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"Irish Elk is original, entertaining, eclectic, odd, truly one-of-a-kind. And more than mostly interesting."
Amy Kane


"Puts the 'ent' in 'eccentric.'"
Callimachus


"The Gatling Gun of Courteous Debate."
Unitarian Jihad


"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)."
Erik Keilholtz


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Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children.
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He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative.
Chesterton

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Burke

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Irish Elk
 
Thursday, September 28, 2006  



RCBforA: Film Category

She's no Pre-Raphaelite ecdysiast, but Audrey Hepburn here certainly qualifies as a work of art, and she is wearing something close to a bob.

At a gallery of Sabrina clips you can hear her sing "Yes, We Have No Bananas."


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Great picture taken during the Yemeni elections.

How would you caption this one?


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Wednesday, September 27, 2006  


'Pom,' sans &#@%$, is cricket

Yankee Stadium denizen Steve M will appreciate this item from Down Under:

Cricket's governing body in Australia has ruled visiting English fans may be called "Poms" without breaking the country's anti-hate-speech laws.

However, the P-word may not be linked with anything "hurtful. . . racist, offensive or humiliating."

The Telegraph observes:

The last time an Englishman inside an Australian cricket ground was called a "Pom" without the addition of a hurtful, racist, offensive or humiliating epithet is lost in the mists of time.

Pommy-bashing having a rich and colorful history, the English newspaper editorializes in favor of allowing the Aussie sporting public a certain leeway in the opprobrium department, since "the word pom shorn of any suitably earthy antipodean qualifier is a feeble little thing."

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Oh, the humanity

Hood blimp crashes; pilot walks away unhurt. He came down in the trees in Manchester-by-the-Sea, after an unsuccessful attempt at an emergency landing on Singing Beach.


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Sunday, September 24, 2006  


The Light Crust Doughboys are on the air!

Scroll down the right hand side of this page to hear them play their theme and "The Yellow Rose of Texas."

Their impresario, Pappy O'Daniel, became Texas' governor and a US Senator on his fame hosting country-music radio shows for Light Crust Flour and later his own Hillbilly Flour. His slogan: "Pass the Biscuits, Pappy!"

Bob Wills was among the stars of Western Swing who got their start with the Light Crust Doughboys.

Another early member was Milton Brown, a founder of the Western Swing style, who died young in 1936. Hear his band the Brownies play "Yes, Sir!" as this Western Swing site loads. His "Easy Ridin' Papa" sounds a bit like the Doughboys' theme.

At an old-time radio site you can hear a later incarnation of the Light Crust Doughboys perform in an actual show from 1948.

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Bob Wills & Carolina Cotton: "Three Miles South of Cash"

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Friday, September 22, 2006  
You Belong in Brooklyn



Down to earth and hard working, you're a true New Yorker.
And although you may be turning into a yuppie, you never forget your roots. Where Should Your Inner New Yorker Live?


Well I don't know about being a true New Yorker, but okay.

* * *

I've been hunting for the song that is heard played on calliope during the credits on the movie A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and while I haven't yet found the hurdy-gurdy version, here is a vintage recording of the song, "I've Got Rings on My Fingers," sung by Blanche Ring in 1909.

Here are the lyrics.

Now Jim O'Shea was cast away
Upon an Indian Isle
The natives there they liked his hair
They liked his Irish smile
So made him chief Panjandrum
The Nabob of them all
They called him Jij-ji-boo Jhai
And rigged him out so gay
So he wrote to Dublin Bay
To his sweetheart, just to say

Sure, I've got rings on my fingers, bells on my toes
Elephants to ride upon, my little Irish Rose
So come to your Nabob, and next Patrick's Day
Be Mistress Mumbo Jumbo Jij-ji-boo J. O'Shea


Folded Space has mp3s of this and 19 other popular songs as well from between 1901 and 1920.

* * *

The pic above was found at Baseball Fever. For more Bum nostalgia, see the Irish Elk archives, 4/24/05 and 6/14/04.

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Wednesday, September 20, 2006  


Battle of Oak Grove Farm

This past weekend I took in a Civil War battle -- the reenacted kind.

Here are a few more pics.

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Tuesday, September 19, 2006  



On Talk Like a Pirate Day

Danny Murtaugh…could have been the sort of man Chesterton had in mind. Murtaugh…was a man who parried adversity with wit, and yet beneath the humor was the suggestion of a vein of sadness. Bob Addie, Washington Post

Compliments to the Llamas, aaar!


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Monday, September 18, 2006  
You Are a Conservative Democrat


Frankly, the way most other Democrats behave embarrasses you greatly.
You pride yourself on a high level of morals, and you have a good grasp on right and wrong.
It's likely you think America needs to get back to its conservative, Judeo-Christian values.
Why aren't you a Republican then? Because you believe the government helps more than hurts.
What's Your Political Persuasion?


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You can hear the justice in his voice
as he says he's not going to fall
for a banana in the tailpipe


Remember that scene in Beverly Hills Cop?

Axel Foley: What are you all, the second team?
Detective McCabe: We're the first team.
Detective Foster: Yeah, and we're not going to fall for a banana in the tailpipe.
Axel Foley: [Mocking him] You're not going to fall for the banana in the tailpipe? It should be more natural, brother. It should flow out, like this - "Look, man, I ain't fallin' for no banana in my tailpipe!" See, that's more natural for us. You been hanging out with this dude too long.


Is that Deval Patrick or what?

A commenter at Hub Politics observes:

Patrick is the perfect candidate for the liberal establishment that includes the Globe; he's young, nice, takes far-left stances but doesn't have any sort of dangerous mentality that might challange the status quo, and, perhaps most importantly, he's an articulate white man who happens to be black.

Howie Carr has been running some amusing commentaries on the lay of the political landscape in Massachusetts, where tomorrow's primary, he writes, pits moonbats vs moneybags.

Of the Dem state convention in June, Howie wrote:

The delegates can be broadly divided into two groups - moonbats and hacks. The moonbats, to a man - make that, person - are with Deval. The men all have ponytails and trust funds. The women will have their knitting, and combat boots, while not mandatory, are strongly recommended.

They know Bush stole Ohio, and while they’ve never removed the Kerry-Edwards bumper stickers from their Lexuses, they don’t like Hillary Clinton anymore. Of the 104 Birkenstock-clad kooks at the Brookline Town Meeting who voted to impeach Bush, at least 100 will be voting for Deval.

The hacks - well, you know who they are. Think phony disability pensions and old Middlesex County commissioners. Think Billy Bulger’s old birthday “time” at Anthony’s Pier 4. This year, they’re split between Gabrieli and Reilly...


That breakdown pretty much seems to have held true heading into the primary. Certainly the blue Deval bumper-stickers are much in evidence in the faculty parking lot.

Thos Fitzpatrick is almost Fisher Ames-like in his gloom over the current state of Massachusetts' democracy.

I don't really have a dog in the hunt, either, but I suppose I will pull the lever for Muffy in the general, just for the sake of a two-party system (though the state GOP, what there is of it, is being pretty much wholly operated out of the Healeys' Prides Crossing carriage house).

I will say that on reading this Globe piece on Muffy's attempts to wield the common touch, it occurred to me that Deval, the progressive darling, seems to have been getting something of a pass from the Birkenstock set on his own conspicuous affluence.

At any rate, it is refreshing to see the Hamilton GOP, what's left of it, still flying the colors at a tent at the Myopia Hunt Club.

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Thursday, September 14, 2006  



Tales from the Garret

Mrs P obliges with an account of her Bohemian days as an art student on Boston's Gold Coast. Art, where is thy sting? Mrs P tells all.


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Lincolniana

The 23rd International Churchill Conference is to be held in Chicago later this month. The theme is "Churchill in the Land of Lincoln," with presentations comparing and contrasting the wartime leadership and oratorical styles of the two great statesmen.

Churchill admired Lincoln, as most sensible people do. Ronald Reagan said: "Whoever would understand in his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life of Abraham Lincoln."

Another great admirer of Lincoln was his Rushmore neighbor, Theodore Roosevelt. The Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia carries a number of TR quotations on Lincoln. Here are a few:

____________. He grew to know greatness, but never
ease. Success came to him, but never happiness, save
that which springs from doing well a painful and a vital
task. Power was his, but not pleasure. The furrows
deepened on his brow, but his eyes were undimmed by
either hate or fear. His gaunt shoulders were bowed, but
his steel thews never faltered as he bore for a burden
the destinies of his people. His great and tender heart
shrank from giving pain; and the task allotted him was
to pour out like water the life-blood of the young men,
and to feel in his every fiber the sorrow of the women.
Disaster saddened but never dismayed him. As the red
years of war went by they found him ever doing his
duty in the present, ever facing the future with fearless
front, high of heart, and dauntless of soul. Unbroken by
hatred, unshaken by scorn, he worked and suffered for
the people. Triumph was his at the last; and barely had
he tasted it before murder found him, and the kindly,
patient, fearless eyes were closed forever. (Address at
Hodgenville, Ky., February 12, 1903.) Mem. Ed. XII,
451; Nat. Ed. XI, 210.

____________. Greatly though we now regard
Abraham Lincoln, my countrymen, the future will put
him on an even higher pinnacle than we have put him.
In all history I do not believe that there is to be found
an orator whose speeches will last as enduringly as
certain of the speeches of Lincoln; and in all history,
with the sole exception of the man who founded this
Republic, I do not think there will be found another
statesman at once so great and so single-hearted in his
devotion to the weal of his people. We cannot too
highly honor him; and the highest way in which we can
honor him is to see that our homage is not only homage
of words; that to lip loyalty we join the loyalty of the
heart. (At Freeport, Ill., June 3, 1903.) Mem. Ed. XII,
449-450; Nat. Ed. XI, 208-209.

____________. I am very busy now, facing the usual
endless worry and discouragement, and trying to keep
steadily in mind that I must not only be as resolute as
Abraham Lincoln in seeking to achieve decent ends, but
as patient, as uncomplaining, and as even-tempered in
dealing, not only with knaves, but with the well-
meaning foolish people, educated and uneducated, who
by their unwisdom give the knaves their chance. (To
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., October 4, 1903.) Mem. Ed.
XXI, 504; Nat. Ed. XIX, 447.


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Monday, September 11, 2006  



In Memoriam

Samuel Barber: "Agnus Dei"

Peggy Noonan: The sounds of 9/11

Cantor Fitzgerald: Those who survived

Gerard Van de Leun: The wind in the Heights

Elliott Banfield: A design for a monument * As rendered in the NY Sun

Amy Kane: Close to home

Flight 93 Memorials: Elliott Banfield * EL Core


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Passion Bearer

Fr. Mychal Judge: the firemen's friar

Remembered in a homily

His a name to live up to


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The man in the red bandana

Welles Crowther, hero


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When a man becomes a fireman his greatest act of bravery has been accomplished. What he does after that is all in the line of work.

-- Chief Edward F. Croker, FDNY, 1908

Whatever the Americans are proud of - whatever they consider to be particularly good, useful, brilliant, or characteristic of themselves or their climate, they designate, half in jest, though scarcely half in earnest, as an ‘institution.’ Thus the memory of George Washington... is an institution; the Falls of Niagara are an institution; the Plymouth Rock, on which the Pilgrim Fathers first set foot, is an institution...; ‘Sweet potatoes’ are an institution, and Pumpkin (or Punkin) pie is an institution; ...squash is an institution; Bunker Hill is an institution; and the firemen of New York are a great institution. -- Charles Mackay, Life and Liberty in America, 1850

Firehouse.com: Remembering 9/11

Bagpipes & Drums of the Emerald Society, Chicago Police Department: "Amazing Grace" &c


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Friday, September 08, 2006  



Which five fictional characters would you like to meet?

The Hon. Seabright Cooley, D-S.C.

Lady Cordelia Flyte

Capt. Jack Aubrey

Mrs. Emma Peel

The Doubtful Guest

-- Meme via Dale Price.

Readers so inclined may consider themselves tagged!


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Tuesday, September 05, 2006  



This 1909 sheet-music cover from a Food & Ragtime gallery has something for every taste: a demure showgirl for Mr Seal, and a bisque-worthy New England crustacean for Mrs P.

I empathize with the "giant, corpulent, avuncular smiling waiter with a knowing wink."

At the latter site you can listen to a Midi version of the song. The suggested tempo: 68 crotchets a minute.


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Monday, September 04, 2006  



Labor Day Parade, Chicago, 1904

(Chicago Daily News Collection, American Memory)


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