The Crazy is Catching

“All welcome”

Two words I am slowly growing to hate. Two words people tag onto the end of notices hoping to hide the fact that “all” are very much not welcome. If you announce something – a pig race or a cocktail party – in a public sphere then the percieved wisdom is that it is open to the public. But then, at the end, is your qualifier. Yes, it’s a public event but it’s not for the public. It’s for locals, regulars, people you see every day and it is very much not open to the scary, all-consuming “all” that is our brave new world. 

Moving home has opened my eyes to the provincialism that still exists in the badlands of our fair isle. Local notices say things like “we have decided every house in the parish must pay €5 toward the upkeep of the church each week. Further discussion will not be entered into. Everyone will use the church at some stage in their lives”. God is still bothering people in Deliverance-land. Curtain twitching busybodies rule with muslin-clothed iron fists and privacy is best kept for holidays away from the villages of squinting windows. 

It makes me yearn for a city. An anonymous world where people don’t raise an eyebrow at a surname that isn’t “local” and when a poster is tagged to a telegraph pole everyone is welcome, regardless of what part of the “all” matrix they fall into. 

I guess I’m glad when a neighbour signs for a parcel or helps with a flat tyre but, most of the time, I daydream about Bruce Springsteen-Born to Run-ing my ass out of here.

strange meeting

This weekend is my ten year school reunion. It’s taking place in a hotel where, as a 17-year old recently freed from boarding school and exams,  I scammed a bouncer into letting me in underage, drank vodka and red bull and generally misbehaved as much as a nice Catholic school girl might.

That was then and this is now. Now bouncers don’t even look at me when I approach and, when being sensible, I avoid vodka and red bull like it’s the plague, the expensive kind. My problem today, yesterday and probably tomorrow is whether or not to go to this reunion, whether or not to put myself in a room full of people I once knew, who once knew me.

My 17-year old self, only a little different to my 27-year old self, would say no. She was in possession of a healthy degree of cynicism and was quick enough to know that not every friendship, every farewell notebook signed, would last. Few of them did, the ones that stood the test of a decade are keepers. They are my go-to people, they have big sections of my heart and though ten years is but a small patch in the quilt of time I know they’ll be around forever.

Those who fell by the wayside once school was over are not bad people. I don’t dislike them; I just don’t know them anymore. I can’t quite bring myself to want to know them either, probably a terrible thing for me to say. What can I learn from meeting people I once knew who are now ten years older?

Will I learn more about me? I foresee people, with a few drinks on-board, telling me what they thought of me in school. (Quiet, bookish, argumentative, perhaps even snobby?) I foresee me not remembering people (will they have name tags?) and fear them not remembering me. Crushes have been mentioned and though my one big crush from school is still an acquaintance and I’m way past the crush stage now (jeez, it’s been ten years since I even used that word) will I come face to face with others and die a little inside?

Then there’s the ‘and what do you do’ conversation. Really, I’ve little to fear, but fear itself is, in itself, not helping. Then there will be those who have children (perhaps she who wrote on the Facebook page about ‘losing the baby weight’ will come) and wedding rings and what do you say to them? They’re all grown up with mortgages and responsibilities and I’m wondering if my media pass to the next festival will allow me to camp!

But, really, that’s all bullshit. People with kids still have brains and lives as do people with wedding rings. And everybody there will be dreading the ‘what do you do’ question, last time I checked we had no astronauts in the alumni. So, then, what? What holds me back from attending what could be a fun night that will be little more than a stroll down memory lane with a spot of dancing to late 90s pop?

I wish I knew. My 17-year old self probably knows, she is infinitely wiser than herself, 10 years later. Right now, weighing pros and cons and thinking FAR too much, I’m saying No. I’m saying wait another ten years when things have actually CHANGED and I’ll go, wait until memories are old enough to surprise, not amuse, us and I’ll be there.

In the meantime I’ll stick with remembering the Class of 2000 the way I like to: on the precipice of something huge, infinite, golden, magical and very much theirs – and very much mine – for the taking.

Things I do not understand

gratuitous shot of John Isner that has little bearing on content of post.

1: Why we care if the Queen of England (it REALLY pisses me off when she is referred to solely as ‘the Queen’, as if she’s the only one, of as if she’s our Queen. Why am I capitalising Queen?!) visits. Big step forward or no in relations between Ireland and the UK, doesn’t Cowen have more important things to do than invite a monarch to tea? A bloody expensive tea, I might add. Then again this is the man who spends the state’s money on travelling to schools in his constituency to raise green flags, a task being done by local or county GAA players in every other county…

2: What’s going on with Jordan/Katie Price, Peter Andre and Kerry Katona et al?Summary in less than 50 words required.

3: The BBC’s obsession with the skyline at Wimbledon. I get it, cameramen, as time passes so does the colour of the sky. It happens EVERY day, not just when the great and amazing and spectacular and unbelievable and inconcievable game of tennis as played on Court 18 today between Isner and Mahut is on. I swear to baby Jesus, if they panned to a shot of a jet preparing to land ONE MORE TIME I was going to take my tennis business elsewhere. Though I do love when they comment how the banal things a player does in the course of a match: “Isner has stopped for a moment to change his racquet, because of the new balls. He’ll need a tighter string”, followed by five minute chat on how tight strings are needed for new balls, because, well, the balls are new.

This land is my land

National identity and national pride are not things to which I give a lot of consideration. I consider myself Irish first, European second and a citizen of the world third. I don’t feel shaped by being Irish and though a sense of pride might be inherent it is not worn on my sleeve. Recently I told an English friend that I considered myself European in addition to Irish. He didn’t understand, couldn’t comprehend. Being European was some kind of surrender for him, being part of Europe comes with leaving behind a sense of English-ness, of being British, in his eyes. We couldn’t agree so we moved on, these disagreements are healthy and it’s not my place to change someone’s views because they don’t fit with mine.

The reason I’ve brought up the question of identity is because something happened at the weekend that made me feel more Irish than the Irish themselves and I sort of loved it. No, it wasn’t a rally, an IRA induction ceremony or a 1916 commemoration; it was a music festival.

Festival of the Fires took place at the Hill of Uisneach, Ballymore, Westmeath this past weekend and it changed me. But before I begin the tale of how a few hippies, some lovely scenery and too much cider brought about a transformation I will first explain the festival itself.

Uisneach Hill is about a 20 drive from my house. It is thought to be situated at the centre of the Island and it is said that from the hill you can see all the counties in Ireland. It is a sacred pagan site where Bealtaine is celebrated to mark the end of Winter each year on May 1. The first fire in Ireland is said to have been lit there. There are so many tales about the Hill itself that to tell them all would take much longer than I have. Needless to say, it is a special place soaked in a history that sounds like fiction when you talk about it out loud.

The festival itself was celebrated on May 1 as tradition dictates and was organised by local music promoters who wanted to resurrect the ancient traditions and light fires on the hill once more. I went with Cakeface. The rain was pouring down as we began our ascent, thankful I had wellies and she had her trusty festival shoes. At the top of the first hill we passed a hut and were stopped by a red-haired woman who asked us to come back to the hut when the rain cleared, learn to poi and take part in their celebration. We marched on, all the way to the top of the hill past the food vendors roasting pigs and mulling cider. It sounds ridiculously quaint and it was. I can’t BUT write about the day like this because this is what it was.

On top of the hill the bonfire was set and on top of the rock known as St Patrick’s Bed two nuns surveyed the outlying counties through binoculars. Men and women on horseback were painted like extras from Braveheart, swigging from cans of Budweiser as they paraded around the festival. The day itself was a happy blur: we drank mulled cider and cold cider, we ate roast pork and cookies and sausage rolls. We tied prayers to a May Bush and sat on a rock watching the world pass by. We found a digital camera and helped it find its way back to its owner. We heard some music: nothing amazing but nothing terrible either. At a certain point, when the rain had passed we walked back to the first hut and the woman we first spoke to brought us into a fairy fort and taught us to poi. The sun was at its highest point then and looking around, the county from whence I came looked beautiful painted in greens and sitting under a perfect sky.

Later we convinced ourselves we could take part in procession dressed in hippy pants, completely out of our comfort zone, at least one of us singing the Smiths in her head to keep going. Then suddenly we weren’t in a procession, we were part of something. The procession was everyone walking to the top of Uisneach Hill, everyone looking to the fire and the magic and the reason we came. People’s eyes were bright, bright in that way you only think happens in books. Children ran about chasing the sparks from the massive fire and as it grew stronger we retired backwards where there was more space to appreciate the fire. Looking around other hills in the distance had also lit fires, we were just one of many. It was dark then and time for Kila. Everyone gathered around the stage and listened to music with an Irish heart. There were no tricolours, no proclamations of freedom or war, just talk that it was a great day to be there, to witness this, to be part of something new, something older than time.

And we were. We might have known the words to the songs or be able to speak the language fluently but we were one. I rarely feel a part of a place. I like to think I’m European because it means I can be almost anything at any time. Last Saturday walking down the hill lit by lanterns, tripping in mud and shivering against the May breeze I was at home at last, in my county and my country and I’ve rarely been happier.

© Gary Fox

After reading this at the weekend I remembered writing the feature below – “The Caravaggio-ists” and Gary taking this photograph and wanted to share. Knowing the Gallery is close is one of the things I miss most about living in Dublin.

The Caravaggio-ists

He’s in my seat. Again. I walk slowly around, feigning an interest in other exhibits. Then I come back. This time eye contact is made. There’s a flicker of recognition in his eyes but no movement. A stand-off. I sit beside him on the bench and turn so that our bodies face the same way, inches from each other. I look around his head, resting my elbow on the varnished wood and there it is. The reason for being here, always the reason.

Calm washes over me. Now it is manageable. His head obscures part of the view, but that can be borne. Tourists chatter in the corner but don’t break the spell. Minutes, perhaps hours, pass and he leaves. I slide to his spot – still warm – and now it’s all mine.

Caravaggio’s The Taking of Christ has one of the most famous stories in the art world behind it. It hung in the sitting room of a Jesuit residence in Dublin collecting layers of varnish and decades of dust. Everyone, including the Gallery’s donor, understood it to be a copy. The original painting was considered lost until someone noticed this incredible “copy” and after much speculation and consternation from groups that still consider it an excellent forgery, it was declared the original The Taking of Christ.

The painting is on indefinite loan to the National Gallery of Ireland where it hangs today, free of charge for the public to view.

Though religious in its subject matter there is something unorthodox about this painting. Caravaggio broke rules when he began his career, and nowhere is this more apparent than in The Taking of Christ. Instead of the models used by other painters of his era, Caravaggio took to the streets and placed ordinary people into extraordinary situations, immortalising them. Little that was ugly or unpleasant about the human condition bothered him. For Caravaggio, rebellious in both art and lifestyle, to pretend an “ideal” beauty existed was contemptible, at odds with his determination to paint what was true about life for the average Italian of his time.

The painting itself is a study in human emotion; a wan, almost skeletal Christ faces a current of people pushing and shoving against him. It is violent and cruel; the painting looks like it may, at any time, hurtle from the canvas and into another world. Near the base are two clasped hands, those of Christ. Though the world of the painting pushes him savagely, he has resigned himself to his pain and uses no force against them. His life is what it is; there is little one can do to prevent fate taking control. In the corner what is believed to be a self-portrait of the artist himself holds a lamp and watches what he has created, what humanity has presented to him as real life.

To loiter in front of this painting more often than is considered normal is not so much a mystery as it is an inexplicable hobby.

My childhood was not spent in hushed silence as my parents dragged me from gallery to gallery. What little knowledge and love I have for Art was learned on my own terms through occasional encounters with the classics. I stood before Michelangelo’s David with a seminar’s worth of “Renaissance Art History” behind me and could do nothing but stare. My critical faculties fail me when genius crosses my path, there is no relationship between Art and me, rather I let Art do what it must with my emotions while I, sponge-like, absorb everything and anything it throws my way.

The love affair with Caravaggio began in Rome.

Thirsty, irritable and numbed by fatigue I stood, a wrong turn from the Pantheon, outside the S. Luigi dei Francesi church. I checked my guidebook to see what this small church had to offer and read that it housed three Caravaggios. Three. Inside they hung in the far corner of the church, easily identifiable behind the baseball caps and day-glo colours of tourism. The crowd, an object lesson in heedless disregard of the sternest edicts, took pictures with flash to their hearts content. I stood, enthralled.

“Spiritual” isn’t the best word to use but it’s the only one that comes to mind.

Since then, like an occasional junkie – a weekend user – I have days when I need a fix.

Recently a friend joined the club. She felt she needed time on the Caravaggio bench. She was alone and happy to be so. She didn’t hear him approaching.

“You’re one of them,” a voice whispered.

“Huh?”

“One of them, you just come down to see this painting, ignore all of the others, you’re just here for him.”

“You mean there’s a group of us?”

“Oh yeah, you’re all the same, come straight through to here, relax in front of it.”

“Oh.”

The attendant’s words were not a great surprise. She had noticed the same faces in that same area before, but she placed faith in coincidence. Knowing she wasn’t alone was eerily comforting and weird at the same time. Looking around, there they are: the student with his iPod earphones dripping from his collar, battered satchel at his side, his pocket vibrating from the phone he seldom turns off and the older woman on a break from her home, her children, and the concerns of everyday life.

In the reserved silence of the gallery people can be alone with their thoughts. You can stare at that painting, looking beyond it until the only place your eyes are focusing is inside yourself. Nobody will bother you in a gallery. Nobody will try to sell you coffee, your phone is off and the constant hum of city noises is a different world. For a moment you’re standing against that current, your hands are clasped and everything makes sense.

“Club” isn’t the best word to use but it’s the only one that comes to mind.

Tea and sympathy

Quick post because I think I am emotionally scarred following a viewing of The Godfather Part II followed by Scarface within 24 hours. But before I let the bloodshed of organised crime into my celluloid life I was a very respectable girl this weekend, the type who goes to afternoon tea in The Shelbourne.

The tea was in honour of meeting up with two of my greatest and bestest friends who I never get to see because we are TERRIBLE at organising anything that suits everybody. So to celebrate meeting finalmente we went to the Shelbourne and pretended that we are the type of ladies who eat sandwiches without crusts. When we got a little too boisterous for the Lord Mayor’s Lounge (me: “Tara, is there a real-live human playing that piano?”) we adjourned to the bar and missed greeting the returning Irish Rugby team by seconds. Not that we let that dampen any spirits. I couldn’t be without my friends; if only every Saturday was like this.

There were salmon and brown bread delights but we ate them before the camera had time to catch up…..

While a story I had already heard was explained (LOTS of catching up…) I took pictures of the delicious Strawberrytinis (I know…) we ended the afternoon with.

Grace and Love and the good things

The Sartorialist wrote this lovely post a few days ago; I found it really inspiring. (Inspiration from the most unlikely of places: 30 Rock!) He writes about how the small things a man or a woman does for their partner are what count, and what is noticed, more than the bigger, grander gestures in life. Though not in a relationship I have worried, and will continue to worry, about how I am percieved by the other person. It eats away at you and in the end you forget to notice and appreciate the small things that keep a relationship alive and well and full of love. Quite what are the big things I can’t define but the smaller things are simple and full of grace and ever so easy to do.

I know I won’t be able to stop myself posting more about St Valentine’s Day (or the movie of the same name which looks just like He’s Just Not That Into You, doesn’t it? What’s with Hollywood these days? Do they think we don’t NOTICE these things? Jamie Foxx, you disappoint me.) as it approaches as I’m am the corniest creature going and though I do detest the day, I appreciate the sentiment.

If you’re a competitive sort as well as a romantic you might want to head to Dundrum this weekend and check out the Body Shop’s photo booth, all in aid of celebrating their new fragrance ‘Love etc’ . By having your photo taken for that special someone (or something, people do love plants) you can win dinner in Roly’s, free Body Shop products and special discounts. The photos will be posted to the Body Shop’s Facebook and Flickr on the day. So if you’re in the area do go and if you win some delicious smelling products remember who sent you…..

Nick Cave is always right: people, they ain’t NO GOOD.

I once sent out an email to a few hundred people. The list included politicians, TV personalities, people in the media, friends and everyone else I could think of. I was inviting these people to the launch of a magazine my class and I were publishing. I was younger then, and somewhat stupid. In my haste to get this email out I neglected to blind copy everyone’s email address. This meant that each person I emailed had a ready made list of contacts they could view use.

I didn’t notice my mistake until I received a VERY irate email from a recipient. They resented me sending their very private email address to everyone on the list, thereby enabling anyone with the gumption to do so to email them on a professional or personal basis. The person in question lightly threatened me as I was, in his geographically-challenged eyes, breaking UK privacy law. As we were in Dublin at the time I took the legal threat lightly but the mistake haunts me to this day. It was amateur of me at best, not respecting that the people I was emailing deserved their privacy.

The big deal? The reason I’m relaying this thrilling tale of email address legalese?

I joined a mailing list a few years ago in order to be in touch with a college publication I was writing for. When I graduated and moved on to another college I cancelled my subscription to the paper. I wasn’t there to attend meetings nor could I get involved. Simple. This year I started recieving emails from the new staff of this paper. The emails are not being sent from the official subscription list (a list you can easily unsubscribe from as it is done through the college’s societies page), rather they are being sent directly from the editor’s email address.

The editor does not know how to blind copy, it seems. Each email, again containing information that is no longer of use to me, arrives displaying my email address along with dozens of others. I recognise some names on the list and thanks to the work of the editor I now have their emails, forever in my possession. I’ve sent four emails back politely asking to be removed. A short reply came after my third saying my bidding would be done.

Another email arrived today. The same list, the same people, the same message I don’t want to get. I sent another email, less polite this time. No reply, as of yet.

You might laugh, or stamp ‘urgent’ on my application to the nearby psychiatric hospital and you could be right. Today Westmeath County Council turned my town’s water supply off without a warning. I’ve already nearly killed myself walking to the shop for a gallon of water and that’s almost gone. I like the cold, admire the snow, but this is ridiculous. I’m tetchy and angry at the council and the idiots in my town who’ve been leaving their taps running to prevent freezing thus lowering water pressure for us all, this email was my own personal camel-back-breaking straw.

I’m tempted to go to this person’s office, in NUI Galway, and deliver a long overdue class in email etiquette. That or contact that lovely fellow from my own FIRST AND ONLY mistake and have him teach her what’s what.

That is all. Normal, more sane, service might resume when water returns.

Forgive my ignorance,

but isn’t Alex James the bassist with Blur, food columnist with the Observer Food Monthly, sometime gentleman farmer/cheesemaker and all round rather cool guy?

He is?

Then someone needs to explain this.

The slebs

Since I’ve moved home I have become more involved in the land of television. My previous apartment, though lovely in every other way, had a tiny television and a contrary reception so I rarely watched. (Even then we mainly watched 17 Again over and over again. For its artistic merits, of course)

Now that I’m abhaile, without much distraction and nowt but ice outside I’ve become a connoisseur of sorts, delving in and out of what Sky has to offer. Which is a big fact NOTHING. So instead of enjoying television I sit ranting at the embeciles therein.

XPOSE, for example. Yes, I know, it’s like shooting really stupid fish in a badly dressed barrel to criticise this evening celebrity/fashion/gossip/whathaveyou show but I need so badly to vent. I won’t go into the GODAWFUL set or the begorrah-topo’themorningtoya shtick employed by the presenters and whoever writes the script because it hurts too much to elaborate but I will mention the one thing that makes me eyes, ears and whatever other senses are damaged by XPOSE, bleed.

“CELEBS”

Why can’t these morons say “celebrities”. WHY? They use the word approximately every five seconds and EVERY SINGLE time they do so they say “celebs”. It pains me. Even the former leader of this dastardly pack, Lorraine Keane, continues to shorten this not-very-hard-to-say word when on screen promoting her newest tabloid magazine (or “mag”, grrr) incarnation.

Pedant? Me? Yes, yes I am. I’m also a stickler for the lost world of the formal. Example: when Paul Gogarty (who elected this bozo, anyway?) told Emmet Stagg to f*** off in the Dáil my chief concern with his abhorrent behaviour was his lack of a tie. When Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won the Oscar for Best Song in Once the final nail I placed in my “I hate Glen Hansard” coffin wasn’t his bejaysus-shur-i’m-only-a-wee-lad-from-dubelin speech but his lack of a tuxedo and tie. These little things make me more than angry, they hurt and assault my sensibilities.

So when I hear the ladies and token dude on XPOSE (where did the ‘E’ go? WHERE?)  decide that the Irish people and the world at large should forsake two syllables from the word “celebrities” because it makes them seem more accessible and down-with-the-ladies-of-a-certain-age-who-watch-this-tripe it offends not just me but the English language and the right thinking people of this isle.

Couple this with RTÉ’s new season of UTTER RUBBISH (1 – The School: teaching children is hardly rocket science, most of us went to school RTÉ, we’re quite aware of what goes on. The hairstyles may have changed but the essence of being a teenager, hormones and all, has not. 2 – That’s All We Have Time For: Kevin Myers? RTÉ seem intent on turning him into a lovable household name, it’s galling. Mario Rosenstock? Good at impressions, bad at himself. Barry Murphy? I think he might be responsible for turning me off live comedy once upon a time. 3 – The All Ireland Talent Show: Shane Lynch picks talent? Ha.) and I have resolved to not watch television at all this year. Unless it’s the new season of Mad Men, Ugly Betty  and Criminal Minds. My crush on Matthew Gray Gubler will not quit.