The W.B. Yeats/ Post Saint Pat's Day Post

Ok this is gonna be a quickie post-- I meant to write a bit more and make it nicer, but my computer is mad at me and I am behind on my readings on African resistance to colonialism.....
Ken left some lovely gifts and thoughts in the comments of the Saint Pat's Day post so go take a look see:

THE BUCKAROO BANZAI SOUNDTRACK!!! (link in comments of last post)
Yesterday, I got so caught up listening to the BUCKAROO BANZAI OST as soon as I downloaded (MY LIFE IS NOW COMPLETE) that I forgot to check on our corned beef for a bit... Whooops, but I think turned out just fine. I was watching Good Eats with Alton Brown last week on the FoodNetwork, in the middle of all the Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives I was watching, and the topic was corned beef (I am postive I watched the same one last year). He had a rabbi and an Irish Catholic priest in a bar, and it was quite funny. Apparently (said the food anthropologist who always pops out, this time she was behind the bar) corned beef is something the Irish immigrants to America adopted from their Jewish neighbors in places like NY as a substitute for their side of Irish bacon... People in Ireland didn't eat it, and prolly couldn't really have if they wanted to because beef and salt were so expensive. Thought that was pretty interesting. I LOVE corned beef and the leftovers turned into corned beef hash. yummmmm.

AND two lovely lovely songs:
here's what Ken has to say:

It's funny how often Yeats is used as a resource or as inspiration for songwriters, two of my favorite songs are based on his poetry: Karan Casey - the Song of Wandering Aengus (Songlines) and the Waterboys with Tomas McKeown - the Stolen Child (Fisherman's Blues) - the poems are obviously incredible source material, but (for me, anyway) the performers really bring the emotions captured in the pieces to a focus - very tragic, very melancholy.

I quite agree, the tracks are truly lovely and W.B. Yeats is wonderful. I put the two songs with the Clancy Bros reciting "The Host of the Air," the Alias Acoustic Band with the "Easter 1916" from the St. P's Day post, and W.B. Yeats himself reading "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" and "The Song of the Old Mother" for a mini Yeats mix thing. You can grab that here.

And Nazz Nomad at Bleedin' Out posted a live X show recently here, so thanks very much to him!


And some post-Saint Patrick's Day babble:
I went to see the Young Dubliners at midday on Monday, performing at Pershing Square in Downtown LA at the end of a St. Patrick's Day parade (didn't know LA had one...). The concert started a bit late, bc they kept bringing out minor celebraties to say a few words (it IS LA, afterall), so I saw Robert Patrick (is that his name), Perry King ( I know him of the voice of Han Solo on the amazing NPR Star Wars radio drama), Eric Estrada, and some other people. Finally, the Young Dubliners played, and they were quite excellent. They played their own material, as well as "The Foggy Dew," "Waxies' Dargle" and a cover of the Pogues'"If I Should Fall From the Grace of God." And some other things I recognized... I can't remember what.... Anyway, quite good, it was a warm day, I attempted to work on my pitiful [lack of] tan.... (The weather here in LA has been pretty darn nice, mostly in the 70s, except for on Saturday, when I was hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains, and it started to hail, then snow considerably on us. I thought I had left New England... Guess I thought wrong. It was a pretty silly situation.)

Made me think of how, a couple weeks ago, an Boston Irish punk band, Pub Crawler, came to my campus and performed in a tiny tiny space, considering they had like 9 guys in the band. They were really good, so they should be checked out given the opportunity. They are kinda like the Tossers, from the little I have heard of the Tossers, and even played "Dirty Old Town" and "Sally MacLennane." They were especially a much appreciated break from all the overly earnest college radio type music you hear around campus. I personally think earnesty is overrated....


OH and PS, if anyone is ever planning to go to Little Toyko/ J-Town on a Monday in LA, DON'T. Everything is closed, I was planning on having a lovely bowl of cold somen after the concert for a very St Patrick's Day themed lunch... but our (notice the possesive-- it is MY resturant) was CLOSED. It was tragic. Ended up going to a different place, called Mr. Ramen and having a ramen and gyoza, but it was still tragic.


Ok now I am going to get back to reading about Africa in the colonial period, which I have been pretending to do for the last week...... Maji Maji Rebellion, here I come....