A Happy Shamrock Day to One and All

Friday, March 17, 2006

As the national radio broadcast announcer put it so aptly, “It’s the day everyone pretends they’re Irish.”

[6:45am] Thursday night was a night for thought – for thoughts not tuned to one object or one idea, but thrown about, so to speak. On most of the way down to the Moolah Theater, (after picking up a Sunkist at QT, while OLeif and Magnus chose their own pre-movie goodies), the boys discussed James Joyce and his atrociously insane yet incredibly brilliant writings.”

“And, oh, my goodness!” Shakespeare was saying. “He is just insane. But so amazing! Each word in Finneagan’s Wake could mean, so many things…”

As they chatted, Collette watched a large glass-walled executive building flash by, and several floors up sat a chubby air-filled orange bubble chair. She laughed, and was thinking about how several years ago she thought of all the thoughts in the world and ideas, consumed into a time, a hovering above the earth as an angel in silent space, watching. And weeping over the deceased in hell from the ancient Egyptians to the forgotten Maya to the plains Indians…

“So, he is just so awesome… but so stupid!” Magnus went on. “Any given sentence could mean, like, fifty million things.”

Magnus and Molly both, had a very said way of speaking. Very clear-cut, not crisp, but decisively, so. Like a knife sliced through bread in one fell-swoop – (bread was not the best article, but she could not think of anything else for the moment) – cut solid and accurate, but softened enough to keep it from being curt. Collette’s thoughts turned to living in Switzerland, Norway, or Iceland again and of the Pirates of the Caribbean locket which Carrie had bought for her the other day, for comedy’s sake. As they passed the house near Spoede Road with the strange lamp in the window, Collette was thinking about a land where all the trees were paintbrushes dipped in vibrant colors. And that lamp in the window just stuck out to her over the years; she never could figure out what was wrapped around it, carved from porcelain or something – an exotic bird, perhaps? A scene from a war? Two children climbing the Alps?

“So my point of Joyce is,” Magnus was saying, “Dude, he’s crazy.”

And then they went on to other items – of So Rum from church, a chemical biologist of sorts, having important discussions with atheist Japanese on their Christian-bashing forum, and other such things.

They were thinking times that night – like a think-tank of color and whimsy and theology rolled tightly together, like some sushi roll, creative (yet almost typical). But Collette did not really know what she was thinking over – it was a hodge-podge.

At the theater – V for Vendetta – perhaps the most ridiculous preposterousness of anarchist propaganda she had ever seen. When the British parliament was finally blown sky-high in the last scene, she felt herself incensed – at a film! But as she and OLeif and Magnus discussed it on the way back home, she found how silly the whole movie had actually been, and how funny it was as a whole, although absolutely awful. Elizabeth and Carrie didn’t seem to like it either. As Carrie said later:

“It was corny in parts, had a rushed story line, and the script (aside from V’s monologues) was lacking,” amongst other things.

And Collette was uncertain as to what, exactly, Jospeh and Joe thought on it, although she knew Joe liked it for the action, no doubt. Magnus seemed to hate and love it.

In the words of Magnus himself – “It was so bad, and so horrible, and so evil, and so despicable… that it’s hilarious!”

And they went on to discuss the Mormons portrayed in a controversial cartoon, the Da Vinci Code hype, and OLeif equated socialism with a jar of mixed peanut butter and jelly.

“I have to laugh at the world,” Magnus said later as they crossed the Daniel Boone bridge and went on to drive through Taco Bell. “I have to laugh at humanity.”

And it was true.

An Irish tune for an Irish Day – “Isle of Inisfree”

“I’ve met some folks who say that I’m a dreamer
And I’ve no doubt there’s truth in what they say.
But sure a body’s bound to be a dreamer
When all the things he loves are far away.
And precious things are dreams onto an exile
They take him o’er the land across the sea
Especially when it happens he’s an exile
From that dear lovely Isle of Innisfree.

“But dreams don’t last
Tho’ dreams are not forgotten
And soon I’m back to stern reality.
But tho’ they paved the footways here with gold dust
I still would choose the Isle of Innisfree.”