Friday, March 03, 2006
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
TRAVEL BLOG PART ONE
(transcribed from a 4 1/2 IN x 3 1/4 IN notebook w/ small changes)
2/19 GALWAY
Looking for...
Poets in Charlie Byrne's bookstore
Maurice Scully
Geoffrey Squires
Catherine Walsh
Billy Mills
Randolph Healy
Trevor Joyce
Austin Clarke
Thomas Kinsella's Wormwood
Eight swings & misses.
Go to Mullingar for music. Closed.
Head for a drink at the Blue Note on West William. Take a look. Walk on. No use trying to recreate the past.
At Charlie Byrne's find Midwinter Day for five euros. Find it as the shopkeepers begin to turn off the lights.
***
Past Dusk
Dark green football field
Indigo cobalt sky
Saffron yellow nightlamps
thrum & spot the distance
a dusting yellowing
the bluegreen scene
white Gaelic goalposts organize
the blueblack sky slopes
away from my eye then inverts
as I walk past
& look back
***
The Sullivan brothers butcher "Olivers Army" on You're a Star (sounds like Euro Star). (Later in the Irish Times I get the answer to the question I ask aloud: does anyone else *get* this?) "White nigger" becomes "white figure". The cheeriness. Argh. The judges love the upbeat tempo. Huh? "Send you to Johannesberg"? Cheery? "White figure"? What the fuck does that mean? ... praise heaped on 'em all around. (A judge says the brothers showed "killer instinct". No pun intended it seems.) I must be an alien. (I am an alien.) Where is Myles na Gopaleen to give these brothers their proper comeupance in tomorrow's paper.
Go to an old haunt. Name changed to Vinnies Take Away. (No apostrophe. Later see sign at an upscale restaurant in Dingle Town with the sign "Toilet's".) Vinnies Take Away is allegedly an "Italian Style Take Avay" but it's actually a chipper or chipshop (whichever designation you prefer). "Garlic chips" are the only vaguely "Italian" dish I see on the menu. But there're also "Mexican Chips" so...
No Club Orange at Vinnie's. That's disappointing. Also disappointing that curry is no longer a condiment. Now costs a euro. & now they put the vinegar on for you now.
For a month while I took a class at NUIG, I'd order a fishburger w/ chips & a Club Orange for under three pounds. (That was pre-Euro). Sometimes I'd douse the chips with salt & vinegar. Other times w/ the curry.
This meal was especially great w/ the windows of the place opened for the July breeze off Galway Bay. Also especially great after a wee smoke along the Corrib from the University nearly to the quays (where the chipper is).
Around the corner an army of swans live off the dole so to speak.
I will not try the Bar * B * Que Pork Rib Steak nor the Batter Burger at Vinnie's but I like to come here to write. Would that I could walk through my wardrobe and end up here. As it is, I find the place tonight without following directions. Let my feet take me.
(transcribed from a 4 1/2 IN x 3 1/4 IN notebook w/ small changes)
2/19 GALWAY
Looking for...
Poets in Charlie Byrne's bookstore
Maurice Scully
Geoffrey Squires
Catherine Walsh
Billy Mills
Randolph Healy
Trevor Joyce
Austin Clarke
Thomas Kinsella's Wormwood
Eight swings & misses.
Go to Mullingar for music. Closed.
Head for a drink at the Blue Note on West William. Take a look. Walk on. No use trying to recreate the past.
At Charlie Byrne's find Midwinter Day for five euros. Find it as the shopkeepers begin to turn off the lights.
***
Past Dusk
Dark green football field
Indigo cobalt sky
Saffron yellow nightlamps
thrum & spot the distance
a dusting yellowing
the bluegreen scene
white Gaelic goalposts organize
the blueblack sky slopes
away from my eye then inverts
as I walk past
& look back
***
The Sullivan brothers butcher "Olivers Army" on You're a Star (sounds like Euro Star). (Later in the Irish Times I get the answer to the question I ask aloud: does anyone else *get* this?) "White nigger" becomes "white figure". The cheeriness. Argh. The judges love the upbeat tempo. Huh? "Send you to Johannesberg"? Cheery? "White figure"? What the fuck does that mean? ... praise heaped on 'em all around. (A judge says the brothers showed "killer instinct". No pun intended it seems.) I must be an alien. (I am an alien.) Where is Myles na Gopaleen to give these brothers their proper comeupance in tomorrow's paper.
Go to an old haunt. Name changed to Vinnies Take Away. (No apostrophe. Later see sign at an upscale restaurant in Dingle Town with the sign "Toilet's".) Vinnies Take Away is allegedly an "Italian Style Take Avay" but it's actually a chipper or chipshop (whichever designation you prefer). "Garlic chips" are the only vaguely "Italian" dish I see on the menu. But there're also "Mexican Chips" so...
No Club Orange at Vinnie's. That's disappointing. Also disappointing that curry is no longer a condiment. Now costs a euro. & now they put the vinegar on for you now.
For a month while I took a class at NUIG, I'd order a fishburger w/ chips & a Club Orange for under three pounds. (That was pre-Euro). Sometimes I'd douse the chips with salt & vinegar. Other times w/ the curry.
This meal was especially great w/ the windows of the place opened for the July breeze off Galway Bay. Also especially great after a wee smoke along the Corrib from the University nearly to the quays (where the chipper is).
Around the corner an army of swans live off the dole so to speak.
I will not try the Bar * B * Que Pork Rib Steak nor the Batter Burger at Vinnie's but I like to come here to write. Would that I could walk through my wardrobe and end up here. As it is, I find the place tonight without following directions. Let my feet take me.
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