Waiting Here For Everyman

As good a place to wait as any:

And, on a more prosaic note:


This kind of thing happens to me all the time.

Carrowholly in the Gloaming

Shot with the iPhone Hipstomatic app, which simulates lenses and films from the 50s and 60s (in the this case, the John S lens and Blanko film).

We arrived in Shannon this morning in good shape after a lengthy layover in Newark International (which, compared with JFK, is the Trump Towers). These highlights of the trip over (also courtesy various Hipstomatic lenses and films) make Carrowholly all the more transcendent:

And now we're about to have a late dinner while listening to the great Kevin Burke:

Carrowholly Walk

The other day at low tide, T., my brother, and I took a walk:

Storm Brewing

Happy 25th, Bill! Only yesterday...

Kevin Burke / Cal Scott

Back when I was 17, I got an Arlo Guthrie album called The Last Of The Brooklyn Cowboys. The record -- yes, that's how long ago it was -- opened with a fiddle prologue called "Farrell O'Gara," which a single fiddle player performed by layering several takes on top of each other. It was strikingly lovely even to 17-year old ears more accustomed to Black Sabbath, so I took note of the fiddle player's name. The album notes identified him as "Kevin Burke of County Sligo." There being a dearth of opportunity in South Texas to explore Irish fiddle music, I filed the name away and continued to enjoy "Farrell O'Gara." I even learned to play a pretty mean air fiddle, if I do say so myself!

When I started coming to Ireland back in the early '90's, I discovered that Kevin Burke was a giant among men as far as fiddle players go. Besides his own recordings, he was a member of the formidable trad groups Patrick Street and Celtic Fiddle Festival. Recently, Burke teamed with the American guitarist Cal Scott to record a fine CD called "Across The Black River". T. and I liked the music so much that we chose "Lighthouse Keeper's Waltz" for the bride's entrance at our wedding last December.

So we were excited to learn that Burke and Scott were performing last night in Linenhall, a combination tourist office, community center, and performance hall in nearby Castlebar. While Linenhall is an old Georgian building, it's been remodeled on the inside. The performance hall is the second very nice space we've been to in County Mayo; like the one in Belmullet, it's amphitheater in style but seats about 100-120. They paid attention to the acoustics, so the sound is excellent. We're not in sync with the Irish habit of buying tickets the night of the show, so we picked ours up a few weeks ago, putting us front and center with our feet on the stage. A couple of weeks ago, I emailed a request for "Lighthouse Keeper's Waltz."

The performance was outstanding. Burke's tone and dexterity are astonishing; for richness, fullness, and agility, it reminded me of nothing so much as Willie Nelson's voice. Scott -- who also composes film and TV soundtracks -- made for a fine accompanist. He even sang two of his own songs, narratives about a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition and a charming imagined history of his antique mandolin. Burke and Scott are adventurous, so while they performed plenty of trad jigs, reels, waltzes, and polkas, they added their own compositions and showed no fear of other genres. In fact, two of the night's highlights were renditions of Bill Monroe's "Evening Prayer" and a Yiddish lullabye called "Itzikel" ("short for 'Isaac,' only it's longer," Burke explained). Oh yes: They played "Lighthouse Keeper's Waltz." And dedicated it to us.

Here they are:

We're off to Donegal for a couple of days! I have some posts scheduled and we'll have pictures when we get back. In the meantime, T. has more great pix of Carrowholly jellyfish here.

Galway

Someone -- I won't say who -- dropped her camera on Wednesday afternoon, shattering a once highly functional bit of modern optics into a thousand million pieces of useless plastic and glass . I won't reveal this person's identity, but I will say that you can see the last desperate view that passed through the camera's shutter as it exited this vale of tears. Such wanton destruction occasioned a trip to Galway to find a replacement, a trip undertaken with some foreboding because of that city's anaconda traffic congestion.

About the time we reached Ballinrobe, I noticed that the car was running on fumes and stopped to fill up. $102.16 later (including the 3% "exchange rate mark-up"), we resumed the trip and made it to Galway without further incident. We even found a convenient parking garage that -- once we popped into the light -- turned out to be near the camera store. I'll dispense with the details there, other than to say that you could fill up a car a couple of times with the cost of a camera. That's how I've come to think of big-ticket items here: The mini-speakers I bought for the house cost one tank of gas. A fine meal that includes a nice bottle of wine costs about a tank-and-a-half of gas. A pedestrian piece of Irish art -- and there are plenty of them -- costs three t0 four tanks of gas. On the other hand, a hand-knit sweater that in the States would cost two tanks of gas, I found discounted here to a half tank.

Galway was lovely. The weather cooperated completely: One of those crystal clear days in the sixties that encourages students to skip school and the rest of us to call in sick. Half of Galway promenaded on the outdoor pedestrian mall in old town. The other half sat took advantage of outdoor seating in the pubs and cafes, and watched the rest of us stroll by. Galway is a college town, so young people abounded, bringing their always welcome injection of energy and exuberance.

We had lunch a Fat Freddy's Bistro, a long-time favorite that I discovered years back on a day when the boys were desperate for pizza. Freddy's serves their pies with a thin, crisp crust and balances their ingredients effectively. It's best to order simple and add your own combination so as to avoid the Irish penchant for adding corn and potatoes.


After lunch, we shopped separately and together. I bought some novels at Dubray's Books and Eason, found a nice dressy shirt (half of a tank of gas) and a t-shirt (fifteen-hundredths). The t-shirt reads "Galway: Probably the Best City in Ireland." It's an in joke having to do with Irish advertising regulations. You're not allowed to advertise a product as "the best" (as in "Guinness, the best stout in Ireland") unless that's a provable proposition. Marketers get around this by tagging products as "probably the best."

Buskers dotted the streets. No sooner were we out of earshot one than the strains of another became immediately audible. Music from afternoon session poured out of pubs that had thrown open their doors and windows. When we stopped for a cappucino, I noticed that my (unbroken) camera lens had become smudged, so I took a stab at some artsy-fartsy photographs. One of them even turned out o.k.!



After fish and chips at McDonagh's, we sauntered down to Galway Bay through the Spanish Arch and sat quayside to admire the swans, the boats, and the blue water. We then drove home, arriving in time for a Carrowholly sunset.

Blow Winds! Rage, Blow!

Ferocious winds last night, ripping and howling off the bay, colliding brutally with the house. They forced their way through the tiny gaps between window and frame, blowing the curtains in our bedroom even though the windows were closed. T. slept fitfully while the continuous bellowing had an oddly soporific effect on me: I slept like a baby. They had let up some this morning, but have started in again, this time driving a hard rain sideways through the cove. I love it. Of course, a hurricane or flood considerably diminishes the romance of a storm...

We spent yesterday afternoon running errands in the nearby market town of Castlebar, where we filled up the car to the tune of $7.85 a gallon. (1.33 euro per litre only sounds better.) T. needed art supplies for her post cards and I needed special-sized light bulbs that I couldn't find in Westport. To our delight, we discovered that the fiddler Kevin Burke performs there in July. His "Lighthouse Keeper's Waltz" was the bride's processional (as it were) at our wedding in December; we've already emailed a request for him to play it...

Thx to Amy Denio for the photo. Amy stayed at Carrowholly last February...

Charles Black, a key advisor to Johnny Wattles, sez that an attack by terrorists on the United States, would benefit McCain to the detriment of Barack Obama. Naturally, the MSM misses the real point: It falls all over itself trying to figure out whether Black is right or wrong while ignoring the colossal cynicism of the remark. The Republicans know they can't win talking about Iraq, the economy, health care, alternative energy, infrastructure -- in other words, any of the huge issues facing this country that they did nothing about when they had the chance -- so they play fear card. Hang on, it's going to be a bumpy ride...

The Washington Post's Richard Cohen brings McCain milk and cookies before tucking him into bed, here. The thrust of Cohen's argument is that no matter how many times McCain flip-flops or how egregiously he panders, his five years as a POW in North Vietnam trump all and prove that his character is superior to Obama's. He doesn't consider the possibility that McCain has sold out his legacy and will say anything to become president, gambling that the punditocracy will never call him on it. If Cohen is a representative sample, it might be a good bet...

For a nuanced, thoughtful, and perspicacious analysis of the public view of Iraq, you can't beat Frank Rich's column here. Rich argues that it no longer matters what incremental "good" news may come come out of Iraq -- that the public has already made up its mind that the war was a mistake and that nothing can change that. The issue now is to get out so that we can focus on the economy, health care, alternative energy, and infrastructure. Rich believes that McCain's platform of holding on in Iraq amounts to the flogging of a dead horse...

New Orleans: Screwed again. But the music, oh, the sweet music...New Orleans blues guitarist Spencer Bohren: "Music is a quintessential part of the fabric in the life and culture of New Orleans, and vice versa. Musicians were among the first to return to the bewildering mess that was New Orleans following the storm, and though there were very few places for them to play, and very few people to hear them, they provided an early signal that the precious spirit of New Orleans was not dead." Be sure to listen to "The Long Black Line"...

It's no picnic in the Midwest, either...

The pot calls the kettle very, very, very, very, very black. We're talking pitch-black, ebony, midnight, center-of-Carlsbad-Caverns-without-a-match-here: The Rev. James Dobson of Focus on the Family accuses former Constitutional law professor Barack Obama of a "fruitcake" interpretation of the Constitution and, worse, of "...distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology..." Focus on the Family supports the teaching of so-called "Intelligent" Design, opposes same-sex couples benefits, opposes meaningful stem cell research, opposes a woman's right to choose, opposes...you get the picture. They do support abstinence before marriage.

I just stepped out into the wind. Wow! It must be 35-40 mph. Best have some tea.

The End Of A Perfect Day

Couldn't ask for much more out of a day than Sunday (although you can tell from the picture -- which is exactly what I see as I write -- that today shapes up pretty well itself).  While listening to Dick Gaughan, Ronnie Drew, and selections from Premium T.'s iPod,  she made postcards and I finished one novel, started another, and took two naps. We then sat down to  a fantastic meal prepared by  T., and topped that off with a visit to our favorite pub for a Jameson's with a splash for me, a cognac for T., and music from our friend and neighbor Pat. 

The meal was simple and glorious: A Guinness-and-red-wine beef stew, fresh homemade bread, and a Spanish syrah. The Guinness and wine imparted a richness of flavor that's hard to describe but easy to appreciate!

Oh, and Obama leads Johnny Wattles by 15 points. Woo-hoo!...Obama promises not to allow his campaign to be Swift-boated by racial smears. "Every...[criticism of Obama]...will be twisted to make it about race," warns McCain advisor and South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, showing no hesitancy to make race an issue...Will Cindy McCain's majority share in a beer distributorship cause problems with social conservatives? Or will Hensley & Co's courageous opposition to Mothers Against Drunk Driving inoculate it against criticism from the right?

R.I.P. George Carlin. I saw him a few years ago. He was plenty funny, but was it ever bleak. If not exactly a groundbreaker, he nonetheless wore Lenny Bruce's mantle proudly and defiantly.

Citizen K. Read: The Lazarus Project, Alexsandar Hemon. BTW, the web site is amazing. Check out the slide show below, which combines text and photographs from the book:

The Lazarus Project (shorter) from Book Videos on Vimeo.

Carrowholly

We get to look at this every day!

The house is in an area of west County Mayo called Carrowholly. Or Carraholly or Carracolly: Around these parts, we aren't too particular about such things. The people who live here call it Carrowholly, which is good enough for me. Specifically, we are on Carrowholly Point, four miles from the town of Westport; now you have all the information you need to understand the mailing address:

Carrowholly Point
Westport
County Mayo
Ireland

That's right: No house number, no street name, no zip code. The mail gets here, anyway. When we first got the house, we didn't get any mail for a while. I dropped round the P.O. to find out what was going on. It turned out that postman didn't recognize my name, so the P.O. held the mail until I showed up. No problems since. In fact, you can receive mail here so long as you send it c/o me.

Westport itself is a delightful town, with no shortage of amenities -- including some excellent restaurants. (I'll blog later about the surprisingly high quality of Irish restaurants.) Take a virtual tour here and treat yourself to my photos here. Also, Premium T. has some great pix of local jellyfish and of storm clouds gathering here. And all the pictures you'll ever need of Carrowholly are here.

What are we doing today? We're sitting around listening to Irish music, munching on a local cheese, drinking a bottle of wine kindly left for us by some recent guests, and reading aloud from the poetry of Westport's Sean Lysaght. No doubt there are better things to do; I just can't think of them right now.