July 2, 2010
Yesterday a man, Glaswegian, asked me the never ceasing what do you think of it here? question. The question was followed by a cock-eyed intense look and expectant pause. I had the feeling a pendulum was waiting to launch depending on the vowels I chose with which to fill said pause. It was morning, I needed a painkiller for my killing-me-ribs and wanted to get up the stairs swiftly. I thus filled it with the words that would achieve that and off I hopped.
Truthfully I should have answered on any given day at any given hour I think about 156 different things about here. Many of them are contradictory and include the chastisement geography is in the mind.
During the recent two week sojourn away from here, I also thought 156 different things an hour about there. Many of the things I had stacked up about there, in order to improve my disposition to being here were swiftly dismissed or rearranged. Damn it. People there would ask me of here. They’d ask me in that “Canada’s lovely so it is” amen tone. Lucky you. They wanted to be told life is much better here than it currently might be there. I had to paint strip away at imagined Canadian utopia on the North side and South side of Dublin, in Mayo and even on the bus in between.
In total that gives me 312 things thought an hour about 2 different places. Of which about 6 and a half make actual sense.
Within the here and the there, it is people more than geography that affect me. This morning I had coffee with a gang who raise me up here. Last week it was a gang there. Sin e. I appear to be blessed in the here and the there. And now I am off to eat dinner with my marvellous males who have to put up with me when I am here and there and dithery in the in between.
And then there’s the advantage of ageing….
July 1, 2010
Just treated myself to Monsieur Pialat’s L’amour existe (1960) sans sous titres.
Jetlag has been gnawing at me, but have been restored intermittently when able to keep eyes open by Declan Kiberd’s Ulysses and Us. A timely read. Had been hunting for it. Grabbed it at Eason’s in Dublin. Loved that it was 3for2 stickered. This gesture being entirely appropriate to its central thesis. Have some thoughts on his citing of common culture.
I’ve great faith in readers.
July 1, 2010
For some reason those two shots of the Spire look like they are taken underwater. Like I said earlier it was blue, blue, blue the day with the silver rising against it. Love that piece it adds so much to O’Connell Street and gives a much needed hoof to the elevated males further down the row by the bridge.
June 29, 2010
Did I mention what a fine old time we had in Paris? And the conversations… the conversations surprised me the most. Varied and wide and my French even stood up to discussions on the political situation, and status of women in Iran. Who says the Parisians are snooty and rude, we enjoyed lovely interactions, perhaps it was the old 9 ’em quartier.
It helped that the small male was an absolute refusnik on the sights, fine with me since having grown up in Europe I’ve seen far too much stone and monuments, and we spent our time wandering and up at the counter watching footie. (Not so fine, but the philosophizing round the sport was fun, to say nothing of the cute smirking during “hand ball” discussions. Zero! seemed to be the verdict on the French team from the folks, men, who held forth behind the counters while the ecran blasted out Angleterre, Argentine, Mexico.
June 29, 2010
A fella, construction worker, on his break just anon-ish bought me a coffee at Max’s. Stood in the queue, extremement jetlag and out of it, fresh of the plane, having bumped into my good friend Ita (how lovely is that! Letterfrack on a Vancouver morning.) in my Catherine Deneuve raincoat he just passed it to me.
God bless him, you gotta love the navvies they understand fatigue. So whacked out I could barely thank the stranger, so Ita was left to remark on him “that was very nice.”
I think it’s the raincoat. I knew it would improve me. My small male assured me of it. My sis had been complaining that she did not like the old green MEC mac, so there was pressure to improve. Dublin-style an all. Molly was mad on style let’s not forget.
Vancouver is always lovely when I return, weatherwise, ever bright blue, just for that first hour of along the street beleagured wandering, enough to say bienvenue. After that it can do whatever it wants!
And the garden, or the patch of garden is a credit to that blue. Aside from the fox-got-the-beans drama.
Gardeners: my pototaoes are high with green foliage and white flowers, should I pull them now? They rather overshadow the tomato plants. Or does that only mean I’ve too much nitrogen in my soil and when I pull them will it be a sad affair below the surface that could lead to regret? Advice please.
Also there’s some white thing, root veg, might be a turnip pushing up, it looks fat but not as I imagine turnips to look since it’s long, fat looking. I’ve no idea what it is at all.
And why no lettuce has appeared despite a plethora of planting? Is it my soil? If spuds are happy and lettuce is not: what’s up??
June 27, 2010
Paris by soir. Chaud, chaud, chaudisimo. 32 degrees. Plenty of football. No matter which timezone we are in my son insists it’s a priority to obtain a football and is consumed with this undertaking in the shadow of Church finery and winding, dipping streets of Montmatre. The Seine is basically looking like a good spot to play tag for us.
We had fun hanging out up at the counter discussing handballs and Argentine goals in wonky French with dismayed Frenchmen and Fanta beer. Oh and pinball. Ace old pinball machines and bookshops bien sur. I think we might be busy enough without paying much heed to the taller and mapped stuff. We like the streets. Paris is quite the city of and for nattering…it invites it with all these tables dehors.