Our fair colleen Debra Shea writes:
<< Beannachtam na Fiile Padraig oraibh!
Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all! >>
Ah, sure and it's a great day to be Irish -- even if the other three hundred
and sixty-four aren't! May you all be a wee bit Irish -- a little green,
shall we say -- on this glorious day.
Also, I'd like to thank our own culture vulture Patrick Leader for
recommending the book "The Hours" so highly. Loved it, loved it, loved it.
(The movie positively pales, but isn't that always the case?) And thanks,
Patrick, for twisting my arm until I agreed to go to see the Mark Morris
Dance Group while they were in Boston. I had a wonderful time. And now a
little story . . .
Since I was Maggie's beard for the evening, I got to go to the party after
the performance. (Man, Maggie's organization sure knows how to put on the
dog, but that's another story. The food was fantastic!) Anyway, at one point
towards the end of the night I was bending Maggie's ear about a book I've
been reading and loving called "At Swim, Two Boys," by Jamie O'Neill. (More
on that in a moment.) So I brought Maggie over to the table I had been
sitting at to show her the book. There was a married couple from Seattle who
had just sat down at the table, and as I was showing it to Maggie, the woman
said, "I just finished that book!" and then we raved about it until I had to
leave. Well, I found out the next day that this woman -- a very smart, lovely
and charming lady -- was Mark's sister!
For those of you on the list who may be wondering what to read next, let me
say that "At Swim, Two Boys" is perhaps the best book I have read in a couple
of years. Briefly, it is the story of two 16-year-old Irish boys who decide
to spend a year training for a long swim to an island off the coast which
they plan to claim for Ireland the following Easter. But the year happens to
be in 1916, the year of the Easter Uprising.
Like Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist," this is a coming of age story. And the
writer's wordplay and use of language -- along with the story's Ireland and
Dublin content -- feels a great deal like "Ulysses." (I am not even going to
attempt a review because anything I say will fall short. If you're
interested, check out reviews on line.) Anyway, the "kicker," as we used to
say when I was in advertising in New York, is that this is also a gay love
story, and as such, this novel moves right to the top of the top of the gay
lit heap, in my opinion. I have been putting the brakes on my reading of the
book because I don't want it to come to an end. (And I am sure it will be a
sad end, which is an Irish specialty!)
So -- happy St. Paddy's day, everyone! And may the floor not rise up to greet
you in the face as you fall off your barstools!
--Bob
