Monday, July 21, 2008

The Blower's Daughter

The origin of the word "Pub" is from the English concept of a "Public House".

Every village in Victorian England would have a public house, usually in the village square or centre; where the villagers would gather, mostly in the evenings after work, for a pint of the lager and to talk life out. (There would always, of course, be the hope that it transpires into more than just a pint, and more than just a talk).

So why this history lesson then? Just to break into, in a manner of the formal essayist way, of the culmination of a recent search of mine. To find one pub in many.

And yes, I think may have found a good one after all. Or changed loyalties at least for the time being. It’s a pub, a bar in the american way, 2 blocks from where I live. It’s small and it’s dark. It’s got a pool table, chatty customers, an irish bartender who gives free shots if he likes you and great, no make that fantastic, music. It’s perfect. It’s the rare kind where you can as easily read a book on a Saturday afternoon in as you can walk out tottering and yelling at 4 am from.

It’s also highly pretentious, calls itself the Dead Poet and has quotes from poets scattered all over the place. Quotes like:

May you be in heaven
Half an hour before the
Devil knows you're dead
- an Irish drinking toast
Man, being reasonable
Must get drunk;
The best of life Is but intoxication
- Lord Byron
There can't be good living
where there is not good drinking
- Benjamin Franlin
Why do I drink?
So that I can write poetry.
- Jim Morrison
To be a poet is a condition,
not a profession
- Robert Frost
Work is the curse
of the drinking classes
- Oscar Wilde

Also, if you share your birthday with a famous literary figure, you get to drink free that whole day. Google tells me I might have Jack Kerouac to thank for free drinks some months from now.

And as Damien Rice said:
“I can’t take my mind off you…till I find someone new"...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

You write well homie.

Australis said...

I remember that place. And the jukebox and the beer called Delerium Tremens, and the quote on the wall that said "I am a drinker with writing problems". Can't remember who, though.

Sigh, happy days.

Scarlett said...

I'm curious whay you chose to call this post 'The Blower's Daughter'...

Anki said...

can't take my eye's off u

CrazyDiamond said...

@anon: burp...homie.

@aurora: yes yes, the same it be. We salute your phenomenal memory once again.
That quote used to be my FB status msg for a while. I hate FB!

@scarlett: why, I thought the last sentence should be reason enough.

@anki: and so it is...

Renovatio said...

So was it just like you said it would be?

Utopia said...

and so it was i guess. :-) loved the song! and strangely was trying to remember the name and jus when i was about to dial a friend's number to ask her the same ur post pops up almost magically on my screen.

CrazyDiamond said...

@renovatio: It never is man, it never is.

@utopia: My post did that? I'm going to try and teach it to do a flip roll now.
...the song is indeed good...and when he whispers the very last line, I always smile.

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