Nov

Have You a Party Piece?

by Joyce McGreevy on November 14, 2016

Kiaran O'Donnell and Rick Chelew play guitar at a small gathering, carrying on the Irish tradition of the party piece, sharing songs, stories, and poems. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Sharing our gifts turns strangers into friends; Kiaran O’Donnell and Rick Chelew had just met.
© Joyce McGreevy

What an Irish Tradition
Can Teach Us Today

It was known as the party piece, a “bit of an auld song” or spoken word. Would we have called it an Irish tradition? Probably not. As students in Galway, sharing songs, stories, and poems was just something we did on Saturday nights.

But the tradition goes back centuries, notes Irish historian P.W. Joyce. Ancient Irish sagas depict hospitality to travelers as a social virtue, and guests reciprocated with music or spoken word. “Like the Homeric Greeks, the Irish were excessively fond of hearing tales and poetry recited . . . Every intelligent person was expected to know a reasonable number.”

Thus it continued, into my “ancient” college days. Go on now, give us your party piece, friends would say as we lingered after one-burner suppers served on coffee tables. “Mountains of Mourne” was a favorite.

Musicians at a jam session in pub in Galway, Ireland reflect the Irish tradition of the party piece, sharing songs, stories, and poems. (Image by Damián Bakarcic)

If you visit Ireland, bring along a song or a story to share.
“Jam Session in Galway Pub, Ireland” by Damián Bakarcic, CC-BY-NC-4.0

A Poem

Reciting a poem went over well, too. Back then, practically everyone I knew, student or not, had a few verses filed away in the old memory bank. Had I the heavens embroidered cloths . . .

It wasn’t like you hunkered down at a desk to memorize them, mind. You’d simply hear something and if it touched a chord, you’d hold onto it, the way a magpie works shiny foil into its bower.

Hikers on a scenic road in Ireland become a metaphor for the Irish tradition of sharing stories, songs, and poems. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Life’s rockiest road is navigable when we share it in stories, songs, and poems.
© Joyce McGreevy

A Story

Some party pieces were stories. The best were scraps of real experience that had been well embellished. Lace-edged in mystery. Beribboned with bright hyperbole. The beadwork of everyday dialogue polished into priceless gems with every retelling.

Oh, you could cut yourself on that wit, someone would say. It’s the way he tells ’em, someone would chime in.

Three women taking tea and trading stories at Glebe Gardens Café, Co. Cork, reflect the Irish tradition of the party piece, sharing stories, songs, and poems. (Image © Rick Chelew)

Sharing anecdotes and laughter at Glebe Gardens Café, Co. Cork.
© Rick Chelew

A Moment

Here’s what a party piece was not about: Narcissism.

Your moment would not go viral. The technology that transformed selves into selfies was still decades away. We didn’t take photos or make recordings.

As student renters, we didn’t even have landline telephones.

Yet we always knew where the gatherings were. The “sociable” network functioned by way of knocks at the door, the tea kettle kept at the ready for impromptu visits and invitations.

A decorative teapot in Galway, Ireland symbolizes the Irish tradition of the party piece, sharing songs, stories, and poems. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

A few cups of tea can flower into a gathering.
© Joyce McGreevy

A Welcome

Meanwhile, back at the party, a newcomer from the States might hesitate on being asked to sing.

Sure, it doesn’t matter if you’ve a voice like an old crow, someone would tell her. We’ll all join in, another might add encouragingly.

Oh, I see: Sharing a party piece wasn’t about competing to see who was the most talented. It was about willingness to participate, to add some ingredient of your own to the stone soup of the evening.

A "face in the crowd" in Dublin, Ireland and a gift-wrapped building evoke the need for the Irish tradition of the party piece, sharing songs, stories, and poems. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Sharing the gift of our experience creates connection.
© Joyce McGreevy

A Joy

So when someone began to sing “My Lagan Love” or “Bye, Bye, Blackbird,” it didn’t matter a whit if there was more rasp than lilt. The melody came through clearly via memories the singer stirred in us.

The greater joy was in being there together, none of us ready yet to call it a night.

A glowing fireplace in Dublin, Ireland sets the scene for the Irish tradition of the party piece, sharing songs, stories, and poems. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

A cozy fireplace in Dublin sets the scene for music and storytelling.
© Joyce McGreevy

Your Presence Is Requested

Today, even amid the multi-modal distractions that are as ubiquitous in Ireland as everywhere else on the planet, the Irish tradition of the party piece lives on.

A lot of the sharing now finds its way online. But at heart it’s still about presence—passing the tokens of our shared humanity from person to person.

Not fame. Not showing off. Not monetizing an experience. But about giving whatever you’ve got and showing up to honor what others give, too, be it heartfelt or hilarious, wise or whimsical.

A dog eyeing treats in a Dublin parlor evokes the Irish tradition of the party piece, sharing songs, stories, and poems, including shaggy dog stories. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

A shaggy dog story makes a great party piece.
© Joyce McGreevy

A Wish

So here is my wish for you: One evening may you find yourself in a home where musical instruments are as much a part of the furnishings as crockery and sofa cushions. May there be apple tart and good company.

A homemade apple tart in Galway goes well with the Irish tradition of the party piece, sharing songs, stories, and poems. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Our gifts are sweetest when they are shared.
© Joyce McGreevy

At some point, the piano or fiddle will sound, and the concertina and tin whistle will come out of their cases. But nobody’s forming a band, only forging a bond.

The tales begin telling themselves. The poems, memories, and songs emerge, like shy ponies crossing a field.

Two friendly Irish horses symbolize subtle aspects of the Irish tradition of the party piece, sharing songs, stories, and poems. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

They have come gladly out of the willows/To welcome my friend and me…
From James Wright’s poem “A Blessing”
© Joyce McGreevy

Somebody volunteers a song about love, by turns joyful and poignant. When they falter—whether from forgetting the words, or remembering the past—a neighboring singer takes up the thread.

Kieran O'Donnell and Rick Chelew play guitar together, carrying on the Irish tradition of sharing songs, stories, and poems. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Our individual songs, stories, and poems share a common chord.
© Joyce McGreevy

A Gathering

The song goes around and around, until every voice has been gathered in. There’s room for everyone.

Call it an Irish tradition, though we were never so formal as all that. We were just doing our party pieces. Finding our human commonalities by sharing songs, stories, and poems. What party piece might you share when next you gather with family, friends, and friends-to-be?

Read the cited poems in their entirety here and here.

Comment on this post below.

Joyce McGreevy 13 Comments

Cultural Heritage & Traditions/Ireland/Language & Culture

Oct

Aha Moment: Halloween!

by Joyce McGreevy on October 31, 2016

A 19th century, bat-themed French Halloween costume offers an aha moment about Halloween around the world.

In 19th century France, Madame goes batty for Halloween.

Goblin Day Goes Global

What’s as changeable as a costume shop and has more frequent flyer miles than a witch’s broom? Halloween, of course.

An ancient tradition that’s as new as this season’s marketing trends, the popularity of Halloween around the world is soaring. An agile shapeshifter, it both adapts to and changes the way cultures celebrate.

A vintage ghost-themed Halloween sign offers an aha moment just right for Halloween around the world.

Halloween’s treats can be tricky!

But just when you think you’ve captured the essence of Halloween—solemn, scary, crass, or silly—it surprises you. Read on for an aha moment or two on global Halloween trends, tricks, and treats:

1. Even the “re-branding” of Halloween is ancient.

“There’s a popular misconception that Halloween is a modern American invention. Not so,” says Irish educator Brendan Smith. Its roots are firmly in Celtic culture.

But, adds Smith, modern Americans were hardly the first to “re-brand the festival. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church created the Christian festival of All Hallows’ Eve or All Souls’ Day, when people were asked to remember and pray for their dead family members. This event was superimposed onto the pagan Celtic festival of Samhain.”

Actors from Macnas performing in Galway, Ireland trigger an aha moment about Samhain, which led to Halloween around the world. (Image © by Darach Glennon)

Wild spectacle by theatre group Macnas is a Halloween tradition in Galway, Ireland.
© Darach Glennon/ Darachphotography

2. The first jack-o’-lanterns weren’t pumpkins.

Pumpkins are native to the Americas. So what preceded them in Halloween’s early days? To find out, let’s summon up the ghost of English folklorist Jabez Allies, who died in 1856:

“In my juvenile days I remember to have seen peasant boys . . . hollowing out a turnip, and cutting eyes, nose, and mouth therein, in the true moon-like style; and having lighted it up by inserting the stump of a candle, they used to place it upon a hedge to frighten unwary travelers in the night.”

Sugar beet lanterns carved into Jack-o'-lanterns in Germany trigger an aha moment about the diversity of Halloween around the world. (Image by Niklas Morberg)

German jack-o’-lanterns follow their own beet.
“Sugar beet lanterns” by Niklas Morberg (Flickr) CC-BY-NC-2.0

Tall tales also describe how an Irishman named Jack devised such a method to find his way back from Hell. (We won’t ask how he got there.) Hence, the jack-o’-lantern.

3. It’s the most hygge-ful time of the year.

As Halloween spreads around the world, each culture has put its unique stamp on it. Japan has had a love-hate relationship with Halloween. Romania plays up its Transylvanian tourism at Halloween.

In Denmark, the holiday drew little notice until 1998 when a local tabloid advertised Halloween-themed events. Today, Halloween is popular, and the Danish version is all about hygge. Loosely translated, that means “coziness.” Think candlelight, baked goods, and hot chocolate.

Carving pumpkins as a family has become so popular in Denmark that sales of pumpkins soared from 15,000 in 2001 to over 800,000 in 2015.

A little girl with Halloween pumpkins at a produce market in Copenhagen, Denmark exemplifies an aha moment about Halloween around the world. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

In Copenhagen, Denmark, a child picks a seasonal perch beside Halloween pumpkins.
© Joyce McGreevy

4. Halloween’s got a global theme song.

In 1962, there was “Monster Mash,” a novelty song that became #1 on America’s Billboard Top 100. It got banned by the BBC as “too morbid.”

Flash forward to November 14, 1983 and the premiere of a 14-minute music video: Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Since then, as the Web went public and flash mob videos proliferated, “Thriller” has had a major impact on how we celebrate Halloween around the world.

Louisiana revelers create an exciting aha moment at the Halloween Zombie Walk in Shreveport, an example of Halloween around the world. (Image by Shreveport-Bossier Convention & Tourist Bureau)

In Louisiana, the Halloween Zombie Walk is a no-brainer for ghoulish fun.
Shreveport-Bossier Convention & Tourist Bureau licensed under CC BY 2.0

From Tulsa, Oklahoma to Torrevieja, Spain; Derry, Northern Ireland to Wellington, New Zealand—even a BBC news room in London and a retirement community in Elk Grove, California—dressing up for zombie dance-offs has become a global Halloween tradition.

A 13,000-strong "Thriller" flash mob in Mexico City triggers an aha moment about Halloween around the world.

In Mexico City, a flash mob of 13,000 “zombies” dances to “Thriller.”

5. Halloween’s greatest superheroes are your neighbors.

On Halloween 1950, milk cartons labeled Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF gave kids the (super)power to make the world a better place.

It began as a coin drive to help kids affected by World War II. Today, young trick-or-treaters collect donations to help children in areas impacted by poverty, war, or natural disaster.

Meanwhile, a growing number of communities are marking Halloween by scaring away hunger. Across Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., Halloween food drives have become increasingly popular events.

Whether this will counter another Halloween trend—the annual spending of $350 million by U.S. pet owners on costumes for animals—remains to be seen. But it’s a move in the right direction.

A White House cat in costume circa 2007 sparks an aha moment about Halloween around the world.

A White House cat is disenchanted by its wizard costume.

My aha moment? Halloween around the world is all about contradiction—our very human impulses to get and to give, to uphold traditions and to reinvent them, to dress up as make-believe monsters and to save humanity from real-world horrors. Oh, I see: The actual magic hides somewhere in between.

A Macnas street performer and costumed girl share an "aha moment" in Ireland, likely birthplace of Halloween around the world. (Image © Darach Glennon/ Darachphotography)

At Halloween, barriers between mortal and mythic worlds melt away.
© Darach Glennon/ Darachphotography

See last night’s frightfully fun Macnas Halloween Parade in Galway, Ireland here!

Learn more about Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF or find your local food bank here.

Learn Halloween greetings in Irish, American Sign Language, and other languages.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Joyce McGreevy 1 Comment

Cultural Heritage & Traditions/Worldwide Sites

Oct

Discoveries: Serenity in Cities

by Joyce McGreevy on October 10, 2016

The Culture of Urban Quiet

Marit Krogh's "Seated Girl with Headphones" in Oslo, Norway exemplifies the potential discoveries in urban peace and quiet (© Joyce McGreevy)

In Oslo, Norway, Marit Krogh’s “Seated Girl with Headphones” evokes sound and silence.
© Joyce McGreevy

Ah, the quest for urban tranquility. “No man should live where he can hear his neighbor’s dog bark.” That’s how ardent ruralist Nathaniel Macon admonished city dwellers.

Macon was born in the 1750s, when 3 percent of the world’s population lived in cities. He also said those words while active in what some consider a major source of annoying noise, the U.S. Congress.

A sign for Quiet Street in Bath, England is one of the more whimsical discoveries in the quest for urban peace and quiet (© Joyce McGreevy)

Today 54% of the world’s population lives in cities. The noises that can drive us barking mad range far beyond barking dogs.

“Noise is not just irritating,” reports Graeme Shannon, a lecturer at Bangor University. “It can have direct human health impacts.” In fact, the World Health Organization has recognized annoying noise in the environment as harmful pollution.

Happily, you can find urban peace and quiet in cities around the world. Here are some favorites.

Close to the Madding Crowd

Siobhan Wall doesn’t recall the moment she decided to write a book about finding urban peace and quiet. As a Londoner living on a main road, she began seeking out places where one could escape environmental cacophony.

The results became Quiet London (Frances Lincoln, 2011), a guide filled with surprises. Along with rooftop gardens, cloistered cafés, and libraries designed for lingering, there are also shops and pubs, places where conversation needn’t compete with blaring sound systems.

Cherry blossoms on a London garden path reflect the nature discoveries to be made in urban peace and quiet. (© Joyce McGreevy)

Wall’s revelatory guide soon inspired a series. Check it out to find the hush in New York, Paris, and Amsterdam.

Nature in the Nation’s Capital

From boisterous Naples to nonstop Hong Kong, Bonnie Bracey Sutton knows her way around the world’s liveliest cities. A thought leader in education, Sutton travels the globe to advocate equitable access for students in science and technology. On returning to the nation’s capital, she finds urban tranquility even during rush hour.

“Most of my quiet places are National Parks. I love the serenity of the Great Falls Park and hidden Theodore Roosevelt Island.”

Theodore Roosevelt Island in Washington, DC offers nature's discoveries to seekers of urban peace and quiet. (Public domain)

Rush hour on Roosevelt Island.

The latter is part of Washington, DC. In the 1930s, landscape architects transformed 88 acres of neglected farmland into Theodore Roosevelt Island by “mimicking” the natural forest that had once covered the island. It’s one of several national parks located in or near city boundaries.

Musing in Museums

Also in DC, Quinnie Lin finds respite in museums. Lin works in international anti-corruption law. When she needs a break from urban noise, she finds it in the atrium of the National Portrait Gallery.

The atrium of the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC is one of the surprising discoveries for seekers of urban peace and quiet. (Image by Benoit Richon)

Escape the Beltway buzz at the National Portrait Gallery.
Image by Benoit Richon licensed under CC BY 4.0

“It’s large and public, but there is a calming grace about the way in which light comes in through the skylights. Everyone is in their own world, whether it’s quietly chatting with friends, people writing in their journals and even meetup groups discussing philosophy.”

Nordic Noise Reduction
Retreating to museums for urban peace and quiet is also popular in bustling Oslo. The Nasjonalgalleriet keeps urban Norwegians in touch with their friluftsliv, or passion for nature.

Museum goers in Norway's National Gallery enjoy artistic discoveries amid urban peace and quiet. (© Joyce McGreevy)

In Malmö, Sweden quiet places are part of the urban fabric. With office overtime frowned upon in many Scandinavian cities, there’s time after work to take a kayak out on the river or stroll through Kungsparken, King’s Park.

Kayakers in Malmö, Sweden savor discoveries in moments of urban peace and quiet. (© Joyce McGreevy)

In Danish cities, the whoosh of bike wheels replaces auto traffic noise. And with so many urban parks, you can always cycle things down a notch.

A bicyclist in a park in Copenhagen, Denmark appreciates the discoveries inherent in urban peace and quiet. (© Joyce McGreevy)

Not So Loud L.A.
Life in Los Angeles is hectic for Deb Hiett. She’s been a reporter in “Veep,” a witness in “Documentary Now!,” a dancer in “Arrested Development,” a flight attendant in “The Office,” and dozens of other characters in hit television series. Her latest play, “The Super Variety Match Bonus Round!” opens soon at Rogue Machine Theatre.

So where does an in-demand comedienne and playwright take a break from Hollywood drama?

Brand Park is an oasis of peace and charm in L.A.

“If I’m on the east side of town, I love to visit Brand Park in Glendale. These thirty-one acres at the foot of the Verdugo Mountains have trails, play areas, a tea house, and a lovely quiet library.”

Brand Library was once Leslie C. Brand’s home, Miradero, “a high place overlooking a wide view.”

The library was originally built as a private home by architect Nathaniel Dryden, Hiett explains. Built in 1904, it was inspired by the East Indian Pavilion of the 1893 Columbian World Exposition in Chicago.

“It now hosts interactive presentations by LA Opera, and art installations by various artists and photographers. Just walking around the grounds is contemplative and calming.”

The Sound of Urban Tranquility
The opposite of annoying noise isn’t silence. It’s a level of sound that allows us to form thoughts or willingly let thoughts drift away. Oh, I see: Finding quiet places in the heart of cities actually restores our joy in listening.

There’s even a song for that. Can you guess?

Aaron Copland’s “Quiet City.”

Where’s your city? How do you find urban peace and quiet?

A detail from Marit Krogh's "Seated Girl with Headphones" in Oslo, Norway reflect inner discoveries and urban peace and quiet (© Joyce McGreevy)

Discover Deb Hiett’s highly creative range here.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Joyce McGreevy 1 Comment

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Have You a Party Piece?