see nerd)
2008a
sound eye 2008
Anyway, I arrived at Cork station, thinking of apples and cricket pitches and Canterbury; Cork station is called Kent station. I soon realised I was being silly; it’s named after one of the heroes of the Irish revolution, Clark Kent. A station in Dublin is named after the greater hero, Sam Heuston, who founded NASA in America before he came to Ireland to be shot. My first event was half way through Sound Eye (note to self: next time go to the whole thing). Anyway, it was an evening’s cabaret in the local gay club, which, I’m very glad to say, had some good beer available. The performance I particularly remember was Justin Katko’s abridged 45–minute opera, which threatens to be absolutely fascinating if performed complete, with a decent sound system, or, even better, recorded. Sean Bonney’s recital stood out too (I’m embarrassed to admit he was accompanied by someone playing sound effects, and I’ve completely failed to remember her name). A viol consort played some short formal works from the middle ages, and later on swapped instruments to end the evening with a drunken ceilidh (well, I, for one, was drunk). There were many other good performances I’ve not mentioned here. The following evening, Mairead Byrne compered a open–mic session that was closed, held in a town-centre wine bar. This was rather grand too, with no naff performances. I loved Kenneth Goldsmith’s recital of Bern Porter’s “The Last Acts of St. Fuck You” (he introduced Bern Porter as America’s Bob Cobbing). I took some photos of the event which will be posted on Wild Honey Press’s site; if not, I’ll post them here somewhere. The more formal sessions during the day introduced me to some great poetry. I hope to add some notes on them in another post. 7.7.8 |
kitties
A work colleague’s queen had given birth to a litter of five. Two survived. I’m not sure my house will. 1.7.8 |
living in dublin
There are differences to the UK. An obvious one is political; the main Irish parties openly don’t stand for anything in particular, whereas the main British parties still like to pretend they have some principles left on a shelf somewhere. Culturally, Ireland is different to the UK, but only in that it’s rather like, but not the same as, Scotland; it’s rather like, but not the same as, Wales. It’s even like the British in that it has its own home grown sports rather than reusing someone else’s. A real difference is that the UK is an amalgam of different peoples sharing the same state, so there’s a much greater awareness of, and sensitivity to, the difference between peoples. In this respect, Ireland is like the US; a nation of one people, not many. Many Americans don’t appear to understand that a difference between locality habits is not the same as a difference between peoples. I can’t comment on the scars of the north, the battles and deaths over which end to open the egg, I’ve not lived there. However, if some of the proudly displayed brass plates of revolution speeches are anything to go by, though, the Irish republic Irish presume the Ulster Protestants belong to their culture, which is rather like presuming the Irish are really English, and certainly suggests why the north ended up at war for so long. Dublin itself may be a capital city, a newly rich one, full of other Europeans, but it’s still only a city of a million or so. It’s bigger than Luxembourg City, but it feels more parochial than Luxembourg City. This must partially be a consequence of geography, of course. I miss the TGV; to get anywhere long distance from Dublin you must use noisy and unpleasant aircraft, or slow and weather-prone ferries. The city feels small and local. The pubs are good, although many are blighted by the lack of choice of beer; good beer is very difficult to find and I’ve been forced to return to those few places that sell the Belgian stuff. You can’t get good English beer. Some pubs have character, and many have crack; if you’re willing to put up with the Guinness and the accompanying hangover, you can easily have a good night. The people are very friendly, which is great, although my standard English accent has had the expected piss-taking reaction from drunks, many of whom appear to think Mrs. Thatcher still runs the UK. Ireland has a higher than average amount drunk per head of population, yet fully one quarter of the population are teetotal, so there are a lot of drunks about. The food is very British; the local population seem to think that if the packaging has more colours, the content must be good quality. This is another reason I’m not staying; I’m hacked off with being forced to pay heavy prices for crap food in fancy packaging. That’s just like the UK, and one of the main reasons I left the place. The banking system in Ireland is similar to the UK, so, for example, many corporates are annoyed with you if you refuse to give them the right to empty your Irish bank account whenever they feel like it. I’m not surprised the ramshackle British banking system suffered the only run on a bank seen in the Western world for 50 years, I am surprised the Irish have the same system. There are some much more advanced banking systems in the rest of Europe they could have put in place, say, from similar-sized countries that have systems so good the system itself as made the country rich. For these financial security reasons I’ve kept my Belgian bank account active; the Euro makes that easy. And the Euro illustrates a major difference between Ireland and the UK, but it’s not as big a difference as you might think. The UK doesn’t use the Euro mainly for English nationalistic reasons. Ireland uses the Euro, but Ireland is very nationalistic; it so happens the EU pulled Ireland out of the economic consequences of its nationalism. But that’s an old battle, long gone. Anyway, the point is the two countries are taking different currency decisions for similar reasons; the nationalism is simply more mature in Ireland than England. It feels odd that Ireland and England have the same nationalism, yet they do. Ireland is not as artificially paranoid as the UK. The press don’t seem to spend half their time trying to keep the population frightened. There aren’t a gadzillion cameras watching your every move. If you scratch your bottom in public here, you don’t risk starring on u-tube. But there is still a tension about, something leaving you feeling a little unable to relax. It’s not the tension of an active city; I didn’t feel this in Brussels, for example. The arts scene is strange. I’ve been told the poetry events are formal, mainstream and stuffy, or survivalist; I’ve not got there, mainly by accident. There is a very alive visual arts scene, if the number of studios is any indication. Unfortunately, I’m very ignorant of the visual arts, and can’t judge the content. The music scene is utterly parochial; Dublin would never support the kind of music shops you find in Brussels or Paris; nowhere specialising in second-hand modernist CDs. It needs an opera house and specific support for disrespectful rebellion against it. The musical talent seems to be wasted mass-rehashing the simplistic stuff. Ultimately, the country’s addicted to tinned Liebfraumilch. It needs a Bordeaux. 9.6.8 |
down down
It’s not because my new job isn’t working out, although that doesn’t help either. I think it’s the country. Ireland’s been independent from the UK since the 1920s, yet it has the same faults. I left the UK because I wanted to get away from the general culture of indifference and incompetence; I’m really annoyed I’ve come back to the same thing here. 24.5.8 |
poetry in andere talen
Speakers of those languages may well be appalled at my abuse of their native tongue. My excuse is I’ve abused my mother tongue too. I’ve consciously tried to rip the structure of English in my poetry, to give the effect of an incomprehensible complexity beyond the listeners’ ken, or to explore a new and different English of the kind that might develop as the world language coalesces and fractures, or simply to try to refresh familiar words. I won’t make the claim I’m trying for sophisticated effects in Dutch and German; I blatantly do not have the linguistic skill. But I wonder if my attempts might have the effect of familiar words in strangeness, the effect I often want in my mother tongue poetry. I can tune my English language poetry precisely. But I have insufficient understanding of Dutch and German; I can’t set a specific pitch. The effect, if it’s there, is fractured and crude, beyond my ken. There is a clear risk the poems resemble the music of the Portsmouth Sinfonietta, who performed classical music without being able to play their instruments. Mind you, I liked their music. It was strangely refreshing. 8.4.8 |
goodbye hello
My first Belgian client had offices in Ypres, with two conferences rooms. The second overlooked a German WW1 graveyard. Visitors were always put in the first conference room … except Germans: they went next to the graveyard. Those German visitors who got the joke appreciated it, apparently. Belgium isn’t boring, it’s subtle and funny. It was an interesting place to live. But my work’s taken me to Ireland. My first impressions of Dublin are pretty negative. I’ve seen some sober locals, but I’m not convinced they’re in the majority. Admittedly, I’ve only been here three days; hardly time to form a proper impression. The Irish company with whom I’m working seem sober and effective. But if you can judge a country by the people on its streets, and I think you can, then Ireland, with its many drunks and beggars, has a bloodshot, unhappy face. 3.3.8 |
essex
The B&B was spotless, but it had an essential problem: food. The town was Harlow, a New Town with the usual English restaurant-itis, e.g. you aneathestise yourself in advance to avoid an unpleasant experience with food. I’d have been happy to cook for myself, but the house’s kitchen only had a microwave. So, I decided, dammit, I’ll have to make do with raw, and plotted an exploration of salad. I stocked up leaves, some mild but ready soft cheese (as innocent as brie if I recall correctly), and fresh basil, and put them in the empty fridge. Working next day, I was pulled out of whatever I was doing, and was asked to leave the house. When, surprised, I asked why, I was told it was because I’d put smelly food in the fridge. I’ll admit I was completely shocked; the idea that the glorious aroma of basil is so bad it causes expulsion is like suggesting you should be thrown out of church for believing in God. To believe either, you have to be intentionally ignorant. You can see why, even in England, a land of food philistinism, Essex has a special philistine reputation all of its own. I did indeed leave the B&B. There was no way I was going to live in a place with such a Monty Python attitude. 29.2.8 |
jazz and the prozac factory
This is a consequence of taking up the minimum emusic subscription, thirty tracks a month. EMusic publish “dozens”, critics lists of good albums, and I’ve been sampling electronica and jazz. Emusic tend to sell music from independent labels, so if your taste is slap bang in the middle of the juggernaut overtaking lane, they won’t work for you. But I recommend it to anyone who wants to explore. The albums that have excited me are Albert Ayler’s “Spiritual Unity”, Revolutionary Ensemble’s “Vietnam”, and Peter Brötzmann’s “Fuck de Boere”. I think I might be making further purchases! 22.2.8 |
deep in grrr mode
I went to my second Dutch language exam last night, having done quite badly in the first, on Monday. About half way through the exam, the teacher ermed, then announced she’d given us the wrong papers. On both nights. Then she gave us the correct papers. For both nights. We’d been doing the next course up’s exam. So now there were two papers to be completed in the time for half of one. For a course in which she missed so many classes she hadn’t completed the syllabus. Oh wow. What’s made me really ’grrrr’ is she denied all responsibility for the cock-up; as if checking the papers before handing them out, let alone doing so when she grabbed them, was nothing to do with her. I think I did acceptably, enough to scrape. I was too hacked off to aim for more. LATER: The final exam was properly organised. And I got 75% overall, a little better than average. The teacher marked the exams… 17.1.8 |
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I visited the Sound Eye Poetry Conference in Cork last weekend. It was good to hear some challenging poetry again, although I think I should have taken a couple of days off beforehand; I was too tired to properly appreciate all the work presented.
Madam, my old lady cat, 
Bluntly, Dublin is far too British for me; I won’t be staying.
I’m feeling down.
It’s not because 
I’ve often allowed phrases from my other languages to creep into my English poetry. Many poets do so. Now, though, I’ve written a poem in German, I’ve written one in Dutch.
The Belgian national symbol is perhaps the 
In the early 1990s, I took a contract with an Essex based company. They offered me a weekday place in the company B&B, which was convenient given the alternative was 3 hours a day commuting.
Well, finally I’ve heard some jazz that doesn’t sound like the background music in the Prozac factory. If I’d have heard this in my youth, and it was certainly available in my youth, my musical tastes would have taken a quite different direction. I’d have still ended up at modernism, but I’d have approached it from another place entirely.
Excuse me; I’m deep in grrrr mode.
