It’s an Irish Extravaganza!!
1. The Reuben from Rhino Market
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Earlier this week in the hopes of avoiding the madding crowds my Mother, Brother Matt and I went in search of the perfect Reuben to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day together! After much debate we decided to try the sandwich at Rhino Market, in no small part due to the recommendation of Darrel Williams, and we were all thoroughly impressed. Our sandwiches came out piping hot, with the perfect balance of rye, sauerkraut, fancy mustard and of course heaps of steaming Boar’s Head Pastrami Brisket…delicious!! If you have time swing by today and grab one for lunch…before they run out!!
2. Paul Henry
Best known for his landscapes, Paul Henry’s renderings of western Ireland are breathtaking in their scope, and heartrending in their detail, as Henry’s brush captures the inherent pathos and poetry of the land…a duality that seems to bleed into the hearts of its writers. (As evidenced by a few of this weeks other featured five!) Henry’s vast mountains and the huge skies with their towering nimbus clouds rolling in off the Atlantic, are a fresh reminder of our own particular smallness in this world…and yet, despite our own relative unimportance, we can still appreciate the majesty and immenseness of the world around us!
3. “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
Barry is a master of capturing the liminal space between mundanity and violence lurking in the demimonde lives of his roguish characters. Like the protagonists from Night Boat to Tangier, or the barman in The Pub with No Beer, they’re all one wrong word away from getting thrown in jail, or having their eye gouged out. In That Old Country Music Barry paints a bleak world, filled with the irrational hopes of poor dreamers…like a t-shirt I once read in a laundromat long ago…Bad Choices Make Good Stories…Kevin Barry’s characters agree!
5. Achtung Baby by U2
Sometimes rediscovering a forgotten classic can be as rewarding as stumbling upon a new gem…Achtung Baby is my favorite U2 album…featuring one of my favorite lyrics of all time…
“Have you come here to play Jesus, to the lepers in your head…” Bono …just another Irish poet in a long line of troubadours!
Here are a few of my favorite cuts from this record:
–“One”
Bonus Quote: “The one thing we Irish have is the ability to laugh at ourselves. God bless us all.” –Ann Kennedy
Happy St. Patrick’s Day Everyone!!!
Enjoy!!!
Jonny Pop Culture 