Comments on: Newcastle 0 – 0 Bolton, As Reported by W.B. Yeats

By: Benderinho

Benderinho — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 02:04:37 +0000

@SpanglyPrincess hah! your first line slew me. I may have to trot it out on the odd occasion I "lose my shit" after a loss.

By: SpanglyPrincess

SpanglyPrincess — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:38:55 +0000

look, what’s so great about losing that anyone should have to be good at it?

um. sorry. *deep breaths*

so, Yeats, absolutely. Marvellous stuff, really. A delight. I remember “doing” this poem at A-level, and that after prolonged study my desk-mate remained utterly baffled (he was, irrelevently, a Plymouth Argyle fan) if only I’d have been able to tell him that it was about Kevin Keegan then all would have been well (he would have known that any effort to understand the nexus of mystery that is Keegan, K., is inherently doomed to failure).

By: Erinti

Erinti — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:13:12 +0000

I’m hearing it was a manual shove sadly mischaracterized as a headbutt. (Not that such details are all _that_ important in the grand scheme of things, and I’m sorry to spoil any Zidane jokes anyone was thinking of making, but still.)

(On an unrelated note, this post was worth the price of admission for the mental imagery alone of Zombie Yeats heaved out of his grave to do commentary on Premier League matches. In cryptic verse laden with apocalyptic imagery. Dammit, now I want Zombie Yeats commentary with the next match I watch. Or maybe Zombie Seferis or Zombie Cavafy, considering what and where said match is likely to be.)

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:01:27 +0000

Wait --- apparently Adebayor head-butted Bendtner? This did not appear in the broadcast I saw of the match. Tottenham fans will be sure to enjoy The Game's coverage of the question "Are Arsenal the worst losers in sport?"

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:08:02 +0000

What a match for Tottenham! And it’s been a long time since I saw Arsenal look so clueless. I even thought there was going to be a fight between Gallas and Bendtner at the end.

For tonight I think the poem would read:

Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon French curse words so terrible that you almost just couldn’t believe them

By: ursus arctos

ursus arctos — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:29:18 +0000

Especially after his kids get tonked by Tottenham.

Allow us an hour or two of gloating, sir.

It has been some time.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:56:08 +0000

Lance, that’s brilliant, and I think the idea could even extend beyond Kevin Keegan. “Long-Legged Fly” could clearly support a new stanza or two about Arsène Wenger.

Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.

By: Lance Knobel

Lance Knobel — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:06:09 +0000

I was more struck by the pairing of “Kevin Keegan” and “avant garde” in the tags. Must be a first, I thought. But a Google search for the two terms reveals 797 results.

Your Yeats idea might be contagious. These lines from “O Do Not Love Too Long” seem apposite for Keegan and Newcastle:

O do not love too long,
Or you will grow out of fashion
Like an old song.

By: Brian

Brian — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:49:42 +0000

Roswitha, I don’t think Yeats is middlebrow, either, not at all—that tag’s just my general title for any post with verse lineation. In fact I feel toward anyone who calls Yeats middlebrow roughly as the decidedly middlebrow Dorothy Parker felt toward people who were hostile to Dickens:

Who call him spurious and shoddy
Shall do it o’er my lifeless body.
I heartily invite such birds
To come outside and say those words!

Glad you enjoyed the annotations. The whole thing lined up so well in a Dark Side of the Moon/Wizard of Oz sense that it almost made me believe in Yeats’s own prophetic opinion of himself.

By: roswitha

roswitha — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:25:36 +0000

Shamefully, I don’t think Yeats is middlebrow at all. But it is undeniable that this critical edition of it improves upon the un-annotated text beyond all imagination. Respect.