Pursued by a Bear

Offset your weekend, and your carbon footprint will follow

Fiona — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:34:55 +0000

So, Offset has already kicked off and I’m only getting to post about it now. What can I tell you? It’s been that kind of week. It may already be too late to attend this three-day conference in Liberty Hall bringing together illustrators, graphic designers, street artists and the like, among them Scottish artist David Shrigley, the illustrator Serge Seidlitz as seen on MTV, and American artist Tara McPherson as well as squillions of other fabulous speakers and creative doodlers. Lookit: it’s already started, and tickets are as hard to come by as Willa Wonka’s golden versions, so I need those who snarfled up tix to report back here with all the information about what the rest of us missed. In the meantime, ahem, I’ll be off to the launch of this new book by one of my esteemed colleagues (disclaimer: yes, I know him. What with him being my colleague). If it piques your interest, read an extract here. Otherwise, enjoy le weekend.

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Amazon’s Top 100

Fiona — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:21:22 +0000

No surprise to see Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol topping the list of Amazon.co.uk’s 100 Bestselling New Releases for 2009, but what’s this? Grow Your Own Drugs at number three? Not the recreational kind, mind, but still, it’s a turn-up for the books (shocking pun intended) to find an ethnobotanist on the list, just pipping Antony Beevor no less for the bronze. According to the site, they’re the bestselling new releases based on shipments up to October 28th, and they’re quite an eclectic bunch, all told. It’s a fascinating snap shot of - well, of what exactly? Can anything be deduced from these examples (and remember, Irish Amazon shoppers get redirected to the .co.uk site too) about the state of reading in Britain and Ireland, particularly given the heartening presence of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Beever’s D-Day: The Battle for Normandy in the top ten? Or are we to deduce that the demographic that buys online is of a Beever-buying disposition? Stieg Larsson features twice in the top ten, with this baking book coming in at number ten. Which reminds me: Can we stop calling them cupcakes over here? They’re BUNS for crying out loud! And what I want to know is: has anybody out there read this James Wong book? What’s so great about it, or better-stated, why are so many people buying it? As for the Irish contribution to the top 100, we’ve got Coleen Nolan’s autobiography and the Guinness Book of World Records. Who says we aren’t a literary nation, then?

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The weekend, and things resulting therefrom

Fiona — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:59:01 +0000

Well, there’s the Impact longlist published, and with 156 titles on it, it’s hard to know why they bothered. Eileen Battersby gives her summation of the lot here, though I think I’ll wait till the shortlist appears myself. Meanwhile, there’s my interview with Marsha Hunt, whose show Brown Sugar on Jimi Hendrix opens tonight, and here’s something delicious from Salon on grammatical rules and pinning down language. “The only truly unbreakable rules of grammar and usage are the ones that, when broken, result in a genuine failure to communicate. The rest is a form of covert class warfare, and today’s usage reproofs constitute a status-protecting thump on the head delivered by the upper middle class to uppity members of the lower middle.” What do youse reckon?

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Win! Win! Win!

Fiona — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:05:42 +0000

Feeling competitive AND creative? Why, look no further! Because Some Blind Alleys is running a banner competition, with €500 up gor grabs. Meanwhile, the entry window is closing for this Fish Publishing competition, with a first prize of €3,000. Poets have a little longer to submit their entry for this , to be judged by poet James Harpur who has promised to read every single entry, masochist that he is. It’s already too late for this, however, though this hardy nation is being represented among the finalists by my namesake Colum McCann. The winner is being announced on Monday.

(more…)

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One Hundred Mornings

Fiona — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:33:45 +0000

Finally got to see Conor Horgan’s exceptional debut feature, One Hundred Mornings, last night. Though set in a post-apocalyptic Ireland, this subtle, intelligent film focuses on the human drama played out among its four central characters rather than the science fiction future of a Western world that has somehow fallen apart. Beautifully shot in muted, earthy colours, One Hundred Mornings is both harrowing and humorous, though the overarching tone is one of grim stoicism. Horgan elicits some fine performances from his tiny cast, and a cloying claustrophobia is expertly juxtaposed with a vast, surrounding emptiness. The film premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh in July, but has yet to get a general release: in case it does, I won’t go into any further detail though I’d love to witter on about the joy of a new film talent and the finer points of the flick, but if it does, and you do get a chance to see it, then do. And you don’t have to take my word for it: here’s what yon Screenwriter Donald Clarke said about it.

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Bums on seats and other poetics

Fiona — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:14:46 +0000

As Gate Theatre Manager Michael Colgan once told me, the most important thing about running a theatre is getting bums on seats, not just for financial reasons, but “for the unfortunate, vulnerable, naked, worrying, getting sick before a performance, nervous, knee-knocking performers”. Which is likely the impetus behind Take Your Seat, the new website offering free tickets and discounts to performances in a wide range of venues (the Abbey, the Everyman Palace Theatre, Cork, the Town Hall Theatre in Galway and the Linenhall Arts Centre, Co. Mayo are among those participating) to all who book through the site for a show taking place between November 9th and 14th. Basically, it’s a week-long arts and performance promotion co-ordinated by Arts Audiences and provding a decent database of what’s on where for those in search of an evening’s entertainment. There’s anything from Ibsen to Oliver! (exclamation mark essential): I’d love to know how it works for folk and if anyone has scored free tickets that way. Send us your comments. And maybe let me know what it takes to get your bum on a theatre seat these days: do you read reviews? Does a particular actor / director / playwright impel you towards the box office? Who’s going to the theatre in these trying recessionary times, and why?

In the meantime, the shortlist for the TS Eliot prize is out and by my reckoning, there are two Irish poets on the list.

(more…)

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Some blind alleys are worth a diversion

Fiona — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:52:01 +0000

I’m away on me holiers, so won’t be posting for a week or so, and I’m fierce glad about it, except for the fact that it means I miss the launch of Some Blind Alleys by Booker-winner Anne Enright tonight (strange how you only have to win that prize once to earn yourself the eternal hyphenated modifier). Too bad I won’t be there to hear her announce the winner of its inaugural writing competition, but anyone looking for some good reading in the interim should check out the site. In the meantime, I leave you with David Turpin’s new video. Yes, him again. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4pbzrJ2BQc&rel=0

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Dublin to Gaza: One concert, two cities

Fiona — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:58:27 +0000

Whether you believe in the power of music to make political change or not, tomorrow’s concert, through a live-link to Gaza city where it will be broadcast on a big screen, is doing something else: letting those living in the beleaguered city know that they have not been forgotten, even as their story slips from the front pages and fades from the airwaves. Tomorrow night, Liam Ó Maonlaí, Lumiere, Kíla, Naisrin, Zahara El Safty, Palestinian singer and rapper Shadia Mansour, Iraqi/English political activist and rapper Lowkey and the Dublin-based Discovery Gospel Choir will all take to the Tripod stage for an evening of cultural celebrations that will be transmitted live on a big screen in Gaza. Palestinians in turn will have the opportunity to communicate live to the Irish audience through the live link-up, while filmmaker, Dearbhla Glynn,will screen some of her footage from a recent Gaza visit to shed some light on the remaining devastation, nine months on from the January attacks. Irish activist, Caoimhe Butterly, will also speak on the night about her experience working on the ambulances in Gaza during the January attacks that momentarily galvanised an international community. Ten months on, and the city is still under blockade and is struggling to recover from the attacks: which is why zll profits from tomorrow night’s show go towards rebuilding the city. Tickets are priced at 15 euro, with doors opening at 7 p.m. and an early kick-off promised due to the two-hour time lag behind Gaza.

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Line and ink literary luminaries

Fiona — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:33:44 +0000

Illustrationist Annie West gives Nobel prize winner Seamus Heaney the treatment (via Very Hungry Caterpillar) in this piece entitled Laureate. . . Because I’m Worth It.

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Darklights and red elves

Fiona — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:05:32 +0000

Darklight kicked off last night and the Court Yard in Smithfield was jammers - even William Blake made an appearance, in the heartfelt and inspiring words from head of the Canadian Film Board Tom Perlmutter. Did I mention there’s plenty on, including this, which will be grappling with the question: Has Pop Eaten Itself? The discussion will be chaired by journalist Una Mullalay with a panel consisting of Will St. Ledger, journalist Sinead Gleeson, Dylan Haskins, blogger Rapture Ponies, DJ Alison Curtis and musician James O’Neill. But before that, there’s this at the Joinery, an open discussion by Synth Eastwood on their work and animation in Ireland. Which I would be attending, were it not for this: David Turpin’s new album launch. For a sample of what’s in store, click away to his myspace. But here’s a reminder of what came before, from the somewhat aptly named The Sweet Used-To-Be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi4795HvssQ&rel=0

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