TN2 Issue 9

Spring/summer fashion highlights

Crystal Antlers Robert Ballagh Pete Doherty Beers of the world Marble at The Abbey

Calendar of fun

tn2’s pick of the most exciting things to do in Dublin this coming fortnight

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

24 Sam Shepard’s Ages of the Moon has its world premiere tonight, with Stephen Rea and Seán McGinley starring.

The Peacock Theatre, 8 pm, €22

25 Looking for some “highenergy mega electro rock?” Good, because Le Galaxie are around tonight (and are rather fun indeed).

Whelans, 8 pm, €10

26 Tonight is the last night of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman at The Helix.

The Helix, 7.30 pm, €10

27 Hooray For Humans, with support from Kidd Blunt, you say? Happy days.

Eamonn Doran’s, 8 pm

28 The very excellent Four Tet is to be found tonight in Andrew’s Lane with Sunken Foal, among others in support.

Andrew’s Lane Theatre, 10 pm, €25

1 Hockey and Passion Pit are riding a pretty massive wave of hype at the moment – now’s your chance to see if they’re any good.

Whelans, 8 pm, €15

2 So, I know it’s been on since September, but Exquisite Corspe at IMMA is over at the end of the month and is worth a look.

IMMA, until 31 March

3 Clonmel-born John Brennan has an exhibition in the Hallward Gallery until the end of the month.

Hallward Gallery, 65 Merrion Square

4 The Choice Music Prize is announced tonight, with lots of the nominees performing.

Vicar Street, 8 pm, €27

5 Mark Geary is in Whelans tonight.

Whelans, 8 pm, €20

6 OrphanCode play a Daguerreotype fundraiser tonight. Go out and support your local, poverty-stricken artist.

The O’Reilly Theatre, Great Denmark Street, 7 pm, €10

7 Peter Bjorn and John have a new record out fairly soon and are playing tonight no doubt in an effort to promote said record. Yes indeed.

The Button Factory, 8 pm, €18

8 Watchmen went on general release over the weekend. Is it really so wrong to be excited about this one? Probably.

Cinemas nationwide

9 Self-taught artist Stano has an exhibition in Axis Ballymun until May. Axis Ballymun, until 28 May

xkcd.com

Contents Spring/summer fashion picks

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Catriona Gray talks to Pete Doherty...

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... and also Crystal Antlers

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Rise up

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A beer odyssey

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The censorship debate

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Reading the world

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Caroline O’Leary meets Robert Ballagh

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Loneliness in West Germany at the Goethe Institut

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Current exhibitions at the Douglas Hyde

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Marina Carr’s latest

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Joker Choker at Players

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The real deal?

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Reviews

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Issue

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The spectre of my thesis deadline hangs ominously on the horizon, dear readers so I’m going to be brief. This issue, we talked to all sorts of interesting characters: Pete (or is that “Peter” now?) Doherty, Robert Ballagh and Jonny Bell from Crystal Antlers among them. Fashion looked ahead to what we’ll all be donning this season (special mention must go to Sinéad Mercier for her lovely illustrations). Theatre took in productions from The Abbey to Players.

Books got all debate-y about censorship. Food and Drink got bleedin’ wrecked, tasting many delicious beers from all over the world.

Art took in a number of exhibitions around the city. Film reviewed an awful lot of movies. And then there were the rather cool pictures that Lenka Špryslová took of Rise Against’s gig last week. Lamentably, we couldn’t print them all, but you can see more of her concert pics at www.lenulino.net.

All that remains for me to do, then, is to bid you farewell until our next issue in Trinity term and get back on this thesis-writing buzz.

Stupid thesis.

Your studiously,

Hugh Editor tn2@trinitynews.ie

Win VIP passes for you and 3 friends to Felix Da Housecat Dr Lektroluv

16 March

20 March

in The Academy To enter, e-mail tn2@trinitynews.ie with your name, the show you’d like to go to and a contact phone number

tn2

24 February – 9 March, 2009

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Getting seasonal Ana Kinsella relentlessly pored over the catwalk shows for Spring/Summer 09 to bring you the rundown of the top trends for this spring... whenever that starts

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eeping up with the never-ending merry-go-round of this fashion world is a difficult business. The rules change so quickly, and as soon as you’ve gotten used to the current season, the next one rushes in to transform everything once again. Well, never fear, for I’ve combed through the Spring/Summer 2009 collections looking for trends so that you don’t have to.

The fashion industry is scheduled in such a way that it casts its nets six months into the future – the Spring collections show in September, the Autumn collections in February – giving pundits a full half-year to place their bets on the dominant trends to follow. This season, the Spring collections were shown in tremulous times, with Lehman Brothers collapsing as the fashion pack headed from New York Fashion Week to London. But the show must go on, apparently, and so for four weeks the catwalks of New York, London, Milan and Paris revealed to us what we must – and must not – be wearing this season.

What is fashion supposed to do in a recession? Distract us, with shiny fabrics and bright colours?

Or play along with the mood, and turn to droopy drawers and floppy hats? Well, it seems we’ll be wearing both. Colour blocking is an unavoidable trend this season, seen at Lanvin, Gucci (a personal favourite is a jade green pantsuit with matching fedora), Michael Kors and Calvin Klein, and will have us decked out in bright solid minidresses, boxy jackets and pants from now until next winter. On the other hand, if you listen to the likes of Marni, Marc Jacobs or Burberry Prorsum, it’ll be dowdy coats, midi skirts, ankle socks and check patterns for us – all in bland shades of beige, mustard and grey.

An antidote to this sartorial misery lies in my favourite dominant trend – superglam rock ‘n roll. Gone are the days when the term “rock chic” conjured up images of “bandage tight snake-

skin jeans, purple stiletto-heeled cowboy boots and a pink leather stetson” to quote Marian Keyes’s Angels. This season, rock chic is more luxe denim, accented shoulders, crystals and bandage dresses, best showcased in Christophe Decarnin’s collection for Balmain. His iconic rehashings of eighties pieces such as top heavy military jackets, ripped acid wash jeans and tight bandage dresses, all infused with sequins and crystals, have won him a place at the top of many fashionista’s wishlists. On paper it sounds a tad gaudy but the collection is immaculately produced, and has been seen on celebrities as diverse as Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Moss, as well as the impeccably turnedout Vogue Paris team. Elsewhere, we can see leather, denim, and quite a lot of black from Elise Overland, Givenchy, Ann Demeulemeester.

This trend spills over into the wide world of shoes, with extreme shoes taking centre stage like never before. The term has been bandied around for a few seasons but a number of designers showed barely wearable heels, including Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton and Prada,

quiere, decked out their models in hardedged sequined shifts that look like they came straight from a 60s sci-fi flick. Not the most wearable stylings, but an undeniably innovative and awe-inspiring collection.

However, many of these trends will not translate to the high street. That’s why it’s important to look at micro-trends – small aspects that get repeated across collections. Louis Vuitton, Dries Van Noten, Marc Jacobs, Matthew Williamson all favoured the fun kinds of prints which can be easily emulated on the high street – Dries Van Noten’s black-andwhite squares are a personal must-have.

Zippers also featured prominently, with Phillip Lim, Versace and YSL using them to accent and edge otherwise feminine frilly designs. Soft, shiny metallics made an appearance at Prada, Vivienne Westwood and globetrotting favourite Sophia Kokosalaki, and I hope to see this in some short shiny shapes from Topshop in a month or two. Annoyingly, some of the most prevalent microtrends were also the most unwearable. Prada have been pushing the exposed midriff “bra-top” look since the mid nineties, and the likes of Alexander Wang and Proenza Schouler are also trying to put a chill in our kidneys by exposing flat tummies and scary rib cages on the runway. Something tells me this one’s not for everyone.

Over the past two years we’ve seen a turnaround in the levels of popularity of certain designers, and the Spring 09 collections confirmed the status of newer designers like Alexander Wang, Rodarte, Basso & Brooke and Karen Walker over established stalwarts like Chloe and Givenchy. These newbies have been winning praise from editors and celebrities alike, and it’s pretty obvious that these guys will be exerting a palpable influence over how the fashion-conscious dress over the next few seasons in terms of colour choice, hemlines and the biggest trends.

Of course, many catwalk trends won’t trickle down to the high street at all.

Avant-garde Maison Martin Margiela, who embraces recycling and deconstruction in his radical collections, sent out his girls with their faces covered entirely in stretched coloured material. I won’t be placing bets on this one appearing in the Arts Block in the months to come.

Avant-garde Maison Martin Margiela, who embraces recycling and deconstruction in his collections, sent his girls out with their faces covered in coloured material. I won’t be placing bets on this one appearing in the Arts Block

Illustrations: Sinéad Mercier

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where a number of models toppled from their heels, with one taking them off and walking barefoot. Such extreme heels have also already begun to trickle down to the high street, with Zara and Topshop churning out knock-offs of Balmain’s and Louis Vuitton’s skyscraper shoes.

Runways turned into treadmills at times as several designers decided to advocate sportswear for Spring, with DKNY, Louise Goldin, Stella McCartney and it-boy Alexander Wang all are doing sporty clean edges on pieces like cropped leggings, tank tops, supertight bodysuits and oversize hoodies.

The look here is glamourous gym wear paired with killer heels and slicked back hair. On the more avant-garde end of things, sportswear evolves into fashion from the future at Balenciaga, Jil Sander, Alexander McQueen and Gareth Pugh.

In particular, Balenciaga, who have had a run of good collections the last few seasons under the genius Nicolas Ghes-

24 February – 9 March, 2009

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Something for the boys Cillian O’Connor endorses springing out of bed this season (no pun intended) in pinstripe pyjamas, the happy colour yellow, sophisicated blue and seriously scoop neck tees

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on’t get me wrong. I relished the recurring, blanketing snowfall of early February just as much as the next person but Spring/Summer 09 has finally arrived and I, for one, am more than ready for perusing what’s on offer. No more cumbersome cable knits, gargantuan overcoats and sweat-inducing scarves. Now’s the time to usher in the unadulterated easiness of the coming months, at least sartorially.

For that’s what designers from Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana to Tomas Maier of Bottega Veneta envisioned for SS 09: a reckless abandonment of the conventional formalities of dress, perhaps simultaneously encouraging an abandonment of worries and woe regarding the economic collapse. In short: ditch the suited daywear and don your favourite pinstripe PJs. Yes, gentlemen, no longer need you worry yourselves with such bothersome questions such as “What will I wear today?”. Simply spring out of bed and be on your merry way. Well, that’ll only convince if you’re the privileged owner of some Dolce & Gabbana satin sleepwear or Ann Demeulemeester’s pinstriped pajamalike pants.

But that’s just one of menswear’s latest innovations, and most likely a tendency which won’t filter into the highstreet destinations you and I frequent.

What’s much more plausible is sporting the colours of the season. Despite the financial crises we’re currently tackling, designers have banded together this season to offer some potential source of happiness – sometimes neon, sometimes muted but invariably covetable: yellow. From the sober mustard and marzipan at Prada and Burberry Prorsum (sometimes only culinary comparisons will suffice) to the lemon pastels at Missoni and the unabashed electricity of Jil Sander and Costume National’s shades, it was undoubtedly the colour du jour. It was tailed closely, though, by the most variegated shades of blue, another Spring/Summer staple. At Bottega Veneta, it appeared in suits and weekenders of the most sophisticated royal blue whilst at Lanvin, Lucas Ossendrijver’s ruching was illuminated by an almost pulsating cobalt, an impactive hue which also featured heavily in another of Kris Van Assche’s collections for Dior Homme. Admittedly, the aforementioned shades are

in no way intended for those who could be deemed the “faint-of-dress,” and designers such as Tommy Hilfiger, Paul Smith, Dries Van Noten and Emporio Armani (a personal favourite – midnight blue, which was threaded throughout the majority of the collection) provided more accessible alternatives for the understated man.

Not only did these favoured tones appear alone but they also shone brightly in colour-blocks and panels. Jil Sander demonstrated it perfectly where aforesaid electric yellow was intermingled with steely grey and softer tea rose.

Does this abundance of feminine colours have you fearing emasculation?

Well, brace yourselves, the machismo’s about to fade even further. Regarding shapes, SS 09 saw the emergence of some subtle gender-bending. At Prada, Miuccia sought to further castrate us with seriously scoop-neck lightweight knits while Christopher Bailey of Burberry Prorsum boldly went where few heavyweight menswear designers have gone before by lowering necklines to abdomen-skimming depths. I guess this means more crunches then...

menswear, any small change designers can provide gives hope that one day we’ll be offered the multitude of ingenious creations womenswear boasts.

Prints were particularly well executed this season with Alexander McQueen’s pistol motif which seemed to draw on the deadly sultriness of film noir, the proliferation of polka dots (no longer just for indie-Cindys!) at Ann Demeulemeester, and the abundance of florals from several others. As Meryl Streep caustically quipped in The Devil Wears Prada, florals aren’t exactly “groundbreaking” for the season now upon us. Nevertheless, the reinterpreted florals designers showed this time ‘round are certainly worth considering. Frida Giannini’s flora were appliquéd, embroidered and even airbrushed at Gucci, while at Givenchy, the garish, hot pink, embroidered and abstract variety was preferred.

Although accessories are not, and probably never will be, as slavishly observed by men as by the fairer sex, menswear designers still proffer plenty of choice. SS 09 saw the introduction of the simply yet stylishly adorned man with a wide range of methods to embellish an outfit. There were light scarves in Tisci’s, trademark gothic tones at Givenchy and messengers of the finest leathers at Fendi.

As for the advent of the “mlutch” (read: man clutch), I’m as speechless as you are.

However, shoes were especially enticing this season. With lesser-known labels like Red by Wolves and Common Projects, the boundaries of mens footwear are undoubtedly being eradicated. For those of you that don’t plan on prancing sprightly to secure the nearest available beaded, yellow, chest-revealing scoop-neck tee, then try branching out with footwear. Patent leather comes highly recommended.

Of course, what’s key to remember this season is that we should be attempting to adapt our consumption patterns to the current economic environment. In other words, the biggest trend for SS 09 is avoidance of the fad and investment in pieces that offer longevity. Ditch the cheap and naff and opt for quality, even if it does come at a slightly higher price.

Christopher Bailey of Burberry Prorsum boldly went where few heavyweight menswear designers have gone before by lowering necklines to abdomen-skimming depths. I guess this means more crunches then...

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24 February – 9 March, 2009

Alas, it wasn’t only necklines that were subject to the ball-busting but also the overall structuring of most garments.

Softer, more rounded shoulders could frequently be seen in pieces as traditionally masculine as smoking jackets (Stefano Pilati for Yves Saint Laurent). Also, the skinny silhouette pioneered by Hedi Slimane during his sojourn at Dior Homme doesn’t appear to be dying out any time soon though we ourselves might run a chance considering the relentless starvation which would be required to fit into the now ubiquitous skinny suits (I’m looking at you Gucci). Further feminisation was achieved through embellishments like beading which appeared along the necklines of cardis and tees at Burberry and Alessandro Dell’Acqua, respectively.

Although this easier, more feminine aesthetic won’t have enormous appeal, it’s good to consider the significance of this movement from the staid conservative to the more modern masculine. As always in

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Back from the dead

Photo: Caroline O’Leary

Catriona Gray somehow managed to get past the hoards of slightly mental fans and have a word with Pete Doherty when he visited the Phil recently

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espite the two and a half hour delay, Pete Doherty’s appearance at the Phil two weeks ago still caused quite a stir. The prospect of seeing the ex-Libertines and Babyshambles singer created the biggest queue since Al Pacino paid a visit to Trinity, with the line of people stretching all the way from the steps of the GMB to the Dining Hall.

This wasn’t Doherty’s first trip to Trinity, as Babyshambles, along with Kate Moss, made a memorable appearance at the Trinity Ball back in 2005. According to Doherty it wasn’t the best of nights: “it was a bit of a disaster, that one. My guitarist got the fear mid-way through, he said I was looking at him funny and threw down his guitar and ran off… terrible night it was.”

Doherty also talked about his friendship with Pogues frontman Shane McGowan.

When asked where he first met McGowan, Doherty replied: “Honestly, it was on the floor at a party. He said, “congratulations, you’re now the most obnoxious man in pop.” Those were his first words to me… It’s hard to understand what he says a lot of the

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time but when you do work it out, it’s generally quite insightful and yeah, he’s taught me a lot. He’s quite into his history as well.”

Doherty’s year got off to a good start, when he played with the legendary Roger Daltrey, from The Who: “[Daltrey] got in contact with me through the Teenage Cancer Trust, he’s quite heavily involved with that. A couple of years ago he said something quite hurtful. He said I was a waste of space, and I wasn’t big or clever and it had all been done before and all this. And then he phoned me up after I’d been to the funeral of a young man, who’d died of cancer and he said, ‘Well Pete, I don’t take back what I said, but you’ve proved yourself now in my eyes, what sort of man you are, so if you need anything, anything, just call me.’ So I said, ‘can you do a gig with me?’”

Doherty also spoke about his experience of interviewing Paul McCartney: “My mum had given me this chip fork to give him, ‘cos she’s from Liverpool and she was like, ‘what are you going to give to a Scouser who’s got everything – a silver chip fork,’ and I was like, ‘yeah that’s a great idea, mum.’ So I gave it

to him all expectant and he just put it in his pocket and looked at me a bit strange… I was asking him about some of the things they used to get up to on tour with the Beatles.

You hear about the Rolling Stones and the total decadent rock bands, but the Beatles were the baddest of all, but it was all kept quiet… they were bumming everything in sight.”

When asked who were the people who have influenced him the most, Doherty replied: “No-one really, I’ve done it all on my own. I’m quite a lonely character. Most of my friends are dead and have been for hundreds of years. I quite like cats... (pause) Do you know what, I don’t actually like cats so much... it started off fine but now they’ve just taken over, they’ve just expanded. It’s like lemmings. I’m trying to keep the population under control, it’s about 12 now. But I mean, they’re so smelly, it’s disgusting. I’m trying to get to grips with the philosophy of cats, as it were. I’ve bought a book about the psychology of cats, trying to get inside their heads, but they just piss on the duvet.”

Doherty was unsurprisingly quite reluctant to talk about his time in Wormwood scrubs, but said: “You’ve got to make the best of a bad situation. To be honest, everything I did write in there, or most of what I wrote, makes for pretty depressing reading, just self pity and wallowing in it, just sat on that bed all day every day and if you’re lucky

you get strip-searched after dinner and that’s the highlight of the day really.”

Doherty also spoke at length about his music and his new solo album: “I’ve reverted back to where I came from, where I started out. Songs like ‘Albion’ and ‘Music When The Lights Go Out’, they were quite ballady and slow and they were the first songs. Then The Strokes came along and our manager said “Look, you’re going to have to speed everything up if you want to get signed.” So we did that.

When we first got in the limelight, we were so deranged and angry and a bit twisted, that we’d just get on stage and turn it up as loud as we could, whack it out and get off as quickly as we could. There was a lot of frantic, nervous energy and it was all a bit more aggressive and chaotic, and then we just calmed down a little bit, sadly.”

When asked what was his favourite song that he’d written, Doherty replied: “Maybe ‘Back From the Dead’, just because I tend to find when I’m lacking in inspiration I tend to go back to them chords, it’s just something about them… it’s just kind of mournful and sad and no-one’s worked out where I’ve nicked it from. And ‘Don’t Look Back into the Sun’ I quite like as well.”

Doherty also played a short acoustic set, which included “Last of the English Roses”, the first single from his new album, Grace/ Wastelands.

24 February – 9 March, 2009

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Crystal Bell Catriona Gray talked to Crystal Antlers’ Jonny Bell about the “Crystal” craze and chimney sweeping

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ith only one EP behind them, Crystal Antlers are already causing quite a stir. Currently in the midst of a gruelling European tour, singer Jonny Bell looked a bit exhausted as he took a break from soundchecks before their gig in Whelans.

The tour is to promote their debut album, Tentacles, which was recorded in a mere week. Bell looks, if possible, even more exhausted as he describes the experience, saying, “during the last few days of recording, I slept maybe an hour a night, just staying up, and our engineer Joe, he just stuck with us because we knew we had to get it done. And it was also stressful because we went into the studio directly after a thirty day tour of the US without really taking a break at all. We also slept in the studio and didn’t really leave for more than fifteen minutes at a time.”

The recording of the album saw original guitarist Errol Davis rejoin the band, although he wasn’t able to make the European tour, which has caused some speculation. Bell quickly dispels the rumours: “He’s actually in Thailand right now again. It sort of just happened too late for him to come on this tour, so he’s just waiting in Thailand until we get back and then he’s going to meet up with us and tour with us from then on.”

It’s too tempting to resist asking Bell whether he’s irritated by the constant references in the press to the growing popularity of calling your band “Crystal Something.” Bell takes the question surprising well, probably due to the number of times that he’s had to answer it: “It was irritating, but now I’m just numb to it, it’s just like ‘okay, what a great coincidence.’ But it seems like there’s some attention from that, to all three of the bands, Crystal Stilts, Crystal Castles and us, and I dunno, it might be helping us in some way.”

A surprising fact about Crystal Antlers is that while they were still a three-piece, they all worked as chimney sweeps. Seriously. When asked about this, Bell becomes progressively more enthusiastic: “We all worked for this really crazy, acid-casualty guy and then I had my own company too. We still do it: when we’re not on tour, I still sweep chimneys to try to earn some extra money.”

When asked if sweeping chimneys is difficult, Bell replies: “Yeah, parts of it are. I do full on masonry work too, so I can build a chimney, rebuild them and all that kind of stuff. It’s really hard work but I love it, it’s so rewarding to work for twelve hours and there’s this structure that could be there for hundreds of years.”

Shortly after this, the conversation turned to whether Bell had had any traumatic experience with chimneys: “Yeah… so many, so many, especially because the guy that we were working for before was so crazy and irresponsible, he was just like a child. He was kind of like a cartoon character in a way: once he was trying to get a beehive out of a chimney and started spraying a hose down the chimney. I should preface this by saying that he gets all of his work by going door to door and talking people into doing this, because it’s California and people don’t really use their chimneys so much. And so the customers are always a little apprehensive to begin with. And so he’s up there, spraying water down this chimney at a beehive and all these bees start flying out and attacking him and stinging him.

He’s just rolling all over the roof, screaming. I was trying to spray him down with the hose and the customer’s out there on his front lawn and there was a school across the street and the school had just gotten out and all the kids were all standing there watching and laughing.” Bell pauses for effect before continuing: “I’ve been attacked by a possum before too.”

At this point, the tour manager decided that the ten minutes were up. It was probably a wise decision on his part, given the way the conversation was going.

Crystal Antlers’s debut album, Tentacles, is out on 6 April. tn2

24 February – 9 March, 2009

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Photo: Lenka Špryslová (www.lenulino.net)

The shape punk can become Tomas Kejmar headed down to see Chicago’s Rise Against in The Academy last week and was impressed by the melodic hardcore four-piece

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ast week, American hardcore-influenced outfit Rise Against, managed to draw a crowd of approximately seven hundred ecstatic, mostly teenage, fans down to The Academy for a show that lived up to the high standard they’ve set over the last decade or so.

In order to make the Dublin show happen, expenses had to be cut somewhere and in the end it came down to the support acts.

Irish fans could have easily feel cheated because instead of rather brilliant Strike Anywhere and Rentokill, who have opened all of Rise Against’s dates on the continent, or Flobot and Anti-Flag, who will be sharing the stage with them on the entire upcoming UK tour, they got two local bands. However, that isn’t to criticize The Demise or Paranoid Visions in any respect. These acts, especially the latter, did a great job in creating an intense atmosphere at the gig.

Prior to getting to the venue, fans had to exhibit extraordinary patience. The queue

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stretched almost hundred meters, well up to the junction of Middle Abbey and Lower Liffey Street. The slightly amused looks of passers-by were attracted not only by the size of the crowd that had gathered but, more significantly, by the impressive range of fashion excesses exhibited. Recruited from all age brackets, from early teenage kids to hardcore grown-ups in their early thirties, the impatient crowd must have been quite a sight on its own.

By the time I got in, the first opening band had already played most of their set.

Judging from the last three songs, The Demise play a modern take on melodic hardcore and punk-rock, which wasn’t unlike the style of the headliner. The sound man could have done a better job but the crowd seemed satisfied nonetheless.

The fact that the event was 14+ was a sufficient excuse for such an early start and perhaps also for the fact that the bar didn’t offer anything but cups of free ice-cold water.

With this in mind, the choice of second supporting band was a little surprising.

Paranoid Visions, known for the anti-U2 campaign they waged in the late 80s, are already legendary and infamous enough and their allegiance to the anarcho-punk tradition of the likes of Crass and Conflict only increased the already sharp contrast with both the other bands on the bill. The eightpiece band, featuring a duo of female singers and a keyboard player in addition to classic rock band line-up, effectively divided the audience.

There were certainly some that had come to see them, but the crowd, consisting mostly of teenage Rise Against fans, didn’t seem to be prepared to face the version of punk-rock offered by these guys. Rise Against’s music is rooted in melodic branch of punk, as displayed by the likes of Bad Religion, The Adolescents, NOFX or Dag Nasty, whereas the model Paranoid Visions work from springs from significantly rawer foundations.

The afore-mentioned Crass, Conflict or other 80s anarcho-punk acts, like Dirt or Subhumans, are undoubtedly among their sources of inspiration. On the top of that, their sound also gives the impression that somebody had been listening to Killing Joke

a little too much.

After thirty five minutes of sophisticated sonic torture and additional twenty five minutes of waiting, the much anticipated headliner took to the stage. The set-list consisted of a fair selection of old and newer songs with an emphasis on the last three albums. Although it might seem rather surprising, it wasn’t the older, time-proved hits that provoked the strongest responses. Instead, the crowd, most of whom apparently knew the band mainly from their music videos and MySpace, seemed to welcome most the singles from band’s last two albums The Sufferer & the Witness and Appeal to Reason.

Despite the fact that Rise Against are rather skilful songwriters and that McIlrath’s voice is really versatile, much of their material nevertheless stays within the constraints of mid-paced punk-rock music with pop overtones, which can be entertaining for only so long.

The semi-acoustic intermezzo as the first part of encore thus proved refreshing, and showed that Rise Against, in this case meaning Tim McIlrath, are capable of maintaining atmosphere with as little as one acoustic guitar. Overall, the craftsmanship Rise Against exhibited live was certainly worth the ticket price alone.

24 February – 9 March, 2009

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Photo: Melanie O’Reilly

A beer odyssey

Melanie O’Reilly sampled some of the best beer the world/local off licence has to offer

eer. The poor man’s champagne.

Now, you may wonder why on earth a pronounced beer hater would write an article on the beverage. Well, for starters I recognise that not everyone has my impeccable taste, and I’m told beer is rather like wine in that it is an acquired taste (that takes an eternity to acquire). Or so I thought.

Have you ever wondered what on earth is the difference between lager and ale? Well, my research tells me it is all about the fermentation. Lager tends to be less fruity or spicy, lighter in colour and if you want to sound really knowledgeable then remember, the main distinction is yeast. Lager yeast ferments at a lower temperature than ale and flocculates on the bottom of the vessel, unlike ale. A word of warning, lager tends to be the less sweet of the two main types of beer.

Ale has many different varieties: pale, light, red, brown, dark, old… it can really get quite confusing! And that doesn’t even take into account the country of origin. Stout, in case you’ve always wondered, is a term for the strongest, darkest type of ale, for example Guinness.

Beer is basically trial and error, or at least that’s how I felt when sampling these beers.

The ones that I would definitely recommend trying are: Nastro Azurro; Pravsky; Svyturys; Staropramen; Tyskie and Hofbrau Original.

Czech beer tends to be a fairly safe option for drinkability, however, there are always the classics from Germany and Belgium. A good off-licence for beers of the world is the Molloy’s liquor store chain. They have quite a large and interesting selection of beer from Japan to Canada with many Eastern European countries in between.

Nastro Azurro is an Italian beer which is easy to drink and would be an ideal choice to have at a barbeque or with grilled meats.

(obviously whilst abroad) with your typical holiday food treats or simply some great seafood. I will admit that by this stage my friend and I had given up on food and beer pairing and were simply knocking back the beers and tortilla chips. But my brothers agree that Tyskie is a great lager and that is quite a recommendation.

Staying with Poland, I will pass on another recommendation: Zywiec, a pilsner-style lager that is light but still full of flavour. The girl in me feels the need to emphasise the word light, and to also mention that the bottle’s label looks quite cool. When it comes to Eastern European beers, my research seems

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It has a very pale yellow hue and a light, nonoverpowering scent and the corn gives the beer a refreshing twist. Nastro Azurro is definitely a good option for Beer beginners.

Pravsky is a Czech beer which I feel is another easy-to-drink option. It has a golden tint, without the overly strong scent of hops and would be ideal for grilled fish or chicken with a leafy salad.

Svyturys, a Lithuanian beer, is once again very drinkable. It has a very light taste with an almost zingy after-taste that is quite refreshing – something I did not expect as it has a rich golden hue and quite a strong smell of hops. Svyturys is a good choice to

I guess everything takes a while to get used to, and maybe my taste isn’t as impeccable as I thought! But a person unable to change and admit defeat is a lost cause.

So, ladies, get off your high horses and throw yourselves an elegant beer bash! drink with stir fries, white fish dishes or Japanese cuisine.

Staropramen, another Czech beer, is a delicious lager with a strong golden hue.

It must be said there is a rather prominent scent of hops but, thankfully, no strong after-taste. Staropramen is quite easy on the palate and it is possible to drink on its own. It is a great party lager, and goes down a treat with tortilla chips and any savoury party foods. Although I think it would work quite well with Tex Mex dishes as well.

Tyskie, a Polish lager, has a bit of a kick to it and is perhaps not the best idea for an all-night session as you will more than likely regret it in the morning! It is the perfect lager to have chilled on a warm summer’s day

to indicate that the colder the better as they tend to have quite a metallic after-taste if not chilled nicely. My Polish workmates have told me that Zywiec goes down a treat with some ‘kielbasa’ (Polish sausage).

The last beer that I would recommend trying is Hofbrau Original a German beer from Munich. It is quite bitter, which is refreshing and perfect when chilled. Now, the very golden hue and stereotypical “beer” look is a bit daunting to the wine lover, but it is surprisingly easy on the palate. It does have a strong smell of malt and hops, but this scent is not reflected in the actual taste of the beer. Once again, this beer would be a perfect summer’s evening choice. Hofbrau Original is also a good choice for someone

that is not a big lover of beer as it is flavoursome but the hops are not overpowering like in other heavier beers.

I also feel I should mention Chimay Red which is a Belgian Trappist beer. It is quite an interesting bitter and fruity red ale, with a pleasant head to it. There is a real apricot fragrance to it. The fact that it doesn’t look like a typical beer makes it all the more appealing, along with its fruity scent and flavour. Unfortunately, I can not think of the perfect meal for this beer, but we had it with some traditional savoury treats like bacon flavoured crisps, something you’re probably quite likely to be eating when drinking beer.

When I first started the research for this article, I was literally dragging my heels at the thought of drinking vast amounts of beer (most of which I haven’t even had the space to discuss). I must admit that my choices here are a little biased as I found that I am more of a lager girl than an ale one. Apologies to the ale lovers. I hope you can enjoy a bottle of Chimay Red whilst complaining about my incompetence.

But I do feel the need to say that I can sort of see, and taste, the appeal of beer for certain occasions. I was quite surprised at how easy to drink some beers actually are.

I guess everything takes a while to get used to, and maybe my taste isn’t as impeccable as I thought! But a person unable to change and admit defeat is a lost cause. How noble am I. So, ladies get off your high horses and throw an elegant beer bash! Kegs-a-ready!

Here are a few other beers worth sampling: Kirin (a delightful Japanese beer that oddly enough works perfectly with Japanese and Asian cuisine), Moosehead (a Canadian lager), Victoria Bitter (a very popular Aussie lager), and Salitos (a Mexican lager that has a shot of Tequila and lime added to it – perfect for a party or barbecue). Go on, you want you want to!

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I’ll burn my books!

Jean Morley and Rebecca Long go head-to-head on censorship

Censorship: a tool of moral oppression by a select few

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rguing against censorship does not make one a chaotic anarchist, contrary to popular belief (not if you already are one, that is). It is an argument for freedom; for the entire population to break loose from the moral and intellectual control of a select few. Censorship might be defined as a governing authority protecting “a social moral code,” but, one wonders, the social moral code according to whom? Tellingly, the definition does not address where exactly the social code stems from. Does a tiny censoring body have the ability to key into the morality of the majority? Or is it defining the social code itself?

Censorship does not rely on the opinion of the masses; we have never been asked for our say in whether we ought to be allowed to read violent acts in fiction. Rather, we must rely on the censoring body; one small group of people and their judgement of the material. Take the situation in Ireland, for instance: a Censorship of Publications Board, made up of five members may prohibit the sale of periodicals and books they consider obscene. The shiny Citizen’s Information Website happily tells us that they are members of an independent board and that the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has no power over their decision. But the point remains that these members are appointed by the state. Yes, they are likely to be informed and fair-minded people, but they’re also likely to repre-

sent the opinions of the state. It’s easier to imagine a trusted civil servant on the board than a teenager with a penchant for Grand Theft Auto.

It can happen that when writers are in the act of being most groundbreaking, most vehemently opposed to the abuses before them, they are also most in conflict with a censoring body. Maya Angelou’s award-winning semi-fictional autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a stirring account of deep-South racism. Containing many scene of explicit physical and sexual violence, it horrified Kansas authorities on its publication in 1969 and an attempt was made to ban it. Luckily, logic prevailed over prohibition and the novel went on to be nominated for a National Book Award. We cannot simply argue that censorship ought not to be exclusionist and essentialist, that’s what it is by definition. It is the exclusion of material in fitting with a certain moral code.

It is with a certain degree of reticence that a third year undergraduate contradicts the great Aristotle, particularly one who, until recently, believed that Erasmus was a fun-filled year in Paris, not a Renaissance Humanist. But can we accept that the “light argument of shameful words leads to shameful actions?” In that case, most modern comedy; made up of extreme, exaggerated situations and brash language, ought to be x-rated. Is it not possible that the obscenities presented can serve a social pur-

pose? Allowing people a variety of information promotes critical thinking, we would not be sitting in university if we thought otherwise. I cannot argue that the actions of Mark Chapman (John Lennon’s killer), for instance, were not influenced by his reading J.D Salinger. But it could be argued that, rather than the fatal fault existing within the pages of a book, it was his terrifying single-mindedness, his severely distorted sense of judgement and radical misinterpretation of Salinger’s aims. A similar one-minded interpretation drives men to construe a religious text into a justification for invading a country. It is single-mindedness, not a proliferation of texts, which ought to be feared.

J e a n Morley

Censorship: Qualifying people’s freedom

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ensorship. If you look it up in the dictionary you’re confronted by words like “objection” or “suppression,” which, in turn, mean the forceful prevention of something, a state of constraint, the painful repression of thoughts or emotions. Still don’t know what censorship means? Me neither. Maybe we could call it the “process of restricting the public expression of ideas, opinions, conceptions and impulsions which have or are believed to have the capacity to undermine the governing authority or the social moral code which that authority considers itself bound to protect.” Harold Lowell might know what he’s on about but I don’t. Basically, when you think of censorship you think of intolerance: intellectual and political. But if you think about it some more, the existence of a policy of censorship, depending, of course, on the form it takes, does not necessarily mean the absolute control of people’s public opinions. Rather, it means the limitation or qualification of that freedom. But “limitation” isn’t a nice word is it? Especially when we’re talking about freedom.

According to Aristotle “the light utterance of shameful words leads to shameful actions” and, to be fair, the guy kind of has a point. If we allow ourselves to become desensitised to language, to the primary medium through which we express ourselves, doesn’t that open us up to an even more extreme desensitisation? If we can speak and write about something like extreme violence and not be aware of the inherent power of those words, don’t we deserve to be censored? We censor ourselves everyday: in order for us to function in society

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we must censor our behaviour: human beings are weird, you know. Without a certain degree of censorship, I’m willing to bet there would be chaos.

Let’s look at the relationship between the Modernist movement of the early 20th century and censorship. Beyond the fact that writers such as Joyce, Woolfe and Lawrence were dogged by it, some maintain that without the influence of censorship and the obstacle it presented, Modernism would not have had the influence or the depth that it did. Censorship forced writers to articulate their aesthetic and social goals both to themselves and their audiences.

Without the discourse created between censorship and the writers that were forced to respond to it, classics such as Ulysses might have been completely different. They might even have been shorter.

In a way, censorship can be used as a measure of how far we’ve come as a society, both nationally and internationally. Sure, it promoted isolationism, anti-intellectualism and a whole lot of other bad “isms” in a country that was once known as the island of saints and scholars but that surely just makes a case for what censorship should not be: exclusionist, essentialist, arbitrary and excessively moralistic. The form censorship takes in a society marks the intellectual evolution of that society, for good or ill. Ironically, given that it’s supposed to be silencing us, censorship tends to say more about us than we’d like to hear. Rebecca Long

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Eye witness wonders It’s a crazy world, but can we understand it?

Jean Morley, Rebecca Long and Conor Murray seek a few expert opinions

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ow is the winter of our discontent, with the threat of fees and increasing unemployment, even us lazy students are taking to the streets. But before becoming too immersed in the inadequacies of recessionista Ireland, it’s imperative we consider a wider world view. Although the declining American economy deserves media attention, questions of foreign policy are becoming ever more pertinent.

We’re poised in a pivotal moment of time; as reflected by a recent proliferation of “state of the world” books. This week we don our ‘sceptical’ spectacles and view three social commentaries with a critical gaze.

The New America Mark Little (New Island, 2008) America is commonly perceived as a nation of opposites; from obesity clinics to size zero Jeans, Californian sand to New England’s green landscapes. Mark Little does not occupy himself with this obvious assertion, but summarises two particularly American opposites. Frontier is the spirit of individual pursuit, embracing “personal freedom and innovation” but also isolation, insecurity and ruthlessness. Conversely, Ritual is the “spirit of the community; involving cooperation, law and patriotism but also self-righteousness. Key to understanding old America, but also anticipating the new, is unlocking the creative tension between these individualistic and communal forces.

Interestingly, Little sees the Frontier as not merely a physical entity but as a recognisable geographical line. Running across the Southern “sunbelt states” it protects Americans from the “the savage certainty of the wilderness”. At worst, frontier mentality and physical space collide, creating people like Carmen Mercia. A self-appointed border guard, totting a Colt .45 she stands at the frontier, shooting at stray immigrants. But ritual is equally frightening; as we visit an Evangelical church in the town of Radiant.

The spirit of community and god-fearing love has been transformed into a marketable brand by tycoon-like Pastor McFarland. Equally two-sided is the living breathing American spirit, helping the desolate to cling to hope, it also firmly lodges them in an underprivileged position. “Every citizen is entitled to an equal shot at the American dream but not everybody is entitled to an equal share of America’s wealth.”

Mark Little’s style vacillates as much as his opinions. Analytical, appealing to our modern desire for accountability, all suppositions are backed up by dates, polls and figures. The writer has a weathered sense of the necessity of fact, perhaps from his years

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of interviewing politicians.

But for any stoic analysis, Little interjects a quite literary, even flamboyant turn of phrase. A personal favourite is the comparison between America’s dodgy immigration policy and a “punch-drunk boxer,” both lurching back and forth in sickening ease.

With any other journalist, the repetition of concepts like Baby Boomers and Millenials would scream at generalisation, but Little justifies his use of the terms by matching phrase with researched facts.

The new America has reality but is essentially a myth; its fearsome economic conditions and clash of cultures are part of a larger cyclical process of opposing types. By this logic all problems can be understood as a process; a surge of immigration will, necessarily lead to anti-immigration sentiments.

But also, the American model is equally applicable elsewhere, “This is America but it could be Ireland” becomes the writer’s mantra. Although Mark Little chooses not to back up the Irish comparison, he invites an interesting reassessment of our own nation. Where are our own complex frontiers and are they compatible with our rituals?

Jean Morley A Divided Paradise: An Irishman in the Holy Land, David Lynch (New Island, 2008) Based on his stay in the Summer of 2005 in the West bank Palestinian town of Bir Zeit, David Lynch’s book A Divided Paradise is subtitled An Irishman in the Holy Land. It draws on his experience to create a solid and engaging account of the human aspect of a political conflict spanning decades. The book combines personal experiences, anecdotal evidence and acute insight and analysis on life nder occupation in Palestine. It is undeniably well-informed, written while Lynch was studying Arabic in the Bir Zeit University.

Lynch’s style is both conversational and provocative, allowing him to describe the traumatic and violent events like protests with an admirable objectivity. Placing us in the centre of the action, he forces us to confront the violence. As that objective observer he tries to convey a sense of the life he lived in Bir Zeit but cannot help revealing his own deep experiences and the effect of the people he knew around him. It is a searingly honest account. At his first protest as the book opens, Lynch shakes himself, tells himself to stop worrying about himself and start acting like a professional journalist.

In the preface, Lynch states that “Israel is not a country just like any other” and from the Israeli man who protests for Palestinian freedom and frequents Irish bars in Tel Aviv, to the young boy who runs about in a

tear gas attack giving people onion slices for their noses, we get a vivid sense of the area and its diverse inhabitants. Lynch is clearly trying to do justice to the stories of the people he met, stories which personalise a highly complex political and military conflict.

He states himself that “that the primary role of journalists should be both to bear witness to the complexity of events and to attempt to write truth in the face of power” and to a certain degree he succeeds. While he admits, forthright, that his foot is squared completely in the Palestinian Camp, Lynch manages to give us an objective view of an extremely complex and volatile situation lacking any condescending, writerly tone.

Rebecca Long The Generation Game David McWilliams (Gill & MacMillan, 2008) David McWilliams is the culprit responsible for populist bestseller The Pope’s Children, and eager young hopeful The Generation Game. I know nothing of economics, populist or otherwise — as a classicist, I hanker back to a simpler time when people wore their money round their neck and bards struck more fear than banks. But after skimming his book, I feel I know slightly less.

Whereas before I’d assumed economics had some vague relation to money and that, his particular brand seems the showy facade for a compulsive obsession with facile analysis, his pigeonholing of poverties and litany of labels.

The premise of the book is that we Irish are clashing in what he calls a Generation War. Nothing new there, but teenagers for once play no part. The fifty-something Ac-

cidental Millionaires are sitting securely on their mortgage-free mansions to deliver an industrial drubbing to those desperate newcomers caught out be the collapse, the thirty-something Jugglers, whose willful mismanagement of money has depraved our glorious nation. McWilliams may well have “the zeitgeist by the scruff of the neck” as his cover triumphantly declares, but his relentless classifying seems to me to have a risibly bourgeois emphasis. We’re given whole bibleworths of detail on such worthies as the Bono Boomers and the Jagger Generation, but where are Mr and Mrs Struggling Saxophonist, or the Brothers HelplesslyImprovident, or Jemima Junky and Clarissa Crackhead? Where is Jimmy No-Job, that perennial staple of the Irish pub?

And strangely, sadly, success has soured poor Mr McWilliams. No longer the cheery cherub of his cover, more a Jude Law than an Eddie Hobbs, his writing now seeps and lounges through the gutter to a depth of bitter disgust, a sordid cynicism we associate more with Chuck Palahniuk. Ireland is portrayed as a crass and cash-obsessed hinterland, on the make and mad for migrants, a seedy magnet for the likes of such stereotypes as “four English forty-something men with shaved heads… chirpy in a still-drunk type of way, heading home following a second-time-round stag weekend in Dublin.

The Slovak check-in girl with bad teeth who sleeps four to a box-room in Hazelhatch is in no mood for their jaded double entendres.” For all that his associates may flatter him as an excoriating exposer of vice and folly, a latterday Juvenal, McWilliams’ glib tirades are about as savage as a wild egg.

Conor Murray

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Robert Ballagh in conversation

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rganising art interviews is always a tricky task in Ireland, mostly due to the fact many of the country’s artists and art graduates tend to emigrate to the bright lights and culture of London, Paris and New York. At the start of the year I was asking people for suggestions of potential candidate and one name that came up again and again was Robert Ballagh. Though the name may not ring a bell for some people, in his 40 years working as an artist in Ireland, Ballagh been involved in nearly every facet of modern Irish art and culture. As well as his ample painting work, Ballagh has designed theatre sets for the Gate, been stage designer for the touring Riverdance performance, created the country’s largest murals, designed nearly 70 stamps for An Post and, most significantly for those of us ancient enough to remember the pre-euro years, the banknotes for the Irish pound. Trinity College students should particularly be familiar with his work, as anyone who has ever exited the Lecky library through the arts block door will have encountered Ballagh’s mural of life size art admirers studying a reproduction of one of Jackson Pollack’s drip paintings, part of a collection he did in various buildings around Dublin. He is also considered one of the country’s foremost portrait artists and even had several of his design works reproduced as murals in West Belfast.

Having just completed a portrait of pioneering molecular biologist James D. Watson for Trinity’s Hamilton building, and on the verge of revealing a new (and reportedly controversial) new painting, I was eager to meet the man in the flesh on the last day of this year’s Trinity Arts Festival. Speaking in the auditorium of Trinity’s Science Gallery, Ballagh exhibited a slideshow selection of his works while discussing his life, career and taking any questions fired at him by the audience. A slightly wild haired man in his 60s, Ballagh chatted easily with the crowd about everything from art to genetics and the experience of forming a drinking group with Peter O’ Toole during a spell working at Ardmore Studios as a set painter.

Ballagh was fascinated by images from an early age, choosing art books on childhood trips to the library with his father because they had the best pictures. However, unsurprisingly, his mother didn’t see art as an appropriate career for her son and so after school he studied architecture for three years until a dispute with his tutors caused him to drop out and spend the next few years touring Ireland, the UK and America with his very Irish show band. After eventually tiring of the musical lifestyle, he happened to meet artist Michael Farrell in the then very bohemian Toner’s pub on Baggot Street, who, on the recommendation of a mutual friend, offered Ballagh an apprenticeship on the spot and began his belated

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art career.

Chatting to me afterwards, he cheerfully, and at great length, answered my questions, doling out amusing anecdotes along the way. Part of what is so impressive about Ballagh’s career is his involvement in such a cross-section of Irish artistic endeavors, yet it seems this was not always initially the plan. “I have been fairly fortunate in that a lot of the things that proved really exciting and challenging and difficult were not things that I picked to do but was asked to do; like the stamps, like the banknotes, like the Riverdance thing, like working in theatre. I would never have thought of doing theatre and then just one day I was called up by The Gate and asked to design a set and said, ‘well

I hate when I hear people saying, ‘We have to have more courses geared to jobs.’ How dull, more computer skills and commerce and entrepreneurial skills.

You should just open people’s minds.

That’s what I thought universities were for; open people’s minds and they can adapt to anything I never thought of that! I wonder would I be good at it?’ So that’s a nice thing.” Whatever he has done, most of his works have retained a particularly Irish feel including Celtic designs and local backgrounds, that is now rare often rare in modern art. “What I try to respond to is the reality I find, I’m living in Ireland and so it is inevitable. If there are Irish elements in my work and nationalist elements that’s because I live here and it’s what I respond to, I think if I was living in Spain people would say, ‘well why is your work so Spanish?’”

Despite his array of work, Ballagh is now particularly sought out as a portrait painter, having taken the likeness of everyone from Gerry Adams to Louis le Brocquy, John B. Keane and his own mentor Michael Farrell.

These portraits are much sought after not only for Ballagh’s skill but also his unique style of depiction, which usually includes objects or backgrounds that represent and signify the sitter and their personality, as

well as the occasional quirk such as a 3D pint of Guinness. “I just don’t this I would be happy doing this bourgeoisie person sitting in a chair.” Often having to work from photographs, he takes pains to meet and converse with the subject to really gauge both them and their personality in order to design the best portrait, a part of the job he enjoys. “Yes I do like that, particularly when I am working from a photograph I like to be able to take the photographs myself because when you can meet the person and take the photographs, when looking at them afterwards you are able to judge exactly which photographs actually best represent that person. Where as if you are handed photographs and you haven’t met the person, it’s a hopeless situation.” This method in the past has led to several problems, “I remember I had to do a commission portrait of Gay Byrne and it was going to be given to him as a surprise and so he couldn’t know about it.

I said to the people that I had to have photos. And for a man that was very famous then they produced these really kind of old black and white photographs! Particularly the one thing that changes over the years is hairstyles and these were just 60s or 70s hairstyles, so I had to kind of imagine different kinds of hair! I found that a really nonsatisfactory way to do a portrait.”

Also quite unique to Ballagh’s portraits is their actual shapes, ranging from standard rectangles to diamonds, circles, frames within frames and many others. Though interesting, these have caused problems in the past. “Well, it almost happened by accident, I’m certainly fascinated by unusual shapes which are easy to design and even easy to paint, but I tell you they aren’t easy to frame!” One particularly famous situation involved Ballagh’s portrait of the late Dr. Noel Browne, a former politician and friend of Ballagh’s, which now hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland. In 1974 as Minister for Health, Browne had attempted to introduce the “Mother and Child Scheme” providing free health care to what he saw were the country’s the most vulnerable people. This caused outrage and an enormous outcry from the Catholic Church, eventually causing Browne to retire his post. Many, including myself, believed that Ballagh’s cross-shaped composition of Browne’s portrait was a public dig at the situation.

However it seems the truth is slightly more practical.

“Well the cross, believe it or not, was almost accidental. People, or anyone, looking at it now say ‘Oh, he’s making this statement or that statement.’ One critic even wrote ‘Robert Ballagh crucifies Noel Browne’ but what happened there was I had this concept about the painting, I wanted the stones to literally spill out into the gallery. Now I realised that to make the work, the painted stones had to look as realistic as the real stones, so, difficult to do but not impossi-

As one of the country’s leading artists, Robert Ballagh has had a profound influence on modern Ireland’s culture and iconography – Caroline O’Leary met him at the recent Trinity Arts Festival

ble. So, it took me ages, I was painting these stones for about a month and it so happened that I had designed the picture in a kind of a grid system and I suddenly said, ‘Oh wait, well those panels on the side, I don’t need those, his legs are there and that’s the format,’ and I realised I could loose those and I took away those canvases and then thought, ‘Well the sky is just blue up there, I don’t need that but I do need the cottages going across,’ and then I stepped back and said ‘Oh god look what’s coming out here! Huh!’ And it turned out that that was a wonderful composition. I’d love to say I honestly though of that from the word go but I didn’t! It came out for very practical reasons.”

During the interview, I particularly wanted to enquire about the slightly tongue-incheek humour that seems evident in many 24 February – 9 March, 2009

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of his works, especially in his own self-portraits. These include Number 3 which shows him engrossed in a book entitled “How to Make Your Art Commercial” and Upstairs Number 3 which includes an image of himself as a classical male nude (in all his glory) which caused ridiculous amounts of public controversy, including one print in a Galway gallery being confiscated by the police. Ballagh simply smiled at the question. “I don’t see why art shouldn’t be funny, some people take it very seriously but, that’s not to say I don’t take it seriously but I do think there has to be a bit of space for humour, a bit of space for irony. I do think that’s part of the Irish psyche, Irish people love storytelling, jokes, humour and so much Irish visual arts in Ireland don’t have that aspect of the Irish character and I think that’s a shame. There’s also a lovely kind of dark Irish humour that tn2

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I really enjoy, which you come across in the writing and stuff like that which some people don’t like but which I find hysterical.”

It would not be too much of an overstatement to suggest that as well as being talented, Ballagh has had a fortunate time in his career, with the opportunities such as his apprenticeship, his composition and his variety of jobs often arising by chance.

Of course few of us can think about the arts these days without taking into account the current economic shambles and the fact that any student currently training in art is almost certainly looking at a tough foreseeable few years. Ballagh, however, is indignant at the suggestion that careers in art might well be neglected or even abandoned in these times of trouble. “You might as well go into art, as your not going to get a job anyway! I always felt for that people doing

an art course or whatever, they might not end up as a professional artist but the skills and the abilities and the prising open of the imagination will be of extraordinary benefit to them whatever area they choose to move into.”

He is particularly concerned about the growing obsession with “practical” jobs and fears that the results of this attitude could be grim for our society as a whole. “I hate when I hear people saying, ‘We have to have more courses geared to jobs.’ How dull!

More computer skills and commerce and entrepreneurial skills. You should just open people’s minds. That’s what I thought universities were for; open people’s minds and they will be able to adapt to anything that’s thrown in their way. What happens when we really focus things down to the extent of education in a very defined way, in a course

that’s geared to jobs? Now we are in a recession, there are no jobs and they haven’t been educated to move in any other direction. It’s terrible!”

Coming up, Ballagh has been commissioned to do portraits of murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane and, rather bizarrely, former Cuban President Fidel Castro for a British collector, “I did try to get a meeting with him but the ambassador told me he is no longer receiving guests.”

Yet despite all his talents, achievements and extremely friendly demeanor, it is those last comments on the necessity of art in our society that really resonate as I leave.

With our artists emigrating and galleries struggling, is Ireland really doomed to a population of businessmen and computer programmers? Personally, I am going to the next life drawing class I can find.

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Into the west Declan Clarke’s Loneliness in West Germany at the Goethe Institut is a fearless and rewarding show according to Conor O’Kelly

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Photo: Conor O’Kelly

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aving been invited to assemble a show for the Goethe-Institut on Merrion Square, Irish artist Declan Clarke has responded with video works, photographs, and a series of interventions, all engaging with the German June 2nd and Red Army Faction terrorist movements. Staged over four floors of the Goethe’s public and private workspaces the show achieves the effect of leading the viewer through a multi-layered meditation on the causes and effects of ideological commitment.

History is a nebulous affair; the effects of time, memory and point of view all conspire to render the interpretation of historical events an unreliable pursuit. In this context, the fame – and infamy - of the various terrorist groups that sprang up in 1970s Germany has grown over the years, much to the dismay of the families of their victims. The release in Germany last year of The BaaderMeinhoff Complex, a film which examined the most notorious perpetrators, brought the subject to the boil again, with accusations of stylisation of violence and terrorist chic levelled at the director. Conversely, support for the political expression of these groups philosophises - class warfare, socialism, rejection of American military imperialism - are experiencing a resurgence in cachet not seen since the fall of the Berlin wall. All of which serves to make Clarke’s show relevant and timely.

Starting inside the Goethe’s reading room on the ground floor a booklet is provided to orientate the viewer and contextualise the show. I Don’t Ask That Much is the transcript of an interview between Clarke and ‘AN,’ a former member of the June 2nd movement. The interview itself, framed as a covert meeting, is a thoughtful, engaging and believably honest account of how a seemingly unexceptional individual might, in the name of political belief, be driven to acts of extreme violence. While this is a useful orientation piece it is also, it must be said, the sort of platform that victims of the June 2nd activists can fairly protest against.

While AN is contrite for the innocent victims of his violence, he is still committed to his cause and his methods. In this sense, Clarke’s interview gives a very real insight into the unshakeable beliefs of a lifelong committed “anarcho-marxist.” The booklet I Don’t Ask That Much is as much a facsimile of the clandestine political pamphlets circulated by these organisations in the 1970s, as it is an original.

In the car park behind the Goethe-Institut Clarke has installed a car on its side.

Smashed and upturned it is evocative of the actions that the June 2nd movement took against the delivery vans of the right wing

media group the Springer press. This reproduction of the physical result of protest titled It Was Beautiful and Terribly Sad - is an effective and theatrical work, and adds a visceral element to a show which is otherwise concerned with a historical and mediated perspective on the effects of violence.

There are two original video work in the show, the first Loneliness in West Germany documents the artist’s visits to the sites of the most famous events from the history of the RAF and June 2nd movements, juxtaposed with contemporaneous newspaper articles.

This is a literal piece which historicises, and in many ways diminishes, any drama of the protest movements achievements and failures. The only present day mementoes of the actions taken and the lives lost are nondescript kerbsides where bodies fell and yellowing newspaper headlines. The erasure of significance and meaning is a theme that seems to run through this exhibition.

In his other video piece – We Missed Out On A Lot - Clarke demonstrates the process of making a Molotov cocktail. It’s an instantly recognisable process and banal in its simplicity. While the title of the work seems to imply mourning for the passing of more revolutionary times, the work itself reduces the revolutionary act to a simple recipe, and one that doesn’t countenance the ideological meaning or end result of the act. While the revolutionary act is emptied out in this piece, nonetheless the appropriately domestic setting of the Goethe Institut’s top floor flat gives the gestures an eerie and uncanny effect. Like the revolutionary who is habituated to his own commitment to violence, the viewer is invited to commune with an everyday process of bomb making.

It’s a haunting effect.

Within the Goethe’s library Clarke has positioned a slide projector to display images of political and cultural currency specific to the history of Germany and the development of Marxism in general. These images, neatly sandwiched between shelves of Bach and Benjamin give the visitor a chance to reflect on the deeper roots of political unrest in 1970s Germany. Elsewhere, Clarke displays photographic prints of the architecture of Berlin.

This is a very rewarding exhibition and one that uses the full space of the GoetheInstitut to good effect. It is dangerous territory in the sense that tackling such an overtly political subject risks deifying and mythologizing the individuals involved. Clarke has balanced the exhibition well in this aspect; the work provides context and comes at the events from a number of angles.

Loneliness In The West runs until 30 March at the Goethe-Institut, 37 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.

24 February – 9 March, 2009

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Karin ‘Mamma’ Andersson (photo: Mattias Ahlm)

The jewel in the arts block crown Continuing her mission to encourage people to drop by the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Caroline O’Leary talks to curatorial assistant Barry White

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s yet another friend, in their third year of college, expressed their shock on discovering the Douglas Hyde was an art gallery, I decided it was high time I took an in depth look at the little gallery that is literally on our doorstep.

Curatorial Assistant Barry White happily sat down with me last week to chat about the gallery and their exciting new programme of events for the coming year. A Trinity Art History graduate, White worked part time in the gallery during his degree and has now been involved for nearly 9 years, making him an ample authority on all things to do with the Gallery.

The Gallery is run jointly between the college, who provide the space and utilities, and the National Arts Council who pay for the maintenance and running of the Gallery.

What is probably surprising to many Trinity students is that the gallery has a significant international reputation and the standard of the exhibitions there is of the highest international standard. Opened in 1978, it was tn2

24 February – 9 March, 2009

initially run, slightly haphazardly, by students following a rather disorganised exhibitions programme, ranging from contemporary Irish artists to graphic shows. It was only when director John Hutchinson took over in the early 90s that the current programme of specifically international standard contemporary art was put into place.

Many first time visitors to the gallery seem surprised at the small size. Working within the constantans of tall, open Gallery 1 and small specific Gallery 2, it seems unusual that when compared to other, larger gallery spaces in Dublin that the Hyde should be so successful in their acquisitions and achievements. Yet I was assured that this has rarely been a problem, “Well some, some we can’t physically fit through the doors, but have had some very large installations. It doesn’t hamper us usually.”

Exhibitions in both galleries are often coordinated to provide a connection between the two rooms, while retaining a differentiation through media and other methods. Gal-

lery 1 tends to house the major exhibition of work, while the displays in Gallery 2 often include media such as textiles and ceramics and has featured exhibitions as diverse as Japanese Tea Bowls and jewellery made from poison bottles. Though far smaller and more constrained than the main space, Gallery 2 is important to remind viewers that there is indeed more to art than just the conventional, as White says “I guess it’s generally a way of getting us to think outside the box.”

In the coming year the Hyde is poised to display an immensely varied, yet interesting and impressive collection of works.

Currently on show until 18 March are paintings by acclaimed Swedish artist Mamma Anderson, which predominantly feature richly coloured and detailed cross sections of interiors while Gallery 2 features “The Paradise” a collection of organic based, garden-like installations by fellow Swede Nina Canell. Following on from this will be a collection of works by Fischli & Weiss, two of Switzerland’s most renowned artists who last year were featured in a major retrospective at the Tate Modern. Though known for their frequent use of different media, ranging from film to photography, art-books, sculpture and multimedia-installations, the Hyde exhibition will feature predomi-

nately their photography mixed sculpture throughout the gallery. This will be accompanied by a collection of ethnic Asafo Fante Flags in Gallery 2, an art form developed in Ghana where various gangs within local tribes adopted the Western concept of designing their own unique flags as a symbol of their power and independence As well as exhibitions, I was particularly surprised to learn that the Hyde regularly prints books in conjunction with collections and artists. Especially intriguing is the notebook sized publication The Bridge composed by director John Hutchinson as a collection of thoughts and images that have contributed to the creating of the Gallery’s tone and collections over the years.

Despite the high standards and acclaim, the Hyde is still seems slightly hampered by the fact that it is a gallery located within a college campus where exposure tends to be minimal. White admits this can be a problem but is optimistic “Some exhibitions are certainly less accessible to students who are not interested in art, but many are and they should keep visiting to see for themselves.

Our aim is to provide the best exhibitions possible for both the public and the student population.”

More information can be found at www.douglashydegallery.com

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Photo: Colm Hogan

Dreams of marble True to form, Marina Carr’s Marble deals with dour subject matter but is no less life-affirming for it says Kathy Clarke

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t the interval of Marble, the Marina Carr play currently premiering at The Abbey, the woman next to me couldn’t take it anymore. She’d escaped to the foyer, read the last page of the play, and then made the decision that she wouldn’t waste anymore of her short life on this nonsense. In a way, that’s exactly how the female characters in Carr’s play feel.

Despite my general soft spot for the work of Ireland’s most prolific female playwright, I could empathise with this disgruntled audience member. Like most of Carr’s work Marble – directed by Jeremy Herrin – deals with issues and ideas surrounding death and the realm of the dead, not exactly upbeat subject matter.

Marble further develops many of Carr’s previous themes and obsessions- the mythic and the mundane, and, of course, how it is that we die. Carr has in fact discussed at length her interest in the process of death and her ideas of what death essentially means. She tells Melissa Sihra, “We are of time, but also beyond it… The fact that we are dying probably is the only significant thing for all of us. And how we live, and how we die… I have always thought that death is just a moment, like two seconds. It is just the end of your world here. It is almost like the starting block of the race.”

Essentially a play about dreams, the narrative surrounds two couples – Catherine and Ben, Anne and Art – both have kids, both are happy. Thing are disrupted, however, when Catherine and Art start having erotic dreams about one another, set in a marble room, with marble windows. As the line between real life and the dream world blurs, jealousy grips and life for both couples begins to unravel. Catherine can no longer bear to live in the living, mortal world, full of supermarkets, restaurants and wine bars.

Cynical and disgusted with life, she is simply waiting for it all to end.

Central to these themes is the idea of liminality and an in between place, the threshold between two spheres or states of being- dreams and reality, death and life, mortality and immortality. Employing a sort of heightened hyper-realistic style in her exploration of these themes and ideas, Carr places her audience at a critical distance from the work, offering an “oblique access to the culture and society in question,” as is suggested by Sihra. Catherine explains: “It’s as if my real life is happening when I go

to sleep and you and I are a dream, a fragment, difficult to remember on waking. Being awake is no longer important.”

As in Carr’s other plays, the women are wild and unconventional (unlike the men, who are basically talking props), unable to find a place in the mortal world. The striking difference in Marble, however, is that this isn’t the typical midlands backdrop regularly employed by Carr, but a much more contemporary Ireland.

Revisiting themes and issues from previous plays and developing them in a new way, the set is indicative of a “yuppy” apartment by the docks where the furniture is retrochic and wreaks of Habitat. These issues of displacement and anomie suddenly feel all the more unsettling when juxtaposed against this aesthetic backdrop. The absence of the rural landscape is not lost on Carr’s characters. Catherine talks about “rural, open parts of the country that are really just asylums.’”

While the play is marketed as taut, funny and incisive, I found these self-reflexive references to previous works much more amusing than the gags centred around the battle of the sexes. Another example of these references could be identified when Carr’s themes of incest were parodied by Anne’s reading of a book she described as being about “tasteful incest.”

Special mention must be made of the set design by Robert Innes Hopkins, which, in addition to the retro-chic apartment vibe, included a huge marble column that stretched up majestically out of the audience’s line of vision.

In the final scene of the show the column emerges from the theatre floor, leaving a gaping crater reminiscent of a tomb or even the gateway to hell, water dripping down into darkness. Smooth transitions were made possible by remote control, sofas sliding efficiently into place without the help of stage hands.

If there was one thing I took from this play, it was a greater respect for life and a sense of human mortality of which Marina Carr has always been acutely aware. Some might emerge from The Abbey wanting to make the most of every second, climb the Himalayas, sail down the Mississippi on a home made raft. Then again, if you don’t fancy going skydiving, “I know it’s not living on the edge but then, there’s not room on the edge for everyone.”

At the interval of the play, the woman next to me couldn’t take it anymore

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24 February – 9 March, 2009

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No joke

Brian Martin has produced a number of his own plays in college over the last few years. Michael Carroll assesses his latest effort, Joker Choker

nce, I read part of a book on experimental theatre, but it was very boring so I stopped. Prior to seeing the show, I feared Brian Martin’s new play Joker Choker, on in week four of this term in the Players theatre, might be experimental. The line between the Real and the Unreal might become blurred before our eyes – the possibilities inherent in fiction might even be exploited.

Brian Martin’s play was experimental, but not, on the whole, in a way that offended one’s refined sensibilities. It was at its most effective when sensibilities weren’t at issue at all. These were moments that affected members of the audience viscerally: sometimes the girl beside me squealed. But I’ll get back to that.

Brian Martin is a very strange person.

Sometimes when he wakes up he can’t move and he sees either an old man or an old lady

with filthy old skin reaching out to grab him.

This also happens to Mark, the thirteen year old boy at the centre of Joker Choker. It’s called sleep paralysis and happens when your mind has woken up but your body hasn’t and your muscles are still sedated by your brain. The old person is a hallucination. But at the start of Joker Choker the old man and lady are replaced by someone more sinister, a nameless apparition of some species or other.

This play was at its best when it was clear its playwright wasn’t thinking at all, when it had nothing to do with theory. It was at its worst when social realism of the culchie alcoholic domestic abuse kind mixed with surrealism of the “that’s absurd!”, this-mustbe-a-French-play variety. These moments were thankfully rare. Brian has a strange condition, so abstract that binaries such as Real and Unreal probably don’t interest

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A really good effort

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om Stoppard’s The Real Thing is about love, passion, honesty and articulacy, or rather, inarticulacy.

Our protagonist Henry is a playwright, involved with an actress, Annie and likes to think of himself as highly intellectual, believing his art as a writer is sacred and that language should be treasured. This role is executed superbly by Stephen Brennan, whose comic timing makes the play highly witty, and helps the audience digest the wordy nature of the play. Henry may have all the words, but he is unable to put them together when he wants to express to Annie what she means to him. We see Annie getting increasingly frustrated by his lack

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of words for her which down spirals in attempts to make him jealous.

The Real Thing is scored to a vintage soundtrack of pop tunes from the 1970s and 80s as Henry decides his ‘Desert Island Top Ten’ which is a complete guilty pleasure for both Henry and the audience and allows for seamless scene changes. This play is highly theatrical, beginning from the tiny signifier of a red curtain, we see “a play within a play,” there is a blur between reality and acting, art and life. It questions whether art can influence life. Designer Conor Murphy has mirrored the theatricality of the text to the set with his use of a revolving wall for all scene changes. The set works remarkably as the

him. Rather, throughout the play, opposites were mixed randomly and with intensity.

There were lines straight out of Disney (“Do you know what I am?... Your imagination.”) and lines straight out of a poetry reading in a basement (“everything denied is liquefied in streams of molten magma that erupts out your mind when you least expect it”). Hamsters committed suicide and fathers threw children down the stairs.

An apparition flew out the window and reentered through a shining wardrobe. And all in an extraordinarily detailed and lifelike bungalow bedroom from the 70s Irish countryside.

Somehow, among these immediate and jarring rather than neatly theoretical configurations there were characters. Kate Brower, for example, was heartwarming and endearing as Lucy, a 19 year-old girl who is also Mark, a 10 year-old boy. None of the

characters were stable, they were constantly mixed around, and the play’s greatest achievement was that they somehow were believable. Siobhan Cullen’s prostitute Lorraine subtly mixed childishness and worldweariness.

Most disturbingly, Tom Williams’s apparition changed from something inhuman to something as troubled and human as the rest of them. Then on the bed before us he had a spine-chilling seizure like a wild animal. Jim, the owner of the bungalow played

by Manus Halligan, came through the bedroom door but for five seconds he wasn’t Jim but Lorraine because he wore her clothes and walked like an imitation of a prostitute.

The girl beside me squealed but then she laughed because it was very funny. Like the play, this moment wasn’t theoretical – it was disgusting, like a messed-up thought in a troubled brain.

The Real Thing at The Gate is great at points, but not unmissable says Barbara Alice McCarthy scene and set changes are flawless. This is a play for lovers of the theatre and all things theatrical, we are constantly reminded that the show is indeed a performance.

The first act is greatly entertaining and we are hit with wit for its entirety. The Real Thing touches on dark issues such as adultery, infidelity, jealousy and deceit but we are never asked to face them head on. Stoppard’s language shrouds the issues and while this can lead to funny and lighter circumstances, I was left feeling that nothing was fully confronted – be it Henry’s love for Annie or Annie’s deceit and attempts at making him jealous. The second act is weaker, a half hour longer than the first, which I

think was not a wise decision as the audience became restless towards the end. We see resonances of the play in act one in the reality of act two, which links us back to the question of art influencing life.

Overall, I think The Real Thing is worth a look if you like theatre and its workings, you will find yourself awed by the set and Denis Clohessy’s sound design. The dialogue is quirky and funny, but at times can be a bit overbearing, particularly towards the end of the second act. The Real Thing is immensely funny at times, heartbreaking at others and sometimes just a bit wordy. I would recommend it for an enjoyable night out to the theatre but it is not unmissable.

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Restaurant reviews

(01) 6337215

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Chez Max is hidden at the side of Dublin Castle, and when you step inside you really feel you are in a different world. We went on a cold and rainy Wednesday and I can think of no better antidote to a cold rainy Wednesday in Dublin than this cosy little French restaurant. The Early Bird is on offer from 5.30 to 7 Sunday to Thursday and at €19 for starter and main course offers excellent value for money.

Choice is limited to three starters and three mains, but on the plus side the portions do not appear to be altered for the Early Bird.

For starters, I had the goats cheese and roasted vegetables “en aumoniere” (basically encased in some crunchy filo pastry). When this arrived, I had a momentary panic- the plate was drizzled with the scourge of Modern Irelandpesto. I am a huge fan of good pesto in the right context, and I didn’t envision this being one of them. However, it was not overpowering and was more like a salad dressing. On approach with a fork the whole thing descended into what became essentially a salad with veg bits, cheesy bits and crunchy pastry bits mixing into the obligatory bed of rocket. It was strangely filling, and thankfully, my fears were unfounded. La Copine decided to run with the French theme and ordered French Onion Soup. This came with grated cheese on the side for you to form your own goopy layer, which I thought was a nice touch as there is nothing more gross than the lukewarm layer of pre-congealed stringy cheese which

is so often a feature of “French Onion Soup”. The soup itself was delicious and perfect for a Winter evening. For mains we stuck to the classics- I had Moules Frites and La Copine had Boeuf Bourguignon. The Bouef Bourguignon was a winner- a stew of beef, mushrooms, bacon and onions all cooked for about forty years in wine, so that everything tastes of each other in the best possible way. It came with some new potatoes in a side dish so as not to detract from the main event. The only criticism is that it was a bit too salty. I love seafood, so I was a little disappointed when the mussels were tasteless and slightly dry-the trademark of reheated molluscs. The sauce was gorgeous though and they came with the best chips I have had in ages. Slightly thicker than matchstick, crispy but still fluffy inside, and piping hot, we were fighting over these even though we were full to bursting point. When I say full to bursting point obviously all I mean is that we had to share a dessert. This isn’t included in the menu but at €5.50 per dessert it’s not too much of a stretch to share one. We chose gateau au chocolat, which was basically just a bog-standard chocolate sponge, nothing to get excited about, and two coffees. We felt in no rush to go anywhere and they put no pressure on us to leave, even thought the restaurant was fairly full. The French music and French waiting staff really added to the atmosphere. I would definitely go back to Chez Max, even just for a quick lunch in town. Melanie O’Reilly

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Walking into Ukiyo Bar, I couldn’t help pausing for a moment to just inhale and enjoy. It smells exactly like an Asian restaurant should; warm, spicy and…well, just yummy. The soft music and muted lighting create a relaxed vibe, while the quirky décor oozes effortless cool.

Our waiter was friendly; however, he only provided us with full price menus and didn’t mention an early bird. Lucky I asked, as Ukiyo offers one of the best early birds available in central Dublin – bento box and a beer for €15. (For readers unfamiliar with the idea, a bento consists of samples of a few different dishes usually served with miso soup and rice.)

Given that the bento box alone is priced €17 on the main menu, this is a pretty sweet deal; and is also available at lunchtime for an excellent €10.

I was a little disappointed that our bentos were served in individual dishes rather than the traditional partitioned boxes, but cheered up rapidly when I started eating. The first dish I tried was a delicious beef chop suey. The sauce was seductively smoky and managed not to overpower the flavours of the perfectly cooked beef and vegetables. The other main dish was lemon-marinated mackerel, also delectable. This was a relatively plain dish; no heavy sauce, just a lemon slice and the beautifully flavoured fish itself. It was served in fillet pieces, but flaked into lovely bite-sized chunks with very little persuasion (good news for uncultured souls who find chopsticks tricky but are too proud to ask for cut-

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lery). There was also a portion of makizushi (rolled sushi) served with ginger.

Not being an expert and lacking a menu or a comprehensive explanation from our waiter, I couldn’t say exactly what was in it, but I can say that it involved squid and that as someone who has never really had much of a taste for sushi, I enjoyed it. However, there weren’t any particularly strong flavours or textures, and for the more adventurous sushi fan, it would possibly seem quite bland and boring. The salad was very pleasant, a simple dish of sliced red and yellow peppers, onions, carrots and cucumber; it complemented the other dishes perfectly and added a lovely sweetness to the meal.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable dinner.

But the star attraction of Ukiyo has to be its private karaoke booths, which are located downstairs and cost just €25 per hour. The website states that each booth can accommodate up to ten people, but we had a few more and there were no objections. It does get extremely warm, but luckily there’s a direct line to the bar, and anyway when twelve friends are belting out “Total Eclipse of the Heart” after a few rounds of sake, no one cares if it gets a bit sweaty. There’s a surreal contrast between the tranquil dining experience upstairs and the uninhibited butchering of power ballads and 80s pop tunes downstairs, but the combination makes for a truly memorable night and is perfect for birthday celebrations or just a bit of fun. Melanie O’Reilly

24 February – 9 March, 2009

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CD Reviews

BellyUp Records

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The second album from husband and wife duo Handsome Furs sees the Montreal band looking to Eastern Europe for inspiration. Face Control got its name from the somewhat bizarre practise in Russian bars of admitting people based on whether or not the bouncers like their appearance, even though they might have booked and paid for their tables in advance. Thank god the bouncers in Dublin don’t have similar powers, given the fact that they’re quite obnoxious enough already. But anyway, the entire album is loosely based around the idea of living in a Soviet state, although several of the tracks sound undeniably American, especially “Talking.” The album also explores the idea of life in the twenty-first century as being irrevocably enmeshed in a panopticon culture controlled by the internet.

Wolf Parade’s Dan Boeckner and short story writer Alexei Perry have placed travel – whether it’s the extensive touring or location-themed albums – at the heart of Handsome Furs. After their 2007 debut album, Plague Park, which was named after a park built over

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an eighteenth century mass grave in Helsinki, they decided to develop their sound in the process of writing Face Control, creating a more upbeat album, that has far more instrumentation and fuller arrangements than its predecessor.

The low-key dance beats and melodic tunes make this album very easy to listen to, with several tracks really standing out. The opening track, “Legal Tender” fuses cold, metronomic electronic beats with jagged dissonant guitars, as does “Radio Kalingrad”, another unmistakable highlight of the album. Another song that’s strangely addictive is “Officer of Hearts (It’s Not Me, It’s You).”

The track is short, clocking in at just over a minute and a half, and is purely instrumental, with the bold anthemic synthesisers pushing the track closer to trance than the indie-rock sound that dominates throughout the rest of the album. The release date of Face Control has been delayed to March, due to band referencing a New Order song on the track “All We Want, Baby, is Everything”. The album is well worth the wait, though.

Catriona Gray

Bell X1’s last album Flock garnered great reviews both at home and in the US, the question is: can Blue Lights on the Runway live up to the expectations set by its predecessor? With rhythm guitarist Brian Crosby’s recent departure from the band fans will be interested see will there to be much of a noticeable change to the band’s sound.

Opener “The Ribs of a Broken Umbrella” shows the album’s inclination towards a softer synth sound, the soundscape brings Achtung Baby-era U2 to mind. “The Great Defector” is the lead single from the album, one of the most upbeat tracks on offer, altogether a great track however at just 5 minutes it begins to drag out a bit towards the end. In fact this is a reoccurring theme throughout the album, though Bell X1 are known for their unpolished, raw sound you can’t help but wonder what a tighter production may have added to the album. The new album has its electronic influences yet is reminiscent of Talking Heads in many ways. “The Blow Ins” is one of the highlights on the album, “I’m Tuesdays child without the grace” being one of the

best lyrical quotes to be had. You can’t help but feel that Bell X1 have found their winning formula of piano ballads and should perhaps have tried to develop this more throughout the album.

“Breastfed” recalls debut album Neither Am I and brings some welcome variety to the album. “A Better Band” is also one of most radiofriendly tracks, you can expect it to receive just as much airplay as “The Great Defector,” its chilled basshook and rhythmic drums are paired well with Noonan’s clever wordplay.

“Light Catches Your Face” is one of the most heartfelt tracks on the album ‘ light catches your face, your smile, this must be what one of us is about’ is the refrain which cant help but grab you as the track draws to its end, however yet again a great moment is hampered by an overly long ending.

In summary this album has its great moments, it doesn’t represent any major changes in direction for Noonan and Co but their songwriting ability is without doubt improving with every album, sadly however it’s just proven too difficult to surpass Flock. Keith Grehan

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Film reviews

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“I can sum up the problems of this band in one word. Maybe two words. Actually, three words: We Don’t Have Good Management.”

If such unintentional comedy gems were all Anvil! The Story of Anvil had to offer, the film would still be a triumph.

Thankfully, however, Sacha Gervasi’s ode to his beloved heavy metal heroes has much more depth, pathos and honesty than its “Spinal Tap for real” description would suggest.

The film charts a year in the life of aging rockers Steve “Lips” Kudlow and Robb Reiner, lifelong friends who from age 14 have had their sights set of rock superstardom. In 1982, their band Anvil burst onto the world stage with the album Metal on Metal, influencing a generation of musicians including Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and Slash of Guns N’ Roses fame. While other bands from that era went on to great financial success, Anvil disappeared into obscurity.

Now in their fifties, the film joins Lips and Robb in the snowy suburban sprawl of Toronto, as they work dead-end jobs and play to local audiences they know by name. After a brief glimpse of their sombre daily lives, the film kicks into gear as they make one last-ditch attempt to become successful: an ill-fated European tour followed by a reunion with Metal on Metal producer Chris Tsangarides for their new album, This Is Thirteen. At almost every stage of their journey, mishaps and arguments lead the band to the brink of dissolution, creating an unpre-

Gran Turino

director

Clint Eastwood

starring

Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Christopher Carley

running time

116 minutes

dictable mix of tragic and hilarious moments that lift the documentary from a standard tour travelogue to something truly special.

Central to the appeal of the film is the brotherly relationship of Kudlow and Reiner, whose compelling personalities are immediately engaging. Lips Kudlow is the ideal frontman, a bundle of energy and optimism who communicates through his excited rants and pained expressions the sacrifices they have made to follow their shared dream. Reiner, on the other hand, is thoughtful, practical, and yet passionate; a perfect foil to Lips’ histrionics and top-notch drummer material.

Anvil! expertly balances the inherent humour of their predicament with a genuine fondness for the two men, no doubt due to the director’s experience as a roadie for the band during their brief heyday. The film respects the dedication both the band members and their families have shown in spite of countless false starts and setbacks. But just when it seems that life has got the best of them, a magical moment occurs that is truly heart-warming and uplifting: a rare chance to see a real life story of someone’s dream (sort of) coming true.

They say any band that takes themselves too seriously should watch This Is Spinal Tap, and true as this may be, for any would-be musician who doesn’t take his or her dream seriously enough, Anvil!

The Story of Anvil is not to be missed.

Michael Armstrong

Gran Torino is the story of Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood), a veteran from the Korean War and a retired Ford autoworker. The film tells of an embittered, impenetrable widower and his battle with the world; Walt Kowalski is the last man left of his kind, defending his property in a neighbourhood of immigrant Asian Americans.

The film opens with Walt at his wife’s funeral, barely able to tolerate the annoyances of those close to him: his sorely disappointing kids and his thoughtless, selfish grandkids. They receive no more than grunts and snarls; even the young freckled-faced parish priest (Christopher Carley) is shown the door. Walt desires to be alone. He is a difficult man isolated in a time that is not his. Other than his dog Daisy, all that he cherishes is a relic of better times: a 1972 Ford Gran Torino.

Walt’s implacable fortress of isolation is breached by his new immigrant neighbours. When Thao Vang Lor (Bee Vang), the young teenager from next door is dared by a local gang to trespass on Walt’s property and steal his beloved car, Walt is unknowingly dragged out of his misanthropic exile, while poor Thao nearly gets his head blown off for the stunt. The archetypal Eastwood mix of blue-collar values and bare knuckle methods, Walt emerges from seclusion and becomes reluctantly involved with Thao’s Hmong family, remarking: “I’ve more in common with these gooks then I do with my own spoiled, rotten fam-

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ily.” Thao brings great disrespect to the family by attempting to steal the car and is forced to work for Walt to repay the debt. An inevitable bond of mutual respect ensues and with the further help of Thao’s smart and able sister Sue (Ahney Her), Walt’s wall of bitterness crumbles.

Walt is now embroiled in Thao’s battle to avoid his own pitiful destiny, where among Hmong people “ the girls go to college and the boys go the jail”. All the while Eastwood is tempted by the local punks to don the Dirty Harry gun and holster and go out in a blaze of glory.

Walt Kowalski in many ways epitomises Eastwood’s hard-nosed, gruff persona, and the film is haunted by the ghosts of his previous roles. Lines like “Get off my lawn” and “Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while that you shouldn’t have messed with? That’s me.” serve as testimony to the fact that at the grand old age of 78, Eastwood can still pull it off. However it must be said that the film does much more than rehash stereotypes; it is a touching story of a man’s realization that life is not a war and that he is a different man from the one who fought in Korea: he’s simply too old to lose friends anymore. The fact that Walt manages to purge his demons without resorting to pseudo-redemption or easy violence is an affirmation of both Eastwood’s creative development, in both performance and direction, and the overall quality of the film. Andrew Grant

24 February – 9 March, 2009

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Film reviews

François Bégaudeau, Franck Keita, Nassim Amrabt

running time

128 minutes

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The Class, directed by Laurent Cantet and winner of the Palme D’Or at Cannes in 2008, is a wonderful film about a Parisian teacher and his class of thirteen year-olds from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.

The film is based on the memoirs of François Bégaudeau, an actual highschool teacher, who assumes the lead role in the film, playing a fictionalized version of himself. Similarly, many of the students are actual students who use their real names. These techniques, coupled with the documentary-style direction of Cantet combine to give the film a realism and relevance that separates it from the myriad of inspirational-teacher/deprived-student films that Hollywood has produced over the years. The Class outclasses such films in its honest portrayal of teenagers. It does hint at certain traits in characters, but allows them to be more than the usual stereotypes.

The Class manages to firmly capture what it is actually like to be in a class on a day to day basis. The teacher, François Marin (Bégaudeau), struggles to get through the day’s work, yet, much like Socrates, never allows the students away with off-the-cuff remarks about race or sexuality without demanding a rationalization that makes the kids think. As a white teacher in a class that is predominantly filled with French-born students of African or Caribbean descent, François is keenly aware that more is going on in his schoolroom than just grammar

and verb tense exercises.

A small triumph for both Mr. Marin and his students comes in the form of ‘personal portraits’ that each student creates. This exercise allows Mr. Marin to get know these kids, yet more importantly, allows them to assert their individuality. On the last day of school each student is given a booklet containing each portrait – a tangible achievement that embodies a mutual respect. Bégaudeau’s plays himself not as some perfect plaster saint or paragon of virtue; he makes as many missteps as he does bold forward moves. This film manages to be inspirational without the typical hityou-over-the-head speech that magically reaches the students. Instead, we are shown real life teaching by trial and error.

What is most enchanting about this film is its ability to subtly grasp and hold your attention without you realizing you ever gave it away. For the majority of the film, there is no significant plot, event or action that spikes your interest, only an ever-flowing, well-paced dialogue between teachers and students that slowly entwines you in its grip. The film peaks near the end, when a rebellious Malian student, Souleymane (Franck Keita), is threatened with expulsion even though this almost certainly means he will be deported back to Africa. The students take his side against François, who is torn. Cantet, as he has throughout, takes no clear side, and this is the beauty of The Class. Robert Grant

inity News Tr

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Friday the 13th

director

Marcus Nispel

starring

Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti

running time

97 minutes

Friday the 13th, the latest “re-imagining” of a classic slasher franchise, is loosely based on the first three instalments of the series, opening with a reminder of how it all began at Camp Crystal Lake. Back in 1980, Mrs Voorhees was decapitated by the sole survivor of her murderous revenge on a group of camp counsellors. She sought retribution for the death of her son Jason, who drowned almost 20 years previously while the counsellors at the time were, ahem, otherwise engaged. Fast-forward almost another 30 years and ten (yes, ten) sequels of varying quality later, and a typical bunch of vacuous morons arrive at the abandoned camp, only to be welcomed by the ever-inexplicably alive Jason and his trusty machete. And this is all before the opening credits.

We then meet yet another group of all-American college brats, on their way to Daddy’s lakeside cabin for a weekend of sex, beer and bongs. Along the way they encounter Jared Padalecki roaming the area on a motorcycle and looking typically broody, in search of his sister (who was among the pre-title bunch).

The kind-hearted girl in the group (i.e. the one who’s not going to get naked) falls for his heartbroken puppy-dog eyes and the pair go rummaging around the forest in the falling darkness while her friends get down to some good old-fashioned debauchery.

Do I really need to describe this “plot” any further? It’s laughable to consider these sitting ducks as characters, as its

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impossible to care whether they live or die. There is zero suspense in wondering who will make it to the final scene and the only question is who’s next for the chop. This would be almost forgivable if there was any tongue-in-cheek elements behind the depravity, but its just the same tired old clichés with no effort to inject any humour whatsoever, unless you count the lonely hillbilly victim whose sole purpose is to raise the body count and contrive a situation for Jason to pick up the iconic hockey mask.

Obviously there was never any purpose behind this project other than to squeeze a few more cents out of one of the most lucrative horror franchises ever. But surely someone could have made a little effort to give us a scare, or at least a giggle?

It goes without saying that the script is painful and the acting is average at best, but even the gore isn’t particularly shocking or inventive. The makers seem unaware that unlike audiences of the 1980s, today’s viewers have been desensitised by torture porn of the Saw and Hostel variety, and gratuitous stabbing just doesn’t have the same shock value any more.

Worst of all, in a move that disappoints at least half of the potential audience, Jared Padalecki does not at any point remove his shirt. However, three ample-chested young females are more than happy to expose themselves for our enjoyment. Go figure, ladies. Áine Boyle

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Film reviews

running time

104 minutes

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Like Meryl Streep’s character in Doubt, we only witness small, almost insignificant details surrounding a possibly inappropriate relationship between Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and a young student of his. Set in the 1960s, the student, as the only African American pupil, is having difficulties adapting to life in a strict Catholic school. Father Flynn acts both as a mentor and friend to him, but this relationship is brought into question after Sister James (Amy Adams) witnesses Flynn putting the boy’s undershirt into his locker. She later tells her superior, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) what she has seen, which leads to the head nun attempting to prove Flynn’s guilt.

The real achievement of Doubt lies in the dubious nature of the crime, which becomes the film’s intriguing cipher.

There are no scenes of molestation, nor would one suspect any impropriety from the interactions between Flynn and the student. The crime itself is never even verbally articulated; instead, the characters discuss the issue with vague, although impassioned, statements of accusation and innocence.

At the beginning of the film, Aloysius witnesses a student flinch as Flynn touches his shirt. This is enough to convince her of Flynn’s crime and fuels her aggression against him for the entire film. By the end, there is no climatic revelation of innocence or guilt.

Instead, Flynn abruptly resigns his post and transfers to another church, while

The Young Victoria

director

Jean-Marc Vallée

starring

Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend, Paul Bettany

running time

100 minutes

Aloysius seems content that this decision proves his guilt. This ambiguity and indirection serves to make the film appear deep, and definitely engages the audience by puzzling them.

The film, however, suffers from perhaps one too many “telling” oblique angles and references to bad weather, which, rather amateurishly, mirrors the narrative’s tension and drama. The ending feels tacked on, too, with Streep’s character crying literal tears and confiding in Sister James that she “has so much doubt.” Perhaps an attempt to humanize Sister Aloysius, the scene feels unnecessary and odd, leaving the viewer bewildered as the credits begin to roll.

The ending also undermines the most enjoyable element of the film: watching Streep play a venomous and self-righteous character, placed in direct conflict with Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s warm and affable Father Flynn.

Her strict and merciless character is the type one would typically identify with villainy, yet Doubt inverts this concept and the result is that we sympathise and align ourselves with Flynn while viewing Streep as the enemy.

Doubt is only the second film of John Patrick Shanley, who also wrote the screenplay and the original play, which won the Pulitzer Prize. A generally entertaining if somewhat heavy-handed film, the great cast allows Doubt to remain entertaining and engaging in spite of its more melodramatic moments.

Christopher Kelly

I have always been partial to a good period drama. There’s something indulgent about nestling in on a Sunday afternoon and watching the likes of Pride and Prejudice or Vanity Fair. It’s the extravagance of the costumes, the graceful dances and the romance of a by-gone era which we find so seductive. However, I think that the dramas that are most cherished go far beyond aesthetic frivolity. What is also alluring is the wit and intelligence which shines through the dialogue. The heroes and heroines are usually very witty, making them as admirable for their brain as well as their beauty. Nonetheless, beauty and romance still helps.

I was therefore surprised at the choice of Queen Victoria as an unlikely muse for such a drama. When I think of Queen Victoria, I think of the portrait of her looking big bird and beaky; a round and sturdy matriarch at the helm of the British Empire. It is exactly this image which the director, Jean-Marc Vallée so assiduously tries to deconstruct. Hence the title: The Young Victoria.

The film starts the year pre-ceding Victoria’s coronation. Played by Emily blunt, the future Queen is only seventeen but is the heiress presumptive to her Uncle, William IV (Jim Broadbent).

Should he die before her birthday, her mother, the Duchess of Kent and Strathearn (Miranda Richardson) would assume the role of Regent, and all the authority and power that role implies. The Duchess, under the influence of Sir John Conroy (Mark Strong), guards Victoria

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assiduously. Until her coronation she is virtually under house arrest; never allowed in public and rarely allowed to socialise. The few occasions she does, it is only with company of their choosing.

However, once safely on the throne and free from Conroy’s shackles, Victoria falls prey to the charming but equally manipulative Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany) who successfully haunts each decision she makes. Meanwhile Prince Albert (Rupert Friend) attempts to woo her and it is excitement of the delicacy of Albert and Victoria’s courtship, twinned with the interplay of power and politics which drives the film.

Scripted by Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park), this is a witty and heart warming film. Victoria’s youth is an arguably untold story and Fellowes and Vallée manage to capture the strength and energy of the young Queen. Bettany is suitably unctuous as Melbourne and Strong appropriately threatening in his latent ambition to become Regent.

The sets are faultless, as are the costumes, which are just modest enough to be appropriate for Victoria, but beautiful enough to be interesting. Emily Blunt, however, definitely steals the show. She manages to capture the complexity of the young Princess, her sense of responsibility and kindness with a twinkle of rebelliousness shining through. Vallée said of Victoria, “it was her humanity that attracted me the most”, and this is perfectly captured within the film.

Gabrielle Hales

24 February – 9 March, 2009

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Film reviews

Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning, Djimon Hounsou

running time

111 minutes

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24 February – 9 March, 2009

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I’m not the biggest fan of sci-fi flicks. For me, there is little point in sitting quietly in the dark theatre for two hours listening to some insane, implausible and catastrophically written mumbo jumbo about quantum death rays and interstellar time warps.

Naturally, however, there are some exceptions. The Matrix, for instance, is a film I could watch repeatedly for the simple reason that it defies the pitfalls that normally plague films like it and delivers an original concept, enough superhuman orientated violence to sate even the most murderous of actionjunkies and a well-written script. Entertaining is the word I’m looking for. No matter how ludicrous and implausible a sci-fi film may be, as long as it entertains with an effect-laden plot, gratuitous explosions and elaborate fight scenes, I’ll be sound as a pound. Push does not and if anything it’s guilty of being contrived, borrowing heavily from TV shows like Heroes and films such as X-Men. The film’s opening exposition tells the story of the shady government organization known as Division, which seeks to turn psychically gifted young people into an army of super-warriors, a project that was pioneered by Nazi scientists. These psychics range in their abilities from ‘movers’, who can move objects telekinetically, to ‘pushers’, who implant thoughts in people’s minds, to ‘watchers’, who can see into the future. Nick Gant (Chris Evans) is a second-generation ‘mover’ who is des-

perately evading capture by Division in the bustling metropolis of Hong Kong when he is tracked down by a grungy, teenage ‘watcher’ called Cassie (Dakota Fanning). She seeks his help in finding Kira (Camille Belle), a pusher who she believes may hold the key to defeating Division. Soon, however, the pair are being hunted by the nefarious agent Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou), a ‘pusher’ in the employ of Division, who will stop at nothing to prevent them from reaching their goal.

Naturally, you would expect this film to be full of psychic ass kicking and exciting chase scenes. Well, you’d be wrong.

Instead, Push commits the cardinal sin of its genre and sacrifices thrills for tedious, cumbersome, dialogue-heavy scenes and a meandering and convoluted plot. Even Dakota Fanning engaging in a healthy spot of underage drinking fails to raise a smile. Perhaps its because I’d be hitting the bottle hard too if I was cast in movies like this. Meanwhile the impressive special effects seem redundant amidst the stifling lack of excitement. When the action scenes finally do arrive, they fail to exhilarate and the frenetic, shaky camerawork is confusing rather than thrilling. As Push lurches slowly towards its climax at just under two hours, it jerks between a series of incomprehensible plot twists, which are as frustrating as they are clichéd. “So, Fancy going to see Push? Nah, to be honest I’m not too pushed.” Feel free to use that one. Alan Henry

inity News Tr

title

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

director

Woody Allen

starring

Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz

running time

96 minutes

In the depths of winter, sometimes it’s a little hard to remember what summertime feels like. Afternoons at the Pav, dead-end temp jobs and holidays in the sun can feel a long way away on a wet and windy Monday morning in February. For anyone in need of a reminder, thankfully Woody Allen is back on form with his latest effort, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, a film about everything a great summer can be.

The film follows two best friends on a two-month vacation in Barcelona, a welcome break from their lives back in New York. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is about to marry her fiancé Doug (Chris Messina), a yuppie businessman who at first appears to be the perfect match for the levelheaded yet sensitive young woman. Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) is the complete opposite to her friend, a passionate and impulsive person searching for love and artistic inspiration during her time in Spain. After taking in the architecture of Gaudí and some Spanish guitar performances, their holiday takes a bizarre turn after a chance encounter with Juan Antonio Gonzalo (Javier Bardem) who whisks them both off for a romantic weekend in Oviedo. Soon both women become entangled in Juan Antonio’s love life, and the arrival of his borderline psychotic ex-wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz) causes all concerned to reassess what they truly want from life.

What could have been a distinctly average rom-com is saved by a witty script and an excellent ensemble cast. Javier

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Bardem is hilarious as Juan Antonio, a man torn between his insatiable libido and the puppy dog devotion he bestows upon his ex-wife. Often just his sleepyeyed expressions are enough to raise a laugh, while Penelope Cruz excels as the dangerously unstable object of his affections. In fact before his entrance the two other central characters are not exactly compelling; it is unclear whether their over-intellectualised conversations are a sideways jab at the pretensions of Manhattan’s upper-middle class, or a reflection of Woody Allen’s revered place in the very same privileged elite. The irritating narration by Christopher Evan Welch unfortunately seems to suggest the latter option.

That the film recovers from such an underwhelming start is an impressive feat, as it goes on to explore themes of creativity and sexual desire with an honesty and frisson typical of the best of Allen’s work. Both Vicky and Cristina eventually develop into well-rounded characters worth caring about, while throughout the film the rich cinematography creates a vibrant world of primary colours and sun-drenched locales. Furthermore, the film provides no easy resolutions to matters of the heart, displaying an emotional maturity reminiscent of Truffaut’s classic Jules et Jim, while avoiding any po-faced soul-searching.

All in all, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a refreshing and life-affirming film; the perfect antidote to a dreary day in Dublin.

Michael Armstrong

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