Would you want to have a drink with these famous Irish writers?

It's Saint Patrick's Day, which means many old and young alike find a reason to imbibe to obscene levels, all in the name of Ireland and something something something--hey, I love you--look! A beer!

Ireland has been the home to dozens of famous writers over the centuries, but that doesn't mean they're the type you'd want to hang around with to have a drink.

So, with today being the holiday and this being a blog that involves books, here the twain shall meet.

It's time to judge whether you'd want have a drink with the Irish writer...


Samuel Beckett:

The weathered face suggests a man who doesn't mind life's finer pleasures.

That's also the weathered face of a man who's judging. You never want to drink with a judger.

Verdict: God, no.


James Joyce:

The next photo you ever find of James Joyce smiling will be the first photo you ever find of James Joyce smiling.

James Joyce is depressing enough. You don't want to drink with a depressive.

Verdict: If you have to ask, you deserve what you get.



Seamus Heaney:

I'm pretty certain he's already had a few by the time this picture was taken. Who falls asleep upright in a photo?

Verdict: He might doze off, but that never hurt. Yes!



Jonathan Swift:

You don't develop that supple chin action and ruddy complexion unless you know about tippling back a few.

Meet Swift at the wig parlor room for a whiskey.

Verdict: Duh.



C.S. Lewis:

He might try to convert you to the Church of Ireland over a few, but at least you'll know he'll have a few.

Added bonus, he might make you a character in his next book. Sure, you might end up being a lion or a donkey or something, but something is something.

Verdict: All the religion talk will quiet down after awhile. Yes.



William Butler Yeats:

No.



Frank McCourt:

He looks like your grandpa. And all grandpas drink, at least a little. Unless they're an alcoholic, and then you never know. They might always sip on a ginger ale while quietly wishing it was a beer.

So, it might be better to never ask.

Verdict: I'm sorry, grandpa. I didn't mean anything by asking. I, just, oh, I...



Maeve Binchy:

It's almost impossible to find a photo of this woman and not see her smiling. If she didn't drink, I just so badly wish she did.

Verdict: Please?



George Bernard Shaw:

This is like Samuel Beckett if Samuel Beckett could at least seem pleasant after downing some scotch.

Shaw was cantankerous--but, damnit, you just know with a face like that after a night at a pub he'd lighten up.

Verdict: C'mon, pops.



Oscar Wilde:

Oscar Wilde famously drank champagne and took opium up until the day he died.

Or, as he once said, "I drink to separate my body from my soul."

Verdict: Anyone have a Dom Pérignon on hand?

Poets Reading Poetry: Walt Whitman

Poetry is meant to be read aloud, but rarely is. As Oscar Wilde once said, "A poet can survive everything but a misprint."

So, cutting out the middle man, here is where we'll post famous poets reading their own poetry--the words off the page and in your ears, as they intended. And hopefully nothing is lost in the process.

Today: Walt Whitman

In the early 1990s, scholars believed they discovered a wax recording of Walt Whitman reading the first four lines of his poem 'America.' The sound comes from an NBC cassette from the early 1950s where broadcaster Leon Pearson identifies it as a wax recording of Whitman reading the poem. The wax recording itself dates from either 1889 or 1890, which would coincide with Whitman's revising of the poem in 1888.

While nearly all experts believe the recording to be authentic from around 1890, some are concerned it isn't Whitman himself, but an actor. Roughly at the same time though, Thomas Edison was interested in recording Whitman. A gentleman named Sylvester Baxter recommended to Edison to record the poet. This led to Edison's secretary to write back to Baxter, "Mr. Edison has received your letter of the 8th instant in regard to obtaining a phonographic record of the poet Whitman. He is very much obliged for your suggestion, and will endeavor to carry it out." No record was made of Edison and Whitman meeting, so we're left to wonder.

By 1889 or 1890 Whitman was a 70 or 71-year old man, in failing health, who was to die in 1892. At the same time, the recording is clearly that of an elderly man with strong, resonate tones--as Whitman's associates described his voice in his later years.

Who knows? It's more fun to assume it's Whitman though.

The poem in its entirety:


America

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
Chair’d in the adamant of Time.




recording: BrainPickings.org

Leave it to Ernest Hemingway to cut to the point.

Graphic designer Evan Robertson takes witty or insightful lines from a variety of famous writers and creates fashionable literary poster art.

All are examples of why I wish I was an artist. But, alas, I'm a writer, and even that is suspect most days.

All work--plus 16 other writers/paintings--can be found at his Etsy shop for $24.

I don't know when I became a salesman for some random guy, but, hey, go with it.

In case you've got $325 to burn on something to hold your pack of gum.

Kate Spade makes bags and stuff. Stuff my Y chromosome doesn't appreciate fully.

But she makes some stuff that looks like this:

Or like this:

And this...

And...

The real irony here is that the only people who've read those books are too poor to afford those purses. But that's why bankruptcy exists. The commercial on the radio with the official sounding lawyer told me so.

Famous Last Words: Virginia Woolf couldn't keep things pithy even in death.

The Huffington Post has a photo slideshow about famous author's last words.

Half of them are probably apocryphal. I can't believe that Oscar Wilde is glib and sassy just as death awaits, or that poet Walter De La Mare's last words just happened to be so poetically stated as: "Too late for fruit. Too soon for flowers." Sure, pops. Whatever you say.

But I do believe that J.M Barrie was pretty straight-forward and said, hey, you know what? "I can't sleep." Sounds logical when your lungs are filled with pneumonia.

Or Franz Kafka losing his mind and screaming at a doctor to kill him. "Kill me or you are a murderer!" Sounds like a logical thing to say when tuberculosis is starving you. It's short, it's to the point, and you kind of get the subtle gist he's pretty ticked.

Anton Chekhov? "It's been a long time since I drank champagne." He apparently downed the drink, went to bed, and died. Did he toast his death? ((shrugs shoulders)) Sure, why not?

But Virginia Woolf--ahh, Virginia. Her suicide note runs 294 words. 294 final words. Shockingly, it wasn't written in a one sentence long giant block of text that lulls you into a mild state of unconsciousness.

Where to start?

Quotes are always a good way to start off something new. You grab a quote by someone more famous than yourself and use their words to make your point. English majors love using quotes for multiple reasons. Quotes sound deep. Quotes sound profound. They're a lifetime's worth of wisdom in one tidy sentence. But English majors also love them because they're lazy. I should know, because I was one. Starting essays off with a quote by someone more famous than myself was my bread and butter. Staring at a blank Microsoft Word document for 45 minutes usually didn't inspire me, but grabbing a quote by Oscar Wilde always helped, if only to put ink on the page.

Ahhh, we won't start this blog off with a quote though. This is a blog, not an essay. It's the trashy cousin to the elegant essay. This blog is meant to be a venue for English majors past and present from Fitchburg State College to let their mind mosey and meander, all without fear of being graded or worrying about grammar.

In short, this is an English department after all. That includes writing. Lo and behold, blogs require writing. What you get is a match made in literary heaven. We have literary journals and school newspapers already, so why not a blog? So...here's a blog. Will we mock ourselves? Yes. Will we mock famous writers? Yes. (And then we'll wonder why they won't visit our campus.) Will we take oursevles seriously? No. It's a blog, not a Leo Tolstoy epic. It'll be random and irreverant and quirky. And hopefully it won't been shut down in two weeks.

So, enjoy. Even if we didn't start this off with a quote, it promises to be good. Or at least marginal. Or at least capable of distracting you for two minutes. And that's a start.