Lately I've been in conversation with a number of people about the reading of large books. Peter and I were out with a few of his publishing friends the other night and I fit in because, since I lack full employment, I basically just read and watch movies every day. One of the kids in the group--the one who was trying a bit too hard--began waxing about how he could only ever give up the single life if he found someone who understood his love of literature and of reading and (he confessed) of building up his library.

I said, "What, so you're going to look for a girlfriend who will read Proust aloud to you?" My non-sequitur changed the subject, in his mind, from him being a loser who reads to much, to seeing who was the biggest loser in the group. Because he immediately wanted to talk about Proust.

Having reread many of the books I thought I liked when I was younger, I've recently come to wonder if I was at least partially illiterate as a child. I read Of Mice and Men while waiting for the airplane yesterday. I could remember discussing it. About cycles and endings and the movie, but I couldn't remember reading it.

Books have always been very, very hard on me because they're not like girlfriends and movies and merging traffic. You can ignore them even when they're right in front of you. I never know what I take away from books, but I usually remember the funny bits. And that's why I like big ones. By the time something funny happens, you and the book are complete friends who can laugh at anything just by dancing around it.

in Ulysses

[Guys in a bar after a funeral, a new guys enters]
--How's Willy Murray those times, Alf?
--I don't know, I saw him just now at Capel Street with Paddy Dignam.
...--You saw his ghost then...Paddy Dignam's dead.
--Dead! says Alf. He's is no more dead that you are.
--Maybe so, says Joe. They took the liberty of burying him this morning anyhow.

From Proust's Swann's Way

"No, monsieur, my parents don't allow me go to the theater."
"That's unfortunate. You ought to ask them. You know, I'm not much of a believer in the 'hierarchy!' of the arts" (and I notice, as had often struck me...that when he talked about serious things, when he used an expression that seemed to imply an opinion about an important subject, he took care to isolate it in a tone of voice that was particularly mechanical and ironic, as though he had put it between quotation mars, seeming not to want to take responsibility for it, as though saying "hierarchy, you know, as it is called by silly people?" But then if it was so silly why did he say hierarchy?)"

Salinger's Franny and Zooey

"[The students] were standing around in hatless, smoky little groups of twos and threes and fours inside the heated waiting room, talking in voices that, almost without exception, sounded collegiately dogmatic, a though each young man, in his strident, conversational turn, was clearing up, once and for all, some highly controversial issue, one that the outside, non-matriculating world had be bungling, provocatively or not, for centuries."

I remember hating comedies when I was a kid because just when they had gotten some of the funniest stuff out, they had to awkwardly wrap up some story I didn't care about. You know how in the end of Spaceballs there's guns and pizza jokes and then all the sudden you're in a wedding? That pissed me off so much.

I don't want to say that I feel more like myself in San Francisco, but I feel more able to be the person I want to be. I want to walk slow down the streets, I don't want to wear a jacket, I don't want to hide in my iPod. I don't want to have shitty bosses and shitty jobs and walk around in shitty weather shitting on everyone.

Example. The invite to my most recent DJ thing in New York:

It's gonna be like a goddam class reunion.  So find a sitter, lose some weight, and spread on the fake-tan.  This sunday night, bring your friends.  'm DJ'ing this wonderful event. So come dance with me, James Brown, Grandmaster Flash, Robert Johnson, Johnny Cash, The
Mighty Imperials, Aretha, and The Kinks/Killers/Rapture/Who/Clash/GoGos

VS. the invite to my most recent DJ thing in San Francisco:

It's happy hour from 5-10 and that's when I'm playing records.
soul funk motown mod rock
the who/kinks/killers/etc
I'm staying with some friends up the street and I hope to see you there.
For $10 you get a martini and a manicure until 9 PM.

In New York I hate you. In San Franscisco, well, shucks, it'd be real nice to see you.

Although I don't have what you would call a job, I did just do the one thing you should never do when you're on vacation and really really enjoying yourself. I called into work.

"Hey, this is Brendan. I used to work there and I got a message to call in about a problem with my check."

"Look. There is no problem and I don't know where you think this problem is coming from."

"My answering machine seemed pretty certain that I was supposed to call in and talk to you about the problem with my check."

"Well, no one told me about it. Every host gets paid $10/hr. So why am I supposed to pay you more? Are you special or something do you have special qualifications or experience?"

"Yes, but more importantly I was told I was getting paid more." I've worked for these people for about a hundred and fifty hours and expected to return from vacation with a big check and a three hundred dollar correction for getting the wrong wage until now. "And it's not a misunderstanding. When my last check was off the manager said that he would make up the difference in my next check. And three other managers said the same."

"Everyone gets paid the same."

"No they don't. When they promised to correct it two weeks ago I saw the sheet with everyone's wage on it. Are you seriously running an eight million dollar business right now that will crumble if you don't steal three hundred dollars from your former head host? I was told to call in today to deal with this. I'm not just making up a problem as if you're just going to be stupid and write me a check."

"Look, Brendan. Everyone gets paid ten. This is business, okay?"

"No, this is not business. This is stealing. This is you shitting on the fifty people who are supposed to take care of your company. You run a terrible business. You are not going to last long." And then, just in case the bridge didn't fully burn: "Your whole business is going down because all you and your family know how to do is mismanage shitty snack bars in Jersey. You don't know shit about service, you don't give a shit about your staff, your company is shit, your credit is shit, and you are a complete piece of shit."* I'm pretty sure she heard most of that, but she was talking through parts of it. We raced to hang up on eachother.


*My degree is in English Literature.

1) As I've mentioned before I am in the middle of a trip to San Francisco and so is the main character of my writing project. This only becomes confusing when I don't switch mediums. But when I sat down to write this post I honestly thought, Last night was great. I may still be wanted for murder, but I met that girl that I first saw in Seattle. She's really nice. So nice in fact that I woke up in her apartment. We had to part ways, but I have this deep down feeling that, although it seems obvious that I should be arrested soon, maybe--just maybe--things will work out and I'll see her again.

2) Last night was great. I showed up to DJ at happy hour at a great bar out here and the next DJ never showed, so I got to play all night. People danced, I got hammered for free, and at the end of the night I got paid.

3) I haven't done this in a while but I consider this a staple of why I keep this site: listing all the lies I've been telling people lately. (I also haven't posted any music in forever. So here: "Banquet" by Bloc Party.) My host for today pointed out that I got this DJ job the same way that he used to con his parents into taking him to McDonalds.

I called the New York branch of this bar and told them that I would be DJ'ing at the San Francisco one pretty soon. "But I get back next week. So if you have any open spots coming up let me know."

"Well, actually. Let me give you to Chuck. We don't normally have opennings, but I think he wants to get rid of some group here soon anyway, and since you're kinda like family, we should give you a shot. Drop by when you get back and we'll try and squeeze you in. But say hi to Dave when you get to San Fran."

Then I called San Francisco: "Hey, Dave? Yeah, I'm on of the DJs at the New York bar. I'm gonna be out there next week and Chuck said to give you a call..."

"Oh, you work at the one in New York? That's great. Come Wednesday cause Scott's coming out here."

"Great." (who?)

"Yeah, I hear he's kinda broken up about leaving the New York bar, but he'll be glad to see a familiar face."

Three days later Annie and I tried to find a bar to dance at in San Fran. We walked around forever going to guide book places and bars that someone kind of gave us directions to. Then we passed on that was just loud enough for us to have fun. We danced inside. The DJ was weird. He played only floor-fillers. But no in sequence. 80's hit, 50 Cent, radio rock bullshit, Mobb Deep, 80s hit. For the last song he played some New Wave sounding song as the lights went up (at 1:30!)

Annie went to the bathroom and everyone went to close out their tabs and find their coats and give out their numbers. The song was loud with a ncie beat, but the singer was one of those Dead Kennedys/Joy Division guys from the early eighties who wrote lyrics and then tried hard to make sure no one understood them.

So I'm dancing with some Irish guy. Him, me, and the DJ. He starts singing. I start approximating the verses. "You and I man. We're the only two mutherfuckers in San Francisco who know The Plural Nouns!" (or whatever their name was).

"No, I love them." He says the name again and I write it down when he's not looking. "You should come see me. I'm DJ'ing at [Name of Bar] all week. Happy hour, though."

"You're kidding. You gotta be. That's so great. I worked there for five years and I'm just starting up again cause Scott's gonna come out and manage. I mean, you know Scott. He's one of the greatest guys in the world."

I pick up the record the next day and bring it that night. My Irish friend comes in later on while I'm playing it and asks me if I would please keep playing records all night. And I do.

Then I woke up in the morning in San Francisco at a friend's house and wrote about a kid who just woke up in the morning in San Francisco. I need to leave the house now before I turn inside out.

I wish that I knew forty of fifty people who hated San Francisco. Then it could be like my little paradise. But no. Christopher Reeve prolly came here once just for the challenge of rolling up hill and still loved it.

After the Olde English show in San Francisco--where I could not be further from my brother, his wife, and their unborn child in CT--I check messages. Stephen Hawking's wife tells me what I've missed:

You have THREE new messages--FIRST new message. From: (my brother). "Call me back. Immediately. Pronto. Call me right now."

NEXT message. From: (my brother) "Twenty-one inches long! Six Pounds! Four ounces! Beautiful baby girl! Call me back!"

NEXT message. From: (the restaurant I just quit) "Hey, Brendan hoping you could pick up a few extra shifts this week so give us a call ba--"

Message deleted.

I run into the lobby of the theater, passing Ben's parents. "It's a girl! My brother had a girl!" I'm halfway to a cigar store, trying to figure out how to fly to Connecticut, wondering how much Yale will cost in 2023 when I decide to give him a ring.

"When? How? Is she premature? How long did it take?"

"Gotcha." Then I, who made a huge deal about leaving the theater, had to crawl back in and rescind my cigar offers from before, appologize to everyone who was seated as I made my way back to my center seat, stepping on their feet. This is my brother's new favorite joke, I've learned. He'll call my parents up at night, "Dad! DAD! QUICK! Turn to CSI, it's a great episode."

I imagine that when his first child is debauched, he will have worn down my family's nerves to the point where no one even shows up, just in case. Keely Mae will grown up learning of her own birth as a fable where she was birthed by a wolf in sheeps clothing because even the doctor didn't want to fall for it.

Annie got us a great hotel for while we're in San Fran for the Olde English Show. I feel much more connected to the world of comedians I have always admired just because this hotel has a mini-bar. We explored it for the same reason you find out which mini-bottle is conditioner. It's here's, we're here. Annie decided to cave in and grab a four-dollar Luna bar before a nap. While she was asleep I went outside for a cigarette and when I got back I couldn't find the toothpaste, so I openned a five dollar pack of altoids.

A minibar is a machine that makes everything expensive. When I take something out of the minibar, I always fathom that I'll go and replace it before they check it off, but they make that stuff impossible to replace. I go to the store and ask, "Do you have coke in a glass harmonica? ...Do you have individually wrapped cashews?"-Mitch Hedberg

An hour later I'm pawing through the shelves at the drug store looking for a 1.76 oz (no joke), cellophane-wrapped box of altoids and a single Luna bar (also, no chance).

We're trying to reform, which means that we refuse to buy the eight dollar toothpaste in the mini bar. We'll make due with the five dollar Altoids.

My family took a trip to San Francisco when I was fifteen. I remember hills and good food. For the teenage male of a certain distance, any place where homosexuals are known to reside is hilarious at all times. So my older brother told my parents that I was really excited for the trip because I was gay and too afraid to tell them.

This would be a hilarious joke and typical of my homelife, except my brother forgot about it. My parents didn't. Years later, as my interest interest in art, literature, tight t-shirts and baking muffins grew, my mother broke down one night and told me what my brother had said. "Don't be mad at him," my mother said. "He said not to say anything about it since you were afraid to tell us. Don't be afraid, honey. We're your family.

Ever since then, I've made it a point to give my parents my relationship updates in graphic detail

I came back three years later on a road trip with a friend. We stayed for a few days here and in Berkeley. But I was broke. Beyond broke. I remember walking up to City Lights Books and wishing I knew any of the titles on the shelves (I bought Timequake by Vonnegut). We got free tickets to the alcatraz tour. We bought one loaf of sourdough. We got thrown out of bars for being too young.

Now that I'm back, I'm still pretty broke. But I feel like the pimply kid from high school who shows up to the reunion in a limo with a model/prostitute on each arm. Tonight Annie and I are going out to dinner and then to Vesuvio (where I was ejected at the tender age of eighteen). These aren't even great places. I'm just going out of spite.

Okay, so tomorrow I'm going to San Francisco and I'm also old enough to be paranoid about this: if I die on the way, the thirty five dollars in my pocket go to my unborn niece Keeley Mae Case-Sullivan. And my entire novel project is saved on my iPod under the file "301.doc"

The iPod will be on my desk in Brooklyn. And it's not finished. So if you find it: You'll be on page 500 and pretty so you're going to reveal the plot twist, which is saved at the end. Okay? Great. And again, the money goes to Keeley.

Attempt at adulthood number three:

9:30 PM Get in bed. Read magazine for a few. I've got to go to bed early so I can start my office job tomorrow. I'm going to have to completely rework my schedule to allow for writing, working, and other rock and roll pursuits.

10:00 PM Can't sleep. Find book light and Salinger book. It's really funny and easy to read, but it doesn't help me sleep.

10:20 PM Just as I start to wonder if reading by flashlight is bad for my eyes, the batteries run out.

10:30 PM Try sleeping again. But the song "I Can't Explain" by The Who is playing in my head. Two great bars on two different coasts have given me a very strong "Maybe" about DJ'ing there. All I can see is lights and records spinning and that heart stopping and satisfying moment when I mix just right (repeat loop of "I Can't Explain" going into the break of "Clash City Rockers.") I should add that when I think I'm going to fall asleep while driving, I think about DJ'ing because it keeps my heart going.

12:00 AM I wonder if everyone's sick of hearing The Rapture right after The Moving Units. They blend together so well and I've heard them about a thousand times each, so I know just when to go. If I get this new job, should I get some new records.

12:35 AM Without making a sound, I pull Annie's laptop off the desk, balance it on the trashcan, plug in the headphones, and put in Dr. Strangelove. A good movie-coma would do the trick.

12:45 AM The battery runs out.

1:30 AM Steinbeck kept a diary everyday while writing The Grapes of Wrath. And while I've never read it before, I picked up the diary. He says his goal everyday is to write two pages, he keeps track of how well rounded he makes the characters and what he's reading. It's kinda like reading John Steinbeck's weblog.

1:45 AM Too hot.

2:00 AM Wide awake. Holding my eyes shut is tiring. Maybe I could get my four hours in right here? Maybe that's what I'll start doing. Now that I don't work in that shitty club, maybe I'll start writing every night that I don't DJ.

2:02 AM Too cold.

3:30 AM Shit. I need to go to the ATM on the way to work. Otherwise I can't get lunch.

6:00 AM As promised--and to the letter of decree--Annie gives me one wake up call. So if I'm not going to fuck this up I have to get outta bed.

6:24 AM You know what's funny? I think as I step out of the sheets. This is the time when I get into bed.

9:00 AM Who's the bitch now, Steinbeck? Two pages? Yeah. Fucken lightweight. I got three down before my bagel cooled. Why don't you go cry about that to your precious journal?

9:11 AM I really hope I have a clean shirt for work.

The reason I smiled this morning at the moment I openned my eyes is that last night, during a snowstorm, I played "Summertime Blues" first the original, then The Who's version. And people danced.

A minute ago I clicked on "Song Against Sex" by Neutral Milk Hotel. It never stops amazing me that this band can just emboss moments of your life into your brain. And its not just me. Everyone who buys "Aeroplane Over the Sea" somehow manages to get it right when they're about to be in a break up or when they're completely in love or when their mom's about to die.

And just as I heard the openning feedback-screech noise, I got completely transported to May 12, 2003. Two days before my twenty-first birthday, sitting in my car with everything I own inside: three sweaters, some pants, three boxes of books (ha!), computer, scooter. I can smell the gas leaked on the floor even now.

I'd like to think that I was happy. I was just about move into a beachhouse--the first realestate I could ever pretend to call my own that wasn't parents or school. Ben made me an MP3 cd and I put it in, drove all the way to Connecticut alone.

Something happened in the in between time, but I've reassigned the song. I used to hear it and want to throw up. But not anymore. I think about where I was then: I had never been hungover. Never served a drink. Never DJ'd anything. Never wrote a story that wasn't actually about me. Never carried a full tray of drinks. No one had ever cheated on me. I had never had a loan. Never paid rent. Never had goat cheese. Never ordered my own pizza to get delivered. Never used a cocktail shaker. Never lived in a city. Never heard an iPod.

And, really, it's kind of nice to know that I can move forward without completely forgetting where I used to be.

Last night I met nine people named mark. M-a-r-k, M-a-r-c, whatever.

The only possible source of income before for my trip to San Fran is to promote the hell out of my sunday DJ thing. It's usually just an excuse to drink and play records, but Pete pointed out that people can actually go out this sunday cause monday's a holiday.

This means that I'm the guy handing out flyers you don't want. But I've had fun with it. Wanting money is a great reason to call friends from college. I don't just toss flyers around. I dance with people, I drink, I make inside jokes, I meet people and last night I met nine Mar(c)s.

The fifth Mark was working security and I figured he can be named Mark if he wants. But the sixth was just some guy and I kind of hated him for a second, I thought that he was just being a dick by using the same joke that everyone else did. I left after I met the ninth (M-a-r-c), but I wonder how man I could've had if I stayed.

A week from today, Annie and I will get to San Francisco. But the problem is that the characters I'm writing about refuse to wait that long. They're in Seattle right now and they're sick of it and they can't go to Portland and they just want to go to San Fransisco. The problem is that I can't really remember how to describe San Fransisco. (Ben: are you there now? how's it look?)

I've tried everything to stall them. Three days ago I made one of them think he fell in love. That was great. And great to write. By the end of the chapter I felt like I had cheated on Annie.

Dear Brooklyn: come play records with me every sunday.

To recap: At the start of my last semester of college I was working at the oldest restaurant in the county. It folded and I got a job as a research assistant. The local coffee shop felt bad for the restaurant closing and hired me. Then I graduated and worked as a bartender in Chicago. For two days I was that annoying guy handing out flyers on the street because bartending was only three days a week. Then I picked up another job handing out chapstick for American Express, but by the time I got hired at American Express and started bartending I got a waitering job (which was what I wanted in the first place). Then I kept all the jobs except American Express (insert hand motion of male masturbation) when I started DJ'ing at a bar down the street. Two months out of college and I already made more money than most of my professors and was buying organic groceries with foodstamps.

A month later--on one long friday morning--I quit bartending, got fired from my waitering job an hour later and had a DJ friend take over for me.

I moved to New York and picked up freelance work at my old newspaper job. I poured champaigne for a gallery openning, started as the midnight bartender at a glorified diner, and then guarded precious sixteeth-century artifacts from a folding chair in a gallery three days a week. During the election I wrote for a newspaper in Liverpool, UK. Annie got a job as a server at a bed-themed restaurant and they hired me as a host. I took the job hoping it would lead to bartending. But, turns out, it has only lead to headaches, annoyances, and six-am rides home on the subway, wishing that I--like anyone sane person who spends hours and hours in a club with colored lighting--was on drugs so I'd have the excuse.

And yesterday I got hired at a British university, doing organizing and office bullshit. It pays better than any job I have right now, but that's still two dollars an hour less than my job with American Express (which was by far my least favorite).

That's fifteen jobs in the last year. Do you have any idea how long it's going to take me to do my taxes?

Labels: Chicago

Proposal: Esperanto Is for Lovers

Concept: Millions of bad ideas are formed every day. Actually, most bad ideas are really great ideas that don't work. The film Coffee and Cigarrettes comes to mind (two hours into it: "Oh there's Bill Murray."). The international language of Esperanto (which is simple enough that a Shrek rip-off could teach it to you) exists without irregular verbs, nouns, or conjugations. All singular nouns end in -O, all plural nouns end in -OJ, all adjectives end in -A, and ALL verbs end in -AS. It was created to give everyone a language to use together without anyone giving in. Because, c'mon, that would be kind of assuming and who should be so full of themselves?

During the prewar period, the Esperantists were a sort of community establishing a great experiment. The experiment succeeded. After the war the Esperantists became a model of mankind better organized than the rest from a linguistic viewpoint. It held in its hands a powerful tool of international understanding. The world would never know how much work and patience thousands upon thousands of modest men and women throughout the world had to provide to ensure success for that great work, the global functioning of a common and easy auxiliary language.- - Privat, Edmond: Historio de la Lingvo Esperanto: La Movado

And according to Google, the phrase "Esperanto is for Lovers" has never been typed on the entire internet.

Great Sentences:
"Zamenhof ja estis festemulo!" Zamenhof sure knew how to party!
"Gravas nur sveda muziko." Only Swedish music counts.
"Mi laboras kiel japana kastoro." I work like a Japanese beaver.
"Mi volas brakumi tiun sciuron" I want to hug that squirrel.

Cometition! Esperanto is far from the only made-up language. And what's even more hilarous is how pissed off Esperantoj seem about the others.

Many of the people who have attempted to promulgate international languages more "perfect" (i.e., more "international", more "logical", or whatever) than Esperanto have failed to understand that -- given a certain minimum standard of internationality, aesthetic quality, and ease of learning -- further tinkering not only fails to substantially improve the product, but interferes with the establishment of a large community of speakers. A language like, say, Interlingua might be (by some individual's criteria) "better" than Esperanto, but in order for it to be worth uprooting the established world of Esperanto and creating an equivalently widespread world community of Interlingua speakers, it would have to be visibly and profoundly an improvement over Esperanto of prodigious proportions.-Esperanto.net.

(The others turn out to be mostly, what I would call, Languages That Women Speak in Masturbation Fantasies: Conlang, Klingon, Tolkien's Elvish, etc.

This is, I believe, the best bad idea I've ever heard of.

I've owned four cellphones in four years. They always die of some lame reason that should not make them obsolete. My first one lost the battery. A replacement cost ninety dollars. I bought another on ebay for half that. It in turn left me behind. My brother then switched to a Nextel and gave me a brand new, full-color, whiz-bang cellphone. At the time I felt like a dick because I lived in Ohio and only ever used my phone to see how many messages Ben left me. I didn't know that I would spend the rest of my year in Chicago and New York where I would witness phone technology in the streets before it could even be advertized to me.

My telephone--which can show my photographs, movie times, stock reports, my work schedule, and the phone numbers of all the people I never call even though I went to college with them--died friday somehow because a small brass pin that connects my charger to my phone snapped. Anyway, this is why I got this message three days late.

"Hi, Brendan, this is Shana, I'm the executive producer of Judge Joe Brown in Los Angeles. I'm calling in reguards to you books. If you have time please call me..."

Labels: Chicago

The Salmon of Knowledge
(An Irish legend that gets gayer ever time I read it)

Finegas was a poet. He was one of the wisest men in Ireland. He lived near the River Boyne. Finegas read books and wrote poems. Finegas was watching all the time to try and see the salmon of knowledge in the river.

The salmon of knowledge was a magic fish. The first person to taste the salmon would be the wisest person in Ireland. Its skin was the colour of gold. Its eyes were magic. A lot of people tried to catch it but they failed.

There was no school but young warriors were taught by wise men like Finegas. People went to live with poets and they learned a lot and after that people became true warriors. Fionn was a son of a warrior called Cumhall. Fionn was training to be a warrior. Then Fionn went to live with Finegas the poet.

Suddenly Finegas saw a huge powerful fish swimming in the river. It was the salmon of knowledge. He had never seen a fish like it before. He rushed to get a strong net. Fionn was sitting with his back to the river so he never saw the salmon. Finegas was very careful not to look into its eyes because if you did you would fall into a deep sleep. Finegas tried to catch the fish but couldn't. All of a sudden the fish jumped high into the air towards him. The old poet was taken by surprise when he looked at the fish. He fell fast asleep.

Fionn saw him asleep and rushed to wake him up before the salmon got away. When Finegas woke up he asked Fionn to fetch him a cloth. Then Finegas covered his eyes with the cloth. He threw in his net again. For hours and hours he tried to catch the fish.

Night was falling. He had one last try. This time he was lucky. He caught the salmon. The huge fish struggled to get out. It pulled and tossed and turned but could not escape. Finegas was tired after this so he told Fionn to cook the fish. Finegas warned Fionn not to eat the fish, not even a mouthful. Fionn promised he would not eat any of the salmon. Fionn built a fire and when it was ready he placed the fish over the fire. A drop of oil went onto his thumb. Fionn put his thumb in his mouth.

When the salmon was done he brought the fish to Finegas. The wise poet noticed there was something different. His cheeks were redder and his eyes were a lot brighter.
"Have you eaten any of the salmon?" Finegas asked Fionn.
Fionn told him the truth. "I did not eat any of the fish.
Finegas was still not happy. "Have you even tasted the fish," he asked.

Then Fionn remembered that he had burnt his thumb and put it in his mouth. He told this to Finegas. Finegas knew at once he had the wisdom of the salmon of knowledge. At first he was very sad. He knew he would never be the wisest man in Ireland. But he was happy that Fionn got the gift.