Breakfast on Pluto list of what to do

Breakfast on Pluto references: (vocab, slang, pop culture refs, in-jokes, etc. include explanations, pictures, video links, songs, etc.—whatever you can think of)

np                   lyrics from title song

·      Does the lightness, optimism, even frivolity of these lyrics contrast with PB’s life or actually fit it?

·      So what does the title mean anyway?

ix-xi                prelude

• Starts with little history lesson: what of? why? what tone does this give the book?
• contrast to tone and message of 2nd paragraph. What background about the Troubles do we need to know? How much do they underlie and inform PB’s story?
• Why does McC write “hero(ine)” Can he have it both ways?
• Listing the politically violent historical events serves what purpose?
• BP deciding to dedicate his life to ending this ugly state of perpetual limbo and a map which might lead to that place called home: is PB political? Is this ironic? How do we interpret it? How is home connected to his search for his mother?
• What does/will PB’s journey symbolize in light of the background of the Troubles?
• How does McC’s comment at the end color this all?

GAROTED, TREMULOUS, DOUBLE-BIND, EVISCERATIONS, IRREPRESSIBLE, PASTICHE, EMISSARY

1-2                   I Was  High-Class Escort Girl

·      What is the effect and purpose of using this “True Confessions” style chapter title? Sensationalized? Sarcastic? Self-mocking? Then does the first sentence undercut it? What is the tone? How does PB refer to self? Local guys tease her—do they have any idea? Her cheekiness is pure? Covering sadness? She likes the idea of messing with them. She refers to both a dream-reality past. But is that actually it? The reality was always colored by dream because it was so yucky? When she refers to self in the third person it’s like someone she created or loved or used to know.

·      Vic Damone and those old magazines

WIELDING

3-4                   A Word of Advice from Dr. Terence

·      When was Dr. T. in her life? Now refers to self in 2nd person. Then admonishing self in 3rd person “Braden!” Was flattered to be told to write her life. Was recognized as a writer at school. Talking about writing devolves into fantasy about Dr. T (wanting to belong to someone, be owned by someone?) Dr T liked the part about Whiskers (probably looking to “explain” PB)

[The Life and Times of Patrick Braden]

·      Notice the choice of using “Patrick”—the male self? the whole self? how much of this all should we trust when we consider audience and writing situation and PB’s tendency toward fantasy and exaggeration?

7-9       ch.1             Merry Christmas, Mrs. Whiskers

·      What tone or voice is PB using here? Why? What is the effect?

·      What is the portrayal of the priest here? What picture of the Braden household do we get? How much anger is in the sarcasm? Who is the anger directed at?

·      his conception as a seminal moment (when the priest changed).

·      Mitzi Gaynor

MINX, PEAL, INQUISITOR,

10-11   ch.2             BP, Aged 13—The Trouble Begins in Earnest

·      Now that he knows he’s the priest’s kid, rather than hide it, he revels in it, writing warped essays for school. A challenge to the town gossiping and secret-keeping. The teacher calls it “anti-social behavior” But PB won’t agree to stop it and try to fit in. In fact he will do the opposite.

12-13   ch.3              In Flagrante Delicto, 7.03 p.m., Sept. 13, 1968

·      At age 13, we’d expect him to be doing what when left alone in the house? So what’s our reaction when he does what he does? Of course, they’re mad at him, but why does Whiskers cry and think “this is definitely the end”? What seems to be PB’s attitude about getting caught—proud? humorous? mocking?

·      Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

·      “Son of a Preacher Man”!

IN FLAGRANTE DELICTO

14-15   ch.4              Mrs. O’Hares’ Smalls

• What are “smalls” ? Why does he take her smalls?
• Lorne Green/Bonanza
• People find out “about” him.
• When he says “I wasn’t all that interested in sex” and explains what he really wanted? What was that? Why?

VOLUMINOUS

16-19   ch.5             Welcomes to Juke Box Jury

·      What sort of games did he play with Charlie (who is female, BTW) and Irwin? What can we glean about their friendship? Why does Irwin put up with Patrick? Why do you think Patrick loved Charlie being in charge? How does his having loyal friends affect how we view Patrick?

·      What form does the Irish patriotism for the 50th anniversary of 1916 take? Why is 1916 celebrated?

·      slang: bollocks, eejit

SALUBRIOUS

20-21   ch.6              Most Popular Adolescent Boy

• slang: kip
• What is happening around them? What is this response? Why?
• What do we infer about Patrick’s hobbies?
• Provisional IRA. Why might Irwin be hanging around with them?

22        ch.7             A Real Soldier and a Work of Art Delivered

• Why is PB so cynical about Irwin as a soldier? What seems to be PB’s idea of how soldiers act?
• What does he mean about the balloon in Northern Ireland having gone up?
• Why would PB put one of his stories in the priest’s/his father’s mailbox?

23-29   ch.8             Breakfast is Served [this is the story he delivered]

§       Eily is his mom: how does he imagine her? How does he portray the priest? Why? What is the tone of this story like? Why he crazy language for body parts? What does PB get from writing this kind of thing?

• He depicts his mom’s “experience” as consisting of film fantasies—not at all with the real thing. Why is the rape portrayed as it is? At one point, PB writes it in the 2nd person, addressing his mom as “you.” Why? Then the “you” changes to an accusing tirade at his father; was this the overall goal of the story? If not, what was?
• What do we learn about the conservatism of 1950s Ireland through this story?
• *joke about himself now in a dowdy middle aged lady attire. Has he made himself into a version of his mom?
• Perry Como
• South Pacific (Mitzi Gaynor in)
• RANDY, RASHERS, DOWDY, MAGNANIMOUSLY, OUTRE, WHEY, PAPIER-MACHE, INSATIABLE, BALLISTA

30-34   ch.9             Ladies & Gentlemen—Mr. Dummy Teat

• What is a “dummy teat” in the UK? Why does PB refer to his sugar daddy as this?
• It sounds like he repeatedly rubs his father’s face in his (Patrick’s) version of the past? Why?
• “Peeps” is “Peepers” Egan, PB’s teacher. Why does he show his compostions about his dad to his teacher—does he want to get in trouble?
• Gilbert o’Sullivan
• How/When does PB meet his sugar daddy? How is Dummy depicted? How do we feel that PB’s “first” is an old, married, closeted rich dude? Is part of why PB likes his new “home” because everything about Dummy is such a contrast to Rat Trap Mansions?
• He mentions Dummy’s secret political stuff, but dismisses it as unimportant. Why—what does this how about PB?
• How do we know PB is using Dummy as a sugar daddy? Is PB just using him or does he like Dummy?
• He refers to Dummy as “lover husband” and to himself as a “girl”: implications?
• It sounds like PB gets tired of the sex. Compare this to his depiction of his mother’s rape in the previous chapter—is there unwanted sex?
• What seems to be PB’s attitude to Dummy being killed in a bomb attack? Who did it? PB tries to erase the political context of his life, but it keeps intruding. Dummy even tried to keep PB safe by never mentioning the gun-running, etc.
• Weird story about why PB started calling him Dummy. Does Patrick manipulate him? 300 pounds was a lot of money back then!

35-39   ch.10             A Dublin Interlude

                        slang: brasser            

·      As Patrick remembers gladly taking and spending the $, does he seem like a gold digger?

·      What seems to be PB’s attutide toward Charlie’s taste for 70s hippy fashion? What does PB like to spend the $ on? Why?

·      He refers to begging Charlie to fool around with him—does that surprise you? So he’s bi? What is Charlie’s explanation for things? Does PB’s response make sense?

·      What does Charlie mean about the whole country knowing about Dummy? That he liked boys? That he “kept” PB? That he was running guns?

·      PB acting like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s: what does PB get out of this relation ship? What does Dummy get?

·      While Charlie and Patrick have been shopping, Irwin is in Dublin for an anti-interternment march. What was the policy of internment then? (Again politics always intrudes on PB’s life).

·      Inwin slams glam rock. What was glam rock? Why did PB like it? Who was Ziggy Stardust?

·      PB refers to people’s remarks about his attire as “compliments.” Is he delusional? Does he just like attention?

·      David Cassidy haircut. [The Partidge family]

·      What seems to be everyone’s mood when Charlie and Irwin make out? Is PB happy for his friends? Mystified? When Irwin says “Does your fancy man kiss you like that, you crazy f*cking nancy boy” what do you think the tone is?

·      What is the inspiration for PB’s new identity? (Paddy Pussy)

·      How is all 3 of their giddiness brought down? What is PB’s escape from the violence of the Troubles?

CHIRRUPED

40-45   ch.11             Hysterical Jokes and Greeting Visitors in a Skyblue Negligee!

• (think of the root word “hysteria” in hysterical for this chapter title)
• When PB thinks of his friend’s joke that he wants a vagina of his own, what does he think he’d do with it? Why is that so significant?
• The mother-on-her-deathbed fantasy is echoed on the last page
• It seems like Dummy’s relationship with PB was something that eventually became a public scandal—what does PB’s attitude seem to be about that? Does he mind?
• Tells that Dummy’s name was Eamon Faircroft: why come out with it now?
• Why are people mean about Dummy’s death—telling PB horrible jokes? Why are the reason for and method of Dummy’s death significant?
• How does the scene when the IRA shows up mock endangered heroine roles and tough guys? How does PB get back at the soldiers and “win” the encounter?
• Dick Emery? “See you later, honky tonk” song?
• slang: “put the tin hat on it”

NEGLIGEE, RAMPAGING, HARRIDAN

46-47   ch.12              Celebrity Squares

·      Celebrity Square would have been like the American Hollywood Squares (which was what?

·      Laurence Feely’s death and PB’s reaction to it (leaving!) was mentioned at the end of ch.11: here PB is imagining the Para’s (Protestant paramilitary guys) questioning Laurence. Why does it make him so angry? Why does it speed him on his away out of town?

48-51   ch.13             A Girl Who Knows She’s Loved

• A crush on PB. How is PB’s situtaion changed a bit if a big tough guy has a secret crush on someone like PB? How does it make PB feel?
• Implications of PB referring to self as a girl--
• What does Irwin’s drunken outburst about the Free State mean?
• What is Charlie’s The Mersey Sound book? That she carries a book of poetry around with her and drunkenly shouts out lines from poems (about painting the birds)  shows what about her?
• PB is dressing more and more androgynously. Tonight it’s hoop earrings. When people give him crap for it, what does his response “Affirmative, darling sweety-pie!” show about his attitude? How can he be so cheeky when stuff happens like the bikers trying to beat him up: “Kill the hooring nancy queen.”
• How does it make PB feel that Jojo defended him? What is Jojo’s given reason?
• How does the little scene where PB thanks Jojo portray PB as the comforting one? Why does this seem odd—after all, Jojo just saved him/her?  Could the whole Jojo crush thing just be a product of PB’s imagination? Implications of?

52-55   ch.14             A Head on Him Like Barney Gillis’s Cockerel

• People seem to mostly kind of accept PB and just give him a little crap. How do the workers talk to him? What does his old classmate’s calling PB “Pussy” and his response to PB wishing someone would marry him/her show?
• picture: David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars in their unitards. How would something like this affect someone like PB?
• What is Barney Gillis’s cockerel and did David Bowie’s hair look like it?
• Does it sound like he made out (or more) with Charlie here? How does that impact our picture of PB? Factor in that Charlie was giving PB a makeover and she is the one who made him look so good that she wanted to kiss him. Explain the part in Italics.

56-57   ch.15             Elephants to England

·      Why does that ferry to England seem like such an escape?           

·      Who is Elephants? What do you guess he sent time in prison for? Patrick is flamboyant and “out,” while Elephants would obviously have been closeted: discuss the situation and power dynamic.

·      Is this the start of PB’s career as a rent boy? Explain.

PUGILIST, POST-COITAL

58                    Suddenly—An Expert!

·      Here is a commentary from older PB writing the autobiography. What do we learn from it? What is the effect for us of learning something tragic before it happens in the time-frame of the autobiography?Why would the author stick in an interruption like this?

·      Chapter title refers to Dr. Terence; what seems to be Patrick’s attitude here?

PERSISTENTLY, VINDICTIVE, MISSIVES, STRUTTING, OSTENTATIOUS

59-61   ch.16   In a Pig’s Ear, Sweety-Pie

• What does the title mean?
• PB is still thinking about his relationship with his dad: what do we learn? Why does that matter?
• What is “mickey money”? What does it say about the  local culture that it has a name?
• Do you think PB had a right to the money from the priest? Why did he throw such a fit at Whiskers?

PLACATE

62-62   ch.17             I Work Here

§       Patrick went to church to confront his father in the confessional. Do you think he really would have done it?

• What seems to be PB’s attitude toward church, Jesus, Catholicism, etc.?

64        ch.18             ‘Look! She’s Lost Again!’

§       It sounds like PB went to London with the definite intention of becoming  a boy prostitute. Where did he get the idea from? Usually we think of this a job for someone powerless, abused, desperate, etc. Does PB seem any of those things?

65-73   ch.19             Theme from ‘A Summer Place’

• “Silky String” is mentioned in the last chapter: what is he? How do we figure that out?

§       How can we tell that PB is still pretty naïve at this point? Does he seem to see himself as sex-for-hire or as looking-for-love? Or both? Discuss.

• What is that list of things in capital letters?
• What downside to the rent-boy life do we glimpse?
• Vic Damone (above p.3-4)—“Stay with Me” what kind of song is it?
• Why was this “customer’s” behavior not what we would expect?
• What does it show about PB that in the middle of describing this awful near-tragic event he complains about how his clothes are now from Oxfam? What is Oxfam? That PB no longer has all the clothes he bought with his money from the Dummy days shows what about his time in London? (But he hasn’t mentioned this).
• Even worse than simply strangling PB, his “date” is also _______ [ugh!]
• What inspires PB to fight back? How does he get away?
• As PB is escaping, why is his date yelling at him for being Irish? How were the Irish viewed then by many English?
• What is PB’s reaction to having nearly been killed yet having to keep putting himself in similar dangerous positions?
• As he talks about how the police clear the area (fear of IRA bombs), how does he show the police treating him? Again, why does he get crap for being Irish? Isn’t being given crap for being gay enough?
• looks like Robert Redford
• He discusses the aftermath of a bombing that he witnesses as he is finishing a job. What does he see? Does it make sense why anti-Irish sentiment is so high?
• Clockwork Orange gangs would be and look like what?
• Explain the thing about smelling like dog dirt.

LIGATURE, REMONSTRATE

74-76   ch.20            Where the F*%@# is My Mammy?

• What is the image of his fellow Irishman that he gets at the all-night café? What makes them sentimental? How is the weird Irish thing about mothers shown here? But how is PB like them? How can he think he could possibly find his mom?
• Philomena Begley, Larry Cunningham
• Israeli tanks on the Sinai desert on the tv—what was happening then in 1973?
• If PB spends his nights in all-night cafes, does he have a place to stay? We infer what?
• FLOTSAM AND JETSAM, PALLID, TEEMING

77-81   ch.21            Welcome Home!

• PB’s new flame Bertie did not look like [young version!] Marlon Barndo, but more like Mr. Magoo (pictures)
• PB seems very happy to once again have nice what? Which shows what?
• Lynsey de Paul (picture) “Sugar Me”
• Peters and Lee “Welcome Home”
• What is PB’s tone as he writes “Naughty Pussy, gold-digging girl!” Why does PB say yes the Bertie’s offer?

PATHOLOGICAL

82-84               Some Information about Charlie and Irwin, Gleaned from Charlie’s Letters

• What are Charlie and Irwin fighting about?
• The glimpses of Charlie’s IRA work give us what kinds of impression of these tough-guy freedom fighters? How does Irwin not really fit the pattern?
• These deaths seem so personal—people they knew. And people soon know about Irwin and threaten Charlie to get at him. Discuss. Irwin will be pushed by his IRA friends and by the cops. What should he choose? Why is this part of PB’s story?
• Good news about Charlie’s art.

85        ch.22            At Last I Get to Paint Them!

§       This painting from a poem by the guy in The Mersey Sound anthology: why is it so important to Charlie? How did it save PB?

§       When PB says “They have the arse rode off me” is it joking, literal, true, all of the above? It seemed that he went to London to be a boy prostitute because he thought he’d get lots of action and get paid for it, but the work was sometimes quite a drag. After having done it for awhile, how does he view his career choice? When Charlie calls him a slut and blows a kiss, why is the loving joke a little scary too? Is someone still a slut when the act is done for money, not for fun?

86-87   ch.23            Up West!

§       He is impersonating and making fun of a certain type of Londoner in this chapter. (It helps to read it aloud). To the Londoners, he would have an Irish accent, but this shows his view of a London accent.

§       As this persona observes a bombing and its aftermath, how do we see it a little differently from in ch.19?  How do Londoners feel about the Irish in general? Why are they all considered to be like that? Explain the term “bog-Arab.”

88-90   ch.24            A Big Dead Flower

He’s now doing Dusty Springfield impersonations. (picture) “Windmills of Your Mind” and “Son of a Preacher Man” (above) Supremes, Lulu. Why is PB having so much fun with this singing gig?

Does it seem like PB likes or respects Bertie? Or Bertie just a sugar daddy?

91-93   ch.25            A Little Curling Whisper: Why?

• Why was Louise the landlady probably really complaining?
• The Wombles tv show. Look on YouTube—weird!
• What does Louise want from PB? He sees through it, but why does he go along anyway? He’s seen a lot in his day, but why does he request make him embarrassed? Why does this feel like probably the oddest thing PB’s been involved with? Is Bertie right to be freaked out? You gotta love the line “He’s my girlfriend, you f’ing old cow!”
• Why did PB choose Louise when forced to choose? As we’ve wondered before, does he feel love for people or is he just happy about what they can do for him?
• The curling whisper of “Why” refers to what?

94        ch.26            ‘My Name’s Not Eily Bergin!’

                        Why at this point in his life is he thinking strangers are his mom even more than usual?

95-96               If Terence Were to See Me Now!

97-98   ch.27            Terence in a Sheepskin

99-101ch.28            Dancing on A Saturday Night

102                  Thinking Far Too Much

103-04                         Understand

105-08ch.29            The Incident Behind the Creamery

109-11ch.30            Chez Nouz

112-16ch.31            Running Out on Louise

117-24ch.32            Visitations in the Night by P.Braden, Ward 7

125-30ch.33            A Long-Ago Night in November

131-32ch.34            The Life and Times of Pat Puss, Hooker

133-34ch.35            Detention in the School of Dr. Vernon, Late October 1974

135-37ch.36            Al Pacino Reveals All!

138-39ch.37            Busy Men Prepare to Blow Up London and Get Pussy into Trouble

140-44ch.38            Ooh, Bomber!

145-46ch.39            ‘It’s Bombing Night and I Haven’t Got a Thing to Wear’

147                  An Out-of-Body Experience Perhaps?

148-49ch.40            A Lot of People Losing It!

150-51ch.41            Hello, Mrs. Braden!

152-54ch.42            Vengeance Shall Be Mine, Says Puss

155      ch.43            The Lurex Avenger

156-57ch.44            The Stench That No One Knows is There

158-64ch.45            A Great Day for Bonzo

165                  Perfume: 1,000 v. Stench: 0

166-69ch.46            A View from the Hill

170                  Die, Daddy!

171-73ch.47            Vicky Likes Salmon!!

174                  Terence Was Right

175-77ch.48            A Church in Flames

178-79ch.49            A Sudden Burst of Gunfire

180                  Free!

181-83ch.50            Lynsey de Paul

184-88ch.51            I Become a Bit of a Busybody!

189-90ch.52            ‘I’m in Love!’

191-92ch.53            If I Wasn’t There

193-94ch.54            The Other Thing

195-96ch.55            We Leave Tyreelin Forever

197-99ch.56            He’s Ours!