Today's A Good Day To Drink Some Victory Gin
Today's A Good Day To Drink Some Victory Gin
It is both World Gin Day and the anniversary of the publication of George Orwell's 1984.
Happy Weekend!
On this day in 1949, George Orwell published Nineteen Eighty-Four, the classic dystopian novel that would later lend itself to extreme misinterpretation by those who only ever read the Cliff’s Notes version. People who would go on to believe that its primary lesson was that other people criticizing them for being complete assholes (“doing wrongthink”) is what totalitarianism is, while ignoring literally everything it was actually about.
It is also World Gin Day, which feels appropriate given the “Victory Gin” of it all. It’s also a great excuse for me to have some gin and tonics, which I was probably going to do anyway.
So! For your present this week, I bring you the very first movie adaptation of the book, starring Eddie Albert, from Roman Holiday and also Green Acres, as Winston. Enjoy!
Also too, here is a clip of Oingo Boingo performing their song “Wake Up (It’s 1984)” on a television special called Good Morning, Mister Orwell that aired on New Year’s Day 1984. The special was described as an “international satellite ‘installation’” by South Korean artist Nam June Paik, often considered the first “video artist.”
The whole thing is not available on YouTube, but it is available over here on the Internet Archive, should you be curious.
And here is just a very good song about gin!
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Talk amongst yourselves!
I'm a lover of good writing and Orwell's was, at times, the absolute best. He forced the reader to look at, in the words of William Burroughs, what is on the end of their fork. His "Essays" are 1,500 pp of wonderful stuff, lots of minor work interspersed with a scalpel-precision evisceration of Tolstoy, the essential "Politics and the English Language," the school favorite anti-imperialist tract "Shooting an Elephant," an encomium to Henry Miller titled "Inside the Whale," and an honest attempt (in "Rudyard Kipling") to help the reader appreciate the great amount of good writing Kipling produced, without being repelled by the blatant imperialist ethos.
You may have to be an Orwellista like myself to appreciate it, but Paul Theroux's "Burma Sahib," a novelized version of Orwell's experiences as a colonial policeman in the nation now known as Myanmar, is really a treat as well. Right before it or right after it you can read Orwell's novel "Burmese Days," which addresses the same topics and events.
"1984" was the first Orwell I ever read, when I was perhaps 13, and though I missed all the parallels with Stalin and the Soviet empire, I still felt an attachment to Winston. "Animal Farm" is gorgeous book, a satire at Jonathon Swift level but also a heart-rending story of an attempt to throw off the oppressors and make a better world, all on an English farm. The ending is poignant and beautiful because Orwell makes you care about these animals while also dressing them up as Trotsky, Stalin, Lenin, etc.
In "Such, Such were the Joys," Orwell uses his powerful ability to talk about issues other people find distasteful to pitilessly describe his experiences at an aspirational-level prep board school to which he was sent "home" from India (where father was a civil servant) to attend. The essay was not published until after his death but contains no revelations that would embarrass any powerful figures, except that it exposes the classism the entire English educational system was built on.
So many pleasures. Treat yourself!
https://www.amazon.com/Essays-George-Orwell-audiobook/dp/B07VF7LWL1/ref=sr_1_1?crid=ZI4N0BRY4P7X&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IsxE7dUyglshpKvk70d15yq1rgkeFrKicfwlGPqwvqXAI8GVISZte5tlrQ2sfTqvTk74vfnE5HMpPzsiw9IPIbEyUl97T-RWQjHIx_t1y1BceGm7a4BAiUVFFZACIgfjnYBf3Z1gKou6eVNCoJRVlImF4f-rPXIkvcEoolJ9jaRR2RbUK9cEkpjEeqevqSxU8z0oeor2JTIkYK6kPtSGkxDgKhAjkuYVCHiYzRMuAlo.2T_oX5Je5CDa2z307XI0Hcye-8GjjeojYd0IVgwRcgA&dib_tag=se&keywords=essays+george+orwell&qid=1718709673&sprefix=essays+george+orwell%2Caps%2C158&sr=8-1
For some reason, every bored bastard in the English-speaking world with a few million to lose decided a few years ago to start distilling alcohol, letting whatever bizarre combination of exotic crap they could lay their hands on soak in it for a while, and then selling it as gin. Now they're all going broke, haha!
Gin is flavored mainly with juniper berries. Not sundried tomatoes, or lemon myrtle, or a rare herb found only on the Mull of Kintyre. Juniper berries with selected supplementary herbs that subtly complement the main flavor. That is all.
And "finishing" gin in ex-wine casks, as if it's whisky, is an abomination for which capital punishment is appropriate.