The New World

Went to see Terrance Mallick’s film “The New World” this afternoon. Enjoyed it a lot. There’s something kinetic about his style of movie making that appeals to my brain. Something in the way that he uses cuts, fades and music that adds up. It makes sense and is almost mildly hallucinogenic, for me anyway. I loved the scene where the Pocahontas character arrives in London towards the end of the film. You experience the sensation of what she sees, the buildings, the strange shapes that the human mind have made. This is for her “the new world”. And maybe at its core this is what the film is about. That our quest for change is unstoppable. That whatever order lies at the heart of things depends on this flux. . It’s a good love story too, not in the “Brokeback Mountain” league, but then I don’t expect anything will for a while. A fine movie though.

Dublin Skyline

The snow that has been falling over most of Northern Europe hasn’t reached Ireland yet. It’s getting colder though. I took this picture of the skyline from my window this morning. Portentous?

the way we were

I Just watched a TV programme on BBC about genealogy. During the last number of weeks they have had well known people tracing back through their family tree. Tonight they had the actor Stephen Fry who traced his family on his mother’s side back to Slovakia. Being European Jews, living where they lived in the last century, it was no surprise to find that members of his family perished in the concentration camps. No surprise but raw every time it is revealed again. I went to the BBC web site to find out a bit more about the programme and found they have a section of the site showing people’s family photos, with an open invite to anyone to send in JPEGs. Here’s the link : http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/your_history/your_photos/ Browsing the photos I came across a photo of a woman taken in Suffolk in 1955. Ester Everitt in her sweet shop.

With this description: “An interior view of an old fashioned sweetshop, showing the owner (my grandmother) Esther Everitt in the mid 1950s. The shop sold a large selection of wrapped and loose sweets which were sold by weight, usually weighed in 2oz or 4oz paper bags. Alongside the open boxes of sweets, chicken feed, corn and meal were also sold, sometimes making the sweets a little dusty at times, but I lived to tell the tale having had many free samples in my time. A black manx cat always sat on the doorstep. The shop closed in the late 1950s.” The photo was send in by C Everitt.

farewell jewel cases

Last night of Christmas. Spent most of the day taking audio CDs out of their jewel cases and putting them into folders for easier storage. I hardly ever use them nowdays as I have most of them on my ipod. Now, I only remember my old CDs when a song I haven’t heard in a while comes up on shuffle! How quickly we have become digital. I couldn’t imagine myself doing this years ago. I loved the shape and the look of CDs, and the artwork. Mind you, I am saving the sleeves and the artwork just in case I ever feel the need of buying jewel cases and putting them back on shelves again. I doubt it very much.

History

not sure if this is true?

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
- Voltaire

new year

Feel asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow last night – though I did listen to a little bit of Melvin Bragg and his panel talking about the “Oresteia”. Didn’t do much today. Went into town and bought a cookery book by Nigel Slater that was reduced down to €9 because it had two missing pages. I’ll probably never do much cooking from it, I just love reading the way he writes about food. Had a ciabatta roll and a coffee in “Insomnia” while reading a magazine that came with a part work of “Dad’s Army” that has just been released. Another British institution that I love. I must stop myself from collecting the “set” as part works hope you will do. At this stage of my life I need to start divesting myself of “collectables”

days between Christmas and new year

Always mean to do so much with these few days between Christmas and New Year. Plot some new course for the new year, come up with new ideas before the old year ends. But I always end up watching old movies on TV and going into town to see if there is anything in the sales I might need. That’s how I spent today. Didn’t buy anything, watched a bit of an old “Dad’s Army” movie on TV. I always loved the TV series but movies seemed to stretch the idea too much and exposed all its weak points.

March of the Penguins

Went to see the film “March of the Penguins” yesterday. I was sort of avoiding it because of the way it has been appropriated by the religious right in America for their own purposes. I thought it was an amazing piece of work, the film itself and also its subject. I knew nothing about the life of the Emperor Penguin and its harsh strange life. The creatures themselves are so strange to look at, so alien and so lifelike at the same time. Their existence and reproductive cycle seems so harsh and impractical and yet at the end of it all I would have to agree with the filmmaker and say that the emotion that comes through is something akin to what we call love. I know they are birds and that it can be dangerous and foolish to attribute human feelings to other species, but I suppose that’s the only way our own species can begin to make sense of the universe. I looked in awe at the whole thing, couldn’t even begin to find reasons. What Bertrand Russell once wrote comes to mind: “The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.”

my new ipod

I bought a new ipod recenty. Although my 3g one is still working perfectly, I couldn’t hold out any longer when I saw the new video 5g ipods. So I bought a 60GB black one. It’s absolutely beautiful and I don’t feel as guilty as I was expecting to - €450 for an ipod I didn’t! I’ve used the other one every day since the day I bought it nearly 3 years ago. I always tell myself I could have worse, and more expensive, habits and addictions?Here’s a photo I took of the ipod in my bag, with my M&S food . The sun was shining through the red Dixons bag, the photo reminds me of a rose in bloom when I look it from a distance!

Pavee Lackeen

Went to see the movie “Pavee Lackeen” this evening. Didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. It thought it would be too much in the “be nice to travellers” school of drama. Instead, it was more like looking at series of living photographs (it was made by the photographer Perry Ogden) tender in a realistic sort of way that ended up making me feel more human and humane in some way that I can’t put my finger on. I honestly think it was “art” in the best sense of that word.

excepting the dog

We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance planet: and, amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog, has made an alliance with us.
- Maurice Maeterlinck

animals and middle age

Nuala O Faolain said this in an interview in the Irish Independent today:
"I hope I don't sound like some kind of crazed old English spinster but the fact is that animals are the great discovery of middle age. They have taught me about my parents' limitations. They had no spare heart for animals and for along time neither had I. I've felt more tender about that dog than I have about anything ever, and I know that sounds completely mad because she's only a dog. But it's true."

supervised burning

They had a parade and a “burning” in Smithfield Square this evening.It was a bit of street theatre with supervised burning of made up “baddie” effigies to try and appease the local kids who are not allowed by law to light their own private bonfires anymore. They could have made a bit more of it all, included some music maybe. There was a short deflated sense about it all. Still, let’s hope it full fills its objective.The use of colour filters on three of the Smithfield brazier lights was interesting, I think maybe they should leave them like that, take a bit of the clinical look off the place?

Happt Birthday LUAS!

The LUAS (Tallagh Red Line) is one year old today. Took this phone photo at Smithfield.

changes

and here's a picture of the new Guardian, taken from the blog site they are running. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/editors/
Can't wait to get my hands on the morning edition. I'm a net junkie but still a newsprint junkie too, especially when a change like this happens. After all, I'm a middle aged middle class European!

The Guardian

“The Guardian” newspaper published its final broadsheet edition today. It’s being published in a new format they call “the Berliner” from next Monday. I’ve been a fan of the paper for many years but recently find myself buying the “Independent” more often since it became a tabloid. Looking forward to seeing what the new format will look and feel like.

Skirmish

This photo is on thefront page of the Irish Times this morning. What they describe as a "skirmish" between Cork's Brendan O'Sullivan and with Kerry's Séamus Moynihan just before the end of the first half of the All-Ireland senior football semi final at Croke Park yesterday.

Stumbleupon

I installed an extension toolbar called “Stumbleupon” into Firefox this morning. It’s really good, gets you random pages on subjects you are interested in – it can be as wide or as narrow as you like. I’ve always liked the idea of randomness as there is always something in the back of my mind questioning the whole notion of randomness. And yet, for all its perfection, sometimes it seems that the whole of the cosmos is random. But then it can’t be, can it? Anyway, I just clicked on “stumbleupon” and up came this page : http://www.nokama.com/tao/index.cfm?fuseaction=chapter&ch=73

the home page came up and I randomly chose chapter 73 which was this :

Chapter 73

A brave and passionate man will kill or be killed.
A brave and calm man will always preserve life.
Of these two, which is good and which is harmful?
Some things are not favored by heaven.
Who knows why?
Even the sage is unsure of this.
The Tao of heaven does not strive, and yet it overcomes.
It does not speak, and yet is answered.
It does not ask, yet is supplied with all its needs.
It seems at ease, and yet it follows a plan.
Heaven's net casts wide.
Though its meshes are coarse, nothing slips through.

I like that line about the brave calm man. It’s a hard thing to do and to be, calm and brave.

Saved

Great photo in the papers today of two firemen saving a baby from a fire in a Dublin apartment building. The flip side of Edward Bond's old play, "Saved" is what came into my head for some reason.

Statue

A statue is to be erected in Dublin today in the memory of Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott