Flann O'Brien

And there's no bad publicity except an obituary, which actually carries a real tragedy when you think about it.

And then when you think about Flann O'Brien or Miles Nogopoli and Brendan Behan, Paddy Cavendish, supposedly standing outside near his pub in Dublin in the rain, waiting for the doors to open.

After Holy Hour, as it existed then in the afternoon, and Behan apparently turned to the other two and says, the problem with Dublin these days is that there are just no characters.

Hello and welcome to What Were We Like with me, Dermot Ferreter.

I only drink on two occasions, when I'm thirsty and when I'm not, you know.

And there's no bad publicity except an obituary, which actually carries a real tragedy when you think about it.

And then when you think about Flann O'Brien or Miles Nogopoline, Brendan Behan, Paddy Cavendish, supposedly standing outside near his pub in Dublin in the rain, waiting for the doors to open.

After Holy Hour, as it existed then.

Mm-hmm.

The write- writers like Flann O'Brien, James Joyce.

These people would make me feel normal.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

So there's a section in the book, uh, Humor 2, "Discovering Satie's writing is like reading Flann O'Brien for the first time, or Leonora Carrington, or Spike Milligan, or Kurt Vonnegut."

[laughs]

"Satie shares with such figures a certain lopsided fairy tale quality, one that doesn't necessarily mean dark woods and bad blood, wild leaps, falls of light, non sequiturs, drawing, doodling, cackling, wry smile about to burst into giggles.

... and then...

So, like, that's a character in a Flann O'Brien-

Mm

... uh, novel.

So Flann O'Brien is probably the artist who...

I would have looked up to most when I was a kid is the artist who completely changed my life.

Because when I first started engaging with Flann O'Brien's work, here I was reading something which was as great As any American writer.

Or American musician.

Or British writer or musician.

This is more of an Irish-Irish thing than it is an Irish-American thing, but whatever.

On this date, on October 4th, Brian O'Nolan... made his debut as a columnist for the Irish Times, writing under the name, the pseudonym, I should say, Miles Nagopolin.

He had first appeared in the letters section of the paper using another pseudonym, Flann O'Brien.

O'Nolan would continue to write this column under the title Krishkeen Lawn until his death in 1966.

He deserved better than the disappointment and the raucous praise of the small town, referring to Dublin.

He was maybe our unluckiest genius, which is a reference I've never heard before.

But there's Fran of Brian O'Nolan, also known as Miles McApley, and also known as Flann O'Brien.

An unlucky genius.

on.Yeah, yeah.

Uh, and he said he thought, you know, apart from it being very Finnegan's Wake and Flann O'Brien, he felt that particular line reminded him of the rock god Syd Barrett, who was actually insane.

Although there's-

Sorry, that is the comment