One of the great literary works that deals with this subject is Goethe’s Faust…memo to self: a blog post on the treatment of ambition within Faust could be very interesting)

AnoukAnge also has a nice photographic essay on color…including the psychological connotations and cultural-symbolic meanings of various colors.

Speaking of color, this year’s winning images have been chosen for GE’s In Cell Analyzer photography contest. The In Cell system used used by scientists for better understanding disease processes and for drug development; as it happens, it also produces images which are appealing and even beautiful, in a psychedelic sort of way. There’s a nice video, with music, at the bottom of GE’s post about the contest.

One more photography-related link: British industry in the 1950s and 1960s. (via Brian Gongol)

A rapacious and greedy Technocracy

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technocracy

Obama health care plan online. (Relax. It’s a joke. Or, is it?)

The image is by editorial cartoonist Winsor McCay and I came across the image at the wonderful art blog linesandcolors.

Update: In the comments, Michael Kennedy adds: “CBO says there are not enough details to score the new “bill.” What else is new?”

Yes. What else is new? Also, this via Drudge: “An unapologetic Danny Williams says he was aware his trip to the United States for heart surgery earlier this month would spark outcry, but he concluded his personal health trumped any public fallout over the controversial decision….This was my heart, my choice and my health,” Williams said late Monday from his condominium in Sarasota, Fla.”

Be aware: If the health care plans don’t work as smoothly as gamed by the white paper crowd, the connected will exempt themselves from the worst of it. They always do. Do Senators tend to fly coach?

Of Writing and Work

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Bob O’Hara kindly e-mailed me a link to this interesting post at Anecdotal Evidence. The blogger observes that:

As a newspaper reporter I learned that two subjects might open the mouths and memories of recalcitrant interviewees their families and work. People love talking about what they do bragging and complaining — especially when they’re good at it and enjoy the work. Work is central to most of our lives.

…and wonders why there is such an “absence of work” in contemporary literature. He cites two theories: Alain de Botton’s view that “technology has alienated most of us, including writers and other artists, from the means of production,” and Frank Wilson’s assertion that “What this really is about is the extent to which art has become divorced from life as it actually lived by most people.”

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