http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/pursuedbyabear Just another irishtimes.com weblog Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:00:30 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I always wanted to be able to say that, and now I can, thanks to Colum McCann, who won the prestigious National Book Award  for fiction last night for Let The Great World Spin. For his book about a young Irish man and the characters he meets in 1970s New ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/pursuedbyabear/2009/11/19/mccann-wins-national-book-award/ Attended my first evening of Chaos Thaoghaire, a storytelling and games night with an imaginative impetus, encouraging tall tales, creativity and cunning (i.e. cheating). Though our team didn't win the coveted Chaos Thaoghaire belt (despite managing to fool several of our competitors with our spooky story about the ghosts of Rose ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/pursuedbyabear/2009/11/18/thaoghairising-etc/ Saw: My first ever 3D experience at Cineworld last night watching the heartwarming Up. A moving human story of one man and his lifelong dream was no less real and universal for its magic and fantastical elements. I fancy one of those collars for my dog Lola, too. (more...)Share This http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/pursuedbyabear/2009/11/13/updater/ Reading Wolf Hall: So far so well observed, though I wish I didn't already know what happened in the end. Will reserve judgment until I finally reach the long-awaited (for so many reasons) end. Seen An Education: wonderful performances, though memoir-based films always make me suspicious. Was Lynn Barber really so ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/pursuedbyabear/2009/11/10/update-2/ 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 ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/pursuedbyabear/2009/11/06/offset-your-weekend-and-your-carbon-footprint-will-follow/ 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 ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/pursuedbyabear/2009/11/03/amazons-top-100/ 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 ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/pursuedbyabear/2009/11/02/the-weekend-and-things-resulting-therefrom/ 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 , ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/pursuedbyabear/2009/10/30/win-win-win/ 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 ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/pursuedbyabear/2009/10/29/one-hundred-mornings/ 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, ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/pursuedbyabear/2009/10/27/bums-on-seats-and-other-poetics/