eire: one, two, three

Friday, April 17th, 2008.

4:15 p.m. (New York) — Leave Tenafly. Weekend Jersey Shore traffic on Turnpike.

10:45 p.m. — Take off. Finally. One-hour delay. Continental advertisement: “The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.” (G.K. Chesterton.) Let me be a traveler.

Saturday, April 18th, 2008.

6:00 a.m. (Dublin) — Flying over Ireland. Listening to Mozart’s Requiem at sunrise, approaching Dublin, as my neighbor writes banal comments in her diary about the plane ride and Celtic spirituality, as she takes less than mediocre pictures of the (honestly) unremarkable sunrise and listens to (God help me) Flogging Molly. Dies irae, dies filla, indeed.

7:00 a.m. — My neighbor said to her travel companion, “I hate when people do that. Make fun of other people – like without real reason.” Without real reason. It’s okay to make fun of people – you just have to have a real reason. (Do a gimp leg and a hideous facial scar suffice?) At least I make fun of people without discrimination.

9:55 a.m. — First breath of Irish air.

1:15 p.m. — Awake from short nap. Must eat and wander.

“O’Connell” – Dublin, April 2008.

6:15 p.m. — First Guinness in Ireland. Thick, dark, full-bodied, foam and all: Perfection. Imported Guinness in New York just cannot compare. Meal at homey pub: roast beef, mashed potatoes. Never been stunned by roast beef before. Stunned. I am without speech.

7:55 p.m. — Back after dinner. Long walk home. Colder, wetter, windier.

9:00 p.m. — To sleep. Too exhausted.

Sunday, April 20th, 2008.

8:30 a.m. — Awake. Shower not too bad. Plain bread for breakfast.

9:30 a.m. — Merrion Square. Found Oscar Wilde sitting on a rock at the corner of the park waiting for me. Burned my tongue on black coffee.

Dublin, April 2008.

11:30 a.m. — Trinity College and Dublin Castle.

Dublin, April 2008.

12:45 p.m. — Cafe Kylemore. Cod and potatoes. Black pudding. Yum yum!

1:30 p.m. — James Joyce Centre. Buttons! Joyce, Beckett, and Yeats. Promptly pinned them to my backpack.

“My Homeboys” – Dublin, April 2008.

3:00 p.m. — Guinness brewery. Long-ass line and expensive. Fuck that: I’ll spend my admission fee drinking Guinness instead. Downed a can of Newcastle next to huge Guinness sign in defiance.

4:30 p.m. — Super early dinner. Bacon sandwich. English/Irish bacon – not the cheap American shit. Delicious. Quotes by Irish writers on walls. “I have never in my life been on my way anywhere, but simply on my way.” Beckett. Quite fitting for this occasion.

5:45 p.m. — Walking, walking, wandering. Lost and not lost. Taking in the city in St. Stephen’s Green.

9:30 p.m. — Dead. Tired.

Dublin, April 2008.

land of ire

Just a taste because I want to share, but I have hundreds of digital crap to sift through and several rolls of film to develop. My ancient Nikon point-and-shoot: It saved me and it tormented me. I am in need of a new point-and-shoot. My better photography is, of course, from my film, so you’ll have to wait. I have to drop them off, pick them up, sift and sift, copy them, scan them, and all that good stuff. But I couldn’t resist posting some digital images first.

come out tonight

 

but now you’re sad,

your mama’s mad,

and your papa says he knows that i don’t have any money,

yeah, your papa says he knows that i don’t have any money.

just say NO to idiots

Considering the widespread disease that is idiocy and my uncontrollable high blood pressure, I will be dead by heart attack in three years.

A friend of mine said to me today that she likes literature but isn’t an English major because she doesn’t “like the religious stuff.” Yes, “religious stuff.” Apparently, there’s just too much religion in Shakespeare, Donne, etc. She listed more canonical writers, but after Donne, I blacked out. I was only revived when I heard her say, “I can’t appreciate literature with religious tones.”

I went off like Mussolini from the balcony.

We were never slaves, so we can’t appreciate Douglass. We never lived in the gutter, so we can’t appreciate Hugo. We were never Irish, so we can’t appreciate Yeats.

You are one of the stupidest fucking idiots I have ever met, and I’ve met many. You are an idiot, and I’m glad I told you so. I don’t want to be your friend anymore. Have a nice, stupid life. Don’t be my friend. Okaygreatthanks.

What’s worse is this is not the first time I’ve had this conversation. Not good.

My father has been an atheist since college, and he has watched Webber & Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar more times than anyone I know. (AND EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH IT. MANY TIMES. The 1973 version. Purely because it is an amazing example of the modern opera. Excellent melodies coupled with gorgeous lyrics. Superstar puts The Phantom of the Opera to fucking shame. Plus, I love purposeful anachronisms in films! And homoerotic subtext between Jesus and Judas! I mean, honestly, who doesn’t love homoerotic subtext? See my favorite example, Becket.)

And in Madison last semester, my British Lit. professor told the class he was an atheist because he admitted, yes, religion comes up in a lot of early British literature. Yet, weeks later, when we read Herbert’s poetry, he was in tears just talking about it. In front of 200 students, this old man wiped his eyes with his hankerchief in the middle of reading “The Collar.” I hope I never forget that.

I’m done. I have to think about my blood pressure now.

i’m surrounded by idiots

I am in desperate need of new friends. Preferably not stupid ones. And preferably not stupid ones pretending to be smart ones.

Is it too much to expect nowadays? Intelligent people? Is that too much to ask?

“World Without End” – Hong Kong, February 2008.