Quote(s) of this Rum and Coke Friday

My favorite aspect of TFI Friday is that it rolls on reliably once every 7 days. By now, in Scotland, DJ Phil already has them in hysterics. In London, Cooper's table at Motion or Tiger is most definitely primed and full of pitchers. In Italy, Sweden, and France, some of the most beautiful friends are just celebrating the end of another work week. I hope that the 2 pound all you can drink is on tonight at New College, with Mr. Ulyatt presiding.

Here in humble Halifax, the celebrations continue - Highland Park 18, Macallan 18, Johnny Blue, and (so happily) the old standby Talisker stand admirably against all comers. Majestic. Someone should market the smell of the Lagavulin Distillers Edition as a perfume.

Since it's well into the 2 day bender, 2 Friday quotes, from 2 of my favorites. The first one is for Shari, random blogger of similar affinities. The other for CG, fellow travel binger extraordinaire. Sentiments of both, and Goodspeed, to BNS, PJK, and arms as they descend on Bo-town this weekend. Thirsty scholars no longer.


1. I could a done a lot worse than sit
In Skid Row drinkin wine

To know that nothing matters after all
To know there's no real difference
between the rich and the poor
To know that eternity is neither drunk
nor sober, to know it young
and be a poet

Coulda gone into business and ranted
And believed that God was concerned

Instead I squatted in lonesome alleys
And nobody saw me, just my bottle
and what they saw of it was empty

And I did it in cornfields & graveyards

To know that the dead don't make noise
To know that the cornstalks talk (among
one another with raspy old arms)

Sittin in alleys diggin the neons
And watching cathedral custodians
Wring out their rags neath the church steps

Sittin and drinkin wine
And in railyards being divine

To be a millionaire & yet to prefer
Curlin up with a poorboy of tokay
In a warehouse door, facing long sunsets
On railroad fields of grass

To know that the sleepers in the river
are dreaming vain dreams, to squat
in the night and know it well

To be dark solitary eye-nerve watcher
of the world's whirling diamond.

- Jack Kerouac (of course)



2. Look 'round thee now on Samarcand,
Is she not queen of earth? her pride
Above all cities? in her hand
Their destinies?

-Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49)