Wednesday, November 17, 2010

One From The Archive

Rabbits in the Head Lice...Burning Man 1998

I found a shoebox of photos this morning with all kinds of un-indexed, un-tagged and non-chronological randomness. I have neither negatives nor scanner, so I photographed and cropped the image to drag it into the binary world. Funny photo. The idea of publishing irregular, guerilla-visual flashbacks could be a dangerous one but lets see what happens. For now, happy 1998 and god bless america.

Anne Doyle has a lot to answer for.

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Rabbit Potter Is God

"Christianity had a reputation for few gods and great violence. But good schools. ......Islam had a reputation worse than Christianity’s – fewer gods, greater violence and I had never heard anyone say anything good about Muslim schools."

I'll be honest, I missed some of the deeper meaning and allegorical references in this book until after I'd read the last chapter and some very interesting reviews. But having discovered that a lot of people read the book believing the statement in the foreword that the story told in the book is a true story, I feel a little less silly. Great imaginative story with some moments of true descriptive brilliance, told at a deceptively pedestrian pace. Yann Martel has recently been given $3m for rights to publish his new novel, another allegorical story based on the holocaust which features a monkey and a donkey in a taxidermy shop, apparently. And Ang Lee has just agreed to film a 3D version of Life of Pi over the next 18 months. It's all go now that I've finally gotten around to reading it.

By way of accidental contrast, between bouts of technical and operational book devouring and job hunting asceticism, I'm reading this at the moment. For an entirely different reason than musical snobbery, I'll never be able to listen to another Kylie Minogue song without grimacing ever again.

100 pages in and the writing and story line hasn't been overly impressive so far. But snippets of hectic dialogue and some truly bizarre guerilla imagery keep me coming back;

"The giraffe was struck by lightening Dad, at the zoo. It's quite common on the veldts of Africa. They cop it all the time. They act like lightening rods. One minute they are minding their own business, the next minute they're jelly"

Again I'm left trying to bridge unbridgeable narrative gaps, knitting the smoke and the flames of completely unrelated stories, but with related elements, together. Flying zebras, baboons, tigers, muslim meerkats, hyenas, scorched giraffes. For my next trick and the sake of my sanity I might try reading a book in a recognised series and then read the next one. Harry Rabbit Potter At Rest With A Dragon Tattoo II maybe.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Advanced Gooleybox Engineering

Happy Halloween!

....from Thing1 and Thing2

Monday, October 11, 2010

Bear Mush For Lionel


Caterpillar Missing

An eventful week around our house. In developmental terms, S lies somewhere between a caterpillar and a butterfly. Her mode of movement (or escape) from crime scene to the scene of accidents about to happen is no longer confined to shuffling her belly sniper-style along the floor trailing toxic spill and breadcrumbs in her wake, yet she remains a long way from the graceful movements of a butterfly. The Metamorphosis is proving eventful. In the past 10 days or so she has picked up a chipped tooth, a black eye (or "a blue eye" as our Polish brethern refer to it) and by the end of the week her right arm was in plaster cast. To use NFL terminology, in her rookie season our S has an abysmally low "yards per carry" average . Defensive window sills, interfering fireplaces and aggressive radiators all conspire to thwart her bipedal efforts and keep that average on the floor. And those falls are taking their toll.

Before

After

The tasteful pink plaster cast was applied in Tullamore hospital. We were kind of terrified that upon presentation at the clinic she'd be immediately taken into care due to the several very obvious facial, dental and ... limbal injuries she was carrying. We were all prepared with outlandish but considered excuses; "We decided to skip montessori and go straight to cage fighting school. How could it have gone so horribly wrong?!!" D had been coached all the way from Portarlington to respond "Wasn't me....." to any enquiry from anyone in a white uniform. But nothing - worryingly so. D helpfully picked up a gastric bug during her brief time in Tullamore General and spent the week recovering. In the multiple gaseous exchanges at all hours over the next 48 hours, her collection of Dora books were completely destroyed and she spent the week watching Series 3 of the "Puppet" Show for punishment. We're erring on the side of extreme caution now and both our daughters have recently been fitted with full-contact Junior-B grade protective equipment to facilitate S's Metamorphosis.


"Nightshade" limbers up before a bout with a domestic appliance


D Suffers For The Sins of Her Sister

Never a dull moment and never a full night's sleep. In other news, S's list of soubriquets grows a-pace. Her new one is "Lionel" (Lee-O-Nel) because she's so.......

....messy

What follows is incontrovertible pictorial evidence to disavow you (or any social workers who might pay a visit) of the notion that we are neglectful parents who allow their one year old girl get in fist fights and reassure you that we're just a normal family trying to survive the Metamorphosis. Marvel at our intensely happy children leisurin' in combat-free contentment....

Our eldest daughter having fun with fruit

Here, seen frolicking in an arcadian paradise on her penny farthing

"Huckle-Buck in Woodchip"


A hastily prepared graphic clearly shows that the nutritional needs of our little ones is of utmost concern

Kidgeree for Pat Ederry. Mmmm Nutritious!

.... STILL enjoying herself immensely!

Could being a small K possible be any more SAFE and FUN!?

No, no it could not.

Washolie, Marl-on (aka Smalleen Pauline) and Üti Flutey (present but not pictured)

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Hunter Gatherer

Anne Doyle

Hunter S. Thompson

If, as I believe it does, finishing a well written piece of literature or journalism leaves behind in the imagination cache of the reader, hanging like a thin plume of thought-provoking smoke from the capillaries of short term memory, latent half-engaged memories of characters, their conflicts or the proxied aftershock of dramatic events, imagine the multi-coloured smorgasbord of storytelling smog hanging around my brain having recently completed the following random samples of American life.





From the almost forgotten simplicity of a mid-century midwestern childhood, to the self serving middle class complexity of the contemporary American family, on to the entropic behavioural extremes of a group of hairy west coast men on motorcycles.... all human life is (t)here. A societal snapshot of America at any time in its history is a complex and fascinating artefact. An unplanned, pan-continental time-lapse sweep of real, semi-real and completely imagined accounts of American life is even more illuminating. All come recommended, though not at the same time. Here's a more considered review of "Hells Angels"


Other HST photos from his time on the greasy side ....





On a vaguely related note, this just made me laugh...

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Sisterly Advice

Sid Vicious Meets Oompa Loompa

"....There'll Be Better Days Than This One...."



Sunday, September 12, 2010

Canadian Leviathan, Atlantic Version

i'll be a killer whale when i grow up | i'll be a vulture | i'll be an animal | a carnivore | i'll be a monster | clenching my jagged jaws | over the capture | i'll be a killer whale when i grow up | i'll be a tidal wave when i grow up | crashing on harbours | i'll be a tempermental element | a raging water | i'll be a perfect storm swallowing over | i'll be a killer whale when i grow up | i'll be a monster | i'll be a hurricane when i grow up | an ugly thunder | i'll be a forest fire | about to flood | over an empire | i'll be an avalanche chewing its rupture | i'll be a killer whale when i grow up | i'll be a monster | i'll be a killer whale



Not the best quality recording out there but the singalong sends shivers. Pretend they're whales. Saw these play a much more modest venue on Friday night in Dublin. Nice gig. Nice guys. Siamak played bass.




Saturday, August 28, 2010

Watermelon Helmet

2nd in an unintended series of unknown length
From here

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Just A Perfect Day

The Littlest Hobo turned one today. The one who's normally happiest in her own company - self contained and self amused - discovered what it's like to be the centre of attention.

And didn't she deserve it.

It was a milestone week for S - aswell as turning 1, she sang along to the chorus of her first song (see later - the words perfectly facilitate pre verbal singalongs), she stood unassisted for 5 whole seconds, she has been upgraded to a forward facing car seat (no more fuzzy head straining backwards around cushioned corners to participate in car conversations) AND she got her first pair of shoes earlier in the week. Further festooned with a new birthday gúna and a sunflower birthday crown, she had a lot to celebrate and was good to party.


Summer birthdays are where its at. S is the only one of the 4 of us with a long Summer day for a birthday. The party was a huge success, everyone was well fed and watered including a plague of wasps who went on a coulis rampage. There was handmade bunting, chocolate birthday cake, apple tart on the Cooley Peninsula and all manner of delicious soul food for all and sundry, all compliments of the ever resourceful M.

After the cleanup - and the cleanup for kids parties can be quite......calorific - and some well earned bobos for the littlest and largest hobos, we closed off the day with an extended riceball dinner listening to a perfect shuffle as the clouds stretched into crimson vapour and the girls sang along or downed tools and danced when the music stirred them. eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-EH-EH-EH-EH-EH-EH-EH-EH-EH

Most everyone adhered to our request for books for birthday gifts. Thanks to all for your wonderful and throughtful gifts. Niall and Áine started S off early on the path of disembodied poetics by getting her a beautiful hardback edition of Shel Silverstein's Where The Sidewalk Ends which features the following beautifully simple toddler's manifesto :


Listen To The Mustn'ts
Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child.
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me -
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.

Breithlá Sona Duit A S'ín

Friday, August 20, 2010

Big Girl's Bed

*Sigh* I've Arrived!

*S* is close behind....