Dante and the Lobster

2009-12-09T08:51:00.002Z

Off to Donegal with the dogs for a few days.
My new Brasher "Pemba" hiking shoes may indeed be the most comfortable cradle I've ever had on my ugly feet. They resemble the shoes boys wore to my C school in the 70s.

Nobody knows anybody. Not that well.

2009-12-08T14:33:00.002Z

There's a reason to stop by Hodges Figgis (the city's best bookstore) each week.

It's browser-friendly and staffed by smart folks who love books.

Nary a book snob on the payroll.

When I asked a clerk weeks ago where I might find Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels, she smiled and led me right over, unlike the three different staff members for Chapters Indigo in Toronto who sneered at my requests for books in the series as if I were asking for one of those Chicken Soup for the Soul titles. Book snobs hold such a narrow outlook and inherent lack of curiosity towards reading. They're also the folks who, to paraphrase A.A. Gill, would rather piss in their soup bowl than admit they don't know where to find the bathroom.

(Today Mr. M peered over the lap top to inform me that Stanley Fish just complained about the same strain of book snobbery among clerks. Take a number, Fish.)

A charming gent directed me to what I was looking for thirty seconds after I was inside the shop today.

On the way to the bus home rounding Nassau Street, a man in a grey wool coat exited a shop and stopped me dead in my tracks.

It was Gabriel Byrne!

So much taller than you'd guess.

Dapper from crown to feet.

Somehow I held my tongue and continued.

My favourite of his performances was as Tom Reagan in the Coen Brother's "Miller's Crossing" (1990).

*swoon*

Snake Poo on the Table!

2009-12-07T22:06:00.001Z

Best episode of "Come Dine with Me."
Ever.

Kiss Your Chocolate Goodbye

2009-12-07T12:30:00.002Z

Cadbury's a staple and much beloved sweetie-treatie, right?
Chocolate ain't my personal thing. My new gag inducing ploy to get a barista to hold back on the umber sprinkles on my coffee rests in my assurance that I'm already sweet enough.
See: Gag Provoking.
Whatever.
They laugh and my coffee escapes the saccharine dusting.

My lack of preference for the cocoa confection aside, it was still with a gasp that I read the story about Kraft Foods offer to buy Cadbury.
Start stocking up the minute the ink is dry.
I shit you not.
Because once the folks who think that cheese should be flavourless, bear only a trace of dairy and have the consistency of industrial plastic take over, your favourite candy bar will be a goner.
Mark my words.
The makers of bomb shelter cuisine (powdered cheese and macaroni) will ruin Cadbury's 195 year-old tradition in an instant.

Dudes Abridge Muliebrity in the Sunday Times Style Mag

2009-12-06T19:39:00.008Z

The Style magazine insert in the Sunday Times is one of the guilty pleasures I anticipate each week. Before I was able to indulge my full blown writerly, prose-envying crush on A.A. Gill in his "Table Talk" column this afternoon, there was much gender mythology to wade through by two dudes young and old. To be fair there was also a woman contributing to the identity fables concerning how simplistic and silly women are. Stephanie Theobold's "The New Party Bores" consists of a guideline for folks you should avoid at parties this holiday season, two of which boil down to cheap stereotypes of sad women over forty. Only two of the five are men, "the late-start druggie" and "the lovelorn gay boy." No other type of man would be worth avoiding, folks. Just the druggie and the gay dude. No, I've never been trapped at a party by a dude assuming too much conversational space about his work, his hobby, his portfolio, or his opinions on how feminists ruined his Playboy fantasies. There will never be a shortage of column space dedicated to listing all the ways women suck and should be avoided at all costs.

Moving on to the dudes, Eoin Higgins chimes in with his illuminating "What I (Now) Know about Women," an account of his time helming the Irish fashion mag "Image." The one major stereotype missing from his tawdry assemblage is the shoe fetish. Must be that "Sex and the City" made it passé. Otherwise his article reduces womanhood to lots of chattering, chocolate snarfing, passive aggressive maneuvers, along with a slimming fixation. The magazine inserted a riposte by Dawn Porter on Irish men that also trots out a lazy formula about them being mean booze hounds with mommy issues. Porter's lazy logic fails to match the level of contempt Higgins reserves for professional women. Higgins may think he redeems his low estimation of women who work on the glossy by saying that he found love among the feminine snake-pit, only the reasoning that fuckability acts as some get-outta-jail free card hardly erases the derisive commentary on muliebrity. We get it. You are a credentialed journalist who was forced to stay afloat in the simmering cauldron of oestrogen. You totally have cooties now, dude.

Taio Cruz's "The Trouble with Women" reads like a first year university personal narrative that I hope to never have in my grading pile again. The trouble with women, see, is that we're all infinitely jealous creatures. We ruin relationships with demands that our romantic partners not comment on how hot he thinks other women are at any given time. He's not being an insensitive asshole, mind you. He's just being honest about another woman's fuckability. He closes his treatise on love with all his worldly insight at age 26:

"I just want to be as open and honest as possible in a relationship. Basically, it's like me having a beautiful Aston Martin. If a Ferrari drives past, I want to be able to say, 'Oh my God, that car is so sick,' without my Aston getting jealous. I never wanted a Ferrari, but it doesn't mean I can't say it looks good."

To point out to this prick the problematics around equating women to an inanimate object that men own and drive or that women are in fact human beings would be fairly futile. Instead, may I try another tactic and ask women to stay the fuck away from Taio Cruz, privileged musician douchebag?

Behold the Perfect Sandwich

2009-12-05T16:09:00.002Z

Two eggs over medium.
Topped with melted white cheddar.
Spinach.
Salt and pepper.
Folded inside ciabatta from Carluccio's.
Done.

Tom Ford Makes My Skin Crawl

2009-12-04T14:00:00.003Z

Ford possesses a career bent on misogyny of the highest order. He's like a contemporary Andy Warhol or similar type of dude who insists on an abiding love of women which they can only seem to realize through objectification and marginalisation. Consideration for women never moves beyond the surface aesthetics. Bitches are decorative and not good for personhood or much else.

The trailer for his film "A Single Man" comes off as some sort of Calvin Klein goes retro commercial for an acrid perfume marketed to teens.
However, getta load of Julianne Moore's glam emsembles.
Her hair and cosmetics are divine.
You can bet that audiences will have to endure lots of lady hating mixed in scenes featuring Moore's stylish beauty.
I'll take a pass.

Guffaws over Grub

2009-12-03T07:37:00.003Z

Years ago when my bestie from university came for a visit to have us meet her new boyfriend (I remember little about him other than his obvious discomfort and disbelief when he asked me a question about the ending of "Ulysses" and I explained that Molly was masturbating. Dude, you have to be able to take an adult response and not fall over in a crumple at my dinner table) and when she left, Mr. M had remarked "You're different around Fiona."

"Oh? How so?" was my tender reply to his observation.

"You're giddy. Rather schoolgirlish."

Imagine!

Me? A tittering femme?

Inconceivable!

Fiona worked at that shitty steakhouse where I put in four years. She loved changing the lyrics to songs on the radio to pass hours slinging prime rib. Most memorable was her revision of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" to "Black Eyed Nun."

She even came over for a month when I spent a semester here in Dublin in '96. We went to Belfast to see "Riverdance," saw the premiere of "Nothing Personal" with the yummy John Lynch at the Dublin Film Festival, and went to the food fest in Kinsale among other adventures.

Fiona's a sweetheart.

But I never feared choking to death in a restaurant as a result of her company as I did yesterday in Peploe's with the matchless Ms. Cat. Peploe's is one of the lower level restaurants along St. Stephen's Green that I've passed countless times with not more than a glance of "stuffy place for the senior set." Perish the thought. Peploe's boasts one of those effortlessly cool vibes from the minute you enter. We had no reservation, news of which they took without a sniff or an attitude. All the staff were confident professionals bearing no accent of grin-fucking in the perfect two hour lunch. Things just appeared when it was time from a waiter who flitted around careful not to disturb the ladies who lunch. My salmon crab cake was the size of a small can of shoe peg corn. My one fault to find would be that LWL enjoy the aesthetic service of two crab cakes rather than a single tower. It lends the illusion of a bigger meal and fuller tummy. Ms. Cat had a bountiful bowl of mussels. And frites for each. Peploe's was so stylish, urbane, unpretentious. Dining there makes you feel like you're rubbing elbows with the smart set.

No matter how much experts tell you laughter is the best medicine, it's probably safe to say that hysterical giggling is not conducive to digestion.

Office Space

2009-12-02T09:32:00.002Z

This had me chuckling over my tea.

The person who wrote the last one deserves a pint.

Eat Shit with Your Cornflakes, Kids

2009-12-01T11:42:00.000Z

Check out this Brazilian campaign for Kelloggs, those flakes frosted with a heaping dose of the 'ol mars and venus mythology for the kiddies. Sporting the tag line "The Important Thing is to be Healthy," the copy belies the gender normative message present in both.

The first ads tells girls that life is always already a beauty contest wherein the ug-ohs can forget about it already. Real life doesn't play out like "Little Miss Sunshine."

Compulsory femininity for all.

Except kids with a penis, the second ad scolds.

Any trace of girly play de-sexes boys into swishy limp-wrists.

Put down the dolls and set something on fire right away, little boy.

Who's the Bigger Jerk? Demon or Boyfriend?

2009-11-30T20:35:00.001Z

The question "Paranormal Activity" poses is who's worse for Katie?
Phantasmic and breathing dudes both think they own the rights to her, only one expects a bit more from the one who has a pulse and consent.
Micah's scarier than the dude from the beyond, hands down.
He's like the George Bush of boyfriends, braying "bring it on" in a macho-fronting display.

Technophobic Dilemma

2009-11-30T14:07:00.000Z

Why is there a little underlining thingy which prevents me from entering chosen letters in the correct order for a text on my stupid fucking Nokia phone?

There's no rhyme or reason to the order shit gets inserted.

How do I get rid of this?

Vodafone was predictably useless.

Grrrrr.

Medbh's Favourite 20 Films from the Aughties

2009-11-28T19:34:00.002Z

List time!
The 20 films are in no specific order, although I did want to start with "Children of Men" (2006) because that's the one I've watched more than the rest. A female messiah picture holds endless appeal; the film also renders the evils of patriarchy with gut-wrenching clarity. Even Michael Caine gave a stellar performance. Clive Owens is a dreamboat here.

The second half of "Deathproof" (2007) makes me squeal with delight everytime. Love the cast.

"Let the Right One in" offers the most compelling interpretation of the vampire myth with an emphasis on gender and power. It's a perfect film.

"Adam and Paul" (2004) captures the underbelly of the Celtic Tiger with superior characterization.

The old man and his dogs are particularly haunting in "Amores Perros" (2000).

"The Royal Tenenbaums" (2001) assembles a cast of lovable kooks.

"The Hurt Locker" (2009) drags with the overtones of macho warmongering, but damn if the suspense doesn't make Hitchcock look like a punk.

"The Descent" (2005) still scares the shit out of me after 4 viewings.

"Pan's Labyrinth" (2006) crafts a brilliant fable over the horrors of war.

"The Gift" (2000) has Cate Blanchett at her best in a tightly paced touch of Southern Gothic.

"Shaun of the Dead" (2004) expertly blends comedy and horror.

"No Country for Old Men" (2007) has the best coiffed killer in cinematic history.

"Chopper" (2000) features the king of psychotic "semi-bloody illiterate" thugs.

"The Devil Wears Prada" (2006) nails the trials of career gals. And Meryl Streep is divine.

"There Will be Blood" (2007) felt like an instant classic when it was released. How can you not love "I drink your milkshake!"?

"The Wind that Shakes the Barley" (2006) serves up revolution as a family drama without resorting to cardboard cutouts.

"28 Days Later" (2002) has to figure on the list. Scary zombies done right.

Kevin Smith's work needs a slot on the list. I'll go with "Clerks II" (2006).

"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000) underscores the physical beauty of martial arts.

"I've Loved You so Long" (2008) conveys the smouldering aftermath of moral decision.

Why am I so Cold?

2009-11-28T15:21:00.001Z

Two pairs of socks under the wellies. There's nothing like the cozy feel of having warm and dry feet at the beach on a chilly grey afternoon.

He's eating a clam.

Crabs are his favourite find on the beach.

Kima discovered a deflated rugby ball for solid chewbering fun.

Snapped this before he became Omar's snack.

2009-11-28T10:12:00.000Z

Most cream sauces translate to the equivalent of a head cold on a plate, any mention of which on a menu steers me away as surely as if it were marked 'herpes.' Heaping gobs of cream, butter and cheese have scant nuance or flavour in order to justify the enormous fat content involved. I'll never forget the forced breaking of bread with the boyfriend and our joint crooked lawyer while we were still heavily scarred and broken after the car accident. I was served the lone vegetarian entree on the steak place's menu: pasta primavera. Thick slabs of frozen vegetables that never saw a natural spring lay choked with white sputum masquerading as a culinary standard. I suspect that a traditional alfredo sauce has little in common with the bastardised version I've encountered sitting at or serving tables, but that will just have to remain one of those conjecture thingies.

Until dinner at Dunne and Crescenzi on South Frederick Street earlier in the week, where I met a proper cream-based sauce on ravioli melding raddichio, walnuts, cheese and basil with a sauce that must have had the icks leavened out with some red wine to lend it such a warm tint and smooth finish, by far in contrast with the molten mound of white phlegm you normally get stuck with. The service was shit, maybe because we only asked for water on the table, which is a shame really since they have such an extensive wine list. I've thought about that ravioli no less than fifteen times this week.

We'll be back, for sure.

The Romance that Killed Love

2009-11-27T11:11:00.000Z

"Love Me if You Dare" ("Jeux d'enfants") serves up several compelling reasons why you should never fall in love. Accidental arguments against amorous attachments are all over the film.

You know it's wretched when the lovely Marion Cotillard is unbearable.

Here are some of the reasons you should never fall in love:

Love becomes synonymous with games and all manner of mind fuckery. This includes leading you to believe you're getting a marriage proposal when he really asked another woman just to demonstrate he holds the power. "You said I could never hurt you. Now I have." He therefore wins the round.

Love is defined by cruelty to each other and anyone else who happens along. He's a tyrant and she's a creampuff. Marry other folks to fill in as interim spouses then rip their hearts out when you leave them for the one you really love.

Love means being humiliated by the one who holds you in affection by daring you to wear your underwear on the outside of clothing to an important exam, for example.

Love is selfish. You lost someone or suffered the indignities of an impoverished life, so you can spend the rest of it caring only about your own pleasure. No one else matters.

The film was doomed from an early dream sequence where the characters as children are in the Garden of Eden and the old beardy dude warns them of their punishment through original sin, also known as mars and venus gender roles. She'll have to abide high heels, diets, exfoliation, face lifts and will have to do the cooking. The fictional father in the sky has reserved the worst for the male of the species. He'll have to endure such torments as dinosaurs (so a creationist wrote the film?) the A-bomb, Hitler and Elizabeth Taylor.

Grim indeed.

The winky authentication of gender norms stinks of retrograde conservativism rather than a progressive Gallic esprit de corps.

No Fantasy Allowed, Girls

2009-11-26T10:31:00.005Z

Jezebel had a post linking to a story over at Cinematical about a 17 year-old girl in Michigan who was bitten on the neck by a 45-ish dude during a screening of "New Moon." This happened after he made a string of sexual suggestions to her in the theatre. What a nightmare that girls are not safe even when going to see a film about chaste vampires.

The comments by two scumbags which follow are typically victim-blaming and representative of a commonly held view towards the lack of agency for vagina-bearers.
Not only do these dudes think she had it coming, the core of their response is that no girl can retain a private fantasy without the interruption of dudely advances.
Jared Harris' exercises shitty logic:
"Isn't the lesson of the film that women really want a much older guy who is very aggressive towards them and ends up biting them? Sounds like that girl just got her Twilight fantasy come true."
And then there's Cidknee:
"Sounds like both parties are confused. She thought she wanted a bitey, older, stalker perv and he thought she wanted him." Sexual assault as "confusion" you say? Would that be because men and women are unable to communicate in the mars and venus mythology worldview?

The pornification of culture strikes again.
This bit about "fantasy come true" washes out as pure nonsense bent of the sex industry. It's a way to shut women up, blame them, insist that they had it coming or wanted the assault.
Dudes, life is not really designed to mimic your jerk-off fare.
Many men have become warped by the porn narrative that assures them that all women want it all the time with all men.
No, really, we do not.
The young woman in the audience was sighing over a dude who may be technically old, except he's really played by a young actor.
Young women should be able to create and keep their own fantasy life free from the advances of strange perverts. A fantasy is just that.
Sexual chimera keeps girls and women in charge and is not necessarily a scenario we want to share or act out with anyone, let alone some creepy fucking dude behind us in the cinema.
Fantasy is separate, private and none of your fucking business.
Girls may swoon over the heavy-browed lads onscreen, but that doesn't mean they would consent to such antics in reality.
What a dire state of affairs when dudes think they have a right to control or direct our imagination.

Girls, you're better off dead

2009-11-25T11:33:00.005Z

"I wasn't gone."
"I was alive in my own perfect world."
No, sister, you're dead.

There are only about ten red flags in the two minute trailer for "The Lovely Bones."
And by red flags I mean caution signs that signal a crippling headache induced by the presence of mars and venus gender roles which put a sentimental veneer on patriarchy.
14 year-old Susie Salmon gets raped and murdered.
We are to assume that's the only way she gets to live in an ideal world and ultimately to heaven.
Dead girls are more important than the living.
Guess what? Even when you're dead you have to devote yourself to caring for others.
According to "The Lovely Bones," the natural order revolves around a predatory man offing girls who then passively float around limbo-like while they worry about the family's trauma.
This heaven bullshit pasted on top amounts to emotional larceny wherein a savage act of violence mutates into a "beautiful" and "touching" fable.
Fuck that.
All the horror bleaches out in the saccharine affair just so the viewer can say "aw."

This is not my idea of entertainment.

Genesis of a Crush

2009-11-24T14:47:00.003Z

This was the origin of my lust for Adam Horovitz when I saw "Lost Angels" back in '89.
Was met with blank stares by Ladies Who Lunch at the reference, so here it is.

Florence the Lap Cat of Patriarchy.

2009-11-24T12:05:00.007Z

There's no shortage of shit to roll your eyes over when it comes to pop music. For women hit-makers, all too often the themes revolve around being done wrong by a man; how they are the hottest women in the club or sexier than the competition; or how many luxury goods they have as a stand in for how valuable they themselves are. You find all the above compressed in the recent videos by Ms. Lopez, where she grinds and shimmies while moaning about sugar or shoes, with plenty of close-up shots of her red lips designed to scream fellatio. Jenny from the block prompts more of a wince as a response than some of the truly appalling pop confections out there. No, my gasping horror this morn stems from the report over at the Guardian on research into how women use violence in song lyrics as a coping mechanism for their own experiences of assault or abuse. Not my cup of tea, but apparently Tori Amos has helped women come to terms with some awful shit. The article mentions the Florence and the Machine song "Kiss With a Fist is Better Than None" So I watched the video.
Here's a sample of the lyrics:

You hit me once, I hit you back
You gave a kick,I gave a slap
You smashed a plate over my head
Then I set fire to our bed
My black eye casts no shadow
Your red eye sees nothing
Your slap don't stick
Your kicks don't hit
So we remain the same
Love sticks, Sweat drips
Break the lock if it don't fit
A kick to the teeth is good for some
A kiss with a fist is better then none

Got it, ladies? Violence=Passion.
It's okay if he hits you!
It means he loves you, has the hots for you.
Take the black eye, bruises and broken bones as a sign of his affection.
How I despair for women who love the boot on the neck.
Not even that lady lumps song troubled me as much as this for the dangerous message sent to girls and women about the nature of romantic relationships.
Florence, you are one sick bitch.
And for now, the ranking lap cat of patriarchy.

2009-11-23T13:20:00.003Z

During the daily sweep up of endless amounts of dog hair and sand, I was listening to this on the laptop. Mr. M comes in and busts a move to impress his canine fan club.

With broom held aside, "Shit, do you realize that the music of our youth is now probably called 'classic hip-hop' or some such old-ifying label?"
(We saw the Beastie Boys on the Check Your Head Tour in 1992 before we left Philly for the cold Midwest. The husband had hair down to the middle of his back then. And I remember that video turning up on "Beavis and Butthead" where they wondered if they were watching the Weather Channel. Also keep in mind my massive crush on Adam Horovitz).
"Better 'classic' than 'oldies.'"
"Hmmm."
"They were the first hipsters."
"No, there have always been hipsters. The British Romantics of the early 19th century were hipsters."
"They were the first to do that 'ironic dressing' thing in the "Sabotage" video."
"Right, the whole ugly-clothes-are-funny thing."

We didn't mention the cancer.
The thought of folks your own age contracting the ultimate dread is too much to contemplate.

Wicklow Way in Enniskerry

2009-11-22T20:23:00.001Z

Don't worry, the blog won't be morphing into a showcase for my middling photography.

These shots are from our hike on the Wicklow Way with the pooches today.

Windy as fuck it was once you got beyond the waterfall.

A huge gust blew me over against the rocks twice.

Omar and Kima were chewbering the deer carcass on the return.

Rome Part 2

2009-11-22T08:44:00.002Z

This is the Italian memorial for the unknown soldier. These dudes posted out front wore one of many different types of uniform present in the city. This ain't the birthplace of mars and venus without macho men fitted with machine guns all over the place. Verily, it's clear why Italian women are on a birth strike. Seven day-old pasta clotted with dog hair has more appeal than the macho dudes who occupy as much physical space as they can manage while yelling into a mobile. That dude was trebled on every street.

The rest of the photos are from the Roman Forum, Palatino and Colosseum.

It was the highlight of the trip.

Look around at all the layers of construction and take heart in the human impulse to pull ourselves out of the muck, to organize and create a civil society. Except for the bloodsport in the Colosseum, that is.

Now I know what antiquity smells like after rounding down to the crypt area on the way to the Palatino. A blast of dust bellowed more layers of compressed feet, blood, shit and collective sweat than anything else I've encountered. When I thought the odour had finally dissipated, there was another note of terra firma tempered by humanity. The tang of history hung in the air to let us know we are but lyrics to the cheesy Kansas song.

2009-11-22T08:19:00.001Z

The murder that fascinated the Beats and serves as the narrative focus of the jointly written novel "And The Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks" doesn't happen until twenty pages before the end. William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac wrote alternating chapters in 1944 in what's being billed as crime fiction. The slim novel plods along spending most of its pages on folks scrounging drinks and disparaging gay men and lesbians. When Columbia student Lucien Carr killed the gay man who had been a mentor of sorts, all the Beats quickly embraced him and outwardly conducted themselves as though David Kammerer was not really a member of their circle. In this fictional account, there's little doubt that the incident acted as a purgative for their own self-loathing over same sex attractions and dalliances. In his chapters, Kerouac openly flashes admiration for the heroic dudeliness of the act of murder.

A big fan of the Beats as a teenager, I had to struggle to remember what it was exactly that I liked about them after forcing myself to finish this listless and pedestrian little book.

A character in Hanif Kureishi's "The Buddha of Suburbia" counsels that the worst thing you can do to Kerouac is read him at 35. No shit. Reading him at 40 had me blushed for reserving such fondness for him in my youth.

Wife killer and mama's boy write a book.

Take a pass.

Obligatory Photos Part 1

2009-11-21T12:34:00.001Z

You can imagine how many folks came by to lay their head in the missing noggin spot. This is in the garden to the National Museum, along with the next two shots. Antiquity's beauty is strewn all over Rome. Often, it felt like we were walking on a film set.

Piazza della Repubblica was fairly hopping.

The temperature may have hit 23C.

Most of our meals were taken outside.

Romans, by contrast, were wrapped up for a cold winter's day.

The idea of an industrial belt sander's utility to grind down all the dead shit on my wounded feet holds so much appeal. We melted into the jacuzzi on the first night to soothe away the crimps and grime from so many hours hoofing it. What a contradiction you find in the streets of Rome: the traffic moves at racetrack pace, yet the citizenry stroll about without any sense of destination or timeframe. Fast cars coupled with slow walkers keep you on alert.

Trevi Fountain.

Mr. M's impression of me throwing in a coin launched a fit of hysterical giggles.

Rome has the sublime tucked around every other corner.

Pantheon before nightfall.

Mr. M enjoyed the re-branding on evidence where the church converted all the old pagan sites to their team.

The level of detail and design inside was impossible to capture with the shitty camera.

All around posted signs cautioned folks that it was a sacred place commanding silence.

Inside the Pantheon was as noisy as an after work pub.

My second pizza of the day was relished at a cafe on the Piazza Navona.