In the Band: Five Sessions
1999; Philosophy Documentation Center; Volume: 3; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/nhr.1999.a926652
ISSN1534-5815
Autores Tópico(s)Musicians’ Health and Performance
ResumoTerence Winch In the Band: Five Sessions The Pleasure Principle I see her now and then, wandering around Dupont Circle, this displaced Irishwoman who once briefly held rank at the heart ofthe city's Irish music scene in the 1970s. She's old, with the look oflife lived hard in her eyes, and I am always impressed that she still dwells among the living. Last time I encountered her, on the escalator at the Dupont Metro, I said "Hello, Ellen. How are you doing?" I reminded her who I was. "I'm fine;' she tells me with a squinty scowl, but she looks otherwise. She always seemed angry to me, even back in her heyday, when she was proprietor, hostess, and bartender of the Benbow saloon. The Admiral Benbow was a neighborhood joint of no great distinction in the 1960s. It stood next to the Janus movie theater on Connecticut Avenue, a site occupied by a bagel restaurant the last time I checked. The Benbow was not for young professionals out on the town, nor for the lonely and horny in search of companionship. The place was for drinkers, period. It was simple, really: you arrived, you sat at the bar, you got drunk. Perhaps you stumbled to the bathroom or the cigarette machine, but otherwise you staked out your territory at the bar and stayed put. But showing an unexpected capacity for entrepreneurship, and in response to the rising popularity oflrish bars in the 1970s, she transformed the Benbow into Ellen's Irish Pub. Well, the transformation consisted solely in the name change, but that proved enough. A new Irish bar came to life. A weekly session soon began that lasted for a few years. The sessions at Ellen's were very much part of atmosphere ofthe place-the music had a rougher, edgier feel to it. The battle against chaos required more intensity and psychic weaponry at Ellen's, but glorious nights of raw abundance were sometimes the result. One detail ofthis establishment always caught my attention, I guess because it seemed so incongruously affirmative in this dark den of spiritual struggle presided over by the dour Ellen. Stretched behind the bar, and extending its entire length, was a large sign, framed by colored lightbulbs, that said, simply, EN JOY LIFE. NEW HIBERNIA REVIEW/ IRIS EIREANNACH NUA, 3:1 (SPRING / EARRACH, 1999), 9-18 In the Band: Five Sessions Sometimes, on a quiet evening, surrounded by drinkers and the saloon's dingy air of despair, I would notice the sign-it was hard to missCand in my mind I would change it to a motto, an admonition, that I thought would suit the place better, imagining a sign that said, for example, GET REALLY DRUNK or, DRINK, FIGHT, SMOKE. But I appreciated the "ENJOY LIFE" sign. I liked its imperative thrust, its insistence on pleasure. I feel such reminders are good for the soul. I remember bringing my wife Susan in the early 1980s to meet my mother's oldest sibling, myAuntie Moll, a Galwegian like Ellen. At the age ofninety-four, Moll radiated beauty through her enormous, hypnotic eyes, which seemed full of wisdom and acceptance. Once she traveled to Dublin in the 1940s, she said, but she didn't like it, so never again ventured far from the countryside around Loughrea, from whence my mother, who died when I was a teenager, had left for America so many years earlier. We sat around the fire with Moll, having some tea and a bit of talk. Finally, she took hold of my hand and Susan's, and drew us dose to her. She squeezed our hands, looked at the two of us, and said "Are ye enjoying life?" Neither ofus said anything for a moment, as the question hung there in the cottage's cozy atmosphere. Somehow I felt this was the most important question anyone had ever asked me. After a moment, we both exhaled and said yes, we were enjoying life. "Good;' she said happily, "enjoy life;' as though she had just imparted the secret ofher beauty and longevity. I can still feel her hand in mine. Let's Hear itfor The Hawk One night...
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