Saturday, March 29, 2008

Blue hot, hot, hot

In Treatment has now concluded. I enjoyed it all, as I wrote when it began, from the rich characterizations to the subtle, solid acting. Discussion of all manner of details was in full force throughout at Sepinwall’s, where someone brought up the languid deep blue/white lines of the opening credits...
              

Monday, March 17, 2008

Saint Patrick's Day: Slainte!

Today is the end of my mini Irish blog-a-thon. Enjoy the spirits of the day.May the road rise up to meet you.May the wind be always at your back.May the sun shine warm upon your face,the rains fall soft upon your fields.And until we meet again,May God hold you in the palm of His hand.Here is one great meeting: The Pogues and The Dubliners singing "Irish Rover" together. (Although The Dubliners guy...
              

Sunday, March 16, 2008

St. Patrick's Day: Irish Altered States

I recently saw two powerful expressions of the grip that alcohol has on the national imagination and soul of the Irish: the film Kings from Tom Collins, and the play The Seafarer, by Conor McPherson.I met a psychiatrist once who believed that the national Irish affinity for drinking was a product of...
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Saturday, March 15, 2008

St. Patrick's Day: The Great Yeats

Our Man in Bangkok (aka Tim Footman), having his own poetic Anglo-Saxon soul, drew our attention to The Guardian’s recent “seven greatest poets of the 20th century” thing.Why 7? No idea.Here’s their list: Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Sigfried Sassoon.We...
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Friday, March 14, 2008

St. Patrick's Day: Dying to Wear the Green

St. Patrick's Day, Dublin. When I was in 5th grade I wrote a  poem for St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t remember all of it, except for this excerpt: “The green fields of Ireland are frosted with red, Fear of destruction is what they dread . . . . Who’s to blame, now that it’s all gone? No...
              

Monday, March 10, 2008

heeeeelp meeeeee: Those Damn Spiders

There I was, perusing the Sunday Styles pages of the NYTimes online, feeling all was right with the world, when I spot a fashion feature entitled Arachnophilia. Love of spiders. I don’t think so. I have a mild form of arachnophobia, one of the most common fears on the planet. I’ve had it as long...
              

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Is NOTHING Sacred?

Horrible news over at Maud's. Pharmaceutical spammers have hacked into her site and deleted her blog and 8,000 archived posts.What a devastating, devastating violation for a writer. Maud, sending you heartfelt encouragement to get the f***king bastards who did this, and then write some more.UPDATE:...
              

Monday, March 3, 2008

The Wire: "Get their cell phones. The case is in the phones"

Like with The Sopranos, I came very late to The Wire. I tried to get in last season, but the ominous staple gun in the opening episode was a road block. The violence, cruelty, murder, and soul-wrenching tragedy of The Wire proved too dark for me to ingest on a weekly basis.This final season, the story...
              
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