{"id":1135,"date":"2009-03-17T14:53:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-17T21:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/03\/happy-st-patricks-day.html"},"modified":"2009-03-17T14:53:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-17T21:53:00","slug":"happy-st-patricks-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/03\/happy-st-patricks-day.html","title":{"rendered":"Happy St. Patrick&#8217;s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_yrL6yfubw8g\/ScAqlKcaBzI\/AAAAAAAAAKk\/eXVvbTFEzSM\/s1600-h\/ireland.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_yrL6yfubw8g\/ScAqlKcaBzI\/AAAAAAAAAKk\/eXVvbTFEzSM\/s320\/ireland.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"><\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_yrL6yfubw8g\/ScAqkyb1AII\/AAAAAAAAAKc\/WFMwWZyEjwc\/s1600-h\/guinness.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_yrL6yfubw8g\/ScAqkyb1AII\/AAAAAAAAAKc\/WFMwWZyEjwc\/s320\/guinness.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"><\/a><br \/>TODAY this blog and its followers celebrate st. patrick&#8217;s day, a holiday a lot of upper-middle-class people &#8212; including many educated irish-americans &#8212; scorn. slate ran its usual spoilsport\/ contrarian <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2213884\/\">piece<\/a> pointing out that patrick himself didnt rid the country of snakes and wasnt even irish.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>i&#8217;ve read this story (which is quite well executed) ever year, and still love st. patrick&#8217;s. i say this as someone with no interest in green beer, working class homophobia or the slavish worship of the catholic church. but despite my jewish surname i am mostly irish (full disclosure: half of that derives not from heel-clicking celts but from protestant oppressors) and this holiday is one of the few opportunities to connect with a heritage that now seems very remote from the life of southern california. when i was in the trader joe&#8217;s in glendale a few days ago and asked after the corned beef, a young woman working the floor looked at me as if i had asked for kelp from saturn. of course, in the days of mulholland and doheny, LA was a very irish city.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>these days, ireland itself has snapped out of its &#8220;celtic tiger&#8221; phase and has an unemployment rate of around 10% &#8212; bad for them, tho a touch lower than LA county right now. (<a href=\"http:\/\/andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com\/the_daily_dish\/2009\/03\/the-true-spirit.html\">here<\/a> is a great simpsons bit on irish identity.)<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>but that&#8217;s another discussion. for now, i am wearing a pine-green american apparel shirt, have a big pot of corned beef simmering away in murphy&#8217;s stout upstairs, i am going to blast van morrison until my wife makes me take it off, and will try to steal a few minutes to read yeats after introducing my little son to what i hope will stick as an important family ritual. for the timberg\/sinnott family, this one goes back to turn-of-the-century, brooklyn &#8212; long ago and very far away. as ian (sorry for the scottish name) would say, CHEERS!<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>PS. A poll of the world&#8217;s greatest irishmen to appear very shortly on this blog. i apologize in advance for it being all male, esp since the best irish writer going right now may be anne enright&#8230; simply amazing how many great musicians come from this tiny island, esp if you consider, as i do, john lennon and morrissey &#8212; both of irish-catholic descent &#8212;\u00a0the greatest &#8220;english&#8221; musical figures of the &#8217;60s and &#8217;80s, respectively.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Photo credit: Flickr user 36 and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/kman999\/185925805\/\">37<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TODAY this blog and its followers celebrate st. patrick&#8217;s day, a holiday a lot of upper-middle-class people &#8212; including many educated irish-americans &#8212; scorn. slate ran its usual spoilsport\/ contrarian piece pointing out that patrick himself didnt rid the country of snakes and wasnt even irish. i&#8217;ve read this story (which is quite well executed) [&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":[219,139,531],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-beer","7":"category-irish","8":"category-van-morrison","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135","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=1135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}