{"id":1133,"date":"2009-03-25T08:58:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-25T15:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/03\/hats-off-to-oscar-wilde.html"},"modified":"2009-03-25T08:58:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-25T15:58:00","slug":"hats-off-to-oscar-wilde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/03\/hats-off-to-oscar-wilde.html","title":{"rendered":"Hats off to Oscar Wilde"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_yrL6yfubw8g\/ScplSGXsFOI\/AAAAAAAAALE\/hgTwi3dpGZw\/s1600-h\/oscar.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_yrL6yfubw8g\/ScplSGXsFOI\/AAAAAAAAALE\/hgTwi3dpGZw\/s320\/oscar.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"><\/a><br \/>LET&#8217;S have a big irish &#8220;cheers&#8221; for oscar wilde, winner of my &#8220;world&#8217;s coolest irishman&#8221; poll, which just expired. (he drew slightly more than a third of votes.) for much of the poll, joyce (whose &#8220;dubliners effectively taught me to read) was leading, but st. oscar made a last minute rally. yeats, that master of swoony celtic romanticism (and later, crisp, steely modernism) came close. van morrison (like wilde and yeats born a protestant), morrissey (an english citizen of irish heritage) and arthur guinness, father of the great stout, did not chart so well.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>wilde joins syrah\/grenache\/rhone (&#8220;favorite wine&#8221;) among recent winners on this blog. (tho i imagine he preferred port or absinthe.)<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>i&#8217;d considered listing john lennon &#8212; take a look at the gaelic last name folks, and he was not the only beatle of irish heritage &#8212; but figured it would lead to confusion or fisticuffs. (there will be a poll with lennon on it shortly.)\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>and i hope the enthusiasm that met these celtic heroes is matched by support for japanese film in my latest poll.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>as for wilde, i often think of his definition of a cynic: &#8220;A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>and here is one of his finest aphorisms, one still pertinent today:<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Photo credit: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.superstock.com\/resultsframe.asp\">Superstock<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LET&#8217;S have a big irish &#8220;cheers&#8221; for oscar wilde, winner of my &#8220;world&#8217;s coolest irishman&#8221; poll, which just expired. (he drew slightly more than a third of votes.) for much of the poll, joyce (whose &#8220;dubliners effectively taught me to read) was leading, but st. oscar made a last minute rally. yeats, that master of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[139,157,118],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-irish","7":"category-poll","8":"category-wilde","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}