St. Paddy's 2014

I'm susceptible to cultural cringe from any number of directions, but the reinforcin' o' the stereotypes remains particularly galling.

I once said that "if you're the type to hit up an Irish pub on St. Paddy's, you're begging for an underwhelming night (you may also be a tool)." That last bit may have been harsh since, if you've attempted to engage an Irish bar on St. Patrick's Day (or in the preceding weekend, as the calendar has conspired to do this year--we can't all live in Boston), you've suffered enough without being called names.

Why do we require such a thin excuse in order to get plastered? We're adults--if we want to knock back a few at 11am on March 17th, let's go for it. But that's socially unacceptable unless we can peg it to a reason--holidays, weddings, not guilty verdicts, etc. The temperance movement may have lost, but it managed to leave behind acres of bad wiring in our cultural brain. It's a complicated relationship, but that's probably unavoidable. We're talking about a substance that tastes great and makes us feel temporarily invulnerable, before occasionally destroying us. In deference to that, let's acknowledge that hanging our binge drinking urge on a civilization that was partially devastated (and partially saved) by booze may be something like tempting fate. At the very least, and especially if you know you're a lightweight, don't pretend to be Irish while you're coughing up that half-curdled carbomb. It's embarrassing for everyone.

But I don't want to be gloomy on St. Patrick's Day. I really don't. To that end, I was happy to read that Sam Adams, Heineken, and Guinness (along with some local politicians) have pulled out of parades in New York and Boston today on the grounds that the Irish dons' long-standing stonewalling of the LBGT community is disgusting. Which it is. Check out the pious statement from the organizers of the Boston parade: "we must maintain our guidelines to insure the enjoyment and public safety of our spectators." As though anyone has ever enjoyed a parade. Anyway, this basic recognition of human decency seems a small thing, after an historic last few years for gay equality. But after such tidal waves, we may now have to measure these things in the micro-sense. And each one of those small things will be reason enough to hoist a pint. Or three.

Zombie Mascots and Rainbow Dragons

Despite the best efforts of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, I am back in the States. Now, I normally don't like to indulge in these look-at-what-I-did shenanigans, but I want to highlight a couple of things that caught my eye while strolling the motherland of pale, drunk gingers. 

I wrote about the Easter Rising briefly in Nos Populus, so I couldn't not include this. Relatedly: as we passed through Heathrow, we told British customs that we'd be continuing on to Ireland before returning to the UK. The guy asks us if we were going to "Northern Ireland" or "Southern Ireland." I just figured the guy was so retro that he refused to recognize an independent Hibernia. 

Zombie Uncle Pennybags, spotted somewhere in Dublin's Old City, a ways west of Temple Bar.

Edinburgh, Scotland. Probably the most gorgeous city on the planet...

...which happens to to be home to arguably the ugliest building on the planet. See more here.

Found this guy in Chinatown in London. The wife was fairly sure that he was going to climb through our hotel window one night. The hotel was some two miles away... and yet that still seemed plausible.

A short walk from Puff up there, I found myself in a pub near Covent Garden, where I got mistaken for a local a couple of times. It was probably the beer in my hand in the middle of the day, but I took the compliment. There's magic in sipping a local craft beer outside on a calm, clear 68º day, not a care about work or bills or laundry. As my wife returned from some light shopping in the market, she found me standing outside a pub with my third beer of the day in my hand, and opined that "this would be so sketchy in the States." And that, dear readers, is why we do drinking wrong.

Good to be back, I suppose.

... But What Can I Do?

Okay, fellow drunks, I'm out of here for a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, I recommend watching Charlie Booker's Black Mirror, a Twilight Zone-esque take on our abusive relationship with the television, computer, and smartphone screens that put us in touch the terrible world all around us. One episode has recently been optioned for a film by Robert Downey, Jr., so if you watch it now, you can say you were on board with it before it became popular State-side.

I'll write at you soon. And remember to Love Each Other. 

The Rag Tree: a Novel of Ireland

"I sometimes quip about the length of time it has taken to write The Rag Tree by saying, I started to write a book about war and then peace broke out... through the journey of the story's own growing pains, it became a story of a country and its people amid a historic transition." 
--D.P. Costello

The afterword to Costello's The Rag Tree: a Novel of Ireland was written at the tail end of Ireland's Celtic Tiger boom, just before the collapse. To read The Rag Tree, to reflect upon the strides that Western Europe's whipping boy has made in the last century (as the reader will), and then to stick the knife of mentioning the more recent troubles would require the mind and soul of a right little shit.

After all, so much of Ireland's charm has roots in indefinable magic and whimsey. Breathtaking vistas, the liveliness of ancient Celtic traditions, pubs. Sure, this can sometimes end up looking like, as one character in The Rag Tree puts it, "Paddyland. Planet Ireland. Every castle and historic site has a ticket booth and fence thrown around it. Where's the giant mouse with the green ears?" And that exploitation is a shame. But if one of the steps to casting off the weight of 800 years of exploitation (and one too many borderline offensive homages on St. Patrick's Day) is to indulge in a little of your own, it seems churlish to blame the Irish when that fabled magic begins to work for them for the first time in a millennium.

Such is the hope of the Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) at the outset of The Rag Tree. He hopes to ensure Ireland's future prosperity through his Eire Nua referendum, an initiative that some see as a threat to Ireland's past, not to mention its freedom and independence. It's to Costello's credit that he never pointedly chooses a side on Eire Nua (though the reader can safely guess). Even the outcome of the roundabout plot to reunite Northern Ireland with the independent Republic is wisely left open-ended. In a winding story (all Irish stories are winding ones) about a country long cleaved by warfare and oppression, offering clear answers would be insulting.

The worst that can be said of The Rag Tree is that the plot seems too often driven by coincidence. Or, if not coincidence, then a mysterious, god-like conspirator calling himself "the Blackbird." It doesn't matter much either way: if you mind coincidence, you'll have a few problems with the Blackbird, as well. And normally I'd have been among the detractors of such a plot device. But here again we see the inexorable pull of Ireland and its stories: a little bit of luck and a whole lot of whimsey that will draw the reader in, whether the reader wants to be or not (actually, The Rag Tree puts a rather grim spin on traditional whimsey; I call it "grimsey").

Example: I spent much of the book telling myself that Mattie Joe Treacy's spiritual protector--a pooka in the form of a raven who goes by "Brian"--didn't exist outside the mind of the mildly-disturbed and often drunken Treacy. After a while, I decided that Brian did exist, but as a series of transient ravens that followed Treacy, though never actually speaking to the man. And by the end, I was forced to give in. Brian was a tad too charming for me and if he wanted to exist in the otherwise real, understandable world of The Rag Tree, who am I to stop him?

You can approach Irish legends with whatever eye-rolling skepticism you choose, but stubbornly holding onto that just makes you an asshole. It's not unlike dismissing the magic of Disneyland. A Disneyland with considerably more Guinness and whiskey.

Grade: B+

Nos Populus excerpt

An excerpt from the first few pages of Nos Populus (now available for Kindle):  

James Reso gave little thought to the gradually warming beer in his hand.  His focus was reserved for the crowd gathering round his table as he spun his way through another mostly true-to-life tale.  It had been just the five of them when they took their seats at the pub—the name of which was long lost in the drunken ether—a little after seven: James, with his back to the door, faced the bar; Meghan to his left; Conrad immediately across from him; Dylan next to Conrad; and Mick at the head, between Meghan and Dylan.  In the two or three hours since, the population at the center of the pub had multiplied a couple of times over. 

Some came for a quick question—“which way to the shitter” among the most frequent—and had gotten sidetracked by something James said or asked in return; Americans, such as James and Conrad, could still prove a novelty to the less-worldly Dubliners, the younger students and out-of-towners.  Others came when word of James’ stories had travelled far enough across the pub, piquing curiosities and demanding to be heard in person.  It hadn’t taken long before their table had developed its own gravity, pulling people in quicker as the mass swelled.

James was presently in the middle of another anecdote: the one about his self-imposed exile from the States, one he had told enough times before.  He had learned to how embellish where necessary, to alleviate his own boredom with the telling, as much as anything: removing or adding certain details, playing with linear and non-linear models.  Depending on the way he told it, he could make it a dramatic narrative, an adventure yarn, or even a comedy.  Sometimes he’d play up the domestic and international politics that had been pivotal to the story’s impetus, other times he’d mostly ignore them.  It all depended on what he thought the crowd wanted to hear.  Wrapping up his story to a round of shouts and applause—he had opted for the part-dramatic, part-comedic, less-political version—James took a sip from his beer and listened to someone he didn’t know tell him to hurry up, so he could receive another.   

He leaned back and tried to remember exactly when he had gone from chatting with his friends to holding court.  Not so much because this was unusual—it wasn’t—but because part of him remembered this not being so easy once upon a time.  He used to have to work harder to conquer his audiences.  Perhaps it had just become routine.  Conrad had often commented that James asked for this or, as he sometimes put it, needed this.  He couldn’t quite recall when the transition had begun or how he had done it this time.  He never could, really.  Under sufficient duress, he might admit that these nights, these moments, could become something of a blur.   

Some hours earlier, James had been scanning the words on the laptop screen in front of him for some veneer of inspiration.  Minutes before, he had been confident—unflappable in his dominion over the keyboard, incapable of churning out anything less than faultless prose.  He had towered over the screen.  He had bounced in his chair.  He even smirked, reveling in his command of the written word.  Then the brain drain sunk in and now the writing Leviathan who had occupied that chair was gone.  He couldn’t even be described as a ghost; slouched, tired, unproductive, there was no sign of him. 

The place-saver blinked off and on.  He had read this same semi-blank page again and again.  The words that had been so well chosen led to nothing.  He had no clue what he had been aiming for.  It was then the thought hit him that perhaps it was his earlier work that was gibberish, hence his present lack of direction. 

James suddenly felt very tired.

Vox Americani: James’ blog.  He had written in it roughly every other day since arriving in Ireland two years before. He called it something else then: Reflections of an Ex-Pat, or some equally pedestrian nonsense.  He wasn’t so big on titles in those days.  It had started out a diary of his thoughts on any topic he thought the outside world could relate to; semi-humorous musings on people, work and religion; more serious thoughts on films, rules regarding living with roommates and everyday trivialities.  Politics had slipped in a few times, mostly because that’s what he was thinking about at the time.  He never took it too seriously.  Nor did anyone else, he figured. 

As time went on, he found politics becoming a more regular feature, with his longer and more eloquent pieces revolving around the Ward administration’s most recent overreach.  His readers, the few and the proud, had noticed the same and they let him know it.  The comment page would teem with activity each time he had offered them a few shots at the American president, his policies, and his enablers, his base.  Each time he transferred his rage through the keyboard they’d come back with increasing passion and numbers, echoing his message twofold.  Then threefold.  Then five.  Before long James couldn’t even sit down to his computer without it entering his head that if he had something he really wanted people to read he needed to at least start with some political epithet.  Give them that and they’d stay for whatever came with it. 

By the time he had accepted the direction his blog had taken he had already renamed it.  Vox Americani was advertised as commentary from an unashamedly anti-Wardist stance, proud to fight the good fight against the intransigence of the current commander-in-chief, bellowing impotently from a couple thousand miles away.  And his readership ate it up.  His comment page had transformed into a message board comprised of several dozen members, with hundreds more checking in to see what the regulars were saying. 

An anonymous blogger, he became something of a minor Internet celebrity.  In his entries he barely acknowledged that there had been such a surge.  He forged on as if it were an aberration.  All he had had was an outlet for his own indignation, subsequently feeding countless others.  His blog’s status was of no comfort now; if anything, it sharpened the embarrassment.  His soul screamed for just one more passage, one more sentence.  One more word.  If he got that much he might find whatever it was he had been trying for.  Sometimes all it took was the smallest spark and he’d be off, unstoppable.  But when the spark was most needed, when he most appreciated and respected that capacity he occasionally had, it was dark.

He looked again to the other window, opened to a news site:

Ward: Wars Complete; President declares long-standing military operations a “success;” fate of draft dodgers to be announced 

James stared ahead at the screen, still stuck.

At the pub, his onlookers hoisted their glasses as James made a brief toast.  The first silence of the night followed, as each one of them attempted to down mostly full drinks in one go.  One by one they finished and unleashed a small and choked “hurrah” for their accomplishment.  Across the table, Dylan, already looking rather pale, slammed his glass to the table and rose from his seat, hand to his mouth, making quickly for the restroom. 

Conrad leaned across the table.  His mouth moved, but James had trouble hearing him over the din of the pub.  He was about to ask his oldest friend to repeat himself when Mick intervened, motioning with his hands and shaking his head.  Conrad nodded and mouthed a few mute syllables in response. 

Around them, the crowd had remained committed to their spots, save for the handful of them who had splintered off in search of more booze following the toast.  Among those who remained, a few were prodding James for further anecdotes.  He plumbed his memories and found that only his political portfolio remained untouched.  It was always hard to tell how those stories would be received and so he had been hesitant to go to that well.  In some of the pubs closer to home—in the student-heavy pubs and clubs of Rathmines—his harangues about Ward were usually crowd pleasers.  But tonight they had travelled further into the center of the city and the crowd here was decidedly more mixed; a wide range of ages and incomes were evident.  There were certainly some tourists among them.

Across from him, Conrad, sensing James’ predicament, shrugged: a clear enough signal.  Conrad tended to disdain political discussions in the pub; these were his churches and he knew well the division that politics could create, especially when people were drinking. But he also knew James and he preferred the path of least resistance.  The one potential obstacle removed, with Mick—whose thoughts on politics and pubs were much the same—having suddenly disappeared, James held his nose and announced, sans segue, the name of President Dennis Ward.  A chorus of boos rained down in the pub and James grinned.

As he scanned his mind for an adequate rant, he observed Dylan, emerging from the restroom on the other side of the bar.  He stopped on his way back, commanding the attention of the bartender and put his forefinger in the air.  Mick had appeared behind Dylan, grabbing him by the shoulder.  The bartender looked to Mick with some concern.  It was at that point that Conrad slid his chair over, ready to listen, inadvertently inserting his large frame into James’ view of the situation at the bar.   He might not have long, James thought to himself.  

Conrad Brody stood in James’ bedroom doorway, watching his friend massage his temples in quiet struggle.  Conrad knew the words could not effectively fight back against James.  But if they hung together in just the right way they could clog within his mind, temporarily silencing him.  If this held for long enough, the thoughts and their corresponding passages would impact upon one another, forming a mass of indistinguishable fragments of ideas and words.  Then James would become frustrated and the problem would compound.  On and on it would spin until James was no longer master of that which was within his scope and he was slouched over the keys, seething not about the corruption and excesses of the Ward administration or its lapdog populace, but about his own failures to say anything about them.

Conrad didn’t dwell long.  “We’re going pub-hopping.  Now-ish, I think.”

For a moment James said nothing.  Just stared at his screen, his fingers hovering over the keys, waiting to perform their task.  The only sign that he had even heard Conrad came when his shoulders heaved and he pushed back in his chair.  He heard me, Conrad thought as he steadied his feet in the doorway.

 “That sounds good,” James eventually said.  Then, after turning around: “You see these reports?  The wars are over.  Just like that.”

“I saw.  It’s the biggest story of the day.”

“There’s been nothing in terms of rousing success.  No real milestones met.  Ward’s been adamant in his refusal to alter course.  Now he wants to jump out.  Does it make any sense to you?” 

“He senses a political opportunity and he is, after all, a politician.  All in all it makes about as much sense as an ex-pat draft-dodger preaching to those who stayed about the importance of devotion.”  It was not the first time Conrad made the statement aloud and probably wouldn’t be the last, either.

“We’re not the only ones, Conrad.  And you know that.” 

Conrad never had any real retort on hand, not one that wouldn’t prove James’ point, anyway.  For that matter, the point wasn’t even that Conrad disagreed with him; he didn’t.  Even when he felt a glimmer of disparity, he usually found it impossible to do so after James was through with him.  Give him just the slightest opening and James, if so inclined, could talk without end.  The words never said anything you didn’t want to hear, were never unjustifiably malicious.  When James spoke one was always certain where he stood.  In his silence, you didn’t know where he was or what he wanted and, Conrad believed, neither did he.  

“I’ll be down in a few minutes.  Just let me finish up here.”

“Sure thing,” Conrad replied as he turned to go.

James was lying.  Not deliberately, of course.  In his mind he’d be able to make good on the promise.  He wasn’t leaving until he got his feet back down on the ground, which would only happen when he could get some control over his work.  That wasn’t going to be anytime soon and it didn’t do any good to try to tell him so, or risk him pulling out altogether.  Best let him try to finish up, Conrad thought.  Tell Mick and Dylan they’d wait a little while longer.  Then Meghan would try.

James wasn’t sure exactly when Meghan had slid her chair so close to his.  Last he checked she was abiding the few inches of personal space allowed by their side of the table.  Then people had begun to crowd around, forcing the tables’ occupants to huddle together.  Minutes from closing time, they were now hip-to-hip.  She had had at least as many as he had.  Or so James reasoned.  Whatever it was, he was reluctant to point it out, causing others, including Meghan, to become conscious of it and snuffing out the moment.  At one point, James made some off-handed joke about Ward—one that was funny only in that place, at that time, with that level of alcohol coursing through them—that sent waves of raucous, drunken guffaws through the small throng, Meghan had thrown her head back in laughter and surreptitiously pinched James’ inner thigh.  

She leaned over further than was necessary and shouted something into his ear.  Over the noise of the pub and the various shouts and conversations going on round them, he could not quite hear.  He nodded and smiled as coyly as his present state would allow.  She, suitably impressed, leaned back to his ear and, James would’ve sworn later if he could remember, darted her tongue in and out of it, before quickly resettling herself to field a question from Mick.  James, for his part, smiled, cleared his throat, and turned his attention back to his less intimate attendees. 

This was about the time that the bartender announced ten minutes to closing.  After the unhappy groans subsided, James spoke up, requesting one more hour.  A few courtesy laughs answered him.  The bartender rolled his eyes and denied his request.  James pressed on, keeping his tone just friendly enough that the bartender knew he wasn’t dealing with the usual joker asking for an extension.  After a while, the rest of the pub joined in, recognizing the seriousness of the negotiation and treating it accordingly.  The bartender, however, continued to plead his case, citing alcohol laws and his poor, tired staff.  James expressed his sympathy and explained how everyone would make the extra time well worth it financially and asked—totally straight-faced—for another half hour.  The entire pub, many of them having just learned his name, started chanting “James, James, James.”  Next to him, Meghan was shouting the longest, beaming at him, impressed even by the standard she had set for him.  James sat and basked in their adoration and awaited the bartender’s response.