Draw Breath

We're just back from seeing The Orphanage in the QFT. Jesus. I don't know why we do that sort of thing.

How bizarre is it that a good Saturday night would include getting totally spooked by this sort of thing. This did not exactly feel like fun. My pants were not just scaredy by the end of it.

Still, I always come out wondering at the way that film has spoiled our capacity for fantasy. Maybe its just me, but I find it relatively easy even in films like this to distance myself from the story by thinking about the whole confection as a manufacturing process. If you get to engrossed just have reassuring thoughts about the cameraman, the bloke with the boom, the people in makeup, the director. Works a charm for the likes of me.

What we miss is I suppose no longer even available from literature. The veracity of the spoken word is probably the only place where someone can become truly immersed. The folklorists may have been doing us a huge favour in allowing us at least to be tourists in story-telling (I personally recommend David Thompson's Creatures of the Sea - don't let the whimsical title put you off). But reading the stories is not the same as actually being told by the very people you relied on for information about the world - neighbours, family and passers-by. We belong to only the third generation in Ireland who were likely to travel more than a few miles from home. Where, for all those who came before, can the boundaries of this world have ended, if anywhere?

The firmer lines between the recognisable world and fantasy are undoubtedly a modern development. By this, modernity is a function as much of medium as anything else. No matter how sophisticated the technology gets, it always distances us from the voices of those we trust. In truth, if you really want to cast doubt on the way things are just whisper in somebody's ear.

Great concert by Joanna Newsom last night. Good support from from Ned Collette (Nick Drake morphed into a one-man God Speed! You Black Emperor) and then one hell of a show from the calloused one and her band. There's nothing better than hearing slight variations on album tracks as the musicians try to keep things fresh. This was most striking with the songs from Ys, at least to me. Wonderful. And, as with all these things, when it comes to more acoustic music, nothing beats seeing the person actually manufacturing the sound on stage. God knows though, if you sit up in the cheap seats you're going to be subjected to an amazing amount of whispering, fidgeting and fucking off to the bar on the part of your tourettes-ridden fellow concert goers. I think I'm getting way too old: we'll have to book a curmudgeons box next time.

I'm not generally one to rush out an buy an album because I looked at a website, but for Amor Tobin's Foley Room I think I might make an exception. Incredible site and the found music samples (when you find them) are like nothing I've heard before.

Speaking of great music, we had a marvellous time at the Esbjörn Svensson Trio's concert in Vicar Street on Friday night. Great atmosphere and incredible music. See them if you can!

You know the way it is: skimming the new South African companies bill (as you do) late in the office and you just check out a few blogs, including the excellent Disillusioned Lefty, only to be distracted by the fact that he's found whole episodes of Black Books. Which I can say without an ounce of hyperbole is the best piece of television ever ever. And here, for your viewing pleasure, are the best ever ever episodes of this positively world-historical series. Watch out for the analysis of old versus expensive wine...

At the risk of simply turning into an aggregator for Crooked Timber, Kieran Healy has done us all the important service of producing a catalogue of Irish public service ads. I certainly remember the Green Cross Code starring Judge from Wanderly Wagon and reading this mention of him has sent me into a bout of WW nostalgia.

None of the ads Kieran mentions are around for us to look at, but here's a clip from Wanderly Wagon, Judge's star-vehicle:

You know, in case you're wondering why the Irish are disturbed fantasists.

On the subject of which (and by way of tenuous thematic meanderings), be thankful you didn't have a Swedish childhood.

Unless, of course, you did.

In which case you'll remember the collective psychosis that was produced by Vilse I Pannkakan. If you aren't from the country that brought us Strindberg then Vilse I Pannkakan involved a David Icke impersonator in conversation with a group of more or less sinister characters who lived underneath a giant pancake. As the series went on the pancake went increasingly rotten and I'm reliably told that the finale involved the characters waving goodbye as the pancake was flushed down the toilet. Think Bosco (Judge's nemisis apparently) in a mashup with Lost, Waiting for Godot and the Shining. Here's the deceptively gentle intro:

Isabel blogged about Ted-Stock on Inis Mór. According to the BBC a row is brewing, in marvellous Ted style, between the people of Inis Oirr and the people of Inis Mór over ownership of the memory of Ted.

It seems, at the time of writing, that the Friends of Ted site has downed a bottle of Dreamy Sleepy Nighty Snoozy Snooze, but the Aran Islands website does seem to indicate a certain dominant tone on the part of the big island.

Will the other two islands secede?

The perfect weekend away for the Fr Ted fan who has everything: the inaugural "Ted-stock" festival on Inis Mor!

Organisers have apparently had to do no advertising; word of mouth has ensured that 100 fans will be travelling to the Aran islands on 23 February.

Three special ferries will be making the trip; the Mrs Doyle, the Fr Jack and the Dougal and dressing up as either a cleric or a house-keeper will be de riguer!

Activities for the weekend include a Lovely Girls contest, a Ferrero Rocher quiz night, a Father Jack cocktail evening and even a priests and nuns five-a-side football tournament.

Inis Mor has a lot of fodder for the hardened fan including a hill-fort half on land and half at the bottom of the Atlantic...and a winter ferry service which more closely resembles submarine travel!

Great fun!