There are few convergences within the Julian calendar that portend a force majeure with the same vicious accuracy as when St. Patrick’s Day falls both on a Friday and during Lent. Corned beef and cabbage — or fish? Madonna or whore? Three days of amateurish drinking and lewdity, fueled and volumized by the guilt of Lent. Lock up the cat.

But it’s Monday morning now and my people are hung-over and remorseful. That’s right, they’re lashing out. Fellow Irish descendant Bobby McMahon has written what is labeled a satirical piece in today’s Breeze, but it’s gone right over my head:

Besides his mother and the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Irishman’s wife is the most important woman in his life, and I couldn’t ask for a better mate than me lovely wife Mary. She’s a fiery redhead with good birthing hips and skin as pale as the moonlight, which I think has more to do with her rarely leaving the house than her Gaelic blood. Ya see, between the cooking and the cleaning and the pregnancy, there just isn’t a chance for her to go a’walking through the foggy meadow and get some sun on her face, making her skin whiter than the banshee. Tell ye the truth, I don’t think I’ve bought her shoes in the last 20 years, but then again, it’s not that far of a walk from the bedroom to the kitchen, so I don’t expect her to be complaining much.

Beats me. Full article here.

Frank and Gordon, the two animated beavers who first appeared as “spokesanimals” for Bell Canada in a series of tv spots during the Super Bowl, and more recently during the Winter Olympics, are just the latest anthropomorphic characters used in advertising by Canadian telecom companies.

FIDO: Brand began in 1996 with dogs from the outset, under the theme, You are the Master. Most popular ad campaign was ’97-’98 dog and owner look-alikes. Current campaign features mammoth pawprints in the snow and a giant canine, reminiscent of King Kong. Ad agency originating the campaign is Bos of Montreal.

TELUS: Started with a nature campaign in 1997 under the ClearNet wireless brand, which Telus acquired in 2000. A series of animals, insects, flowers and plants have been featured under the theme of The Future is Friendly. Call their animals “spokescritters.” Ad agency that originally developed the campaign is Taxi of Toronto. Current campaign handled by Taxi and DDB of Vancouver.

BELL: First used cartoon beavers Frank and Gordon this year during the Super Bowl. Bell now has a series of ads linked to the Olympics, with a storyline of Bell searching for new spokesanimals. Ad agency that developed the campaign is Cossette of Montreal.

A recent article in the Edmonton Journal discusses this trend in Canadian advertising, and the success of Frank and Gordon.

For its part, Bell is chortling all the way to the bank. The company has gone from zero to 60 in just 21/2 weeks, from a brand that had limited recognition with consumers to the cool guys with Frank and Gordon, now the talk of the water-cooler crowd and beyond.

Jim Little, senior vice-president of marketing and communications for Bell Canada, can hardly contain his glee at the brand recognition that the company has enjoyed since the Frank and Gordon campaign launched at Super Bowl.

“It’s going in a fun direction,” says Little.

“We think it’s time to set aside a national day for Canada’s national animal,” say Frank and Gordon on their website, imploring fellow Canadians to get on the brandwagon and sign a petition.

What do you think? Is Joe Canadian likely to get all patriotic about a beaver?

Beyond sharing a loft with Patrick McGrath (he is still wincing ), my only other brush with literary greatness was closing down Joe’s Bar on East Sixth in NYC on many occasions with one time drinking buddy Yannick Murphy. She’s since turned her life around and no longer runs with riff-raff.

In fact, Yannick’s got a new book out, “Here They Come”, published by Mc Sweeney’s:

Splitting time between a garbage-strewn apartment and an overly affectionate hot dog vendor, the observant thirteen-year-old who stands steadily at the center of Here They Come gives lyrical voice to an unforgettable instant—1970s New York, stifling, violent, and full of life. Balanced between her enigmatic siblings, borderline parents, and a quiet sense of the surreal, she recounts a year of vivid, mundane moments with dark humor and deadpan resilience. By Yannick Murphy, author of the New York Times Notable Book Sea of Trees .

“This is a hell of a book. You might not be able to finish Here They Come in one sitting, but it will haunt you till you do. What detail! What characters! I can imagine both Jane Austen and Raymond Carver pouring over this masterly novel.”

—Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes

“Yannick Murphy is a uniquely talented writer who manages to turn everything on its head and make dark, funny, shocking and beautiful prose out of the detritus of growing up poor, fatherless, and cockeyed. She is fearless.”

—Lily Tuck, winner of the 2004 National Book Award

“Yannick Murphy’s long-awaited Here They Come is a unique combination of rare linguistic lyricism with brutal and brilliant prose. It is an unrelenting portrait of family, terrifying for its honesty, its willingness to be ugly and elegant. Haunting.”

—A.M. Homes, author of The Safety of Objects and The End of Alice

She’s scooped up her share of writing awards, but this week Yannick Murphy leaps beyond the intelligencia and literati and lands smack in the pulp of People magazine tomorrow, or so she says. Not sure if it’s the one with Brad and Angelina on the cover or Angelina and Brad.

Anyway, do yourself a favor and do the unthinkable — go pick up and read this actual hardcover book, and stop reading this electronic drivel.