Beloved Bard

You may not think you’re familiar with Robert Burns, but if you sang his composition, “Auld Lang Syne,” last New Year’s Eve, you’ve already quoted him.

Or, maybe you’ve used the phrase, “The best laid plans of mice and men,” which is not originally from John Steinbeck, but from the Burns poem, “To a Mouse.” (But you knew that, didn’t you?)

And remember playing musical chairs to “Comin’ Through the Rye?”

To Americans, Burns is one of those poets everyone “sort of” knows. But Scots don’t have to think twice about their beloved national bard, who lived over 200 years ago, dying in 1796 at age 37, leaving a body of work still echoing through the culture, from narrative poems like “Tam o’ Shanter” to the Scots national anthem, “Scots, Wha Hae,” and including folk ballads like “My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose” and “Green Grow the Rashes, O.”

“In Scotland, most people own two books--the Bible and Burns,” said John Hannah of Ojai. Hannah, a writer for People magazine, was born in Stanley, Scotland, the County of Perth. He has made a lifelong study of Burns, and has a library of his works.

“We are unsure about who Shakespeare was, but if you read Burns, you very quickly get a sense of his character,” said Hannah. “We know Burns better than our own family. We still hear his voice so clearly.”

By all accounts, the Lowlands poet, a romantic rogue who loved his women and his whiskey (too well, say his detractors), but who championed the common man, is revered for who he was as well as what he wrote.

“The fact is, he is the most celebrated poet in the world,” said Hannah.

And possibly the only poet to have his own holiday.

Indeed, the biggest celebration of the year for expatriate Scots all over the world comes on or about Jan. 25, on Burns birthday, when “Burns Suppers” are held from Scotland to America, Australia to China.

“There’s an old saying: ‘Anywhere in the world that two Scots get together, they’ll do one of three things: They’ll find a bottle of whiskey to drink, they’ll form a St. Andrew’s Society, and they’ll have a Burns dinner,” said Joe MacClure Swindle, a retired Ventura County fire chief whose maternal family comes from the Isle of Skye.

As a member of the Los Angeles Burns Club, he’ll be taking part in one of dozens of local events scheduled during the next 10 days, which vary as much as plaids among tartans. There will be events in local pubs, fancy Burns balls, and, the queen of them all--the 500-seat formal ball hosted by the United Scottish Society on the Queen Mary, which will abound with dignitaries toasting the queen, the (U.S.) president and the “Immortal Memory” of the Scots’ bard.

At the other end of the spectrum is the Fourth Annual Burns Supper of the Los Angeles Burns Club, planned at the Castaway Restaurant in Burbank on Sunday.

“We try to make ours more homey--to add a kind of charm and esoteric aspect of Burns that isn’t available in the standard event,” said Neil McLeod, a Hollywood Hills dentist who is president and founder of the newest Southland chapter of the International Burns Federation.

“The whole purpose of the Burns Club is to add a slight academic note and have a more in-depth look at the celebration of Burns’ life,” said McLeod, a popular speaker who also founded the St. Andrews Society of Southern California and the local Clan McLeod.

“But at the same time, like all of them, we’re trying to have a nice Scottish bash.”

The Burns Club bash, which will feature Alex MacGillivary, a legion piper of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders as part of its entertainment, will include “loyal toasts” to the president by the British Consulate; to the queen by McLeod; as well as the charming “Toast to the Lassies,” a traditional nod to Burns’ fondness for the ladies, and including a tart, tongue-in-cheek “Reply to the Laddies.”

And, songs and quotes from poetry, some from McLeod himself, known to rattle off the 12-minute “Tam o’ Shanter” by heart, as well as such Burns poems as “To a Louse” (in which the poet, spying a louse in a snobbish church lady’s hat, expounds: “A wad some Power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us!”)

Of an entirely different bent will be the 21st annual Burns Supper at the Buchanan Arms in Burbank, a family-style restaurant owned by Scotsman Ron Horn.

Entitled, “Celebration of the Life of Robert Burns Through His Songs And Poetry,” this one is produced for the Celtic Arts Center by David McNabb. The evening will be long on entertainment and short on protocol, according to McNabb, who also puts on a monthly concert series at the Raven Playhouse in North Hollywood.

“If we do any toasts, they’ll be on the spot,” he said, adding that theirs will be the most reasonably priced of any Burns Supper, outside those at local pubs.

“We’re not high class, but it’s a real Scotch setting. I stopped going to Burns nights because they were so ridiculously expensive,” said McNabb.

The evening, he says, will include poetry and a speech by Burns expert John Hannah of Ojai, and will emphasize Burns music more than the usual celebration.

“Because Burns was not just a poet, he was a songwriter who wrote 350 songs,” said McNabb. “ ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is the second most recognizable tune in the world after ‘Happy Birthday’--it’s sung in China!”

The evening will include piper George Hall, who has a Sunday morning cable radio show, “The Celtic Hour,” and as the centerpiece, the Martin Morrissey Trio backing classically trained singer Joann Gilmartin on flute, piano and accordion.

Gilmartin, who came here from Glasgow a year ago, said she will explain each Burns song (or poem set to music), beforehand, revealing its history in the context of Burns’ life and times.

“They’re written in the old Scots tongue, which is alien to American audiences,” she said. “But if you look beyond the melody, you can get a deeper feeling for the songs.”

More hang-loose still will be the no-cover “fete” at the Bob Burns Restaurant in Woodland Hills.

The Browne Sisters and George Cavanaugh--who regularly perform Celtic music on the second and fourth Tuesday nights here--will do a night of “electrified Burns music” in three-part harmony, with pipes, penny whistle, bohran (Celtic drum) and electric guitar.

For the trimmed-down, hipped-up celebration, long-haired band member and piper John Alle--as the lone Scotsman there--will officiate at the “Ceremony to the Haggis.”

That’s right, haggis, which is common to Burns suppers everywhere in the world.

“If you didn’t have a haggis ceremony, it wouldn’t be a Burns night,” said McNabb.

It starts with the infamous Scots national dish, traditionally composed of “minced offal of mutton” (heart, lungs, kidney and other sheep innards), blended with oatmeal and spices and, says an original recipe, “boiled in a sheep’s stomach, therein”).

“It’s a peasant dish, the leftovers from what the wealthy don’t want,” said Joe Swindle, who admits that while it can be quite tasty, it’s “an acquired taste.”

(“I don’t love it, I respect it,” said American-born Burns Club Vice President George Kirkpatrick).

At the Bob Burns restaurant, haggis is an Americanized concoction. “It’s ground sirloin and oatmeal--so people can eat it,” said manager Vickie Goldberg dryly. “They devour it every year,” she added emphatically.

The Burns Club, however, will offer visitors a “wee taste” of the real thing (minus the sheep’s stomach, per FDA rules). At the Buchanan Arms, haggis lovers can slurp up a slab of it, as an alternative to prime rib or chicken, served with chappit tatties and neeps (potatoes and mashed turnips).

But, about the haggis ceremony.

In time-honored tradition, the humble fare is ceremoniously “piped in” by a lone piper as a chef carries it on a silver platter with a waiter bearing a tray of Scotch behind him. Then a chosen person recites Burns’ famous poem, “Address to a Haggis,” before it is cut and served.

According to David McNabb, who cites the Edinburgh Literary Journal of 1829, Burns composed the poem on the spot after “feasting liberally” on the lip-smacking dish at the home of his crony, a cabinetmaker named Martin Morrison.

The poem has thus been a part of Burns celebrations since they were started in 1802, several years after Burns’ death, reportedly by other Burns cronies, at the Tarbolton Bachelors Club.

“It’s tongue-in-cheek, a humorous attempt to honor the haggis,” said Joe Swindle, of the flowery eight-stanza ode, which he will recite for the Burns Club.

“Burns uses grandiloquent language to comic effect, praising the haggis as ‘that great chieftain of puddings, the greatest of the tribe of foodstuffs made of innards.’ He then goes on to attribute the great ferocity and physical resilience of the Scots to the haggis, comparing the rustic, haggis-fed Scot to the Frenchman and his effete ragout,” said John Hannah who will address the haggis with a “tautened-up brogue” for the Celtic Arts Center.

“Making a high-flown ode to the haggis is a bit like any of us writing fine verse to a Big Mac.”

Novel as the haggis ceremony is, it’s not the most important element of a Burns supper. That would be the “Toast to the Immortal Memory,” a tribute to the poet by a well-known expert (it’s been said that somewhere in the world, Sean Connery will be giving an “Immortal Memory”).

“Ideally, it’s like stand-up, a very high form of theater, funny and affecting emotionally, dealing with a literary figure that you don’t have to be Scotch to appreciate,” said Hannah, who will also do the “Immortal Memory” for the Celtic Arts Center, on the Queen Mary.

Purists like Hannah raise an eyebrow on hearing that the “Immortal Memory” at the Burns Club will be a theater piece by Anne Dwyer.

Dwyer, a former Glasgow drama teacher and member of the Scottish Country Dance Society, admits to some “collywobbles” about performing the original vignette in front of exalted company.

She describes the performance piece as “an imagined conversation between Burns and a serving woman at a local inn, as he tells her about his life and loves and work.”

“I hope to have people come away, knowing more about “who are you, Rabbie Burns, and how did you come to write such things?” said Dwyer, whose piece has actually been well-received on other occasions.

“Because he was so important in restoring dignity to Scots at a time when they needed it the most. And his work is appropriate even for living here today.”

Hannah might agree.

“He had a horrible distaste for hypocrisy and silliness and for the class system. His message for Americans in this day and age is ‘Don’t be impressed by celebrity, don’t be taken in by politicians,’ ” he said.

“Auld Lang Syne,” which ends and begins each year and closes every Burns night around the world, ties it all together, Hannah said.

“It’s about bosom friendship that lasts a lifetime, art and poetry and music and conviviality. Life is short, so enjoy what you have. And, of course, a little alcohol will not kill you.

“He’s done an extraordinary thing. He’s managed to assure his own immortality by making people come out of their houses every 25th of January. We don’t do it for Shakespeare, but we do it for Burns.”

BE THERE

Los Angeles Burns Club Burns Supper, 6 p.m. Sunday, Castaway restaurant, 1250 Harvard Road, Burbank. $40. Call George Kirkpatrick for reservations. (818) 848-5430.

Celtic Arts Center Burns Supper, 6 p.m. Sunday, Buchanan Arms restaurant, 2013 W. Burbank Blvd., Burbank. $22. Call David McNabb for reservations, (818) 727-0914.

Bob Burns Restaurant, Burns celebration with haggis ceremony, no cover, in the lounge area, Tuesday. Music at 7:30 p.m.; ceremony at 8:30, with bagpipers throughout the restaurant. 21821 Oxnard, Woodland Hills, (818) 883-2145.