This post is for MiguelCardoso

October 9, 2005 3:34 PM

What poetry should I read while drinking what whiskey?
posted by kenko (42 comments total)

Doesn't this belong in AxeMe?

ToddLokken
posted by mzurer at 3:53 PM on October 9, 2005

most boring fpp ever. (for me)
posted by lemonfridge at 3:59 PM on October 9, 2005

You don't find it all rather arbitrary and, in that respect, funny, then?
posted by kenko at 4:05 PM on October 9, 2005

Wait, wait! I think I know this one ... wasn't it an SAT question a few years back?
posted by rob511 at 4:13 PM on October 9, 2005

You're drunk right now, aren't you?
posted by basicchannel at 4:14 PM on October 9, 2005

I don't think I've ever been drunk enough to care about this. I tried imagining it being spouted off by a smarmy graduate student trying to pick up some undergrads, but it didn't help.
posted by allen.spaulding at 4:18 PM on October 9, 2005

If'n y'be not a-readin' Robert Burns, y'be a wee git!
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:21 PM on October 9, 2005 [1 favorite]

Haters be damned, I liked it.
posted by cali at 4:41 PM on October 9, 2005

I enjoyed it, however I'd rather know what rum to drink. Who am I kidding...ARRRRR matey.
posted by evilelvis at 4:45 PM on October 9, 2005

Irreverent posts save lives. Poo-pooers be damned.
posted by uni verse at 4:47 PM on October 9, 2005

where's Bukowski?
posted by Satapher at 5:06 PM on October 9, 2005

I'm glad I clicked the link...it reminded me that I've been meaning to renew my acquaintance with rye whiskey.
posted by alumshubby at 5:10 PM on October 9, 2005

Let's go to the source and have some black tiger with li po.
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:14 PM on October 9, 2005

just read the label on the bottle, always works for me
posted by InternZ at 5:27 PM on October 9, 2005

If anything could flush out Miguel, it would be a post about whiskey and poetry.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 5:33 PM on October 9, 2005

If'n y'be not a-readin' Robert Burns, y'be a wee git!

Well, if reading Robbie Burns, be sure to be drinking "whisky" and not "whiskey."
posted by ericb at 6:02 PM on October 9, 2005

Gie him strong drink until he wink,
That's sinking in despair;
An' liquor guid to fire his bluid,
That's prest wi' grief and care:
There let him bouse, an' deep carouse,
Wi' bumpers flowing o'er,
Till he forgets his loves or debts,
An' minds his griefs no more.
posted by gwint at 6:05 PM on October 9, 2005

The whiskey should be at least half as old as you and the poems you read should be your own, to a woman you fancy.
posted by Mr T at 6:09 PM on October 9, 2005

No no no. We must save the poo-pooers.
posted by .kobayashi. at 6:15 PM on October 9, 2005

Robert Service works for me.
posted by faceonmars at 6:20 PM on October 9, 2005

where's Bukowski?

Or Dylan Thomas?
posted by Vidiot at 6:31 PM on October 9, 2005

the poems you read should be your own

God no. I've sat through one too many of those dates, and I'm too old to pretend any more. The poems are never as good as she says they are. My strategy was to find one small specific thing to praise: "I liked the way you handled the windfall apple image - apples have so much symbolic weight." He hears you praising, you hear the one true thing you can say without crushing any spirit.

Maybe your poems are good, I don't know. But when I hear someone say they write poetry these days, I want to run.
posted by Miko at 6:57 PM on October 9, 2005

Robert Service works for me.

Ballads of a Bohemian or The Spell of the Yukon?
posted by The White Hat at 7:09 PM on October 9, 2005

Thank you for this post. You've found a way for me combine the two favorite activities of me and my spouse.
posted by about_time at 8:04 PM on October 9, 2005

What DVD commentary track should I listen to while drinking what gin?
posted by The Monkey at 8:21 PM on October 9, 2005

I miss Miguel.
posted by gd779 at 8:55 PM on October 9, 2005

me too--i hope he's ok.
posted by amberglow at 9:37 PM on October 9, 2005

I hear he's just taking time off to do actual work.
posted by kenko at 9:46 PM on October 9, 2005

I get home in the morning, have two shots of Jack Daniel's and a beer (if available), and promptly nod off. Poetry hadn't crossed my mind, although several "inspired" blog rants have.
posted by deusdiabolus at 9:49 PM on October 9, 2005

A.E. Housman said "Malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man." I like to think he was talking about Lagavulin.
posted by WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot at 10:25 PM on October 9, 2005

I chose my favorite bourbon and promptly found a poem that was oddly relevant to my current situation. And a good poem to boot.

Fuck 'em what don't get it! Did me right.
posted by DrAwkward at 10:27 PM on October 9, 2005

A.E. Housman said "Malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man." I like to think he was talking about Lagavulin.

In context:

Why, if 'tis dancing you would be,
There's brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world's not.

Your analysis seems a touch off the mark.
posted by kenko at 10:46 PM on October 9, 2005

Give me women, wine, and snuff
Untill I cry out "hold, enough!"
You may do so sans objection
Till the day of resurrection:
For, bless my beard, they aye shall be
My beloved Trinity.

Keats
posted by HSWilson at 12:16 AM on October 10, 2005

Drinking whisky is its own reward:

Little nose prickle, and surprisingly low intensity of (straight) aroma. Little discernable smoke to start. Generally quite closed. Some cognac and cooking chocolate and an interesting scent of clover flowers ... Cover continues when water is added, with some plastic buckets. The smokiness manifests itself only as light Lapsang Suchong tea ... The primary taste starts sweet (nougat) and finishes darkly smoky (coal smoke). The flavour immediately gives away the whisky's provenance.

Now THAT'S poetry.
posted by lagavulin at 12:29 AM on October 10, 2005

I always thought Housman was writing about Bass ale.
posted by alumshubby at 4:55 AM on October 10, 2005

To add another goofy comment to a goofy thread spawned by a goofy post, I hate it that Heaven Hill bought Pikesville Rye, my whiskey of choice as a young troll in Bawlmore: the upshot is that now they make the stuff just down the road in Bardstown but I'd have to travel clear across 2.5 states to buy it. The Jim Beam and Wild Turkey ryes are a tad too harsh, Old Overholt is only $10 a bottle but you can't find it too easily, and the elite stuff from Van Winkle (found only at select spirits emporia) is really good but it's $30 a bottle. I did see an actual bottle of Rittenhouse for the first time about a month ago, but at a liquor store clear across town on a day when I was too broke to pay ten bucks for anything; maybe someday before it gets too damn old to stand around forever waiting for buses I'll go get some just to see what it's like. (At least Louisville's tap water is okay.)
posted by davy at 7:10 AM on October 10, 2005

OT, but what the Hell...

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away--
Half a crate of whisky every day.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle.
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And René Descartes was a drunken fart.
'I drink, therefore I am.'
Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker,
But a bugger when he's pissed.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 8:15 AM on October 10, 2005

(Un)Maker's Mark: Psalm 23 (i.e., Yea, though I walk throught the shadow of the valley of death I will fear no evil)

Heh. Wholly appropriate.

(Especially the day after....)
posted by Skygazer at 9:42 AM on October 10, 2005

Six poems that changed the world.
posted by kozad at 10:02 AM on October 10, 2005

Jim Beam for Ozymandias? Surely not.
posted by clockzero at 11:21 AM on October 10, 2005

No intoxicants necessary to enjoy this.
posted by spock at 11:34 AM on October 10, 2005

Fighting Cock and Shel Silverstein.
posted by Pollomacho at 8:21 AM on October 11, 2005