Monthly Archive for January, 2010

Some sentences that remind me there is no longer any world, only fragments of a shattered universe


published in Column 2
on January 31, 2010
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Sacred and Profane Love

When I was in Vietnam last summer, I found everything very dull. My indifference made me long to go home, to a landscape I’d be emotionally connected to. An understandable desire, but a deceiving one. In truth, I have no sacred spaces, no fixed point in the outside world.

From The Sacred and the Profane by Mircea Eliade:

“A profane existence is never found in the pure state. To whatever degree he may have desacralised the world, the man who has made his choice in favour of a profane life never succeeds in completely doing away with religious behaviour. Even the most desacralised existence still preserves traces of a religious valorisation of the world.

Revelation of a sacred space makes it possible to obtain a fixed point and hence to acquire orientation in the chaos of homogeneity, to ‘found the world’ and to live in a real sense. The profane experience, on the contrary, maintains the homogeneity and hence the relativity of space. No true orientation is now possible, for the fixed point no longer enjoys a unique ontological status; it appears and disappears in accordance with the needs of the day. Properly speaking, there is no longer any world, there are only fragments of a shattered universe, an amorphous mass consisting of an infinite number of more or less neutral places in which man moves, governed and driven by the obligations of an existence incorporated into an industrial society.

Yet this experience of profane space still includes values that to some extent recall the nonhomogeneity peculiar to the religious experience of space. There are, for example, privileged places, qualitatively different from all others – a man’s birthplace, or the scenes of his first love, or certain places in the first foreign city he visited in youth. Even or the most frankly nonreligious man, all these places still retain an exceptional, a unique quality; they are the “holy places” of this private universe, as if it were in such spots that he had received the revelation of a reality other than that in which he participates through his ordinary daily life.”

-Gabriela Ailenei

Documentaries at the Dublin Film Festival


published in Plugs
on January 29, 2010
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Colony

Some Blind Alleys is a site that’s dedicated to supporting the real and true (though we support other stuff too). The Dublin Film Festival 2010 programme is out. Check out the Documentary programme: From Real to Reel.

Notables films on the list:

Colony

Beautifully photographed by Ross McDonnell and skilfully edited by Carter Gunn, Colony follows several American beekeepers during 2008 and 2009 as the country’s economy spiralled downward. A recent and unexplainable phenomenon, colony collapse disorder saw a drop in almost a quarter of the number of bees in the United States. This mystery is akin to something out of science fiction and has dark implications for the future. Because our agriculture depends on pollination, when bees are in trouble, so is society.

Pianomania

Nobody can tune a piano like Stefan Knupfer, head technician at Steinway in Vienna and indispensable tuner to some of the world’s most eminent pianists. Eschewing measuring instruments, Stefan uses his ears and often unusual tools such as tennis balls to find the perfect tone. With each piano producing vastly different sounds and every pianist holding a different opinion, he has his work cut out for him. In Lilian Franck and Robert Cibis’ lovingly crafted documentary, we step into Stefan’s remarkable world for a year, and observe him behind the scenes as he scrambles to please his distinguished clients. Chief amongst them is Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who is preparing some Bach recordings and sets Stefan the seemingly impossible task of making his piano sound like a harpsichord. A joyful, funny look at a majestic instrument and men who have devoted their lives to it.

Child of the Dead End

With his customary grace and skill, acclaimed Irish documentary maker Desmond Bell has mixed early cinema archive film and new material to retrace the story of navvy poet, novelist, dramatist and screenwriter Patrick MacGill. Born in 1889 into crushing poverty in Donegal in the west of Ireland, MacGill went on to become one of Ireland’s most successful authors. His autobiographical novels penned in Scotland and hugely popular at the time, paint a vibrant picture of the life of the navvy, the labourer and the whore, “the outcasts of a mighty industrial society”. MacGill lived the life of a navvy in the Scottish highlands and in his writing fact and fiction, social report and love story mingle. Director Bell, alongside his collaborator Stephen Rea has fashioned an elegant and engaging portrait, while also interrogating the basic principals by which biographies are told and retold.

Something to do on Wednesdays at lunchtime during February, Or, Four poets much more interesting than eating a Spar sandwich at your desk


published in Plugs
on January 28, 2010
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TMCOSHEN

Poetry Ireland in association with the National Gallery of Ireland presents a lunchtime reading series every Wednesday throughout February. Readings will start at 1.05pm and will be held in the National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion SquareWest, D2. No booking is necessary and all events are free.

Poetry Ireland has recently redesigned their home page.

Words for my dear departed self

Ciaran Lawless
published in Essays
on January 28, 2010
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It is your funeral

You – seen from here – are a deeply flawed person; you know this, and so do your friends; in fact, they frequently discuss your flaws behind your back.

When you die, they will not discuss these flaws, which will have been transmuted into virtues (“Vlad, you know, was so passionate, so … resourceful”).

Your enemy knew you best; were he allowed to deliver your eulogy, he’d speak without the stutters of the newly bereaved; he’d speak you well, float you along in your coffin on a fast stream of articulate bile. Your coffin would wear away. Your body would topple out. Your suit would rip on jagged rocks.

Continue reading ‘Words for my dear departed self’

You’re an idiot of the 33rd degree


published in Plugs
on January 27, 2010
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Mark Twain

“The person who wrote the advertisements is without doubt the most ignorant person now alive on the planet; also without doubt he is an idiot, an idiot of the 33rd degree, and scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link.” – Mark Twain

Letters of Note via @maudnewton

Of Books, No. 2


published in Column 2
on January 27, 2010
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Dark earth

Literature is, for me, a way to evade awareness of death. I see reading and writing as distractions from life and death, or fortifications against the anxiety and unhappiness that accompanies conscious being. Dostoevsky’s narrator in Notes from the Underground calls anxiety the disease of being too conscious. La Rochefoucauld wrote: “One can no more look steadily at death than at the sun.” Through literature, I momentarily forget my demise. I can reach out beyond myself, beyond my insignificant existence, and connect with something great – something more profound than my self-importance.

But through the act of reaching beyond myself, I also go inward, where I connect with a profound awareness of death. Boris Pasternak said: “Art has two constants, two unending concerns: it always meditates on death and thus always creates life.” Literature worth reading, often more than once, is whatever puts me in contact with the universality of death. This is literature that makes me feel alive. I die a mini-death; a death of the ego.

They say anxiety is the ego’s incapacity to accept death. As Goethe put it: “As long as you do not know how to die and come to life again, you are but a poor guest on this dark earth.”

-Deirdre Kelly

Three spaces remain in Creative Writing 1 course starting February 17


published in From the Editor
on January 26, 2010
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Creative Writing Courses Dublin

Three spaces out of twelve remain in the Creative Writing 1 course that starts on Wednesday, February 17. The course, which runs ten weeks, takes place on Clare Street, Dublin 2 (Clare Street is between Nassau Street and Merrion Square), from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Cost is €310. You must book online to guarantee a spot.

The course is taught by Greg Baxter, author of A Preparation for Death (Penguin Ireland, July).

Some praise for the Some Blind Alleys Creative Writing Workshops:

“There are many people who teach creative writing, but in my opinion Greg Baxter is the best we have in Ireland. He always gives brilliant advice, he is consistent, he is rigorous and he is inspiring. There is no better place to go, whether you want to start writing, or continue writing, or improve your writing – fiction or non-fiction – than Some Blind Alleys.

CARLO GEBLER
Author, A Good Day For A Dog

“Greg Baxter’s courses are unlike any other creative writing courses I’ve ever heard of: they are better. If you don’t like being challenged, the Some Blind Alleys courses are not for you. If you do, they may change your life.”

BRENDAN BARRINGTON
Editor, Dublin Review
Editor, Penguin Ireland

“Something – maybe a breeze or a hurricane – is happening in Irish writing – when was the last time anyone said that? – thanks to Greg Baxter. His impatience for flimsy writing won’t win him the love of fiction’s shitchurners, but young scribes have taken note.”

LE COOL
lecool.com

Creative Writing 1 is an introduction to written storytelling and the short story. It is designed to help people get started as writers, improve as writers, and – most importantly – start reading as writers. Even if you are primarily interested in nonfiction storytelling (memoir and personal essay), this is still the course to start with.

The foundation courses at Some Blind Alleys are taught as three parts of a single curriculum. This is the foundation of those foundation courses. It is designed to suit people who have never written a single word of fiction in their lives; it’s designed for people who have taken one or two, or numerous, creative writing courses but can’t seem to get something started or finished or published; it’s also designed to expose extremely talented but young (in writing experience, not age) writers to some truly great writing that they might otherwise never encounter.

A discussion of Montaigne on BBC4 Radio


published in Plugs
on January 25, 2010
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Montaigne

Angry intelligences, who want the world to fit into systems, hate Montaigne. So do the finger-wagging proselytisers. Four people with extremely proper accents discuss the inventor of the essay.

At around the 25-minute mark there’s an interesting distinction between Montaigne and other essayists, including Hazlitt, Orwell, Boswell, and Johnson.

Seppuku, or, The art of doing violence to oneself


published in Column 2
on January 25, 2010
.

Seppuku

I recently read a book about Noh theatre – Japanese musical drama dating from the fourteenth century. The writer spent the first fifty pages on a history of feudal Japan from the tenth century until 1868. He discussed the importance of art to people in everyday life. For example, as the emperor’s power had been stripped by provincial warlords and feuding clans, the pursuit of art became the sole goal of the royal court.

The most interesting example of Japanese art was seppuku, suicide by ritual disembowelling. It was considered a major work of art, and many kabuki plays have a seppuku scene.

A performance of seppuku went like this: the subject should steady and clear his mind, showing no fear or cowardice; the overall effect must be elegant and dignified. The subject would kneel and drive his short sword into the hara, just below the belly button, considered his centre of life. He would then draw the blade sideways across the body, opening up the intestines, and finally twisting the blade upwards, to increase the physical shock. However, the body could not be permitted to fall backwards, as this would be extreme inelegance. So before driving the blade home, the subject tucked the long sleeves of his robe under his knees, ensuring that he would fall forward.

In the case of a woman, the womb could not be cut open as it was the source of life, and therefore a woman would take a thin sharp knife, and drive it into her heart with a single clean motion from beneath her lower left rib. Performed correctly, death would almost be instantaneous.

With male suicide, the subject could linger in pain for hours, but he could not reveal his pain, as this, again, would be inelegant. If the pain was too much, it was perfectly honourable to withdraw the blade from the belly and slice open the jugular. If he couldn’t, his appointed second was obliged to behead him with a long sword.

Usually, after the performance was complete, the head would be put in a special box and brought to the person who had ordered it, or was the insulted party. A head-viewing scene is a recurring element of Japanese theatre.

-Mick Halloran

Of Books, No. 1


published in Column 2
on January 22, 2010
.

Traffic

When I have a problem that keeps me up at night, I go to a bookshop for the solution. I have yet to encounter a problem that has not been somewhat resolved by something I have read in a book. I am comforted by the idea that no matter what is troubling me, I am not the first person to be troubled by it. I like to search in second-hand bookshops, though I can’t remember anything of significance I ever found in one. I found a bookmark once. Someone had written on it “Na-night, sleep tight, I love you.” I loved it, but I’ve lost it now.

I don’t think I’ll ever like e-books. No one except a student needs to carry around several books at a time. My mood goes up and down with what I’m reading. If I’m reading something I like, I look forward to getting on the bus in the morning. I enjoy bad traffic. I don’t mind if someone is late to meet me.

If I’m not enjoying a book, I never know when to give up. I don’t think I can have one rule for all books. If it’s a trashy book, one or two chapters at the very most, I think. If it’s a highly esteemed book, I try to give it a little more time. I sound like a snob. I have nothing to be snobby about. I tried to write a trashy book once and I failed – very badly. I even made myself wince. It’s so much harder than I thought. It was surprising to learn that physically cringing at love scenes in novels does not mean that I will do a better job at writing love scenes. I put it down to it not being my true vocation.

-Orla McGowan