In July of this year I was awarded a scholarship to attend the James Joyce Summer School in Dublin. What follows is/are my class-notes, scribblings and general nonsense.
July 6th 08 - Fuck; I’m here!
Walked Dublin in flip-flops, an enormity of people, jugglers, huskers, hustlers, hurlers (the Irish pastime and National Sport) clowns, people who looked like clowns but weren’t, Eastern Europeans, Asians, Indians, a cacophonous Babel, Grafton St. and Trinity College, St. Stephen’s Green, the Tennessee Shopping Dome extravaganza.
July 8th 08
One of the virtues of not knowing your way around a city (getting lost is what I’m trying to not say) is that you get the opportunity to walk up and down and down and up all those streets and places you might otherwise have missed. This morning began with two lectures at Newman House, the old UCD where James Joyce studied (we actually use the room where he listened to lectures over a 100 years ago), then lunch a Boston College, just across the way from St. Stephen’s Green, which is absolutely beautiful, a green-space plunked down square in the middle of Dublin, with ducks and swans and stone bridges and bandstands and benches and a circular path that circumnavigates the entire park, then a lecture at the National Library, which if I’m right, is next to the Irish Parliament, then a long walk (this is the getting lost part I’m trying not to say) that took we in a circle round Dublin, Grafton Street etc., down and up back alleyways, on to a bus, off a bus, then on foot past these ominous Off Track Betting places where men with more ink on their arms than words in the Bible trotted in and out (betting on soccer, hurling and greyhounds, is my guess) across the Liffey, westward from the bridge I think I saw the stevedore cranes at the docks, so close to the ocean, which I haven’t seen yet (it was overcast when we landed Sunday, no surprise, it is Ireland after all) then up and down and across more streets in search of the Abbey Theatre, which I eventually found, asking directions isn’t all that daunting, into see Chekhov’s Three Sisters, an extraordinary play, super acting, set (the Abbey is where George Bernard Shaw had his plays produced) then back to residence enmasse with the other students, one very interesting PhD student from Germany who I get along with well, we have much in common, and now off to bed, another full busy day tomorrow. Dublin is a aesthetic city, and it seems like all the business men wear dark blue or black suits, sort like a posse of bankers. Tomorrow lectures in the morning then I’m meeting with a philosophy professor at Trinity College to chat about things philosophical and psychoanalytical. I’ll write tomorrow and tell you all about the Swiss embassy; and I’m telling you right now, there better not be arrows painted on the floors pointing the way into the Ikea maze.
July 9th 08
The elevators talk to you in Ireland, such lilting things as ‘ground floor, second floor’, where my room is, and so forth. I noticed this evening upon returning from the soirée at the Swiss embassy, which was grand indeed, and yes we had Swedish meatballs oddly enough, that the elevator was made my the Schindler Co., which got me thinking, hmmm, Schindler’s Lift. The city of Dublin is a bustling metropolis with curved roundabout streets and double-decker buses. Grafton street is sort of like Sparks street in Ottawa but with much more panache and aesthetics; Grafton St. was jam packed with people, most of whom were sporting umbrellas, while I was trudging my way to meet professor Skelton at Trinity college for 2;30. You might well imagine the eye-level poking one could be subjected to were one not careful. Every morning so far I have awaken to rain, which seems to clear up around noontime; and the sun, my goodness it stays put until well after 10pm. I have not felt so unstressed in a long while, ever, perhaps; I suppose it has much to do with being in a different placed without all the Ottawa stressors, that and the culture and beauty of the city. Ottawa could learn a lot from Dublin about how to manage a city, beginning with bus service and street cleanliness. I best get some sleep, another busy day tomorrow, which is really today.
July 10th 08
Today was double special, even though the interminable bus ride was, well interminable (more about that later): we went to the National Museum and a guided tour of the Irish Collect, Jack Yeats, I must say, is not my cup of Guinness; so when the guided portion of the tour was done I scurried off and took the glass elevator (several times because it was fun) to the 2nd floor and saw my first Caravaggio ‘The Taking of Christ’ I used Caravaggio’s painting style as a counter-example in my MA thesis, so actually standing nose to nose with Christ and the constabulary minion was breath taking. I stood up close, scanning the painting for colour, dark/light, figures anything hidden etc, then stood back and stared (more like ogled) it from a distance straight on, it is magnificent!
Now the interminable part: I took the bus to go look at Sandy Cove, an important geographic location in Joyce’s Ulysses. Well I took the bus to what seemed almost off the island, ending up at the end of the route, thank Guinness the driver takes a 10 minute break then heads back into Dublin. I had a lovely chat with the bus conductor, he telling me about Irish immigration, and me telling him about Canadian immigration, then he gave me a few suggestions about places to visit outside of Dublin and off we went back into Dublin. The good thing was, regardless of the fact my sparkling water bottle half-exploded when I unscrewed the top, I got to see the ocean from the window of the bus, not a great view, but a view nonetheless. I’ll try this Sandy Cove thing again when I have flat noncarbonated water.
Tomorrow two morning lectures as usual, then lunch at Boston College (I have never in my life eaten such delicious sandwiches, strange smoked cheeses with cherry tomatoes and unidentifiable greens, I suspect there of the tuber family, but I could be mistaken, crisps, which in Ireland are extraordinarily yummy, and these wonderful desert bar things, chocolate brownie, shortbread that’s long on butter and lipids, and a hostess of other interesting grain/fruit/sundries oaten bars delights) and the customary Joyce dinner soire at the James Joyce House. Yes it rained today; but once you give into the childish glee of getting wet, its really not all that bad.
July 11th 08
Its raining cats, dogs and trenching tools, to unmuck one’s self of course. Its no wonder the Irish wear Bog Wellingtons, the weather can be quite miserable, miserable indeed. The sun seems to appear at 5 o’clock like a rabbit pulled from the hat of the sky, shaken, jumpy and probably anodized (no, I have no idea what anodized means; spellchecker offered it up and I quickly appropriated it, for reasons not entirely clear, I must admit) on Guinness and Paddy’s, which I here tell will soon be available in lozenges. Today’s lectures were admirable, especially the second one by professor Luke Gibbons of Notre Dame. He spoke about the concept of the spectra, or ghost, in Joyce’s work and how Fraser’s the Golden Bough was an act of savagery, more so than the savages he wrote about (from information gleaned from missionaries in Africa and the Congo), and the criticism Wittgenstein waged against it.
Of course this got me interested, very interested, so when question time came I asked a few well appointment questions about Wittgenstein’s notion of language games and how they need no original event or object or happening to reference themselves from or to; language games are contextual, within the language-users specific context, and as such always original within the specific context, language-users that use them. All quite fun and engaging. Then I got the opportunity to chat with professor Gibbons; after lunch and again when we bumped into one another in the book store, both crouching knee-level in the philosophy/humanities section. Professor Gibbons is an interesting engaging scholar, and long on encouragement and ‘stick to its’.
I saw my first , first edition of Joyce’s Ulysses, the Paris edition of 900 copies, and a few other Joycean gems, like a signed copy of Finnegans Wake and some firsts of Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney (several of the Heaney’s signed editions). I ended up buying a paperback of Heaney’s poetry, a bargain at 5 Euros, then moved onto another book shop where I met professor Gibbons who suggested a book of interviews with Paul Ricoeur, then I found a copy if Elfriede Jeninek’s Lust for 4.99 Euros. A good book shop shopping day indeed. Lastly, dinner at the James Joyce Centre, a beautiful old brownstone-like with oodles of Joycenalia throughout. Dinner was wonderful, as were the Joyce things. I spoke with two American expatriates living in Dublin, one of whom runs the James Joyce Centre, and they encouraged me to look into getting a UK passport which would allow me to work on a visa and lower tuition to residence levels, much cheaper than foreign student, landed or not. Now I think I’ll watch the DVD of Midnight Cowboy I luggaged along with me, then crawl bootless into bed.
July 12th 08
I missed out on the final lecture and the Joyce walk through Dublin this morning (which I was told wasn’t all that agreeable as most of the buildings from 1904 have either been razed or remodeled) due to a rather hobbling arthritic episode around 4;30am: I awakened from troubled dreams in such excruciating pain (excrutia) nary a salve or liniment could assuage it (yes, a purloined Kafka leitmotif, a paraphrasing of the opening lines to the Metamorphosis). Once I drew myself from bed around 9;30, somewhat rested and in diminished pain and bother, I set off for Bailé Átha Cliath (Dublin) centre for a dul ag spaisteoireacht (walkabout about). That’s it; I have nothing more to say, well of course there was the sunshiny sun for part of the pork gray day, that indeed was nice, nice indeed, indeed. I do indeed have more, more to say: I received an email from the editor of Sparrow Magazine, a fiction journal out of Ottawa, and they are delighted to publish 17 pages of my novel in progress, Old Man and Hat. One must always start at the beginning, any and all beginnings, regardless of how far away from the end it is.
July 13th 08
Was awakened by a man pounding on my door; voila! Patrick has arrived from hither and thon. Of course being a man of some moral means (ethical claptrap, I know, but well worth the epistolary attention) I gave up my warmish bed to a fellow weary traveler and went roundabout about my day whilst dear Patrick slept off an overseas ennui. A day full of here’s and over there’s and where is we? and why is everything in Gaelic? I took Patrick for a walkabout about Dublin seeing some of the more seeable things; Cardinal Newman’s bust (not his dear wife’s as I suspect there isn’t one ,or if one, one the Cardinal wouldn't admit to), the church that abuts Newman House UCD, where Patrick lit a votive candle (the wee little wee ones) then to Bewley’a (sic) for a wee bite to eat, yes the oh so famous Bew(sic)ley’s where Joyce supposed sat supping sups and drinking potables, then to the Temple Bar area which is oh so touristy, thought one half of the touristy tourists were well worth the bother (for you married men that would be you’re better half), then home to poach myself to sleep.
July 14th 08
Slept bad last night, whatever that means. I recall being asked once ‘did you sleep well last night?’, to which I responded ‘I dunno, I was asleep, I can tell you how things were while I was waiting to fall asleep’. I know, what an arrogant glib jackass. Patrick and I took the two-headed bus to Dublin centre this morning in search of a trusty tourist quay-box kiosk-box info booth-box. We found one and purchased return tickets for Galway Bay and the Cliffs of Mohr. We leave from Dublin centre at 7 am returning at 7 pm. Successfully made it to Sandy Cove this afternoon, taking the Dart (a train much like the Go-Train in Toronto) made it much simpler and less time-exhausting. Saw the ocean, Isle of Man what a reek, oysters, is what Patrick said the smell was, but I suspect its just how the ocean is suppose to smell, awful offal. Climbed up Martello Tower, which figures at the beginning of Ulysses, visiting the Joyce museum which is housed beneath the tower, or is it attached alongside the tower, suffice it to say the two abut one another. The stairway up to the top of the tower and the room where Joyce’s character’s talk nonsense, is slim walking, what you would imagine existed some 100-150 years ago when people didn’t have 7-11’s and snack food and were much haler and thin. Quite a sight from the turret, the ocean spreading and roiling out before you, a blue tanker circling a buoy like it was in the America’s Cup and jibbing leeward. Bought another copy of Ulysses, which the curator of the museum stamped with the museum stamp, quite nice. Home after a harrowing trudge through Dublin rush hour…soon to bed, as tomorrow we must rise and shine at 5 am to make the 7 am bus to Galway Bay.
July 15th 08
Up and at it at 5 am after a fretful lack of sleep (3 hours at most). Took the Paddy Wagon tour to the Cliffs of Mohr, a long green upon green drive across Ireland to the Atlantic. The cliffs are spectacular, as are/is the surrounding countryside. Apparently the Cliffs are a favorite offing-site for spurned lovers and depressants; every year people heave themselves ocean-ward from the crags of the Cliffs, sort of a Mohr jumping site for the crazed, forlorn, unhappy, melancholic and half-witted. A long tiring exhausting day, even longer as the Paddy Waggoner was 45 minutes late as the Paddy Wagon had been clamped, in Canadian terms, the wheel was booted by the traffic constabulary. The Irish countryside in many ways resembles the Canadian countryside, both have rocky crags and limestone quarries, stumpy wee trees and mile upon mile of Satrean Nothingness. If I closed my eyes and imagined I was traveling through Northern Ontario, I could easily fool myself into believing I was in Canada, not Ireland. Its those thatched cottage roofs that put the fix in: yes this is Ireland, not tin-roofed Canada. Upon our return to Dublin Patrick and I ferried our way into a good night’s sleep.
I am finding Dublin far too cosmopolitan for my tastes; there has been a massive Diaspora into the city since the EU opened its borders, with a great many Polish and Eastern Europeans coming to Dublin to work in the construction boom. With the economy quieting down and jobs falling to the wayside it is projected that many who came here looking for prosperity and a chance at a new life will jump the Irish Ship and swim homeward; and those that don’t, will either find themselves working at lower paying jobs or on the dole (Dublin will have a tough go of it accommodating more unemployed in an already overtaxed social welfare system).
There is a dark side to Dublin, just take the number 10 bus up O’Connell street past Parnell’s Monument and you will find the tough side of Dublin, where an estimated 10,000 heroin addicts struggle to get a fix and a bloody nosed bar patron is not an uncommon sight. Limerick has become the stabbing capital of Europe, a tough town by any stretch of the imagination. Limerick has a problem with traveling gypsies camping in their trailers on the streets in front of houses, and staying until the municipal authorities do the requisite paperwork to legally force them to decamp and go elsewhere, which I was told can take upwards of 6 months, that’s a lot of dirty nappies, as our bus driver put it. There is one sad advantage to all this: I’m quite confident that I could get a job working as an addictions counselor or teaching addictions, I dare say they need a lot of help here in Dublin, and with a recession on the horizon, as some project, things will surely get worse before they get better.
July 16th 08
A fair to middling day, far too many people in far too small a space. Went to the Writer’s Museum, across the roundabout from the James Joyce Centre down the street from one of many Baroque looking cathedrals. Slogging along in flip-flops, yes, imbecile that I am, at a trundling speed never in excess of three miles per half-day, or there about. Saw the Book of Kelps, not to be confused with the Book of Kells, which I assume was nearby, which I must say is far overrated; I much preferred the Long Room and its coterie of marble busts, a virtual who’s who of academia, philosophy, science and all things scholarly. Stopped by the Trinity philosophy department to dropped off some Dominican College propaganda, only to discover that it was closed today and tomorrow (time is relative, or some such teleological nonsense).
Dropped into the James Joyce Centre on the way home from the Writer’s Museum, where I purchased a DVD of the 1960’s something film rendition of Joyce’s Ulysses, I will purchase the 2004 version with Stephen Rhea as Bloom upon my return to dreary dear Ottawa. Patrick and I have decided to take the train to Belfast tomorrow morning (Thursday) where we will tour the city in what’s euphemistically called the Black Taxi Tour of Belfast et al. The tour takes us to the square/street where Blood Sunday took place, then a scoot round the murals and slogans that decorate the walls of the city and surrounding area. I am very much looking forward to this, as I have always found the North of Ireland fascinating, even thought the media, especially the UK media, would have us believe that the Protestants, and those wanting the six Northern Counties back, are soulless murders. I will make up my own mind about this, as I do with most things in my life.
One word of caution should decide to travel to Dublin and visit the Book of Kells; the lineups are murderously long, and usually in the rain, no doubt, and the crowds can be rude and ill mannered; we had an entire cattle drive of people butt in front of us for no other reason than they felt entitled to do so; when Patrick and I were ushered passed by the usher, I pleasantly offered the butter in-er’s a 50 Euro note, saying ‘your welcome to this too’. Of course they declined, or was that looked confusingly at me, and Patrick and I moseyed into the library.
July 17th 08
Belfast is a good (in the pejorative sense) exemplar of two cities within one city: the centre of Belfast, replete with high-end shops and a variety of tourist traps, and the Other part of Belfast, Shankill road and Falls road, the Protestant side of the wall and the Catholic side of the wall, the Middle East in Northern Ireland. We took the Black Cab tour of Shankill and Falls roads, right through the middle, geographically, politically and religiously of partitioned Belfast. Our driver gave Patrick and I a great history lesson, showing us on a child’s atlas how Northern Ireland came about, a working man’s history of the struggles of Northern Ireland. The murals in Shankill are extraordinary, a testament to those who have died for country and church, the two seemingly indivisible in NI. The wall is unsettlingly real, covered in names and slogans, prayers for peace and love, a graffiti Wailing Wall. Patrick, our cab driver, suggested we write something on the wall and sign our names, I wrote Peace, my name and Country, and Patrick wrote a spiritual slogan and signed it. The partitioned off section of Belfast is disturbing, we saw skin head shaved children playing in littered parks with no swings, merrygorounds or Hurling pitches, just garbage and empty tin cans and the ever-present smell of burning wood in the wet gray air.
We stopped at Sinn Féin headquarters where Gerry Adams had his constituency office, past the United Nations murals on Fall street and back into the centre of Belfast. Its all so overwhelmingly real; children playing with old golf clubs and balls, or simply chasing one another through the unkempt parks, and the older generation sitting round waiting for the next salvo. Our driver took us to the row houses that back onto the wall, where much of the initial terrorizing and fighting took place; the backyards of the row houses had wire fences that reached up at an angle over the backyard, protecting children from stones and fire bombs and home-made explosives. It is all so incredibly sad, sad for the wee children playing with nothing, the high rate of unemployment and addiction, the sense that the peace they are now experiencing is simply a lull in the storm, a short reprieve from more violence and sectarian hatred. The gates between the Protestants and the Catholics are closed and locked at nightfall, to keep others in and the others out, is there really a difference, I dare say not. The train ride up north was beautiful, 2 hrs, part of which was along the ocean-side then up through the hills and fields. One last observation: I said to Patrick as we were walking down one of the main streets in touristy Belfast, ‘look at how beautiful the hills are outside of town’, to which Patrick replied, ‘I wonder if anyone else notices them?’.
July 18/08
Had a lovely lunch at a lovely bistro with lovely old wood floors and a lovely waitress with lovely green Irish eyes. All in all a lovely afternoon. I have never had a club sandwich Irish-style: Focaccia [fo’ katːʃa] with roasted chicken breast, lettuce, two strips of bacon, Brie and the most scrumptious marinated sun dried tomatoes on the planet, Dublin at least. Off we tramped to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where for a penance of 5 Euro you can enter the sanctum and look at all the old statuary and beg-benches. Not particularly to my mien, but well worth the offering fee. At the back of the beg-benchery is a small curio shop with an assortment of gift ideas for the penitent and sinner alike, icons, Bibles, Gaelic Crosses, DVD’s Jonathon Swiftery, key chains, shot glasses (which could substitute for Mass cups) and any and all things St. Patrick and Blest. We traveled uptown to Christ Church Cathedral where Patrick and I had ice cream and chatted with the ice creamery man, an affable chap no more than three or four hands high. Great ice cream indeed! I took a snap of a treble backed old fella strumming down the sidewalk with his pittance-bag slung over his shoulder; I sort of followed him from behind, and when he stopped to drop some trash in the dustbin snapped his picture.
Its feverously cold this evening, colder than a coalbunker’s ass. It has rained, drizzled, spat up, corseted, sleeted (well almost) and bled water every day since my arrival in Dublin. The locals say this summer has been one of the wettest in ages, Blarney Stones of rainy Irish rain. Well the rainy rain can cuss my polite Canadian…! Oh yes, I dropped by the Trinity College philosophy department this aft to drop off some pedagogical propaganda from my college; then worked my way downward to Grad Studies to inquire about out of country tuition, which is blasted expensive (even were I go get a UK passport, I would have to have resided in Ireland for at least 2 ½ years before I could be considered for indigenous tuition), then downward further into the ninth canticle, where Swift lovingly prepares biscuits and raspberry coolie for the denizens of Dante’s hell, to the department of Social Work to inquire about the addictions diploma, as teaching and counseling might be an employment possibility were I to move to Dublin. It is colder than Martha Stewart’s peach cobbler, so I best bully my way under the covers and fall willy-nilly to sleep. I’ll wager you a fistful of fried kidneys that it will be raining tomorrow morn when I awake, cold drizzly wet rainy rain.
July 19th 08
Last day in Dublin, cold feral wind that’d have Charon quaking in his ferryman’s boots. Its been a busy sometimes hectic two weeks, but two weeks well worth the tiredness and arthritic prickles. The weather in Dublin is not for the un-slickered, a raincoat and an umbrella are necessities, as are good walking clogs and a 7 day bus pass, which makes punting roundabout Dublin and across the Liffey and back again much easier and cheaper than a taxi or a bog-ferry.
My infatuation for Ireland, and Europe for that matter, lies in my passion for art, literature, psychoanalytic theory and philosophy. Having spent much of my life studying, either in school or out of school, I try to engage life passionately and with a child-like curiosity (trying to see the thing I saw yesterday as if for the first time today) or would like to think I do. Of course this comes at a cost, not having children to love and encourage, a firm sense of place, a job with a pension (many of my generation have had 3 and 4 professions, never feeling satisfied or challenged by just one thing) and feeling that somehow I missed the boat, which boat is of little importance, a boat is a boat, tug or skiff. These last two weeks have given me the courage and motivation to make a change, perhaps in a year’s time, perhaps longer.
I am a complainer, I bellyache about how passionless Ottawa is, how unconscionable our government has become, how I can’t seem to find people who ‘get’ my writing (which, if the truth be known, I seldom get, it simply comes out that way) and that living alone, in a sort of forced solitude, the excuse for which is my studies and writing, or so I say, is wearing thin, all this because I have lost the very passion I claim is missing in my life. Hopefully when I return home (for Ottawa is my home, and has been for the past 21 years) I will rediscover the passion that has always been there, the very passion I claim is missing in my life. That doesn’t mean I’ve given up on a geographical change, but simply that passion isn’t a place, a city or a culture, but a feeling of being ‘now’, experiencing what you experienced yesterday as if for the first time today, passionately and in the moment.
July 6th 08 - Fuck; I’m here!
Walked Dublin in flip-flops, an enormity of people, jugglers, huskers, hustlers, hurlers (the Irish pastime and National Sport) clowns, people who looked like clowns but weren’t, Eastern Europeans, Asians, Indians, a cacophonous Babel, Grafton St. and Trinity College, St. Stephen’s Green, the Tennessee Shopping Dome extravaganza.
July 8th 08
One of the virtues of not knowing your way around a city (getting lost is what I’m trying to not say) is that you get the opportunity to walk up and down and down and up all those streets and places you might otherwise have missed. This morning began with two lectures at Newman House, the old UCD where James Joyce studied (we actually use the room where he listened to lectures over a 100 years ago), then lunch a Boston College, just across the way from St. Stephen’s Green, which is absolutely beautiful, a green-space plunked down square in the middle of Dublin, with ducks and swans and stone bridges and bandstands and benches and a circular path that circumnavigates the entire park, then a lecture at the National Library, which if I’m right, is next to the Irish Parliament, then a long walk (this is the getting lost part I’m trying not to say) that took we in a circle round Dublin, Grafton Street etc., down and up back alleyways, on to a bus, off a bus, then on foot past these ominous Off Track Betting places where men with more ink on their arms than words in the Bible trotted in and out (betting on soccer, hurling and greyhounds, is my guess) across the Liffey, westward from the bridge I think I saw the stevedore cranes at the docks, so close to the ocean, which I haven’t seen yet (it was overcast when we landed Sunday, no surprise, it is Ireland after all) then up and down and across more streets in search of the Abbey Theatre, which I eventually found, asking directions isn’t all that daunting, into see Chekhov’s Three Sisters, an extraordinary play, super acting, set (the Abbey is where George Bernard Shaw had his plays produced) then back to residence enmasse with the other students, one very interesting PhD student from Germany who I get along with well, we have much in common, and now off to bed, another full busy day tomorrow. Dublin is a aesthetic city, and it seems like all the business men wear dark blue or black suits, sort like a posse of bankers. Tomorrow lectures in the morning then I’m meeting with a philosophy professor at Trinity College to chat about things philosophical and psychoanalytical. I’ll write tomorrow and tell you all about the Swiss embassy; and I’m telling you right now, there better not be arrows painted on the floors pointing the way into the Ikea maze.
July 9th 08
The elevators talk to you in Ireland, such lilting things as ‘ground floor, second floor’, where my room is, and so forth. I noticed this evening upon returning from the soirée at the Swiss embassy, which was grand indeed, and yes we had Swedish meatballs oddly enough, that the elevator was made my the Schindler Co., which got me thinking, hmmm, Schindler’s Lift. The city of Dublin is a bustling metropolis with curved roundabout streets and double-decker buses. Grafton street is sort of like Sparks street in Ottawa but with much more panache and aesthetics; Grafton St. was jam packed with people, most of whom were sporting umbrellas, while I was trudging my way to meet professor Skelton at Trinity college for 2;30. You might well imagine the eye-level poking one could be subjected to were one not careful. Every morning so far I have awaken to rain, which seems to clear up around noontime; and the sun, my goodness it stays put until well after 10pm. I have not felt so unstressed in a long while, ever, perhaps; I suppose it has much to do with being in a different placed without all the Ottawa stressors, that and the culture and beauty of the city. Ottawa could learn a lot from Dublin about how to manage a city, beginning with bus service and street cleanliness. I best get some sleep, another busy day tomorrow, which is really today.
July 10th 08
Today was double special, even though the interminable bus ride was, well interminable (more about that later): we went to the National Museum and a guided tour of the Irish Collect, Jack Yeats, I must say, is not my cup of Guinness; so when the guided portion of the tour was done I scurried off and took the glass elevator (several times because it was fun) to the 2nd floor and saw my first Caravaggio ‘The Taking of Christ’ I used Caravaggio’s painting style as a counter-example in my MA thesis, so actually standing nose to nose with Christ and the constabulary minion was breath taking. I stood up close, scanning the painting for colour, dark/light, figures anything hidden etc, then stood back and stared (more like ogled) it from a distance straight on, it is magnificent!
Now the interminable part: I took the bus to go look at Sandy Cove, an important geographic location in Joyce’s Ulysses. Well I took the bus to what seemed almost off the island, ending up at the end of the route, thank Guinness the driver takes a 10 minute break then heads back into Dublin. I had a lovely chat with the bus conductor, he telling me about Irish immigration, and me telling him about Canadian immigration, then he gave me a few suggestions about places to visit outside of Dublin and off we went back into Dublin. The good thing was, regardless of the fact my sparkling water bottle half-exploded when I unscrewed the top, I got to see the ocean from the window of the bus, not a great view, but a view nonetheless. I’ll try this Sandy Cove thing again when I have flat noncarbonated water.
Tomorrow two morning lectures as usual, then lunch at Boston College (I have never in my life eaten such delicious sandwiches, strange smoked cheeses with cherry tomatoes and unidentifiable greens, I suspect there of the tuber family, but I could be mistaken, crisps, which in Ireland are extraordinarily yummy, and these wonderful desert bar things, chocolate brownie, shortbread that’s long on butter and lipids, and a hostess of other interesting grain/fruit/sundries oaten bars delights) and the customary Joyce dinner soire at the James Joyce House. Yes it rained today; but once you give into the childish glee of getting wet, its really not all that bad.
July 11th 08
Its raining cats, dogs and trenching tools, to unmuck one’s self of course. Its no wonder the Irish wear Bog Wellingtons, the weather can be quite miserable, miserable indeed. The sun seems to appear at 5 o’clock like a rabbit pulled from the hat of the sky, shaken, jumpy and probably anodized (no, I have no idea what anodized means; spellchecker offered it up and I quickly appropriated it, for reasons not entirely clear, I must admit) on Guinness and Paddy’s, which I here tell will soon be available in lozenges. Today’s lectures were admirable, especially the second one by professor Luke Gibbons of Notre Dame. He spoke about the concept of the spectra, or ghost, in Joyce’s work and how Fraser’s the Golden Bough was an act of savagery, more so than the savages he wrote about (from information gleaned from missionaries in Africa and the Congo), and the criticism Wittgenstein waged against it.
Of course this got me interested, very interested, so when question time came I asked a few well appointment questions about Wittgenstein’s notion of language games and how they need no original event or object or happening to reference themselves from or to; language games are contextual, within the language-users specific context, and as such always original within the specific context, language-users that use them. All quite fun and engaging. Then I got the opportunity to chat with professor Gibbons; after lunch and again when we bumped into one another in the book store, both crouching knee-level in the philosophy/humanities section. Professor Gibbons is an interesting engaging scholar, and long on encouragement and ‘stick to its’.
I saw my first , first edition of Joyce’s Ulysses, the Paris edition of 900 copies, and a few other Joycean gems, like a signed copy of Finnegans Wake and some firsts of Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney (several of the Heaney’s signed editions). I ended up buying a paperback of Heaney’s poetry, a bargain at 5 Euros, then moved onto another book shop where I met professor Gibbons who suggested a book of interviews with Paul Ricoeur, then I found a copy if Elfriede Jeninek’s Lust for 4.99 Euros. A good book shop shopping day indeed. Lastly, dinner at the James Joyce Centre, a beautiful old brownstone-like with oodles of Joycenalia throughout. Dinner was wonderful, as were the Joyce things. I spoke with two American expatriates living in Dublin, one of whom runs the James Joyce Centre, and they encouraged me to look into getting a UK passport which would allow me to work on a visa and lower tuition to residence levels, much cheaper than foreign student, landed or not. Now I think I’ll watch the DVD of Midnight Cowboy I luggaged along with me, then crawl bootless into bed.
July 12th 08
I missed out on the final lecture and the Joyce walk through Dublin this morning (which I was told wasn’t all that agreeable as most of the buildings from 1904 have either been razed or remodeled) due to a rather hobbling arthritic episode around 4;30am: I awakened from troubled dreams in such excruciating pain (excrutia) nary a salve or liniment could assuage it (yes, a purloined Kafka leitmotif, a paraphrasing of the opening lines to the Metamorphosis). Once I drew myself from bed around 9;30, somewhat rested and in diminished pain and bother, I set off for Bailé Átha Cliath (Dublin) centre for a dul ag spaisteoireacht (walkabout about). That’s it; I have nothing more to say, well of course there was the sunshiny sun for part of the pork gray day, that indeed was nice, nice indeed, indeed. I do indeed have more, more to say: I received an email from the editor of Sparrow Magazine, a fiction journal out of Ottawa, and they are delighted to publish 17 pages of my novel in progress, Old Man and Hat. One must always start at the beginning, any and all beginnings, regardless of how far away from the end it is.
July 13th 08
Was awakened by a man pounding on my door; voila! Patrick has arrived from hither and thon. Of course being a man of some moral means (ethical claptrap, I know, but well worth the epistolary attention) I gave up my warmish bed to a fellow weary traveler and went roundabout about my day whilst dear Patrick slept off an overseas ennui. A day full of here’s and over there’s and where is we? and why is everything in Gaelic? I took Patrick for a walkabout about Dublin seeing some of the more seeable things; Cardinal Newman’s bust (not his dear wife’s as I suspect there isn’t one ,or if one, one the Cardinal wouldn't admit to), the church that abuts Newman House UCD, where Patrick lit a votive candle (the wee little wee ones) then to Bewley’a (sic) for a wee bite to eat, yes the oh so famous Bew(sic)ley’s where Joyce supposed sat supping sups and drinking potables, then to the Temple Bar area which is oh so touristy, thought one half of the touristy tourists were well worth the bother (for you married men that would be you’re better half), then home to poach myself to sleep.
July 14th 08
Slept bad last night, whatever that means. I recall being asked once ‘did you sleep well last night?’, to which I responded ‘I dunno, I was asleep, I can tell you how things were while I was waiting to fall asleep’. I know, what an arrogant glib jackass. Patrick and I took the two-headed bus to Dublin centre this morning in search of a trusty tourist quay-box kiosk-box info booth-box. We found one and purchased return tickets for Galway Bay and the Cliffs of Mohr. We leave from Dublin centre at 7 am returning at 7 pm. Successfully made it to Sandy Cove this afternoon, taking the Dart (a train much like the Go-Train in Toronto) made it much simpler and less time-exhausting. Saw the ocean, Isle of Man what a reek, oysters, is what Patrick said the smell was, but I suspect its just how the ocean is suppose to smell, awful offal. Climbed up Martello Tower, which figures at the beginning of Ulysses, visiting the Joyce museum which is housed beneath the tower, or is it attached alongside the tower, suffice it to say the two abut one another. The stairway up to the top of the tower and the room where Joyce’s character’s talk nonsense, is slim walking, what you would imagine existed some 100-150 years ago when people didn’t have 7-11’s and snack food and were much haler and thin. Quite a sight from the turret, the ocean spreading and roiling out before you, a blue tanker circling a buoy like it was in the America’s Cup and jibbing leeward. Bought another copy of Ulysses, which the curator of the museum stamped with the museum stamp, quite nice. Home after a harrowing trudge through Dublin rush hour…soon to bed, as tomorrow we must rise and shine at 5 am to make the 7 am bus to Galway Bay.
July 15th 08
Up and at it at 5 am after a fretful lack of sleep (3 hours at most). Took the Paddy Wagon tour to the Cliffs of Mohr, a long green upon green drive across Ireland to the Atlantic. The cliffs are spectacular, as are/is the surrounding countryside. Apparently the Cliffs are a favorite offing-site for spurned lovers and depressants; every year people heave themselves ocean-ward from the crags of the Cliffs, sort of a Mohr jumping site for the crazed, forlorn, unhappy, melancholic and half-witted. A long tiring exhausting day, even longer as the Paddy Waggoner was 45 minutes late as the Paddy Wagon had been clamped, in Canadian terms, the wheel was booted by the traffic constabulary. The Irish countryside in many ways resembles the Canadian countryside, both have rocky crags and limestone quarries, stumpy wee trees and mile upon mile of Satrean Nothingness. If I closed my eyes and imagined I was traveling through Northern Ontario, I could easily fool myself into believing I was in Canada, not Ireland. Its those thatched cottage roofs that put the fix in: yes this is Ireland, not tin-roofed Canada. Upon our return to Dublin Patrick and I ferried our way into a good night’s sleep.
I am finding Dublin far too cosmopolitan for my tastes; there has been a massive Diaspora into the city since the EU opened its borders, with a great many Polish and Eastern Europeans coming to Dublin to work in the construction boom. With the economy quieting down and jobs falling to the wayside it is projected that many who came here looking for prosperity and a chance at a new life will jump the Irish Ship and swim homeward; and those that don’t, will either find themselves working at lower paying jobs or on the dole (Dublin will have a tough go of it accommodating more unemployed in an already overtaxed social welfare system).
There is a dark side to Dublin, just take the number 10 bus up O’Connell street past Parnell’s Monument and you will find the tough side of Dublin, where an estimated 10,000 heroin addicts struggle to get a fix and a bloody nosed bar patron is not an uncommon sight. Limerick has become the stabbing capital of Europe, a tough town by any stretch of the imagination. Limerick has a problem with traveling gypsies camping in their trailers on the streets in front of houses, and staying until the municipal authorities do the requisite paperwork to legally force them to decamp and go elsewhere, which I was told can take upwards of 6 months, that’s a lot of dirty nappies, as our bus driver put it. There is one sad advantage to all this: I’m quite confident that I could get a job working as an addictions counselor or teaching addictions, I dare say they need a lot of help here in Dublin, and with a recession on the horizon, as some project, things will surely get worse before they get better.
July 16th 08
A fair to middling day, far too many people in far too small a space. Went to the Writer’s Museum, across the roundabout from the James Joyce Centre down the street from one of many Baroque looking cathedrals. Slogging along in flip-flops, yes, imbecile that I am, at a trundling speed never in excess of three miles per half-day, or there about. Saw the Book of Kelps, not to be confused with the Book of Kells, which I assume was nearby, which I must say is far overrated; I much preferred the Long Room and its coterie of marble busts, a virtual who’s who of academia, philosophy, science and all things scholarly. Stopped by the Trinity philosophy department to dropped off some Dominican College propaganda, only to discover that it was closed today and tomorrow (time is relative, or some such teleological nonsense).
Dropped into the James Joyce Centre on the way home from the Writer’s Museum, where I purchased a DVD of the 1960’s something film rendition of Joyce’s Ulysses, I will purchase the 2004 version with Stephen Rhea as Bloom upon my return to dreary dear Ottawa. Patrick and I have decided to take the train to Belfast tomorrow morning (Thursday) where we will tour the city in what’s euphemistically called the Black Taxi Tour of Belfast et al. The tour takes us to the square/street where Blood Sunday took place, then a scoot round the murals and slogans that decorate the walls of the city and surrounding area. I am very much looking forward to this, as I have always found the North of Ireland fascinating, even thought the media, especially the UK media, would have us believe that the Protestants, and those wanting the six Northern Counties back, are soulless murders. I will make up my own mind about this, as I do with most things in my life.
One word of caution should decide to travel to Dublin and visit the Book of Kells; the lineups are murderously long, and usually in the rain, no doubt, and the crowds can be rude and ill mannered; we had an entire cattle drive of people butt in front of us for no other reason than they felt entitled to do so; when Patrick and I were ushered passed by the usher, I pleasantly offered the butter in-er’s a 50 Euro note, saying ‘your welcome to this too’. Of course they declined, or was that looked confusingly at me, and Patrick and I moseyed into the library.
July 17th 08
Belfast is a good (in the pejorative sense) exemplar of two cities within one city: the centre of Belfast, replete with high-end shops and a variety of tourist traps, and the Other part of Belfast, Shankill road and Falls road, the Protestant side of the wall and the Catholic side of the wall, the Middle East in Northern Ireland. We took the Black Cab tour of Shankill and Falls roads, right through the middle, geographically, politically and religiously of partitioned Belfast. Our driver gave Patrick and I a great history lesson, showing us on a child’s atlas how Northern Ireland came about, a working man’s history of the struggles of Northern Ireland. The murals in Shankill are extraordinary, a testament to those who have died for country and church, the two seemingly indivisible in NI. The wall is unsettlingly real, covered in names and slogans, prayers for peace and love, a graffiti Wailing Wall. Patrick, our cab driver, suggested we write something on the wall and sign our names, I wrote Peace, my name and Country, and Patrick wrote a spiritual slogan and signed it. The partitioned off section of Belfast is disturbing, we saw skin head shaved children playing in littered parks with no swings, merrygorounds or Hurling pitches, just garbage and empty tin cans and the ever-present smell of burning wood in the wet gray air.
We stopped at Sinn Féin headquarters where Gerry Adams had his constituency office, past the United Nations murals on Fall street and back into the centre of Belfast. Its all so overwhelmingly real; children playing with old golf clubs and balls, or simply chasing one another through the unkempt parks, and the older generation sitting round waiting for the next salvo. Our driver took us to the row houses that back onto the wall, where much of the initial terrorizing and fighting took place; the backyards of the row houses had wire fences that reached up at an angle over the backyard, protecting children from stones and fire bombs and home-made explosives. It is all so incredibly sad, sad for the wee children playing with nothing, the high rate of unemployment and addiction, the sense that the peace they are now experiencing is simply a lull in the storm, a short reprieve from more violence and sectarian hatred. The gates between the Protestants and the Catholics are closed and locked at nightfall, to keep others in and the others out, is there really a difference, I dare say not. The train ride up north was beautiful, 2 hrs, part of which was along the ocean-side then up through the hills and fields. One last observation: I said to Patrick as we were walking down one of the main streets in touristy Belfast, ‘look at how beautiful the hills are outside of town’, to which Patrick replied, ‘I wonder if anyone else notices them?’.
July 18/08
Had a lovely lunch at a lovely bistro with lovely old wood floors and a lovely waitress with lovely green Irish eyes. All in all a lovely afternoon. I have never had a club sandwich Irish-style: Focaccia [fo’ katːʃa] with roasted chicken breast, lettuce, two strips of bacon, Brie and the most scrumptious marinated sun dried tomatoes on the planet, Dublin at least. Off we tramped to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where for a penance of 5 Euro you can enter the sanctum and look at all the old statuary and beg-benches. Not particularly to my mien, but well worth the offering fee. At the back of the beg-benchery is a small curio shop with an assortment of gift ideas for the penitent and sinner alike, icons, Bibles, Gaelic Crosses, DVD’s Jonathon Swiftery, key chains, shot glasses (which could substitute for Mass cups) and any and all things St. Patrick and Blest. We traveled uptown to Christ Church Cathedral where Patrick and I had ice cream and chatted with the ice creamery man, an affable chap no more than three or four hands high. Great ice cream indeed! I took a snap of a treble backed old fella strumming down the sidewalk with his pittance-bag slung over his shoulder; I sort of followed him from behind, and when he stopped to drop some trash in the dustbin snapped his picture.
Its feverously cold this evening, colder than a coalbunker’s ass. It has rained, drizzled, spat up, corseted, sleeted (well almost) and bled water every day since my arrival in Dublin. The locals say this summer has been one of the wettest in ages, Blarney Stones of rainy Irish rain. Well the rainy rain can cuss my polite Canadian…! Oh yes, I dropped by the Trinity College philosophy department this aft to drop off some pedagogical propaganda from my college; then worked my way downward to Grad Studies to inquire about out of country tuition, which is blasted expensive (even were I go get a UK passport, I would have to have resided in Ireland for at least 2 ½ years before I could be considered for indigenous tuition), then downward further into the ninth canticle, where Swift lovingly prepares biscuits and raspberry coolie for the denizens of Dante’s hell, to the department of Social Work to inquire about the addictions diploma, as teaching and counseling might be an employment possibility were I to move to Dublin. It is colder than Martha Stewart’s peach cobbler, so I best bully my way under the covers and fall willy-nilly to sleep. I’ll wager you a fistful of fried kidneys that it will be raining tomorrow morn when I awake, cold drizzly wet rainy rain.
July 19th 08
Last day in Dublin, cold feral wind that’d have Charon quaking in his ferryman’s boots. Its been a busy sometimes hectic two weeks, but two weeks well worth the tiredness and arthritic prickles. The weather in Dublin is not for the un-slickered, a raincoat and an umbrella are necessities, as are good walking clogs and a 7 day bus pass, which makes punting roundabout Dublin and across the Liffey and back again much easier and cheaper than a taxi or a bog-ferry.
My infatuation for Ireland, and Europe for that matter, lies in my passion for art, literature, psychoanalytic theory and philosophy. Having spent much of my life studying, either in school or out of school, I try to engage life passionately and with a child-like curiosity (trying to see the thing I saw yesterday as if for the first time today) or would like to think I do. Of course this comes at a cost, not having children to love and encourage, a firm sense of place, a job with a pension (many of my generation have had 3 and 4 professions, never feeling satisfied or challenged by just one thing) and feeling that somehow I missed the boat, which boat is of little importance, a boat is a boat, tug or skiff. These last two weeks have given me the courage and motivation to make a change, perhaps in a year’s time, perhaps longer.
I am a complainer, I bellyache about how passionless Ottawa is, how unconscionable our government has become, how I can’t seem to find people who ‘get’ my writing (which, if the truth be known, I seldom get, it simply comes out that way) and that living alone, in a sort of forced solitude, the excuse for which is my studies and writing, or so I say, is wearing thin, all this because I have lost the very passion I claim is missing in my life. Hopefully when I return home (for Ottawa is my home, and has been for the past 21 years) I will rediscover the passion that has always been there, the very passion I claim is missing in my life. That doesn’t mean I’ve given up on a geographical change, but simply that passion isn’t a place, a city or a culture, but a feeling of being ‘now’, experiencing what you experienced yesterday as if for the first time today, passionately and in the moment.
1 comment:
There is always passion and wonderful humour in your writing, Stephen. "Schindler's Lift" and the sun described as a rabbit pulled from the sky are but two examples.
Gary
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