August 13, 2010
The Tae man
Bit of a treat inspired by the recent conversation about accents. Eamon Kelly the incredible seanchaí, tells the story of the adventures of a tae man, the first bringers of tea to Ireland. Not many of these guys left now.
Via Stan Carey.
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thank you, Lucy.
Wonderful! Lucy, thank you. It is a shame there aren’t many of these guys left now. Are there no young there picking up on what is being left off? Perhaps making it new? I only recently heard (or saw) the phrase “spoken word artist” on the TV. (And yet, the phrase on a Google, turns up references back to the Eighties. Laurie Anderson a notable mention.) Not so far from what this gentleman is doing as story-teller, if you think about it. Still, the venue you present is different, the language and stance…an older accent. I love what you’ve shown us here, I also love how story-telling has morphed into the world of now. There is a little piece of me who might want to give it a try. Geezery old guy that I am. I might be able to write a short, short story, but could I tell it out loud with the same, or better, effect?
Also a question:
How is Seanchaí pronounced?
Rick: /’ʃænəxiː/ or /’ʃænəkiː/, i.e. “shan-uh-kee” but with a soft k like the ‘ch’ in loch. Stress on the first syllable or first + third. Hmm. Maybe I should add that to my post.
Thanks for the link, Lucy. It’s a very charming video. I wish I’d seen Kelly in the flesh.
Well in some ways, you can travel around Ireland and storytellers are everywhere, and I think there will always be people who didn’t become actors or musicians professionally, and so they’re still in the countryside, telling stories on the hoof. I mean, we’re all at it, constantly, you can’t shut us up. But acting for theatre and film and also standup comedy have taken a lot of this kind of talent from the fireside and onto the stage. I’m thinking of someone like Dylan Moran in particular.
This is wonderful, Lucy. Thank you.
There’s another vid on Stan’s post, Daryl. I saw a guy a bit like him in the Burren a few years ago. I was amazed to see that culture still alive.
And Rick, go for it. There is an incredible art to this stuff, an adventure of learning. Yes, Laurie Anderson is a great example of someone who has made oral storytelling her own.
“After shedding the tear for Parnell.”
I don’t know which pleases me better, the expression itself or the chuckle of recognition it generates.
Long memories you people have. I know. They go back way beyond Parnell’s times. But I’m hard-pressed to think of a comparable American expression that would still resonate with people.
Thanks, Lucy.
It’s true about the long memories. I think my grandfathers’ generations (there was a generation between them) really did hold very long memories indeed. We are lucky who listened to them. I love that line about Parnell too, really hadn’t heard it before, was probably the work of Kelly himself. I would really love to hear some topical radio shows about Parnell and Robert Emmet and people like that rather than the gombeen gobshites we have to hear about every day these days.
Whenever I hear the name Parnell I think of Joyce and Yeats. That seems right, in a classical way–that is, that poems and fictions would hold the felt effects of history much longer than would the dry tomes of analysis dedicated it.
Allusions such as “shedding a tear for Parnell” really strike a chord with me. I think that’s due in part to the long gaps between generations in my family. References to “starving Armenians” and “Calvin Coolidge’s son” would probably draw a blank even from Americans my age, but they formed part of my childhood.
Me, too, Daryl. Me, too. “Ivy Day in the Committee Room” and such.
Yes, literature and music hold the emotional truth of history in ways that only highly skilled historians can hope to remotely emulate. Oral tradition does a lot better than written history in keeping these memories alive, but song probably does it best of all.
Wonderful Christy Moore clip, Lucy. What a treasure he is.
yes, “Ivy Day in the Committee Room”.
what a great fucking collection that is. I may need to reread it soon.
Rick, I haven’t read through all the comments yet, so I don’t know if anyone has said it, but you should tell us a story on youtube, a la Amanda Mae.
I was just thinking I need to read Dubliners. I’ve had that thought a few times these past few weeks. Speaking of Christy, I used to sing this song every day for a while on the streets of Copenhagen. I fell in love hard with my country every time I sang it.
I love the stories. I grew up listening to them on front porches in the deep south, of course. I am drawn to them on You Tube now. I love Amanda’s. I wish everyone here would post them. I have a couple on video myself, now, but I don’t know how to transfer them yet. Just the audio of me telling a story, about going to the top of the Indian burial mound and another about the junebugs swarming in Hazel Green. My technology issues hamper me. But I will defeat them eventually.
The videocamera instrux insist something needs to be downloaded to the computer before I can transfer the video there. So I am pondering that.
Carole, what you need is the data cable that connects your camcorder to computer, it will have one USB end and the other end will fit into a little av output on your camcorder. Then once you’re plugged in, downloading should be fairly self-explanatory, you might have a bit of rooting around to do if you’re on a pc.
Carole has a wonderful voice. People would just love to listen to her tell stories.
Lucy, thank you, as always, for your help. This particular one claims there is some software that needs to be downloaded first before I transfer the video. I have that too, I think. I’m just staring at it all for a while. Trying to figure out how much it’s going to cost me to change the response of the teenage boy in the basement from, “I don’t know what you’re talking about” to “Sure, that’s easy.”
You are too kind, Shelia. I will if you will.
Gotta steal some stories first.
let’s make next Saturday video-storytelling Saturday. that will give everyone a week.
Oh I like this plan. Like Carole, I make clips but haven’t tackled the put-it-on-youtube process yet. I’ll have to dive in. My little camera saves the clips to an sd card, which I just take out and plug into the computer–and there it is. So I just have to see what matters of formatting youtube requires & so on. I think I’m really more interested in just posting audio, though.
May we tell non-anecdotes? I don’t mean, “I got home today and all’s they was in the icebox was a old can of Vienna sausage half-et” but open-ended accounts with ambiguous non-conclusions.
Lucy, speaking of Dubliners, have you seen John Huston’s film of The Dead? I bet you have, but if not, it’s one of the best adaptations of a short story to film I have even seen. Huston loved that story and it shows in the way he managed the film. [Now I'm quite sure we have all talked about this before! But I guess I'm all in again.]There’s one part in it that especially made me think of this post. Script writer Tony Huston added a character–Mr, Grace (played by Sean McClory) who at one point before dinner recites the eigth-century Middle Irish poem “Donal Óg.” It’s beautifully done; I looked about for a youtube clip of this bit of McClory’s performance but couldn’t find it.
Thank you, Stan, for the link to your wonderful post — and blog.
“Ah!” I said to myself. “As: Shanachie Records!” All these years I’ve known of them and bought recordings by Shanachie artists, and never did I know the significance of the name.
I have learned much today.
Deron, if you’ll film me next weekend, I have several stories I’d like to tell.
consider it done.
Hurrah!
Deron and Cindy? If I may be so bold. I would love to see/hear Cindy’s presentation of How to be a Mexican, that I thought Deron was capturing on video at Cfs2. God, Cindy, I feel I almost remember every word. I remember wiping tears off my face.
Deron? If you would grant me a pass for accomplishing this gauntlet thrown down, I would rather spend the week finishing the gauntlet I threw down to myself a few weeks ago. To finish this thing I’ve been working on, in fits and starts, from Cfs2.
If I can do it, and get permissions from those en scène, I will post it up on Saturday. I feel like I almost have it. Still, there are abberations in timing and rhythm that could be better. I only hope I have the stamina.
I’m reminded of some clip from a show, where Sydney Pollack was telling of talking on set to Kubrick, during the filming of “Eyes Wide Shut.” Pollack (actor in this film, director in many others) asked Kubrick, something like, “How many takes do you intend to do of this scene?” (In the movie, the scene in question, is not pivotal to the movie.) Kubrick replied, something like. “As many as it takes, you want it to be right, don’t you?”
Even if I finish it, it will be light-years back from all those mentioned above. You’ll have to take what you get.
Oh, Rick, you dear man. Deron and I talked about posting my little presentation from clusterflockstock, but I prefer leaving it to our memories. Some things, I think, are better experienced in the moment.
Please, though, do finish the piece you are working on. We are all eager to embrace it, just as we embrace you.
Wouldn’t the topic be what moves you at the moment? I mean, no specific entry rules or content. Because that is the fun of it, in my thinking.
Sheila: You’re very welcome, and thank you for your visit and kind words.
I’m with Carole. I think if we get too hung up on the ‘performative’ aspects of the thing and the ‘craft of storytelling’, Saturday will roll round and we’ll all just stay in bed. Let’s tell about something and have fun.
Run and tell that!
yeah, just tell something. after you hide the kids, your wife.
and we’ve got all week to do it, so just post on saturday.
I’m in.
I would have spelt this “The Tayman” – “tay” was the usual pronunciation of “tea” in Britain and Ireland both up to at least the end of the 18th century, as preserved in “Polly Put the Kettle On” – “we’ll all have tea(tay)/Sookie take it off again, they’ve all gone away.”
Hi Terry, yes ‘tay’ and ‘tae’ are actually pronounced the same way, and ‘tae’ is the Gaelic for ‘tea’. I don’t believe there are any ys in Irish Gaelic, as far as I know.