Queenie would like to congratulate the D.I.F.F. on a very good festival this year. A good time was had by her, even though she never did get the timing right and always ended up a little too close to the screen, generally beside the elderly person who ate his sandwiches out of a loud greaseproof paper bag during the film. Bless them. Queenie will be old one day so she tries to be compassionate. But sometimes it's hard.
Best flick for her had to be Mysterious Skin, by Gregg Araki. It was great to see Elizabeth Shue in a good film again and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is really good as her gay hustler son. The film, which is about the impact of paedophilia on the lives of two young boys, dealt very sensitively with a difficult topic. Queenie didn't do so well, when the elderly man next to her started to cry during a very intense moment in the film. Should she have patted him on the arm or something? She doesn't know.
Other great movies she saw were Garden State , written, starring and directed by Zack Braff. Nathalie Portman is a FINE actress. She carries the film, which is funny but a bit slight. But it is worth seeing (why do people go to see ninety minutes of film and then whinge about how it doesn't plumb the depths of every bit of the story. I repeat 90 minutes). Peter Sarsgaard is just FINE. Queenie is seriously thinking of slinging Clive Owen out of the mancupboard to make room for him. Also the soundtrack is worth checking out.
Queenie also went to see The King's Game, a Danish political thriller. At first, she thought that was a bit of an oxymoron, quiet little Denmark and all that, but then she remembered that the greatest political thriller of all time is set in Denmark.
King's Game is the adaptation of a novel written by a Danish spin doctor who based it on his experience of an internal struggle for power in his party. Queenie thinks she might have met this spin doctor during her years as a spinette. She certainly remembers that internal power struggle as being particularly nasty and the fall out - the coming to power of the right, an increasingly isolationist and racist Denmark - is still with us. Queenie has to have a think about European politics one of the days - maybe tonight after the Theo VanGogh documentary. I'm sure you're all creaming yourself at the thought of the nuggets of wisdom that will unearth.
Finally, Queenie recommends The Republic of Love, based on Carol Shield's novel (another great writer who died recently), directed by Deepa Mehta. Very funny take on singledom, frustration, desperation, love, fucking it up, pulling it off, and a really funny sex scene that showed a woman reaching orgasm from having her toe sucked.
Queenie would be so lucky.
Work commitments prevented Melinda and Melinda and Private from being viewed, even with tickets bought. Grrrrrrrrrr.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Hunter S Thompson is dead
We hope that he didn't kill himself. And if he did, we hope that it was really what he wanted.
http://www.gonzo.org/
What a sad week for literature
http://www.gonzo.org/
What a sad week for literature
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Narrator 1: Why Percy lives in Queenie’s Man Cupboard
Context is the wallpaper of life and I am Queenie + Percy’s interior decorator. Before I line it up for you, let me just say that I have no interest in Quests of any kind unless they are a brand of soft furnishings featured in Wallpaper*.
Percy is a scholar-warrior-poet prince, who has fallen on hard times. He likes solitude, so he can concentrate on his Quest, which is to find the Holy Grail. Unfortunately, needs must, and due to his reduced circumstances, he is dependent on Queenie’s hospitality. As Queenie lives in a small apartment, she doesn’t have a whole pile of room, so Percy has to live in Queenie’s man cupboard.
As man cupboards go it is not too bad, as Queenie is quite fussy, but he has to share it with a rough lout from the Wold called Sean Bean, who keeps attacking him with his broadsword and singing songs about a glorious era in which a knight called Sheffield Utd. slew mighty dragons called Hotspur, which Percy didn’t think was a dragon name, and a charlatan called Clive Owen, who treats him very cruelly by telling him that he is in fact King Arthur and by claiming that the fragrant Guinevere has taken up archery and painted herself blue. As if!
Queenie is quite taken with his Quest. She has an analytical mind. She talks quite a lot about thinking outside the box. Indeed the man cupboard is a box of sorts, but Percy is not sure if that’s what she is referring to. Queenie says that the first thing to do is to define what the Holy Grail is. She undertook a magic search of all the world called a Google and said there were 800,000 possible definitions. Percy is supposed to spend his days working through this list of clues, but he finds it a little daunting.
Instead, the lull in the Quest’s activities such as dragon-slaying and maiden-rescuing has allowed Percy to explore his creative side, which is also quite solitary. He writes poetry, he paints, he sneaks out with Queenie’s Canon A75 Powershot when she’s at work and fiddles with the buttons to make swirly patterns that are quite artistic. And hide the camera shake in his sword arm. And also, he’s not very good with the Google magic, which is why Queenie posts to the blog. The blog is where Queenie + Percy marshal their thoughts (ideas are great foot soldiers, Percy, and you need an army, dude, Queenie once said) and slay Queenie’s dragons.
In fact, although he doesn’t know it, Queenie is quite taken with Percy. True, his poetry is a little mawkish, and his photographs are a bit like himself (pretty but boring, she said once when they were arguing) and he rarely changes his clothes or washes his long blonde hair, but there is something about him that softens her face when she thinks of him. And of course, she is interested in his Quest, because she is on something of a Quest herself.
Percy is a scholar-warrior-poet prince, who has fallen on hard times. He likes solitude, so he can concentrate on his Quest, which is to find the Holy Grail. Unfortunately, needs must, and due to his reduced circumstances, he is dependent on Queenie’s hospitality. As Queenie lives in a small apartment, she doesn’t have a whole pile of room, so Percy has to live in Queenie’s man cupboard.
As man cupboards go it is not too bad, as Queenie is quite fussy, but he has to share it with a rough lout from the Wold called Sean Bean, who keeps attacking him with his broadsword and singing songs about a glorious era in which a knight called Sheffield Utd. slew mighty dragons called Hotspur, which Percy didn’t think was a dragon name, and a charlatan called Clive Owen, who treats him very cruelly by telling him that he is in fact King Arthur and by claiming that the fragrant Guinevere has taken up archery and painted herself blue. As if!
Queenie is quite taken with his Quest. She has an analytical mind. She talks quite a lot about thinking outside the box. Indeed the man cupboard is a box of sorts, but Percy is not sure if that’s what she is referring to. Queenie says that the first thing to do is to define what the Holy Grail is. She undertook a magic search of all the world called a Google and said there were 800,000 possible definitions. Percy is supposed to spend his days working through this list of clues, but he finds it a little daunting.
Instead, the lull in the Quest’s activities such as dragon-slaying and maiden-rescuing has allowed Percy to explore his creative side, which is also quite solitary. He writes poetry, he paints, he sneaks out with Queenie’s Canon A75 Powershot when she’s at work and fiddles with the buttons to make swirly patterns that are quite artistic. And hide the camera shake in his sword arm. And also, he’s not very good with the Google magic, which is why Queenie posts to the blog. The blog is where Queenie + Percy marshal their thoughts (ideas are great foot soldiers, Percy, and you need an army, dude, Queenie once said) and slay Queenie’s dragons.
In fact, although he doesn’t know it, Queenie is quite taken with Percy. True, his poetry is a little mawkish, and his photographs are a bit like himself (pretty but boring, she said once when they were arguing) and he rarely changes his clothes or washes his long blonde hair, but there is something about him that softens her face when she thinks of him. And of course, she is interested in his Quest, because she is on something of a Quest herself.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Monday's Question
Arthur Miller wrote an article about the importance of theatre as a tool for social and political commentary and bemoaned its decline in the US, shortly before his death. To remember him and his art, we reproduce a very pertinent question he posed in the text. He began by saying, 'the bad part about being around a long time is the realisation that mankind is endlessly reinventing the wheel; now the stoical military virtues - a kind of Roman obedience and conformity - echo in an attorney general'
Question: How many times do we have to indulge the same idiocies for which we must later be ashamed?
Question: How many times do we have to indulge the same idiocies for which we must later be ashamed?
Friday, February 11, 2005
Friday's Question
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true, or is it something worse?
Seriously, apparently Irish band Stockton's Wing got their name from a Bruce Springsteen song. Which one?
This has Queenie and Percy both stumped.
Seriously, apparently Irish band Stockton's Wing got their name from a Bruce Springsteen song. Which one?
This has Queenie and Percy both stumped.
Thursday's Question
Sorry this is a bit late. Queenie had a meeting overrun of seven hours yesterday.
Why are the papers coming down with articles condeming Angelina Jolie for being a marriage wrecker, and not coming down with articles condemning Brad Pitt for being a git for leaving Jennifer Aniston because she wasn't ready to have a baby?
Why are the papers coming down with articles condeming Angelina Jolie for being a marriage wrecker, and not coming down with articles condemning Brad Pitt for being a git for leaving Jennifer Aniston because she wasn't ready to have a baby?
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Poor Old Bewildered Ireland? I think not!
Lizette Alvarez published an article in the New York Times on 2nd February entitled Suddenly Rich, Poor Old Ireland seems Bewildered, in which she outlines an apparent moral dilemma facing Irish people as we come to terms with our newfound prosperity. In addition, the reduced threat of a 'belt of the crozier', due to the embroiling of the Irish Catholic Church in a paedophile scandal, has apparently added to our confusion as our moral certainties are shaken on two fronts.
Alvarez puts forward the proposition that Irish people are suffering a crisis of identity, due to our newfound wealth and moral freedom.
She asks a number of questions, some of them pertinent to current debates we are engaged in around immigration and inequality, others less so. For example, she asks What does it mean to be Irish, given that so much of the national psyche is tied up in centuries of poverty?
How is that relevant, or specific, to Irishness? Have not most peoples, nations, or communities suffered the indignity of poverty at some time or another? It struck me that, with its emphasis on material possessions,it was a particularly American outlook on what informs a psyche. Surely a psyche is formed from more enduring influences. Our location on an island at the western edge of the European continent, for example. Our homogeneity (according to recent genetic research, over 80% of Irish male DNA comes from the same mutation). Or our landscape and climate. Surely these are the conditions that impact on our psyche and inform how we react to relatively transient issues such as poverty, oppression, rebellion, religious obedience, or emigration.
Personally, I think it is all moot. What is important now is how we use our newfound wealth as a tool to identify and inform our role in a global society. To misquote Joseph Campbell: The result is an unprecedented expansion of horizon, that could well serve in our age.
So, how's the view?
Alvarez quotes from a recent speech by Emily O'Reilly, a conservative, a former journalist and current Information Commissioner: Released from the handcuff of religious obedience, we are Dionysian in our revelry ... hence the staggering drink consumption, the childlike showing off of helicopters, four wheel drives and private cinemas, the fetishing of handbags and high heels.
My first reaction to this was that I move in very different social circles to Ms O'Reilly! But, seriously, surely this has more to do with the impact of consumerism, channelled through an increasingly corrupt media, on a newly wealthy population. Keeping up with the Jones' is a human habit that some of us indulge in because we are human and we can afford it. Not because the bishops have lost their vice-like on our necks.
The core of Alvarez' article seems to be the now boring (to those of us who remember the penurious, jobless, violence-ridden seventies and eighties) argument that Irish culture and character - its keen sense of community, its sharp humour in the face of hardship - will be steamrolled by the rollicking economy.
This view takes no consideration of the way in which the world is organised today. Our keen sense of community is still alive - the villages we live have modernised is all. I, along with the rest of the population (Ireland-based, or diaspora), am a member of many communities. Online, offline, local, global, where I live, where I'm from, built around my hobbies, my sporting allegiances, and my concerns. I play an active role in all of them.
Our sharp humour is still rampant, but nowadays it serves to illuminate our views on everything from Desperate Housewives (how did that show win a Golden Globe), to the bombing of Kabul, to record-breaking bank robberies in Belfast. And the hardship is still there - we are fully-fledged members of a polarised, war-torn, environmentally-damaged, disease-riddled planet, along with the rest of you.
We are a kind, compassionate, passionate, gregarious, inquisitive, unafraid people who put our hands in our wallets whenever we encounter the misfortune of others. My parent's generation built our economic miracle by going without to educate their children, by adroitly playing 'the great game' of the global labour market, and by developing a unique system of social dialogue that ensures everyone has a voice at the policy table.
Our voice is heard internationally too. Our NGOs are thought leaders in the developing world. We send our police and soldiers to Sierra Leone, to Bosnia, and to East Timor to fulfil our UN peace-keeping duties. We take an active part in building a social Europe. And our Government continues to repay its debt to the US by facilitating its military transports to the war in Iraq, even though it is against the wishes of many of its citizens.
But apart from all that, we know that life is for living, and that we are all different, and if your idea of a fun night out is to pop a bottle of vodka in your Prada handbag, slip on your Mahnolo Blahniks, fly your helicopter over to a friend's post-modern hacienda to watch ninety minutes of unadulterated, American cultural imperialist rubbish on his plasma screen, if that is what floats your unique, beautiful boat, then fair play to you. But you can expect a right slagging from the rest of us when you get back.
Alvarez puts forward the proposition that Irish people are suffering a crisis of identity, due to our newfound wealth and moral freedom.
She asks a number of questions, some of them pertinent to current debates we are engaged in around immigration and inequality, others less so. For example, she asks What does it mean to be Irish, given that so much of the national psyche is tied up in centuries of poverty?
How is that relevant, or specific, to Irishness? Have not most peoples, nations, or communities suffered the indignity of poverty at some time or another? It struck me that, with its emphasis on material possessions,it was a particularly American outlook on what informs a psyche. Surely a psyche is formed from more enduring influences. Our location on an island at the western edge of the European continent, for example. Our homogeneity (according to recent genetic research, over 80% of Irish male DNA comes from the same mutation). Or our landscape and climate. Surely these are the conditions that impact on our psyche and inform how we react to relatively transient issues such as poverty, oppression, rebellion, religious obedience, or emigration.
Personally, I think it is all moot. What is important now is how we use our newfound wealth as a tool to identify and inform our role in a global society. To misquote Joseph Campbell: The result is an unprecedented expansion of horizon, that could well serve in our age.
So, how's the view?
Alvarez quotes from a recent speech by Emily O'Reilly, a conservative, a former journalist and current Information Commissioner: Released from the handcuff of religious obedience, we are Dionysian in our revelry ... hence the staggering drink consumption, the childlike showing off of helicopters, four wheel drives and private cinemas, the fetishing of handbags and high heels.
My first reaction to this was that I move in very different social circles to Ms O'Reilly! But, seriously, surely this has more to do with the impact of consumerism, channelled through an increasingly corrupt media, on a newly wealthy population. Keeping up with the Jones' is a human habit that some of us indulge in because we are human and we can afford it. Not because the bishops have lost their vice-like on our necks.
The core of Alvarez' article seems to be the now boring (to those of us who remember the penurious, jobless, violence-ridden seventies and eighties) argument that Irish culture and character - its keen sense of community, its sharp humour in the face of hardship - will be steamrolled by the rollicking economy.
This view takes no consideration of the way in which the world is organised today. Our keen sense of community is still alive - the villages we live have modernised is all. I, along with the rest of the population (Ireland-based, or diaspora), am a member of many communities. Online, offline, local, global, where I live, where I'm from, built around my hobbies, my sporting allegiances, and my concerns. I play an active role in all of them.
Our sharp humour is still rampant, but nowadays it serves to illuminate our views on everything from Desperate Housewives (how did that show win a Golden Globe), to the bombing of Kabul, to record-breaking bank robberies in Belfast. And the hardship is still there - we are fully-fledged members of a polarised, war-torn, environmentally-damaged, disease-riddled planet, along with the rest of you.
We are a kind, compassionate, passionate, gregarious, inquisitive, unafraid people who put our hands in our wallets whenever we encounter the misfortune of others. My parent's generation built our economic miracle by going without to educate their children, by adroitly playing 'the great game' of the global labour market, and by developing a unique system of social dialogue that ensures everyone has a voice at the policy table.
Our voice is heard internationally too. Our NGOs are thought leaders in the developing world. We send our police and soldiers to Sierra Leone, to Bosnia, and to East Timor to fulfil our UN peace-keeping duties. We take an active part in building a social Europe. And our Government continues to repay its debt to the US by facilitating its military transports to the war in Iraq, even though it is against the wishes of many of its citizens.
But apart from all that, we know that life is for living, and that we are all different, and if your idea of a fun night out is to pop a bottle of vodka in your Prada handbag, slip on your Mahnolo Blahniks, fly your helicopter over to a friend's post-modern hacienda to watch ninety minutes of unadulterated, American cultural imperialist rubbish on his plasma screen, if that is what floats your unique, beautiful boat, then fair play to you. But you can expect a right slagging from the rest of us when you get back.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Wednesday's Question
Why does Google think it important for me to know that MSN mappoint says the quickest way to get from Haugesund, Norway to Trondheim, Norway is via Newcastle, England?
Waiting for the scent of regime change
Maureen Dowd, NYT, is spitting fire about the culture cops again, following a very tame Superbowl night (in comparison to last year's excitement with Janet and Justin).
In the article (2/6/05) Dowd worries about the increasing levels of self-censorship creeping into state-funded media. She should try living in Ireland!
I love sassy, dry-wit ironic Maureen. I'm not so fond of hysterical, outraged Maureen. In fact, I am getting a bit weary of the falsetto heights of the note the Liberal Media Elite (LME) keep hitting as they face the onslaught of hordes of victorious, red, Middle American heathen unsupported.
I mean, how scary can a legion of soccer moms be?
We have all seen bad times when our guys are dumped out of power and cut way out of the loop. But this is a time for listening to people to find out why this happened, not screaming at them for making it so. Those canny politicians who know this are hopefully half-way round what we call the 'chicken in a basket' circuit, engaged in this exercise. Maureen would do well to head off on her own little mission. After all, she is in the priviledged position of being able to 'be educated in public'. Unlike the rest of us, who have to do it in our own time.
The whole thing takes me back to a day in Dail Eireann in late 1994. After a series of Opposition by-election wins that undermined the government's hold on power, new TDs including Michael Ring, a rural, right-wing, populist operator from Mayo, arrived to take their seats. Michael, who ran a particularly effective vote-getting machine, was consequently accompanied by busloads of muck savages up for the day. They swarmed all over the Dail, and drank the bar dry, much to the distaste of his parliamentary colleagues, particularly his party colleagues.
Despite all that, I remember it as a glorious day. The FF-Labour coalition was in trouble and a faint new scent, a blend of regime change and pig slurry, wafted around us all. Pretty soon after that, the Rainbow Coalition took office. It would never have happened without Michael and the other by-election victors. Proving yet again that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I tell this story to put forward the proposition that the tide will turn, because that is what tides do. And it will turn on the unlikeliest event. As is always the case with the American fundamental/ religious right, they will not know when to shut up and consequently, they will ruin it for themselves.
Hopefully, their demise will be through the uncovering of a 'hookers for Jesus' scandal involving one of their most virulent spokespersons, or with media images of Limbaugh and Medved cottaging together. More likely, however, they will just take their attacks on public service broadcasting too far and incur the ire of the soccer moms. Whose views will be echoed by some muck savage populist, who just happens to have an effective, vote-getting machine ready and waiting.
And suddenly, the air will once again tingle with the faint scent of regime change and pig slurry.
As the Chinese proverb states:
If you sit by the river long enough, the body of your enemy will float past you.
So maybe take the hysteria down a notch or two, Maureen. And listen.....
In the article (2/6/05) Dowd worries about the increasing levels of self-censorship creeping into state-funded media. She should try living in Ireland!
I love sassy, dry-wit ironic Maureen. I'm not so fond of hysterical, outraged Maureen. In fact, I am getting a bit weary of the falsetto heights of the note the Liberal Media Elite (LME) keep hitting as they face the onslaught of hordes of victorious, red, Middle American heathen unsupported.
I mean, how scary can a legion of soccer moms be?
We have all seen bad times when our guys are dumped out of power and cut way out of the loop. But this is a time for listening to people to find out why this happened, not screaming at them for making it so. Those canny politicians who know this are hopefully half-way round what we call the 'chicken in a basket' circuit, engaged in this exercise. Maureen would do well to head off on her own little mission. After all, she is in the priviledged position of being able to 'be educated in public'. Unlike the rest of us, who have to do it in our own time.
The whole thing takes me back to a day in Dail Eireann in late 1994. After a series of Opposition by-election wins that undermined the government's hold on power, new TDs including Michael Ring, a rural, right-wing, populist operator from Mayo, arrived to take their seats. Michael, who ran a particularly effective vote-getting machine, was consequently accompanied by busloads of muck savages up for the day. They swarmed all over the Dail, and drank the bar dry, much to the distaste of his parliamentary colleagues, particularly his party colleagues.
Despite all that, I remember it as a glorious day. The FF-Labour coalition was in trouble and a faint new scent, a blend of regime change and pig slurry, wafted around us all. Pretty soon after that, the Rainbow Coalition took office. It would never have happened without Michael and the other by-election victors. Proving yet again that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I tell this story to put forward the proposition that the tide will turn, because that is what tides do. And it will turn on the unlikeliest event. As is always the case with the American fundamental/ religious right, they will not know when to shut up and consequently, they will ruin it for themselves.
Hopefully, their demise will be through the uncovering of a 'hookers for Jesus' scandal involving one of their most virulent spokespersons, or with media images of Limbaugh and Medved cottaging together. More likely, however, they will just take their attacks on public service broadcasting too far and incur the ire of the soccer moms. Whose views will be echoed by some muck savage populist, who just happens to have an effective, vote-getting machine ready and waiting.
And suddenly, the air will once again tingle with the faint scent of regime change and pig slurry.
As the Chinese proverb states:
If you sit by the river long enough, the body of your enemy will float past you.
So maybe take the hysteria down a notch or two, Maureen. And listen.....
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Tuesday's Question
Part the First
What are the things we waste trying not to waste our time?
Part the Second
Who was I listening to when I thought of this question?
What are the things we waste trying not to waste our time?
Part the Second
Who was I listening to when I thought of this question?
Monday, February 07, 2005
Fridtjof Nansen Rocks
The first great thing is to find yourself, and for that you need solitude and contemplation: at least sometimes. I tell you, deliverance will not come from the rushing, noisy centres of civilization. It will come from the lonely places.
Fridtjof Nansen
This bloke skied across Greenland when he was 27, as well as being the first UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He undertook various other acts of global altruism with the League of Nations, and went on a number of polar adventures throughout his life.
Nails boy..........
http://www.fni.no/christ.htm
Fridtjof Nansen
This bloke skied across Greenland when he was 27, as well as being the first UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He undertook various other acts of global altruism with the League of Nations, and went on a number of polar adventures throughout his life.
Nails boy..........
http://www.fni.no/christ.htm
Monday's Question
What is that disgusting stuff that accumulates in the bottom of the electric toothbrush charger? (c'mon, you know what I'm talking about)
Friday, February 04, 2005
Book Review: The Queen of the South, by Arturo Perez Reverte
Interesting take on the gangster novel by the acclaimed Spanish author. Teresa Mendoza is a dozy, young, Mexican, drugrunner's mot who gets caught up in a revenge killing spree and has to plead for her life with Don Epifanio Vargas, the local narco boss. He allows her to flee to Spain, where she takes up with a Spanish version of the same bloke and lightening strikes twice. (This is all on the back of the book btw - no spoilers intended).
A stint in prison sharing with the intriguing Patricia O'Farrell (the Marbella O'Farrell's, don't you know) sets up the path which Teresa will follow to her destiny .......
Although this was a good story, with a believeable anti-heroine and a reasonable pace, this is nowhere near as good as Reverte's The Fencing Master.
It's almost 450 pages long, in the big airport size, and there's far too many lovingly described scenes of Teresa sitting alone with a bottle of tequila and a spliff, thinking about the men she's loved and lost. Pinche!
The narrator technique used to move the story forward is a little contrived and the Patricia O'Farrell character is completely OTT.
Having said that, it's worth a read. After you've read The Fencing Master.
A stint in prison sharing with the intriguing Patricia O'Farrell (the Marbella O'Farrell's, don't you know) sets up the path which Teresa will follow to her destiny .......
Although this was a good story, with a believeable anti-heroine and a reasonable pace, this is nowhere near as good as Reverte's The Fencing Master.
It's almost 450 pages long, in the big airport size, and there's far too many lovingly described scenes of Teresa sitting alone with a bottle of tequila and a spliff, thinking about the men she's loved and lost. Pinche!
The narrator technique used to move the story forward is a little contrived and the Patricia O'Farrell character is completely OTT.
Having said that, it's worth a read. After you've read The Fencing Master.
Friday's Question
What kind of a muppet am I to be getting up at 6am to get into work to try for hours online to get tickets to see U2 in June?
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Change what you can
The new billboard ad for Nip/Tuck, which won a Golden Globe(why?) says Change what you can. Hide what you can't.
It struck us that this statement can be applied to many things - our personalities for example, or the way in which governments operate, or the way in which we deal with difference/ conflict in society, or indeed the way we handle relationships.
It makes us wonder whether the current fetish for cosmetic surgery isn't just another way in which Western society deals with its, IOHO, deeply suppressed guilt at the impact of its structures and values on its members and on everybody else.
I read somewhere that the average person has 50,000 'conversations' with themselves everyday, 80% of which are negative and many of which are about their physical attributes. - Queenie
Cosmetic surgery, digital enhancement of photographic images, low carb diets and our obsession with our appearances (all exemplified by the image of the actor on the billboard - a complete non-entity whose name I can't even remember) appears to fill the void left by our inability, or disinclination, to undertake the admittedly very difficult journey towards self-acceptance. Not only that, those who actively avoid that journey through surgery or other transformative means are often rewarded by society with increased status, fame and wealth.
And of course, the added benefit is that if self-acceptance is not a valid activity/ outcome, then we sure as hell don't need to undertake the even more difficult task of accepting other people's little idiosyncracies.
A curse on the dragon Perfection - Percy
It struck us that this statement can be applied to many things - our personalities for example, or the way in which governments operate, or the way in which we deal with difference/ conflict in society, or indeed the way we handle relationships.
It makes us wonder whether the current fetish for cosmetic surgery isn't just another way in which Western society deals with its, IOHO, deeply suppressed guilt at the impact of its structures and values on its members and on everybody else.
I read somewhere that the average person has 50,000 'conversations' with themselves everyday, 80% of which are negative and many of which are about their physical attributes. - Queenie
Cosmetic surgery, digital enhancement of photographic images, low carb diets and our obsession with our appearances (all exemplified by the image of the actor on the billboard - a complete non-entity whose name I can't even remember) appears to fill the void left by our inability, or disinclination, to undertake the admittedly very difficult journey towards self-acceptance. Not only that, those who actively avoid that journey through surgery or other transformative means are often rewarded by society with increased status, fame and wealth.
And of course, the added benefit is that if self-acceptance is not a valid activity/ outcome, then we sure as hell don't need to undertake the even more difficult task of accepting other people's little idiosyncracies.
A curse on the dragon Perfection - Percy
Thursday's Question
Why do Marks and Spencers charge less for four packaged kiwi-fruit, encased in layers of non-biodegradeable plastic, than they do for four loose kiwi fruit?
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Lady D'Olier wants our custom ... we think
The Irish Times is running an intriguing advertising campaign at the moment, based on a number of statements about where people's heads are at, including: We know what you do at night, We know you are dreaming of escape, and We know this is not how you imagined your life, or words to that effect - we haven't managed to memorise them.
The campaign appeared to us to be a bit Big Brotherish at first, but the images are arresting.
In one, the 'how you imagined your life' ad, a young, dark-haired woman seems to be washing dishes in a restaurant. She stands in profile to the camera, at the left hand edge of the picture. Her hair masks her face. She could be Asian, is she an immigrant? In addition, a man stands with his back to us in the right hand side of the photo. Who is he? Is he unhappy too, or is he causing the girl's unhappiness?
In the second, the 'what you get up to at night' ad, the photo is of what seems to be a suburban street in the evening. The street lights are the focus of the image. It is taken from a strange angle (and you are looking up at it on billboard, which adds to the confusion). It appears as if the viewer is standing at an upstairs window in a suburban home. Is it the view from Queenie's bedroom? If so, how does the Irish Times know what she gets up to?
The third, or 'escape' one has only flashed past us on a bus once, so we could be wrong, but from what we can remember, it is an interior and there may be a young man sitting on a sofa, couch-potato-like.
From our initial 'WHAT?!' reaction, we are becoming more intrigued with these images. One of Queenie's colleagues mentioned them to her at work today, so they are obviously having an impact on thirtysomethings.
What is the Irish Times trying to say? Are they picking up on a mood? Are we all in the same boat? Are they saying that they are very knowledgeable about all the different types of Irish experience there are? Are they trying to kick start a mood? Are they trying to brand dissatisfaction? Are they all-seeing, all-knowing?
For us, the images themselves are beautiful and reminded Queenie in particular very much of the work that Hopper did in 1950s USA. They have that same sense of loneliness and isolation that prowled around his takes on the modern urban landscape.
We would be interested in finding out what the brief was, in terms of target demographic, and what the campaign is trying to do. If anyone knows. Based on her interest in the campaign, we assume that Queenie is in some way included in the target audience. (Percy is in a different demographic that is targeted chiefly by broadsword salesmen and helpless maidens)
This leads on to the question of what the Irish Times are trying to do generally. If they are trying to brand themselves as understanding (and by extension reflecting) the aspirations of a particular demographic, which includes Queenie, how does that sit with their traditional image of representing both/ all sides of an article? How does that sit with them shelling out cash for the views and opinions of people like Mark Steyn, for example? (Queenie hates Mark Steyn - Percy)
Queenie: It's not that I have a problem with reading OpEds from those with diametrically opposing views, in his case a neo-con view of the world. It's just that international affairs to a great extent are now run by neo-cons, so we get their views on the News pages already. Therefore, I don't need it rammed home to me by their cheerleaders in the OpEd pages.
The campaign appeared to us to be a bit Big Brotherish at first, but the images are arresting.
In one, the 'how you imagined your life' ad, a young, dark-haired woman seems to be washing dishes in a restaurant. She stands in profile to the camera, at the left hand edge of the picture. Her hair masks her face. She could be Asian, is she an immigrant? In addition, a man stands with his back to us in the right hand side of the photo. Who is he? Is he unhappy too, or is he causing the girl's unhappiness?
In the second, the 'what you get up to at night' ad, the photo is of what seems to be a suburban street in the evening. The street lights are the focus of the image. It is taken from a strange angle (and you are looking up at it on billboard, which adds to the confusion). It appears as if the viewer is standing at an upstairs window in a suburban home. Is it the view from Queenie's bedroom? If so, how does the Irish Times know what she gets up to?
The third, or 'escape' one has only flashed past us on a bus once, so we could be wrong, but from what we can remember, it is an interior and there may be a young man sitting on a sofa, couch-potato-like.
From our initial 'WHAT?!' reaction, we are becoming more intrigued with these images. One of Queenie's colleagues mentioned them to her at work today, so they are obviously having an impact on thirtysomethings.
What is the Irish Times trying to say? Are they picking up on a mood? Are we all in the same boat? Are they saying that they are very knowledgeable about all the different types of Irish experience there are? Are they trying to kick start a mood? Are they trying to brand dissatisfaction? Are they all-seeing, all-knowing?
For us, the images themselves are beautiful and reminded Queenie in particular very much of the work that Hopper did in 1950s USA. They have that same sense of loneliness and isolation that prowled around his takes on the modern urban landscape.
We would be interested in finding out what the brief was, in terms of target demographic, and what the campaign is trying to do. If anyone knows. Based on her interest in the campaign, we assume that Queenie is in some way included in the target audience. (Percy is in a different demographic that is targeted chiefly by broadsword salesmen and helpless maidens)
This leads on to the question of what the Irish Times are trying to do generally. If they are trying to brand themselves as understanding (and by extension reflecting) the aspirations of a particular demographic, which includes Queenie, how does that sit with their traditional image of representing both/ all sides of an article? How does that sit with them shelling out cash for the views and opinions of people like Mark Steyn, for example? (Queenie hates Mark Steyn - Percy)
Queenie: It's not that I have a problem with reading OpEds from those with diametrically opposing views, in his case a neo-con view of the world. It's just that international affairs to a great extent are now run by neo-cons, so we get their views on the News pages already. Therefore, I don't need it rammed home to me by their cheerleaders in the OpEd pages.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
St. Brigid's Day
I was at a funeral yesterday and the priest gave a lovely sermon about cherishing diversity. He was talking about people from other faiths principally, but I couldn't help thinking what a total and utter hypocrite he was to be standing there telling me, using lovely joined-up sentences (it was a posh funeral), to cherish others, when I’m not allowed have his job.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02784b.htm
I'm talking about this because today is 1st February, the first day of spring and St. Brigid's Day here in Ireland. It is so because Brigid is actually the Christianised version of the Celtic goddess Brig/ Brigid/ Brigantia, Celtic Goddess of Fire, Blacksmiths, Wells, Springs and Poets. (Does that mean she's my goddess? - Percy)
As she was the main goddess of Ireland and Wales, Brigid's feast, or Imbolc, was an important one and therefore was celebrated in spring.
http://www.mayhemltd.com/tools-brigid.htm
As the old schoolyard joke goes, St. Brigid’s Cross - stay away from her today.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02784b.htm
I'm talking about this because today is 1st February, the first day of spring and St. Brigid's Day here in Ireland. It is so because Brigid is actually the Christianised version of the Celtic goddess Brig/ Brigid/ Brigantia, Celtic Goddess of Fire, Blacksmiths, Wells, Springs and Poets. (Does that mean she's my goddess? - Percy)
As she was the main goddess of Ireland and Wales, Brigid's feast, or Imbolc, was an important one and therefore was celebrated in spring.
http://www.mayhemltd.com/tools-brigid.htm
As the old schoolyard joke goes, St. Brigid’s Cross - stay away from her today.
Today's Question
If the Gordon's Gin bottle has an apostrophe, why doesn't the Baileys The Original Irish Cream bottle have one?
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