ROCKY DE VALERA ON YOUTUBE

On my Irish Matters blog, which recycles various of my shorter pieces of published writing (reviews and so on), one post focuses mostly on the Irish retro rock ’n’ roll band Rocky De Valera and the Gravediggers, first formed in Dublin early in 1978. Their resurrection late in 2005, almost a quarter-century after the original band had been laid to rest, testifies persuasively to the power of embalming. As further evidence of that power, check out their hot new video, just launched on YouTube. As one waggish commentator has already remarked, this video—filmed on the Hill of Howth—“obviously” alludes to Molly Bloom’s remembrance of that very setting in the “Penelope” episode of Ulysses, which culminates in that most famous of affirmations: “and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.” Yes, James Joyce is rockin’ in his grave!

Postscript: 3/11/09:
As if that YouTube commentator’s remarks are not irreverent enough, yesterday’s Irish Times includes a column by Kate Holmquist, the wife—or “band widow,” as she puts it—of the Gravediggers’ pseudo-eponymous leader/vocalist. Styling herself “Mrs. Rocky De Valera,” she has a lot of fun at the expense of “Mr. Holmquist” and his protracted mid-life crisis . . . “which started at the age of 20.” Check it out!