Sunday 07th 2007f January 2007
« « Uvula| A Note From Thomas » »Happy New 2007!
I need to get something off my chest. I haven’t been going to many movies lately, so I decided that I should make more of an effort. This morning I got up with the intention of going to see one of the movies out at the moment that looked interesting: Children of Men and Pan’s Labyrinth. I saw that Children of Men was playing early at the AMC near Lincoln Center -11:20am for $6 – so I went for that. It’s awesome. As I was leaving the theatre and heading for the exit I happened to glance at the screen opposite – Pan’s Labyrinth, 1:35pm. I checked my watch – 1:25pm. There were no ushers about. I could just walk straight in. So I did. It is also awesome.
And now I feel bad. I’ve never done this kind of double dip thing before, although I know some people who make a habit of it. I did buy a ticket to another film and then sneak into Goodfellas, but that was strictly out of necessity – I was too young to see it. It’s the cinema’s fault, right? By only checking tickets at the front aren’t they tacitly just sellng you a day pass to the whole screening area? It’s not my fault that this weekend’s receipts for Pan’s Labyrinth will give an inaccurate picture of how many people actually saw the film. Hey, maybe somebody else bought two tickets by mistake, right?
I think I’m just going to have to buy the DVD when it comes out. And shoplift Children of Men.
As usual I stayed with my parents when I headed back to Dublin for Christmas. As unusual they didn’t actually have a place of their own to put me up in. Work on their new house has been going – how shall I put it – backwards, so they’ve been living in a rented apartment for the past couple of months. The apartment next door was vacant so the landlady let them have it for me, my sister, her husband and her baby, which was very generous of her. So I got to meet my niece. She seemed kind of indifferent, but I’m pretty sure she preferred the teddy bear I got her to all her other teddy bears. I could just tell.
Eleanor, Jim and Aoife were only over for a couple of days for my Dad’s 60th birthday on the 28th. There was a big buffet lunch in a room in the Radisson Hotel in Stillorgan which was very pleasant. There was a lot of family there, as my Dad is a twin and so it was also my aunt Stephanie’s birthday, although I hasten to point out that she’s nowhere near 60 yet. When they went back to Newcastle they took my parents with them, and my grandmother. Bereft of immediate family I took myself off down to Galway for New Years. Daragh drove me down and we stayed with James, both coincidentally prime commenters here (you may know James as JIMI, M.A Hons – yes, that troublemaker).
I managed to catch up with a fair number of friends this time around, including a couple I hadn’t seem for a number of years, but I felt constantly behind the curve. There were a lot of people I would have liked to have touched base with but didn’t – I guess I could have stayed in Dublin for those extra days rather than head down to Galway, but I would have missed out on people that way too. I made the mistake of going to bed as soon as I arrived at 6am the first morning for too long and the jetlag stayed with me for an unreasonably long time. I had to keep myself to a schedule to fit in as many people as I could and it really started to grate on me – always looking at my watch, limiting the amount I drank so I could be reasonably sober for the next person or get up the next morning. By the end I was grumpy and drained.
All I really want for my next vacation is to go somewhere I haven’t been before and do very little. But I only get ten days holiday a year… Maybe I just won’t go to Dublin for Christmas next year and use them somewhere else.
Things that happened that I didn’t blog about: Christmas Day, presents, getting thrown out of a restaurant, small DLCAD reunion, New Year’s Eve in Galway, the frightening night life in Moycullen, the surprising quality of the Chris Tarrant Who Wants to be a Millionaire DVD game, almost blowing a surprise party, meeting an old schoolmate on the plane back, my new PS3.
Things on the new apartment front are moving slowly. We have a problem with the contract, which I hope can be resolved in the next week. I really don’t want to start looking again. While I was away the building two doors down from me partially collapsed killing somebody inside. I walk past that building every time I leave my apartment.
Happy New Year, everybody!
Comment ID: 39972
At 6:21 am on Monday 08th 2007f January 2007, daragh decided it was worth pointing outCollapsed building? Are you sure you want to live here? That article seems pretty bonkers!
If you want to see something a bit different
Go see ‘Perfume!’
Comment ID: 39975
At 6:44 am on Monday 08th 2007f January 2007, D. statedI have to report, on very good authority, that, though young Aoife was much pleased with your teddy bear, her strongest predeliction is for a soft toy ‘huskie’ brought to her from Canada. I strongly advise you not to waste time seeing ‘Perfume’. The narrative, such as it is, is full of holes and implausibilities. It makes no sense.It might even be seen as an incitement to serial murder.
Comment ID: 39997
At 9:26 am on Monday 08th 2007f January 2007, daragh decided it was worth pointing outHiya, D, Do you think its one of those ones that the book is better than the film?
Comment ID: 40031
At 3:31 pm on Monday 08th 2007f January 2007, Anthony channelledI liked the book, although I will admit it did make me consider taking up serial killing in a way I hadn’t hitherto. I may or may not see the film.
I’m sure that Aoife was very taken with the husky, as indeed one would expect with such a fine plush toy. But new toys come and supplant the old. It’s perfectly natural. The young are fickle.
Comment ID: 40032
At 3:56 pm on Monday 08th 2007f January 2007, elenamary realised it was important that we all should understandglad to hear you had a good time in Dublin. You bring back any dirty disease? (as opposed to the clean ones that clear up with medicine)
Comment ID: 40034
At 4:17 pm on Monday 08th 2007f January 2007, Anthony proclaimedNo, I had my shots before I left NYC and I avoided the water. Plus I didn’t score. Mexico good?
Comment ID: 40163
At 11:52 am on Tuesday 09th 2007f January 2007, D. statedOf course fickleness is to be expected, indeed welcomed in the very young, as they savour the variety of life in all its complexity. The very possibility of this depends on a secure centre. So we can also expect constancy in important matters. It is time that young Aoife’e parents or grandparents provided a definitive report.
As to ‘Perfume’,Daragh you may well be right; I have been told that the book which I have not read is, indeed, superior to the film. Human sweat is human sweat regardless of the pulchritude upon which it may glisten. To suppose that the distillation and admixture of seven different samples could produce a world shattering odour stretches credulity far beyond its breaking point. Nor is it acceptable that the perfection of an art should entail the slaughter of the innocent.
Comment ID: 40171
At 12:19 pm on Tuesday 09th 2007f January 2007, Ivan blurtedYes D. but foie gras tastes nice and the duck/goose is a pretty innocent participant in the process. The slaughter of the innocent worked really well for Caravaggios’ artistic motivation.
Comment ID: 40314
At 6:54 am on Wednesday 10th 2007f January 2007, daragh opinedIt’s only a movie, a book, an idea, of which legend has it, that many cultures in the past practiced it – including the Egyptians. We are not saying it is right or wrong its a point of view, an angle, given our characters background and upbringing.
Its like the case when kids in the States went on a killing spree, after they played Judas Priest records backwards, they heard clearly the words ‘Satan is Lord’ and prompted them to start killing everybody.
As Bill Hicks puts it ‘Two less gas pump attendants in the world’.
...‘If you play Judas Priest records backwards…. You are Satan!
So lets not loose the run of ourselves, By watching ‘Perfume’ it did not prompt me to go out and kill everybody. Dustin Hofman and the rest of the cast and crew would not have signed up to this movie if they thought that this were to be the outcome, I’m sure. Fact v Fiction, Dreams v Reality (Doogle & Fr.Ted scene), Appearence V Reality, Good V Bad, Dark V Light. Reminds me of ‘Macbeth’ and what about all the Shakesphere plays, & Plato, Aristotle anyone?
Although, like Ivan, I too, have a taste for French.
Comment ID: 40652
At 11:45 am on Thursday 11th 2007f January 2007, eleanor testifiedI have to say that if fact the duck given to her by her (nowhere near 60) great aunt is proving a very popular toy with AOife at the moment.However I am pleased to report that the husky and the Macy’s bear have struck up a close friendship as two outsiders. The English and Irish teddies are spurning them because of their strange accents. Cruel sniggers and some nasty comments have been heard in the nursery. Unfortunately the Danish reindeer still remains isolated and friendless. Noteddy can understand him.
Kicked out of a restaurant?! We demand the full story.
Comment ID: 41415
At 12:48 am on Monday 15th 2007f January 2007, Babs wroteEleanor is right. Details on getting thrown out of the restaurant!!
I’ve got $5 that says, somehow, Daragh had something to do with it.
Comment ID: 42088
At 5:58 am on Wednesday 17th 2007f January 2007, Dean statedNote to the Littons, Mr & Mrs: Are you aware, your cat Maggy was recently a Cat Camp neighbour of my cat Mr. Sparky. I am told she is indeed still a “wild one”, a bit of a flirt and talks dirty in her sleep. The two became good friends and Mr. Sparky would like to wish her best wishes for the future and hopes she returns home soon.
Yours Truely
D
Comment ID: 42411
At 6:03 pm on Thursday 18th 2007f January 2007, Anthony decided it was worth pointing outThanks Dean for that news. It’s nice to get an insight into Maggie’s life while she lives away from home. If only she could blog.
Oddly, Daragh had nothing to do with the whole restaurant debacle. One of our party was burned on a hot pan containing his desert. He had been warned it was hot, but perhaps insufficiently. Words were had with the management, things became heated (pun) and apparently he said something so awful to the server that the manager insisted on throwing us all out. It should be noted that we had already finished and had paid our bill.
I have no idea what he said. It was all very dramatic.
Comment ID: 42908
At 12:07 pm on Monday 22nd 2007f January 2007, D. started typing, with this resultI saw ‘The Departed Recently’ Whatever about your judgement of soft toys and infants reactions to them, your assessment of Scorcese is spot on. Another example of his genius in the depiction violence and its impact on human life. He avoids- and I can think of no other artist who succeeds as well as he does in this- in refusing to allow us differentiate between ‘good’ violence and ‘bad’ violence. Bad violence is the violence you inflict on me and my kin,good violence is the violence that repairs the injury and protects us. You experience it as bad violence and so the cycle continues: violence begats violence in a spiral of destruction where all lose their humanity as they are moved by fear and anger. How can you make a story out of this? The temptation to tell it as melodrama is, it seems, irrestible to all save Scorcese. Its not difficult to see why. How else can you draw the viwer into the picture if you do not have a narrative and the truth about violence is that robs the protagonists of the humanity that is necessary for narrative. In the the realm of violence their are no characters, only those swept up in its remorseless logic. Scorcese tell it as it is and yet captures your full attention. I thought the ‘Gangs of New York’ excellent but the Departed is even more successful. Why? I have not worked it out yet, but then I never studied film. The answer, please.