The blog format works against a chronological reading of the Ireland Journal. For chronology read Part One the Part Two etc.
*
New York (3/17-3/18) & San Francisco (4/17-4/21) Journals still to come
*
Been reading Alice Notley's Mysteries of Small Houses . One answer to the problem of maintaining both a narrative and the Dickinsonian sense of having the top one's head taken off by poetry.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
TRAVEL BLOG PART FOUR
2/21 from Dublin out
Interviews w/ theatre actresses. One on the tele. Two on the radio. Three in one morning.
...heading SE out of Dublin.
Hours in midday in an Irish traffic jam on the N7. [Everywhere we go people know about it. Infamous.]
Two off ramps w/o route numbers. No chance for an alternate route. Listen to RTE 1. Lots of talk about car accidents & the ways to stop them.
*
Thought I'd keep a record of Irish breaksfasts too. So Monday morning in Galway: one egg, a storebought fried potato (sort of a thick hash brown), a tomato, sausage & bacon. This morning in Dun Laogaire: an egg, tomato, white pudding, sausage, and bacon. Egg overhard Monday & then quite easy -- lovely -- this morning.
*
End up at Morrissey's in Abbeyleix at 3:10 pm. Sit next to the old turf stove piping heat into the rest of the pub.
***
2/22
at Rock of Cashel
rushes as bedding in summer
*
implications of the plague (1385) on genetic heritage
**
on Dingle
The Grapevine Hostel
Colin, the bilingual two year old...Abby falls in love.
***
2/23 & 2/24
Assorted jottings about purchases and practical matters.
***
2/25
Eat black pudding, bangers, rashers, tomato, onion, mushroom, eggs
Drive to Croom. People in a pub & at a bookmaker. Nowhere else.
Drive to Adare. Wedding capital of Ireland. Pleasant meals & pints & chat & Rugby at the two sides of the Collins pub. The one side in the afternoon fish & chips during France v. Italy. The other side in the afternoon an Irish lamb stew during Scotland v. England. (A famous Scottish victory!) Stay at a lace curtain B & B. Reminds me of a great aunt's house near the South Shore Mall in Braintree.
***
2/26
Now I have values not just anger. Beliefs I came to protect & pass along. These are beliefs I'll stand for but the point is to live them--no longer always to fight.
2/21 from Dublin out
Interviews w/ theatre actresses. One on the tele. Two on the radio. Three in one morning.
...heading SE out of Dublin.
Hours in midday in an Irish traffic jam on the N7. [Everywhere we go people know about it. Infamous.]
Two off ramps w/o route numbers. No chance for an alternate route. Listen to RTE 1. Lots of talk about car accidents & the ways to stop them.
*
Thought I'd keep a record of Irish breaksfasts too. So Monday morning in Galway: one egg, a storebought fried potato (sort of a thick hash brown), a tomato, sausage & bacon. This morning in Dun Laogaire: an egg, tomato, white pudding, sausage, and bacon. Egg overhard Monday & then quite easy -- lovely -- this morning.
*
End up at Morrissey's in Abbeyleix at 3:10 pm. Sit next to the old turf stove piping heat into the rest of the pub.
***
2/22
at Rock of Cashel
rushes as bedding in summer
*
implications of the plague (1385) on genetic heritage
**
on Dingle
The Grapevine Hostel
Colin, the bilingual two year old...Abby falls in love.
***
2/23 & 2/24
Assorted jottings about purchases and practical matters.
***
2/25
Eat black pudding, bangers, rashers, tomato, onion, mushroom, eggs
Drive to Croom. People in a pub & at a bookmaker. Nowhere else.
Drive to Adare. Wedding capital of Ireland. Pleasant meals & pints & chat & Rugby at the two sides of the Collins pub. The one side in the afternoon fish & chips during France v. Italy. The other side in the afternoon an Irish lamb stew during Scotland v. England. (A famous Scottish victory!) Stay at a lace curtain B & B. Reminds me of a great aunt's house near the South Shore Mall in Braintree.
***
2/26
Now I have values not just anger. Beliefs I came to protect & pass along. These are beliefs I'll stand for but the point is to live them--no longer always to fight.
TRAVEL BLOG PART THREE
[back to Dun Laoghaire theatre February 20th, 2006 (Juno and the Paycock)...]
Mom tells son about O'Casey's later plays. They check their phones. Mom asks him what she's done wrong. "Have I gone too far." She's talking about the phone.
The girl now to my left eats ice cream off a stick. My feeling is this crowd might stand up and walk out or shout down the actors if the play's no good.
"So di'ya get pissed Sah'erdat ni'"
Could this scene--a theatre in a wall filled w/ a range of ages--happen in the states. Could a Miller Or a T. Williams do it? The Crucible?
I want to read a history (up to the present moment) of Irish theatre & its audience.
Earlier today we went into the city centre--an lar--to see j.P. Donleavy's paintings at the Molesworth Gallery all of the show except for enough paintings to fill one room were packed up for the buyers.
The art was Steadman-like. Lots of simple--primitive?--four legged animals. I liked the simplest of them, the most gestural. An animal rendered with a few flicks and scrawls of the pen.
The play is to begin...
Begins with a recording of "Molly Malone". The teens snicker
*
[Misc. notes on the play]
*
[Intermission]
The teen girls says to her boyfriend: "We're doing King Lear. it's more intricate than your mind."
He claims that he too is "doing Lear".
"I'd like to see your reading table," she says.
Later, "stop alienating me because I'm a girl."
& then he puts his hand our palm up. She puts her hand into his, curls her fingers between his while his hand is still outstretched, palm up.
Then they talk about getting into pubs.
She: You're forgetting I'm w/ you
He: I'm not.
She: Yea y'are. I wouldn't get in.
[Pause.]
He: What?
She: You need a hair cut. Go get one tomorrow.
He: Yours is longer
She: It suits a girl when her hair is longer. What's up w/ guys when they wear their hats this way.
The boys--the boyfriends & his mates to his left, furthest from me--show the different ways to wear hats: truck driver (pulled back, brim up), dads (sitting atop the head above the ears--but I've never seen a dad wear a baseball cap in Ireland that way or any way) backwards which (sarcastically) "is just cool."
The idle talk of teens. Great fun to eavesdrop. Eavesdropping is working for a writer.
She (pretty & tomboyish in brown trousers & skateboarding sneakers w/ a pink insignia) puts her legs over his. Their legs are both outstretched. His on the seat in front of hers at an angle over his. He sings a parody of the song "Mandy". I imagine its a bawdy parody because they all laugh with wicked grins.
Now he's sitting up. Her legs still draped over his as he sips a Redbull.
"Bull hormones," he says to his malke buddies. Then a beat or two later he turns & gives the girl a sip.
They talk of their favorite drinks.
Her: Vodka and coke or Gin and tonic.
Him: Pints of Heineken or Bud. Occasionally a Guinness.
There's a lot of noise when the lights go down. Then a stray voice or two. Then nothing.
[More notes on the play including a meditation on the line "No man has done enough for Ireland"; mentally I replace "Ireland" with "America" & play it out. Also this from the play "'What can God do against the stupidity of man?'" And this, "with an Irish accent "police" sounds like "polis". And "nostalgia is bullshit." [Important to remember while I'm in Ireland.]
After the play I can't find a pub in Dun Laoghaire at least not one w/o kids (some clearly under 18) streaming into it or one w/o an angry man standing in front of the door. So I find two pubs but skip them both. Find closed restaurants, open pizzarias, closed shops. I turn around & head for a chain: Abrakedabra. Fish & chips to bring back to the B & B. Then I'll read a bit of Potrait before failling asleep.
I did pass an open off-license on the way back but when I stopped to look in I saw only wine & liquor. I'd like a pint of Guinness properly poured. Am I in the wrong country? No, just the wrong neighborhood. & I'm hungry. It's 11:00 & I haven't eaten since a donut six hours ago on O'Connell St. between the GPO & the Liffey. Stop there if you get the chance. (It's on the opposite side from the GPO & closer to the Liffey. A little donut windown. Donuts soak up alcohol they say. I say.) Before that had a late lunch of chicken & curry by the Davey Byrne pub (couldn't go in with the wee one...assholes). Now my fish & chips are ready.
[back to Dun Laoghaire theatre February 20th, 2006 (Juno and the Paycock)...]
Mom tells son about O'Casey's later plays. They check their phones. Mom asks him what she's done wrong. "Have I gone too far." She's talking about the phone.
The girl now to my left eats ice cream off a stick. My feeling is this crowd might stand up and walk out or shout down the actors if the play's no good.
"So di'ya get pissed Sah'erdat ni'"
Could this scene--a theatre in a wall filled w/ a range of ages--happen in the states. Could a Miller Or a T. Williams do it? The Crucible?
I want to read a history (up to the present moment) of Irish theatre & its audience.
Earlier today we went into the city centre--an lar--to see j.P. Donleavy's paintings at the Molesworth Gallery all of the show except for enough paintings to fill one room were packed up for the buyers.
The art was Steadman-like. Lots of simple--primitive?--four legged animals. I liked the simplest of them, the most gestural. An animal rendered with a few flicks and scrawls of the pen.
The play is to begin...
Begins with a recording of "Molly Malone". The teens snicker
*
[Misc. notes on the play]
*
[Intermission]
The teen girls says to her boyfriend: "We're doing King Lear. it's more intricate than your mind."
He claims that he too is "doing Lear".
"I'd like to see your reading table," she says.
Later, "stop alienating me because I'm a girl."
& then he puts his hand our palm up. She puts her hand into his, curls her fingers between his while his hand is still outstretched, palm up.
Then they talk about getting into pubs.
She: You're forgetting I'm w/ you
He: I'm not.
She: Yea y'are. I wouldn't get in.
[Pause.]
He: What?
She: You need a hair cut. Go get one tomorrow.
He: Yours is longer
She: It suits a girl when her hair is longer. What's up w/ guys when they wear their hats this way.
The boys--the boyfriends & his mates to his left, furthest from me--show the different ways to wear hats: truck driver (pulled back, brim up), dads (sitting atop the head above the ears--but I've never seen a dad wear a baseball cap in Ireland that way or any way) backwards which (sarcastically) "is just cool."
The idle talk of teens. Great fun to eavesdrop. Eavesdropping is working for a writer.
She (pretty & tomboyish in brown trousers & skateboarding sneakers w/ a pink insignia) puts her legs over his. Their legs are both outstretched. His on the seat in front of hers at an angle over his. He sings a parody of the song "Mandy". I imagine its a bawdy parody because they all laugh with wicked grins.
Now he's sitting up. Her legs still draped over his as he sips a Redbull.
"Bull hormones," he says to his malke buddies. Then a beat or two later he turns & gives the girl a sip.
They talk of their favorite drinks.
Her: Vodka and coke or Gin and tonic.
Him: Pints of Heineken or Bud. Occasionally a Guinness.
There's a lot of noise when the lights go down. Then a stray voice or two. Then nothing.
[More notes on the play including a meditation on the line "No man has done enough for Ireland"; mentally I replace "Ireland" with "America" & play it out. Also this from the play "'What can God do against the stupidity of man?'" And this, "with an Irish accent "police" sounds like "polis". And "nostalgia is bullshit." [Important to remember while I'm in Ireland.]
After the play I can't find a pub in Dun Laoghaire at least not one w/o kids (some clearly under 18) streaming into it or one w/o an angry man standing in front of the door. So I find two pubs but skip them both. Find closed restaurants, open pizzarias, closed shops. I turn around & head for a chain: Abrakedabra. Fish & chips to bring back to the B & B. Then I'll read a bit of Potrait before failling asleep.
I did pass an open off-license on the way back but when I stopped to look in I saw only wine & liquor. I'd like a pint of Guinness properly poured. Am I in the wrong country? No, just the wrong neighborhood. & I'm hungry. It's 11:00 & I haven't eaten since a donut six hours ago on O'Connell St. between the GPO & the Liffey. Stop there if you get the chance. (It's on the opposite side from the GPO & closer to the Liffey. A little donut windown. Donuts soak up alcohol they say. I say.) Before that had a late lunch of chicken & curry by the Davey Byrne pub (couldn't go in with the wee one...assholes). Now my fish & chips are ready.
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