4th Nor Cal Rabble Burns Night Supper (photos & videos)

[Panache]

David and Robertson,

I take full responsibility for this year's Address of the Haggis. I'm the MC and I'm in charge of the evening's activities. It was my impression that Burns' poem about a haggis was written tongue in cheek, a humorous poem. Now obviously Burns' uses the haggis as a symbol of simple honest highland virtues, but as I noted in my Immortal Memory speech, it is a poem about a sausage.

The grand ceremony that has been put around this poem about a humble dish in the Burns' Night Supper celebrations is something that happened well after Burns' death and is rather comic in itself if you think about it. Now translations of Burns' poem during the Address to a Haggis are nothing new. Here we took a visual one. Do you object to the posters? Those images are very much in the poem. I had the opportunity this year to go to a Scottish Society's Burns night Supper and listened to a very dry rendition of the Address. I will tell you that those in the audience not already familiar with the poem waited patiently and clapped politely when it was over.

Those words of Burns were as dead as he is

Each year our goal is not only have a wonderful party but to bring all the Burns' pieces to life for our group. You may not have liked this year's rendition, that is certainly your right. However all the folks that came to our event who didn't know about Burns or would have trouble with the Scot's dialect he wrote in left with an appreciation of the poet and they understood that poem. They laughed with it and with us. We will undoubtedly do something different next year, but you can be sure that we will always be approaching The Address to a Haggis and our Burns' Night Supper with the idea that Burns' words are alive and we will bring them to our group instead of leaving them bored and without understanding.

As for the fez hats, it is an in joke about the Nor Cal Rabble and how we do things in a humorous fun way, this was mentioned in the introduction. The pith helmet and the fez have become symbols of our group.


Sincerely


Jamie :ootd:

[Pour1Malt]

what your statements above seem to confirm is that you have no respect for Robert Burns or his works...

if you think the Address Tae a Haggis is a poem about a sausage you are frighteningly ignorant...

if a group of us in the UK got together on the 4th of July and had a 'usa independence ' party where we wore silly hats and did comic readings of your constitution or bill of rights or whatever documents are important symbols to the struggle of your people... and held up pictures of pigs vomiting and big arses during it... and lost our place and every laughed at how stupid it all was... I'm glad to know you would find it funny... but I doubt many people in the usa would think it was funny at all...

since this is 'Black History Month' in the usa- perhaps you should do a comic reading of 'I have a Dream' in Blackface...

then maybe you will understand what you just did to the Address Tae a Haggis.

[Arlen]

if a group of us in the UK got together on the 4th of July and had a 'usa independence ' party where we wore silly hats and did comic readings of your constitution or bill of rights or whatever documents are important symbols to the struggle of your people... and held up pictures of pigs vomiting and big arses during it... and lost our place and every laughed at how stupid it all was... I'm glad to know you would find it funny... but I doubt many people in the usa would think it was funny at all...

since this is 'Black History Month' in the usa- perhaps you should do a comic reading of 'I have a Dream' in Blackface...

then maybe you will understand what you just did to the Address Tae a Haggis.

Robertson, I was referring to your statements above. Implying that what they did is similar to offending someone by blacking it up or by making fun of the U.S. Constitution: In short, being racist or xenophobic. If that was not your intent, fair enough, but that's how I read it.
What they did doesn't seem very similar to me at all.
And, lets be fair, the poem does talk about pig vomit and buttocks. And the cards explained in a humorous fashion what the words meant.

I think on this point we may have to simply agree to disagree. You have every right to feel like they were laughing at the works of Burns. I don't believe they were.

Perhaps it's time to just let it be.

[Panache]

The playwright William Shakespeare wrote some absolutely amazing works during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Now the language and meter he used in those plays can be difficult to a modern audience to understand. Yet his plays have been constantly performed in a varied manner since his death. With each generation and performance the actors and theater staff had to decide how to approach this text and make it live and breathe. Picture for a moment the the stereotype of the stuffy, black clad, skull bearing, snobbish Shakespearean actor sneering down at the masses that don't understand the Bard's works. Is this fellow truly serving the text by holding it in his iron-gripped reverence?

There is a lot of poignant incredible stuff in Shakespeare's work. However there is also quite a lot of bawdiness too. I used to go to the Shakespeare Santa Cruz productions every Summer and I loved how each cast and production would bring their own take to the work. Some I liked, some I didn't. But I appreciated that each one tried to make that story and those words live.


Now the question at hand is whether or not we approach this particular work as iconic where there are set traditional parameters required of it within the context of a Burns Night Supper celebration. Or is each group free to approach that work in their own way? Are Burns Night Suppers about Robert Burns or are they a Scottish Heritage celebration? When we look at Burns himself, do we do so as a Scottish Icon, or as a patriotic (though certainly flawed) poet and song writer?


Last year I wrote a script for Jake and I to bring a translation of this poem to our event. This year my lovely wife and good friend Jake did something different. Personally, I like mine better (but then again I wrote it ). Now all three of us know this poem and we completely understand and appreciate it. None of us meant this as an insult to any Scot and none of us meant disrespect to the memory of Robert Burns.

You know I remember Raphael posted a rap version of Burn's haggis poem last year. I absolutely loved that this group took these words and made them live for themselves and a new generation. I don't know what the Nor Cal rabble will do next year for our Burns Night Supper. It might be a well done though "straight" recitation. Maybe not. I can promise you that it won't be boring. And it will be done with respect for the Plowman Poet and the joy that exists in his works.

Cheers

Jamie