JOH: I HAPPENED TO E MAIL AROUND A COPY OF A POEM BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS. I SAID IT HAD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH SALTAIRE, IT WAS JUST A POEM I LIKE.
BEAVER IMMEDIATELY DISSED IT. ... OR DID HE?
THE FIDDLER OF DOONEY
by William Butler Yeats:
When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave on the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet
My brother in Mocharabuiee.*
I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer:
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.
When we come at the end of time
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;
For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle,
And the merry love to dance.
And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With ‘Here is the fiddler of Dooney!’
And dance like the wave on the sea.
"Not being quite the erudite, effete intellectual that Jimmy is, my favorite was Al Skinner, sitting on the porch at the ShimShack playing "Shaving Cream" on his accordion."
JOH REPLIES: HEY BEAVER:
SOMETIMES YOU ARE SO DUMB YOU ARE BRILLIANT !!!!!!!
I AM GONNA GIVE YOU A PASSING GRADE ON THAT ENGLISH REGENTS THAT YOU FLUNKED 45 YEARS AGO.IT NEVER OCCURRED TO ME BEFORE, BUT YOUR ADMIRATION OF SKINNER PLAYING AN ACCORDION TO RAUCOUS ADMIRERS IS EXACTLY WHAT YEATS WAS TALKING ABOUT:
"When I play on my fiddle in Dooney folk dance like a wave on the sea."
WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO SEE CAPTAIN AL PLAYING HIS RAUNCHY SONGS AGAIN SOMEDAY?
SOMEWHERE? :
"And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With ‘Captain Al, won't you please play your squeeze box?"
And dance like the wave on the sea.
( I guess it does have to do with Saltaire. I don't think Father Torrey or Father Fitzgibbon would mind if St. Peter let Capt. Al go in first.)
(Ed. Note: this was first posted Jan. 7, 2008)
14 comments:
Beaver responds - So I'm a Phillistine?? Well.....not being a member of an Aegean race who settled in Canaan around the 12th Century B.C. I guess I fit the other dictionary definition - that of "A smug, ignorant, especially middle-class person who is regarded as being indifferent or antagonistic to artistic, cultural, intellectual, and aesthetic values" GUILTY AS CHARGED COUNSELOR!!!
BTW - I didn't fail the english regents some 45 years ago - it was 10th grade algebra and to be precise it was only 44 1/2 years ago.
Wasn't it the Philistines who stole the Ark of the Covenant?
SAINT PETER, STUPID. ONE OF THE APOSTLES.
I THOUGHT THE ARK OF THE COVENANT WAS STORED IN A CRATE IN A HUGE GOVERNMENT WAREHOUSE SOMEWHERE.- HOW DID YOU GET IT???
NO MATTER WHAT, DON'T LOOK INSIDE IT.
Come one O'Hare stop hiding behind the "anonymous" moniker. All these derogatory comments as to my intelligence(or lack thereof) are libelous. I'll have to get Cosmo Esq., or better still Victor Kovner to represent me - on a contingency basis of course!
Indiana Jones gave me the Ark of the Covenant a couple of years ago. Sorry I did look at it - it's stamped "MADE IN CHINA" on the bottom. Although, in referencing articles about the ark, one of the theories is that you Irish are one of the lost tribes of Israel and have buried the ark under the Hill of Tara. I think that's all bunk - if the Irish had the ark they would have bartered it to pay off their bar tabs at the local pub
If you are calling me "effete" you are not the first. I am sure you learned the word from your hero Spiro, who (actually Safire created the phrase) said we were from an effete corps of impudent snobs."
Credit where credit is due:
The posted Illustration of "The Fiddler of Dooney" is of great significance to Irish Bibliophiles. Note on the bottom" "Cuala Press." Cuala was a small but influential political/literary Journal that published a lot of influential Irish political "Broadsides," literary works, and artwork in the first half of the 20th Century. Most of the editing and commentary was by women, starting with its founder, a sister of William Yeats. Poetry and stories were often illustrated like the above illustration of the Fiddler of Dooney. Further references available on request. JOH
No, contrary to your belief that I am a conservative Phillistine and that Spiro was my hero - that was the "liberal" period in my life - I voted for McGovern and that idiot Jimmy Carter(who now obviously suffers from some form of political dementia or late stage Alzheimer's). Does anyone remember Spiro's utterance - "nadiring nabobs of negativism"(I don't know if I spelled everything correctly)
JOH - I have another question - I know what a pedophile is, I know what a necrophiliac is, but what is a Bibliophile. If I break it into its phonetic roots am I to assume it's someone with a great interest in Bibles?? Please excuse my self admitted ignorance, but paraphrasing Forrest Gump, "I'm not a smart man"
Whtever a Bibliophile is,
You're not.
It was "Nattering nabobs of negativism," and it was also coined by Safire.
Paraphrasing the Great Communicator - Ronald Reagan -
"There you go again"(lauding you intellectual superiority) when I spelled "nadering" - as opposed to "nattering" I DID state that I was not sure of the spelling!! Anyway - going back to the idea of "history repeating itself" Today we have the pundits saying that Rove/Cheney are Bush's brain(which essentially is a flat wave) - are you implying then that in the twilight of the '60's early 70's that Safire(prior to Agenws resignation)was Spiro's brain??
In response to that "neer do well" Michael Keegan's post -
I thought the Chocolate Pigs aunt was an FBI agent.
The Ark of the Covenant is sitting in my living room next to my son's Ducati 1098 and Yamaha R1 motorcycles. The Holy Grail is in one of the downstairs bedrooms next to his Yamaha R6 racebike. Also, in reference to JOH's Fiddler of Dooney Yeats makes reference to St Peter - does this mean that if we expect to enter the Kingdom of Heaven that we have to be interviewed by Uncle Pete?
January 9, 2008 8:05 AM
Frank Mina adds:
In answer to a question about Al Skinner's dress code, Margaret Mary Theresa McQuillan Mina (a/k/a "mom" to six of us) stated that Capt. Adams was the last to wear the "shirt, tie, jacket and cap" until he retired to FL. In the spring of 1943, in spite of her preoccupation with a certain fellow Fordham postgrad, Francis Alfred (a/k/a/ "dad"), she remembers the newly-hired Captain Skinner arriving in "brown hunting gear" from East Island to pilot the ferry. In season, he wore "loud shirts, played piano and accordion, many nights at Foster's house and sang off-color songs". Occasionally the party would move to our front porch, since we had one of the only pianos in town". This practice was discontinued/discouraged when the parents decided I was beginning to learn too many of the lyrics. Sounds like our guy.
mike keegan pops up to talk about how Mike Coffey dressed:
Got a kick out of your story about Capt. Adams and the Fire Island Ferries dress code.
I remember that one of my grandfather Mike Coffey's rules for himself was that every time he got onto the ferry it was a jacket and tie occassion. And he was just a passenger.
He had the same rule for himself when he went to Church. Anybody who has ever been in that church in August knows how hot it can get.
Meanwhile his never do well grandson (after my altar boy days were over) and a few other colleagues were up in the choir loft trying to sail the laminated prayer cards like Frisbees. I remember one Sunday morning when one of the prayer cards flew out of the choir loft and hit Jimmy Daley's Aunt Moira in the back of the head.
-Mike Keegan
JOH WONDERS: BUT AT LEAST WERE YOU WEARING A JACKET AND TIE?
Aunt Moira was a detective.
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