--- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I think of Irish culture as very adept at story telling and humor.
This is a generalization, but as with many generalizations about a people and their culture, it's got an element of truth to it. The Irish like to TALK. Fuel that general tendency with alcohol, and you get even MORE talk. :-) Sometimes that talk takes the form of stories and writing, sometimes witty one-liners (think Oscar Wilde), and sometimes loud pub-talk. But I find it charming, so it's Ok. > I guess it is because that side of my family is always > pulling me aside at family functions and starting with > "Did I tell you the one about..." My dad passed on > that ability to all his kids, the joy of telling a > funny story. Yup. It's also related, I think, to the bardic tradition. Bards were just storytellers who had decided to turn what they would do normally (talk) into an artform, and use the artform to convey archetypal stories of consciousness and culture. > I know all sorts of other cultures have these > skills, but I think that the Irish have it in spades, > they value it highly. The Irish love words, and those who use them well. Ireland is probably one of the only places left where one can get laid just by admitting that one is a writer. :-) It was sometimes true in Paris, but there they expected me to be a *depressed* writer, and were always disappointed when I wasn't. :-) > It is a cool way to communicate the spirit of fun, > especially when life is tough. Exactly. Somehow, the Irish have never *lost* the essential intuition that life should be FUN. That spirit is encapsulated in their tales and stories. > Does my home-grown theory have any merit in your > broader experience of the culture? My one-weekend experience of the culture? :-) Yes, it does. Lovely place, full of even lovelier women. I hope to visit again soon, and this time get out of Dublin and into the countryside. If you love great storytelling, may I recommend Robin Williamson? Robin was part of the Incredible String Band back in their days, and went on to do his own solo work. He's a multi-instrumentalist (probably proficient at 20 or more of them), but he's also a neo-bard, and spends part of each live performance telling tales. He's utterly captivating. I've seen him tell a 45-minute story and keep the entire audience on the edge of their seats for the whole time, without losing *anyone*. He's not Irish technically (his people come from Northumberland), but his storytelling is Celtic- based, and quite remarkable. Here are a few tales of his that I found in a quick perusal of iTunes: The Spoils of Annwn The Battle of the Trees The Dialogue of the Two Sages The Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal Three Celtic Nature Poems My favorite of his recorded stories is unfortunately not on iTunes (or at least not on the version of it I can see from France). It's on an album he did with John Renbourn called Wheel Of Fortune. The tale itself is called "Finn and the Old Man's House," and it's *wonderful*. It captures the entire spirit of the bardic storyteller, alternating between laughter and drama, and ending on a spiritual note. And (he says, sipping a decidedly inferior bottled Guinness and longing already for the authentic stuff), to finish up this Irish rant, here's a quote that I found by the statue of Oscar Wilde in Dublin. I love his aphorisms, and have collected hundreds of them in a file so that I can quote them as .sig files, but I had never heard this one. I'm not sure what its context was originally, but for me it captures my whole feeling about life, living and enlightenment: "This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last." :-) To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
