Just the green wave going by

[sovay]

"Does anyone still celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day?" I wondered, before it occurred to me that I could just ask the internet and discover the answer was yes. In keeping with my haphazard observance of the holiday, have an admiring gifset of Robert Newton heroically impersonating a wrecker in Jamaica Inn (1939) and Gordon Bok, Ann Mayo Muir, and Ed Trickett on "Soon May the Wellerman Come," which is neither a pirate song nor even a chantey, it's a tall tale of a shore-whalers' song from New Zealand, but I was immensely entertained when it took the quarantine internet by storm. I was listening to it along with the rest of its album last week.

I dreamed of a polite conversation with a stranger who was surprised in a slightly skeptical way to hear that I had been writing and publishing short fiction and poetry for more than twenty years, which I suppose suggests my state of mind regarding what no longer feels like it passes for my writing career. I am reminding myself that I have some sort of (multiply tested as such) miserable cold and may be concomitantly low in spirits and should take a walk or something while it's this autumnally bright. I bet it isn't helping that my college reunion for which I did not RSVP because I was too sick to know whether I had any chance of attending is coming up.

Comments

[asakiyume]

Just prior to discovering this entry, I saw a post from the UMass library, commemorating talk-like-a-pirate day. Very good, me hearties, very good.

Thank you for reminding me of "Soon May the Wellerman Come." MY HEART, we do find joy in the darkest times.

When I first joined the internet, one of the earliest things I felt was awe for this person named Sonya Taaffe. That feeling is alive and strong. (You can borrow it if your own strength is flagging.)

[ride_4ever]

Yes re: the celebration of "Talk Like a Pirate Day". We observe it every year at the library where I work, talking like pirates and also dressing like pirates.

*sends healthiness-energy against your miserable cold*

[gwynnega]

Now I'm imagining that the stranger in your dream whips off their disguise to reveal Tiny Wittgenstein.

I am sorry you have a cold!

Bok Muir Trickett

[lauradi7dw]

Holy cow, that's a blast from the past. I'm glad they're all alive and still in fine voice. And that the Folk Legacy label still exists, more or less.

Be careful with your cold. Arthur had what seemed to be a cold and has turned out to be "walking" pneumonia.

[sholio]

Oh no, a cold on top of everything is absolutely NOT what you need! I hope it passes quickly.

I'm pleased and fascinated that Talk Like a Pirate Day is still going on. It feels like a relic of a different internet era.

[kenjari]

I was very proud of myself for slipping in a subtle talk like a pirate reference during the library instruction session I taught today.

[alexxkay]

I've probably plugged this before, but both my memory and google are failing me. So, just to be sure...

I cannot let mention of Robert Newton and Talk Like a Pirate Day go by without mentioning my very favorite screen adaptation of Treasure Island, from 1990. It has, of all people, Charlton Heston as Long John Silver, and he is *brilliant*.

"Talking like a pirate" is almost entirely talking like Stevenson's Long John Silver. Like Hamlet, the character suffers from having his dialogue so imitated that the original is now effectively "made of cliches". This particular adaptation is very faithful, so Heston has to overcome that problem. Astonishingly, he *does*, and his delivery is perfectly naturalistic.

The film has many other fine virtues (Oliver Reed! Christopher Lee! The Chieftains!), and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

[mrissa]

Last night's insight, which I consider to be in honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, and which I have posted this morning on Bluesky, is that we ought to have Jane Lynch as the Pirate King in a production of Penzance, I think we deserve it, we've all been through so much.

[adore]

In honour of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, I would like to humbly present, from my archives, this.

[moon_custafer]

I posted a few clips on Tumblr for Talk Like Robert Newton Day, including: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ4kfL-gi2o

I also found this non-piratical Robert Newton fancam somebody made: https://www.tumblr.com/thekingofhell/704398549195128832/this-forever-lives-rent-free-in-my-head?source=share