tn2 Issue 6, 2014-15

it takes two

CONTENTS 04 06 07 24 26 32 34

Jumble Uppers & Downers Homegrown Photo Essay Reviews Calendar Sex

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EDITORIAL TEAM Meadhbh McGrath Matthew Mulligan Lola Boorman Alice Wilson Stephen Moloney Hannah Harte Olen Bajarias Megan Burns Rebecca Alter Ross McDonnell Daniel Scott Kathleen Girvan Kerry Brennan Eoin Moore Nicholas Kenny Elizabeth Mohen Michael Kemp Tara Joshi Eoin Lynskey Heather Keane Matthew Malone Ciara Forristal Emma Boylan Louise Curtin Aisling Kelly Sophie Murphy Jack O’Dea

14 16 18 20 22

OFF THE CUFF Irish designer Rory Parnell-Mooney discusses his MAN debut, emigration and creating fashions that last with tn2 Editor Meadhbh McGrath.

SISTER SISTER Our cover stars, French-Cuban twins Ibeyi, chat to Music Editor Tara Joshi about their upcoming debut album.

BLOOD SWEAT AND BEERS Unfairly dismissed as a pretentious trend, craft brewing is a vibrant movement which has been steadily developing since the 1990s.

HOLD ON TO YOUR WIGS! Deputy Theatre Editor examines Dublin’s drag scene post-Pantigate and the effect of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

EYES WIDE SHUT My tiny hand reaches forward to take a sip of coke from a straw. I can feel both my real hands still resting on my real thighs, and I know that I’m still really sitting at that same real table in my real body.

BAD BLOOD Deputy Art Editor Hannah Harte speaks to the artists and activists challenging the notion that periods should be kept in their place.

MODERN FAMILY

Acclaimed filmmaker Ira Sachs considers the impact of his new film Love is Strange, multigenerational storytelling and the importance of foregrounding gay love stories.

EAT THE RUDE Editor Meadhbh McGrath chews the fat with Janice Poon, food stylist on NBC’s Hannibal.

PRINTED BY Grehan Printers COVER PHOTO BY Flavien Prioreau 03

COFFEE X CAKE

IN THE GAME: RIOT GIRLS

WORDS BY DAN SCOTT

FRONT SQUARE FASHION Loïc Monks, SS Film Studies, gives off vibes of understated sophistication with this outfit: relaxed yet pulled together. His Urban Outfitters jeans and Converse shoes are a student staple, but his chunky two-tone roll-neck jumper from Zara, and the clean lines of his COS coat add a touch of refinement to the ensemble. A casually slung bag over the shoulder provides a finishing air of nonchalance (key to any good outfit).

WORDS BY MEGAN BURNS PHOTO BY GRACE NUTTALL

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WORDS BY NICHOLAS KENNY

VIDEODROME

Just past Holles St is the Punnet, offering the real deal in the latest coffee craze, à la bulletproof. Don’t let the mint green façade and hemp seeds fool you — the barista will whip you up caffeinated brain cocaine for €3.50. Whizzed into your usual double americano is a squeeze of MCT (medium chain triglyceride) oil which is believed to increase energy levels as well as burn fat and a knob of Kerrygold butter, which facilitates a slow and controlled caffeine release over a prolonged period.

The taste is akin to a slightly heavier latte, but it didn’t take away from the delicate chocolate and bergamot notes of the organic Brazilian arabica used from the award-winning McCabe’s Roastery. After half an hour, I felt noticeably wired with requests from peers to slow down my speech a tad. Four hours later, I now write this in the paranoia phase. Paired with the naughty but nice cocoa and pecan protein balls on offer, the Punnet is a blessing during the mid-semester-finals-approaching slump.

Vice does it

Garena is an internet provider across Asia, which recently generated a fierce backlash stemming from universal outrage over their policy on LGBT gamers. The company both distributes and hosts gaming events for League of Legends, the hugely popular multiplayer game, in the Philippines. For their upcoming “allfeminine” Iron Solari League tournament, they claimed to have aimed to “have an inclusive environment where no one feels left out,” and to that end released a ruling update clarifying their position on LGBT women participating in the tournament. This ruling limited teams to a maximum of one homosexual or transgender member per game, claiming that, “there are arguments and concerns from other participants who dispute that Lesbian, Gay, Transgendered Women members may probably have some unfair advantage.”Garena’s decision on Iron Solari met with swift condemnation through news and social media, and Riot Games, the makers of League of Legends, quickly issued a statement distancing its game from Garena’s policy.

In response to the outrage, Garena apologised in a statement on February 4. It said it arrived at the decision to lift the restrictions after talking with its partners and “re-examining our approach” to the women-only tournament.

While Life On Mars? was actually David Bowie’s fourth music video, it was the first to offer such a compelling showcase of what a complete and utter freak he is. Produced and directed by Mick Rock, it’s impressive how the video can command your attention when it’s literally just Bowie standing in a whitewashed room, caked in makeup and wearing an arrestingly blue suit. The camera makes sure to capture every nuance of Bowie’s peculiar stage presence: the distinctive mismatched eyes, the half-dance-half-skip movements, the saucy finger-pointing (reminiscent of that 1972 Top of the Pops performance of Starman). He casually speculates about life on the red planet while looking like a high-powered extra-terrestrial businessman. The song itself is the real star; imagine Sinatra’s My Way filtered through a baffling surrealist prism. Sweeping, triumphant strings, theatrical piano (courtesy of Rick Wakeman) and deceptively impenetrable lyrics all blending into pure musical ambrosia. So unique, so weird, so Bowie.

WORDS BY EOIN LYNSKEY

NOTES ON A SCANDAL Audiences and critics alike have been deeply affected

by Brokeback Mountain’s raw portrayal of two married cowboys (played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger) who fall in love in the 1960s American West but cannot express themselves, and as a result, deny their lives honesty and passion. A frank depiction of homosexuality and society’s intolerance coinciding with contemporary debates, Brokeback has been banned, lobbied against

by Christian groups, and refused distribution in certain theatres in the US and abroad. Its loss of Best Picture to Crash in 2006 is considered one of the greatest injustices in awards history. Despite this controversy, Brokeback Mountain has come to be known as a modern classic of gay cinema. Recently, Annie Proulx, writer of the short story that inspired the film has detracted her support, saying she “[wishes she had] never written the story” because supporters “can’t understand that the story isn’t about Jack and Ennis [but] about homophobia [and its place in society]”. Since texts should be left for the individual to experience, Proulx’s misunderstanding of the ardent responses does not — nor should it — diminish its impact on audiences since Brokeback was one of the early films to give a voice to a difficult yet necessary discussion in a society that is still unequal, ten years on.

WORDS BY VANESSA CHEN

LITERARY MILESTONES On 25 February, 1956, a rather drunk Sylvia Plath made her way to the launch of Cambridge literary journal St Botolph’s Review, intending to mingle with the literary set before eying a “big, dark, hunky boy” across the room. It was Ted Hughes, and Plath rushed over, attracted to both his looks and poetry. They talked about each of their writing before going into another room, closing the door behind them. Hughes then explained to Plath that he had other “obligations” — i.e. his date in the next room — before kissing her “smash bang on the mouth”. The kiss was supposedly so forceful that Plath’s hairband snapped and her earrings unclipped. As Hughes moved down to kiss her neck, Plath bit in to his cheek so hard that blood began to pour out all over his face. In less than four months they’d be married. While probably being the most important meeting of 20th-century literature, this event finely encapsulates both the intensity and toxicity of their relationship, as well as the blurred line between affection and violence that defines Plath’s work.

WORDS BY MICHAEL KEMP

PUBLIC SPACE

Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, designed by Dublin based firm RKD and completed in 2009, is a monolith in the truest sense of the word, its colossal footprint and elevation dominating the humble brick terraces around Pearse Street.

Although its site measures only 4400 square metres, the building provides an impressive 35000 square metres of space spread across 11 storeys, including 3 subterranean levels.

for use. These include the copper roof which caps the building in a shock of green, as well as granite cladding on all façades creating a checkerboard effect which gives the hulking mass some dynamism. Large vertical bands of glazing bisect the principal elevation aerating the bulk. A centre of excellence for health and disease research, TBSI also represents an increasingly cited Dublin landmark for the 21st century.

In keeping with the best traditions of Trinity, the highest quality materials were specified

WORDS BY STEPHEN MOLONEY PHOTO BY MATTHEW MULLIGAN

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That Which Does Not Kill: Completed by Swedish journalist and author David Lagercratz after Stieg Larsson’s death, the follow-up to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is scheduled for release in August.

Publishers anticipate a global sensation on par with The Da Vinci Code.

Some guy named Paul: Before swimming with sharks for Harper’s Bazaar and stealing the Super Bowl at her pre-show performance with Kanye, Rihanna graciously released a new single. FourFiveSeconds is also McCartney’s biggest hit in America in 28 years.

Empire: Lee Daniels’ new family saga set in the hiphop music industry is never boring. Daniels calls it the “black Dynasty”, and while it does offer a wealth of soapy drama and superb Naomi Campbell guest spots, it also deals with social issues and attacks racism, sexism and homophobia with a frankness seldom seen on network television.

Por Vida: We’re falling hard for dreamy Colombian “soul wop” singer Kali Uchis, who just released her EP last week, featuring production from Tyler, the Creator, BADBADNOTGOOD, and Kaytranada.

V-Steam: Please don’t steam your vagina, no matter what Gwyneth tells you.

This Sick Beat™: Back off, Swifties and metalheads.

This totally chill phrase now legally belongs to T Swift.

Modesty: It’s all about dick cleavage for 2015 (cf.

Rick Owens AW15). Owens explained that his penisflashing tunics were inspired by classical nude statues, and said of his decision that “nudity is the most simple and primal gesture.”

The Ugg Boot Revival: According to British Vogue, Uggs are back. They recommend pairing them “with a vintage dress and chunky knit”. Nope.

Literally Can’t Even: I literally couldn’t even with this stunningly bad new web series from Snapchat, which premiered on the app’s new “Snap Channel” last week. Rich white girls! Bros! EDM! It was the worst 4 mins of my day.

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Bruce’s Bullies: We’re horrified by the appalling reporting on Jenner’s unconfirmed gender transition.

From the misuse of correct gender pronouns to InTouch’s outrageously photoshopped cover to the widespread treatment of transitioning as public spectacle and a dirty secret to be ashamed of, it’s clear our popular media has no idea how to deal with a person in transition.

WORDS BY MEADHBH MCGRATH

It is slightly disconcerting for one to be informed that they are conversing with a dead man. “He’s dead. Died four days,” so claims the artist formerly known as Tafari Pesto, one half of rising Dublin hip hop duo Dah Jevu. He goes on to explain that he is retiring this identity, and has been reborn as I&I Is The Far Eye, a name he draws from his interest in Rastafarianism. The other half of the act, Bobby Basil, is a bit less dramatic in his introduction. In explaining his choice of name, he says, “There’s not really much meaning behind it, it’s just fun to say.”

Dah Jevu are generally reluctant to tell too much about their lives outside music, my questions often being greeted with oblique answers or attempts to waive off questions.

Bobby talks of how he was musically inclined from a young age, but he began to find himself on his current path in his teenage years: “When I was 16 I started writing poetry, but I started [rapping] in 2011.” For I&I, it seems that he got into rap as a form of catharsis. “I don’t mean to sound like a sob story or anything, but it was when my dad passed away,” he says. It’s quite clear that the pair regard themselves as poets just as much as rappers, and want to be regarded with some amount of integrity. Bobby notes, “When people hear that you’re a rapper they kind of turn their head a little bit.” Recently the duo have been working with a live band, something they hope will cause people to

HOM EGR OWN give them more credibility. “When people see the live instruments it’s more believable to people who don’t really listen to hip hop, and they can relate to it more,” says Bobby.

Hawks of Nepthys is thus far the duo’s only single. It’s a dank and murky track, with an equally disturbing video. Dah Jevu have been slow to release further material since the piece came out last June, but this has very much been a conscious decision on the part of the pair. Bobby explains that “I don’t feel an eagerness to get my stuff out as much as a lot of artists probably do. As long as you’re proving yourself to yourself it doesn’t matter what people see, or what people hear.

If it’s going to go out, it’s going to go out.”

That said, the duo are currently working on new material. They currently have two videos in the works, and hint at a number of festival appearances this summer. They are also hugely in demand at the moment to play support slots for visiting rap artists in Dublin, having already opened for the likes of Smoke DZA, Mobb Deep and Dead Prez. Dublin itself has a wealth of hip hop artists coming through at the moment, with the pair making specific reference to their

friend Luka Palm as an example, but Bobby laments that despite this fact there hasn’t really been any crystallisation of a strong hip hop scene: “There are definitely some really good individual artists, but you have to really go off by yourself if you want to do something. There’s no point in just hanging around, that’s like suicide.”

Throughout the conversation it becomes increasingly apparent how well Bobby and I&I complement each other in terms of their personalities. They are like yin and yang, with Bobby being the more considered and thoughtful of the pair, and I&I being more erratic and prone to taking off at tangents.

When discussing influences, the latter draws particular attention to his admiration for Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of China, explaining, “He went after the elixir of life. He literally wanted to be immortal.

He didn’t want to die.” It’s this aspect of his character that I&I particularly admires, and something that he sees Dah Jevu as being able to achieve. “I’ll live on through my music,” he asserts. If their output in 2015 is as good as Hawks of Nepthys, that might just be something we see them achieving.

Dah Jevu open for Dels in Whelan’s on March 13.

Tickets are €12 + booking fee and are available from Hidden Agenda.

WORDS BY FINNAN TOBIN PHOTO BY BENEDICT SHEGOG

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First Communion.

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tn2 Editor Meadhbh McGrath speaks to Rory Parnell-Mooney about pockets, exile and going out on his own following his precocious debut at London Collections: Men.

hen it comes to finding the most innovative new names in menswear, one need look no further than the lineup for MAN. The joint initiative between Fashion East and Topman seeks to nurture emerging young designers, and their London Collections: Men presentations never disappoint. In the past, MAN has offered a platform for exciting and diverse talents including Craig Green, Christopher Shannon, Nasir Mazhar, Astrid Andersen and Irish designers JW Anderson and Alan Taylor. The AW15 showcase included re-imagined pinstripes from Nicomede Talavera and workwear-inspired sandwich boards and tool aprons from Liam Hodges.

Fresh from his Central Saint Martins MA, Galway-born newcomer Rory ParnellMooney completed the trio.

Parnell-Mooney’s graduate collection explored traditional ecclesiastical shapes via images of European rioters, which were clearly a point of reference in his MAN show. “The AW15 collection was really an

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extension of what I did on the Masters at Saint Martins,” he tells tn2. “I kept finding images that I loved after I had finished the MA collection and wanted to continue to use them.” Preparation for MAN was frantic: “It’s all been a bit of a whirlwind really — I found out about the show and receiving Fashion East’s backing quite near the show so it was really just work work work. I think the really interesting things that I worked out this season are to do with construction, like how to conceal pockets by bonding them into the outside of coats and just having the opening as a simple slit; or the play with textile — the linen pieces that have these individual threads hand plucked out.” He was also charged with a lot more responsibilities for MAN, in comparison with a university setting. “Now I am the one applying the pressure. There is no tutor telling me deadlines, I have to decide all of that myself [...] We did the casting and the music, and decided on hair and makeup, which before was always decided by the course [coordinators].”

“It’s funny, I left Ireland being like ‘I hate it there’, and then a couple of years later, I’m basing whole collections on images of Ireland.”

In terms of who Parnell-Mooney sees wearing this collection, he explains, “I design for myself — a more extreme version of me, but I do love every piece in the collection and I wear a lot of it too.” There’s something classic and almost out-of-time about his designs, that seems specifically not trenddriven. “I love the idea of someone buying a coat from the collection and wearing it in ten years with a pair of trousers from that collection,” he enthuses. “I think I have tried to make a conscious effort to put style and quality above trend.” The collection focuses on very clean, minimal, unfussy pieces, privileging luxurious fabrics over excessive detailing. “I think it’s more so a reflection of me as a person. I hate ‘stuff ’, I hate fussy little things, so it’s just me making clothes that reflect that.”

labels before branching out into their own, but Parnell-Mooney decided to launch a label directly after graduating from his MA in Central Saint Martins. “I did some interviews for houses and basically decided it wasn’t for me,” he recalls. “Nothing really seemed like a perfect fit. I wanted to have total control of the entire thing — not just designing shirts or something. I want to be a part of every aspect of a collection and a show.”

Many Irish fashion designers have found success in London, most notably JW Anderson and Simone Rocha, which raises the question about whether designers need to go abroad in order to succeed. When asked about whether he moved to London out of a desire to leave Ireland or because he felt it necessary for his career, Parnell-Mooney reflects, “I think it was a combination of the two things. I knew when I left Ireland that I wanted to study fashion. I could have gone and studied it in NCAD, but when you’re in London, the environment is very different and it’s more conducive to studying fashion — you can go two seconds down the road and find the fabric shop, or go an hour down the road and there’s the V&A. There’s such a wealth of information to study here.”

However, it took leaving Ireland to want to look back for his first MAN collection: “It’s funny, I left Ireland being like ‘I hate it there’, and then a couple of years later, I’m basing whole collections on images of Ireland — loads of the inspiration for the last collection AW15 was [from] photographs taken in Ireland.”

The response to the show has been “really positive, [there has been] lots of interest from shops which is great and also lots of super nice reviews which is always nice”.

Next season, Parnell-Mooney plans to reapply to Fashion East: “They have been so good to me and so helpful, it would be a total pleasure to work with them next season [...]

I think there’s an amazing energy at London Fashion Week and London Collections: Men, and everyone feeds off each other’s energy.” If his MAN collection is anything to go by, Parnell-Mooney has ushered in a new chapter in Irish fashion, and it’s one we’re looking forward to seeing.

WORDS BY MEADHBH MCGRATH PHOTOS BY VIRGINIA ARCARO

Most designers cut their teeth working for

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MIRROR

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Music Editor Tara Joshi speaks to Ibeyi, the twin act set to take the industry by storm with their haunting, invigorating and internationally influenced debut album.

beyi — pronounced “ee-beyee” — (something of course only discovered via embarrassing initial mispronunciation), is derived from ibeji, the Yoruba word for a divinity of twins believed to have special, spiritual powers. This is fitting given that French-Cuban 20 year olds Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Díaz are indeed twins, with a musical output that seems to reference the soulful Nigerian praise songs of their ancestry as much as it does contemporary, haunting electronic and hip hop. Signed to the prolific XL Records, their eponymous debut — out this month — serves as a reminder as to why, in an age of internet-induced, maddeningly short attention spans and Spotify playlists, the album format has retained its relevance.

Captivating, cohesive, familiar yet entirely fresh, there is a strikingly accomplished sense of warmth and shiver-inducing elegy that listening to Ibeyi evokes.

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Speaking to the sweetly enthusiastic pair via Skype — though born in Cuba, they live predominantly in their hometown of Paris — that old myth of twin synchronicity becomes increasingly apparent throughout the interview. There are frequent instances of them completing one anothers’ sentences, brief interludes where they will confirm things with each other in French and the occasional interjection to correct the other — be it on their opinion or their English. Needless to say, it can make keeping up with them slightly tricky.

“I think it’s really helpful,” begins pianist Lisa somewhat hesitantly on the topic of their twin concurrences and how it influences their sound, before percussionist Naomi picks up for her. “I think the interesting thing about our music is that it’s a mix between our two selves.”

“Yeah,” Lisa agrees. “Cause we’re not

‘twins’ like every twin we’re like —” “Different,” Naomi chimes in once more, “We’re very different people, and I think that’s why it’s interesting — it’s because we are mixing ourselves that this album is sounding the way it does.”

It’s fascinating the way in which they play off one another like this, seemingly unintentionally highlighting that, for all their purported differences, there remains an underlying similarity and intuitiveness between them. It is admittedly clear that Naomi is, in many ways, the more outgoing of the two, readily and exuberantly filling in any tentative blanks from her more reserved sister, and happily waxing lyrical a mile a minute about everything from her favourite new artists to how great Whiplash was (“Best movie of the year!”). With that said though, Lisa — more of an old soul in her tastes — is in no way as shy as many

interviews have painted her, and there is a certain palpable excitement that radiates through her more relaxed, slower sentences, particularly when describing Ibeyi’s origins three years ago: “I started composing at 14, and I had no clue [...] that I was going to — that we were going to — make an album! I thought I was going to be a music teacher, and someone asked me if I wanted to do an EP, and Naomi said ‘you are not going to do an EP without me!’”. The pair laugh as Lisa continues, “And I said ‘No I am not!’”

There is a cheery youthfulness to their manner of speech which serves as a reminder of their age, and it makes the

life, family, love and death (sung via their perfectly harmonious, soulful vocals) not to mention the aforementioned amalgamation of musical genres their songs explore.

What really sets their sound apart though is their use of Yoruba rhythms swathed with brushes of contemporary electronics.

Yoruba culture travelled from West Africa to South America with slaves in the 1700s and has always been a big part of the sisters’ lives, given they were initiated into the religion and grew up surrounded by its chants and traditions. And yet, it was never consciously meant to be a part of Ibeyi’s sound: “The album is one hundred percent us,” Naomi says. “We never thought about

Club. “We never thought about him when we were recording, but afterwards we realised [his influence]”, Naomi muses, “I think of course growing up in this family made us how we are. They always wanted us to love music before we were even doing it — I remember we used to listen to a lot of music and dance for hours, and we went to a lot of concerts. We learnt how to enjoy music from them.”

Given their transcendent, almost cathartic, debut, there is no hubris in the pair getting to work on future releases, and their tangible enthusiasm is quite endearing.

“This is the good thing about music — you

“I think the interesting thing about our music is that it’s a mix between our two selves.”

honed sound of their album particularly impressive. The sisters, however, insist that their age is irrelevant: “We all have something to say, we just have to find it”, says Naomi, “Of course we worked a lot, and we still are working a lot, but — young or old — everybody has to work! I do believe that music has no age — you know, Mozart started composing at 7.” This comparison immediately results in laughter from her twin, who admits, “We are mature for some stuff, but also we are just 20 — we can be children. It’s not to do with age, it’s to do with what you feel and what you want to say.”

And it is certainly apparent from listening to their stunning debut that these two have a lot to say, with their incredibly mature, beautiful, often quite hymnal lyrics about

putting Yoruba in our music, it just came naturally when we started composing.

It’s part of us, I mean it’s in our ears — we grew up listening to Yoruba, and we started singing it because our mother took us to the Yoruba choir in Paris, so when we got to the studio we were like ‘oh my god there’s a lot of Yoruba in our music!’ and we realised how important a part of our music it is. And I think that’s because it’s an important part of our lives.”

Yoruba culture was just one factor that Ibeyi’s family life played in their musical stylings, and aside from running compositional ideas past a musical mother and uncle (“it’s a big family affair!”), there is of course the influence of their late father, Anga Díaz, the percussionist perhaps best known for his work with Buena Vista Social

can go further and further and there’s no end,” says Naomi. “So I think our sound is going to change a little bit [over time] but it is always going to be —” “Ibeyi,” Lisa completes. And at the end of the day, that does perfectly sum them up. The pair do seem to embody the hallowed twin synchronicity of their namesakes. In Yoruba culture twins are seen to be powerful; Ibeyi look set to live up to that namesake.

Ibeyi’s self-titled debut album is out February 16 on XL Recordings.

WORDS BY TARA JOSHI PHOTOS BY WUNMI ONIBUDO

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BREWED

awakening.

Deputy Food & Drink Editor Kathleen Girvan looks at Ireland’s craft beer boom, the rise of microbreweries and the brewpub revolution.

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raft beer: the concept carries with it a host of pre-conceived notions, not least the image of a bearded, checked-shirt wearing aficionado decrying the evils of the massmarket, commercial beer corporations. Unfairly dismissed as a pretentious trend, craft brewing in reality is a vibrant, accessible and exciting movement which has been steadily developing in Ireland since the 1990s. While the traditional beer market remains dominated by the big brands, there is a rising taste for craft brews — the varied combinations of hops, malt and yeast produce a vaster range of unique and complex flavours to suit all tastes. Ireland has experienced an explosion in craft brewing in recent times, with an endless list of new and creative microbreweries cropping up across the country, from Galway Hooker to Franciscan Well, Mountain Man to Carlow Brewing Company.

These independent companies have provided the Irish beer market with an impressive array of exotic and refreshing beverages. For the craft virgin the variety associated with this trend can be confusing. At the top of the pile we have the IPA, a hoppy beer with a slightly bitter flare, or a Double IPA if you’re feeling adventurous. Pale and Amber Ales are good options for those who prefer a mellower, smoother taste while craft

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porters and stouts have a robust, more intense flavour. Craft beer on tap is often very good value compared to its commercial counterpart, but some varieties can veer towards the pricier end of the scale (some pubs are known to sell certain craft beers in smaller glasses at an increased cost).

Reuben Gray, the chairman of Beoir (an organisation promoting and raising awareness of the Irish craft brewing industry) comments on factors which significantly encouraged the Irish craft beer boom — “a duty rebate scheme in 2006 for microbreweries allowed the few existing microbreweries to expand and a new wave to open up from 2007 onwards”. Gray refers to the policy implemented by former Taoiseach Brian Cowen, whereby microbreweries in Ireland producing fewer than 20,000 hectolitres of beer per annum would be entitled to a 50% tax rebate. The collapse of the Celtic Tiger had a tangible effect upon the craft brewing industry, but not in a negative way.

Gray believes that the craft brewing prosperity “emerged out of the recession. When every other industry contracted, the craft beer sector boomed. People had less money to spend and many chose quality over quantity”. It seems the Irish consumer began to make more measured and carefully considered spending decisions, a consequence that ensured they chose beers with more character, genuine taste and developed flavours.

One could argue that a new generation of unique brewpubs are slowly beginning to replace the traditional Irish pub, a previously steadfast institution that is suffering a slow demise in

“When every other industry contracted, the craft beer sector boomed. People had less money to spend and many chose quality over quantity.” the wake of the recession — recent figures have disclosed that over a thousand pubs have shut up shop in the last eight years. Several excellent examples of brewpubs in Dublin have become noticeably successful, The Porterhouse, JW Sweetmans and Against the Grain to name but a few. Brewing their own beer, often on the premises itself, they’re an excellent gateway into the craft beer world for the uninitiated.

The big beer corporations are beginning to sweat. The recent attempt by Irish brewing stalwart Guinness to tap into the craft market can be viewed as sign of the rising success of the craft beer industry in general. The two new brews, Dublin Porter and West Indies Porter, were launched by Guinness last October and are apparently “inspired by brewing methods from the 18th and 19th centuries”, with emphasis being made on tradition and history in its marketing materials. The popularity of these new additions has yet to be determined. In a global context, the Irish beer market can be compared with the US beer industry, where Budweiser is gradually being crowded out by the rapid rise in craft beer popularity. The former “king of beers” is quickly losing its royal status in the States, and has become something of an afterthought among the younger generations — some 44% of drinkers in their twenties today have never even tried Budweiser. Their recent Super Bowl advertisement quickly attracted a spate of criticism for its poorly disguised attack on the craft beer industry; deriding those who “fuss over” their beer (depicting a snooty craft beer enthusiast with a handlebar moustache, precociously sniffing his “pumpkin peach ale” like a glass of wine). The overly macho tone

of the ad scoffs at the effeminate craft beer drinker who “sips” rather than drinks like a man — “the people who like our beer like to drink beer brewed the hard way”. Despite these crude tactics to scorn the craft brewing market, the harsh fact remains that the American craft brewing sector is expanding rapidly, and the Budweiser advertisement feels like the desperate response of an organisation feeling rather vulnerable.

The Irish market appears to be developing more rapidly than its US and European counterparts, and is using new innovative production methods.

Gray draws attention to the Metalman brewery in Waterford, which has launched a canning line, making them the first microbrewery here to sell beer in a can. This follows in the footsteps of a growing number of US and UK breweries making that switch. One Irish brewery similarly making waves in the industry is Bru brewery in Trim, Co. Meath. Opened by Daire Harlin and Paddy Hurley in 2013 on the banks of the Boyne River, their relatively new business uses natural local ingredients to brew their expanding range which includes stout, lager, ale and wheatbeer.

To those who appreciate a quality IPA, or those looking to expand their taste horizons, the Alltech Craft Brews and Food Fair will be arriving in Dublin from February 27 to March 1, with a huge array of local and international craft beverages on offer, and even a Craft Beer Cup award, presented to the finest brew. The Irish craft beer revolution shows no sign of slowing down, as Gray optimistically concludes: when it comes to beer, “the Irish have woken up to variety and quality”.

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY KATHLEEN GIRVAN

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UNTUCKED

A year on from Panti’s Noble Call speech, Deputy Theatre Editor Matthew Malone snatches the wig off Dublin’s queen scene as he investigates the politics of drag performance.

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n the last few years it seems that drag and drag queens have resurged in our culture. Whether through the extensive coverage of Panti Bliss and discussions of homophobia, Enda Kenny getting a pint at a gay bar, or binge-watching RuPaul’s Drag Race, the art form occupies a newly popular, and political, place in contemporary Ireland. tn2 spoke to a few drag queens and artists to find out their views on where drag stands in Dublin and its evolution in Ireland.

Drag is by no means a new phenomenon, taking its origins from Shakespeare’s time, and for Ireland drag has had a palpable presence since the 1980s as various queens, such as Mr. Pussy and Panti Bliss, began to lead the way in cementing an industry of drag performers. With the establishment of Alternative Miss Ireland back in 1987, also a non-

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profit for HIV/AIDS organizations, a framework was set up for new queens to find a platform, giving rise to Shirley Temple Bar and Veda Beaux Reaves, “drag royalty”, according to one of our interviewees.

Davina Devine, Irish drag queen and frequent host at The George, describes the drag scene in Dublin. “It’s like an accordion — it gets really big and there are lots of people around, then it shrinks again, and then it seems like every time there’s a new season of RuPaul [Drag Race, the American reality TV competition] more queens appear.” The RuPaul effect, as one could call it, has even led to a competition for young queens at The George, Davina’s Devine Apprentice, which has just finished its third cycle. On the Irish scene specifically, Davina adds, “I feel like Ireland has something different in regards to drag. I think it comes from Irish culture and people — Irish drag is just a bit more craic.” Davina notes that in those

days, “There was much more drag around the country then, in Galway, Limerick and Cork, whereas with the recession and a lot of gays leaving Ireland, it has a knock-on effect. But I feel like wherever there’s a little bit of a scene, there’s always a queen.”

Those scenes each come with their own style, and talking to each artist one learns that drag thrives off its diversity. Davina “[looks] toward popstars and female icons”: her character is rooted in glamour and sexualisation, often demonstrating the art of a flawless lip-synch in her act. It’s acts like Davina’s that show the way in which drag has evolved into a pop-cultural mirror, never missing the chance to re-interpret a starlette. Others, however, such as Stefan Fae (Stephen Quinn, a TCD drama graduate), work in a different style, “I’m interested in gender-bending queer performance, short form spectacle, coming essentially from a theatrical tradition of the late 60s to 70s in Manhattan called the Theatre of the Ridiculous.” This tradition has its roots in theatre craft, both practices informing one another over time. Theatre director Laura Bowler comments on drag’s connection to theatre, “Men dressing as women, we are used to this in theatre, it’s our history. It’s hard not to get inspired if you are a theatre maker. When [drag queens] are good you believe them, you totally believe that woman, that character — Veda’s rendition of Spanish Train has brought grown men to tears before my very eyes. Fact.”

It’s no surprise then that the power of characterisation in performers like Veda has crossed over into the theatre industry, as she last year joined the cast of Aunty Ben by Sian Ní Mhuirí, a play for children. Depicting a contemporary family with an “Aunty” — a drag queen played by Veda — Aunty Ben premiered in 2014 and is enjoying an ongoing tour of Irish primary schools. “I loved the idea. I’m also an uncle and can relate to it so much. The idea of doing drag for children really appeals to me.” The play marked a significant moment in Irish theatre, the first LGBT theatre for children in Ireland, and its effect, still very much ongoing, has been substantial. “I had a terrible time in school, bullied badly, even by my teachers, for being camp or gay,” shares Veda. “So to find myself in a primary school all these years later performing for children and to have these kids come up after and want to try on your shoes and your wig, uninhibited, that was really powerful for me.” Events like these are new for Ireland as for the first time children are exposed to a culture in which social conservatism may finally be on its way out. As Veda says of Aunty Ben, “The overriding message of the show is that nothing really is normal, that everybody is different,” and it is drag as an art form that can be used as a device for these conversations. “One of the things that drag does is give people a license to do [drag] themselves, and savour it, even if that’s dancing around your bathroom with too much lip balm. Society can be so anti-camp and antiwoman, so it’s a positive endeavor for any man – to celebrate that side of himself.”

The politics of drag performance can of course take on a cruder and more aggressive tone. One of the scenes in Stefan Fae’s

Cabaret Mattachine (Dublin Fringe 2014), a song skewering the oppressive regime of Vladimir Putin, involved “a fur coat, Russian hat,and underwear that had Vladimir Putin’s face on the crotch”. Stefan recounts, “I took the underwear off and the big finish of the song was that I had Putin written on my ass, which is basically ‘Put’ on one cheek and ‘In’ on the other. At the end of the day, drag has got to be fun. You can be as political as you want, but if it isn’t fun, you’ve lost your audience.” In the era of Panti YouTube sensations, and the online gay rights movement in Ireland, one wonders, is drag these days inherently political?

Veda considers this, saying, “I don’t think that all queens are political, but sometimes what’s political about a queen can be subtle: in the performance, in the song choices, or the concept.” That said, there is no denying the effect that queens like Panti have had on the contemporary mindset that has brightened in Irish culture.

“At the end of the day, drag has got to be fun. You can be as political as you want, but if it isn’t fun, you’ve lost your audience.”

Another undeniable effect is that of RuPaul’s Drag Race. What are the dynamics of that effect?

“It depends on how you look at it,” Davina says.

“It’s a little saturated. You’re getting the TV producer’s idea of drag. You don’t have to go to a show at The George, because people have Netflix.” As with any art form put into media, artificiality is a risk. It’s worthwhile to note that Drag Race, while a showcase for queens, revolves around a classic reality TV format, one that removes itself from the liveness and subversiveness inherent to drag onstage.

While this proliferation can lead to a cultural flattening for drag, there are still positives to its popularity. Davina adds, “It’s been brought into the mainstream culture [and] it brings a lot of straight people out to the clubs, so it’s a 50/50 kind of thing.” Veda is of a similar mindset, noting, “The more people who watch drag, the better.” There’s certainly no comparison to that of live performance, which thrives off its audience interactions, but according to Stefan, “Any drag queen worth their salt is going to be a little bit mischevious, a little bit punk, and will resist attempts to homogenise their work.”

Whether drag’s entrance into popular culture comes with its own apprehensions or not, through tokenism or falsification, the overarching conclusion is that drag has undergone a comeback in Ireland. In Dublin, places like The George and Pantibar have been at the epicentre of the industry over decades, certainly, but with new mediations of drag, the art form is entering our laptops, TVs, stages, and schools, and the conversations it’s starting are worth celebrating. Just don’t be jealous of their boogie.

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WORDS BY MATTHEW MALONE ILLUSTRATION BY ALICE WILSON PHOTO BY JACK O’DEA

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YO U R ARE

EYES

CAMERAS Games & Tech Editor Eoin Moore looks toward the future of film and gaming through the Oculus Rift, as reality dissolves into virtual fiction.

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I

’m slowly gliding down a tunnel, at the end of which is a dinner table, much like the table I’m currently sitting at — in real life. When I reach the table, I realise one key difference: it’s much higher now.

Or, rather, my head is much lower. My tiny hand reaches forward to take a sip of coke from a straw. I can feel both my real hands still resting on my real thighs, and I know that I’m still really sitting at that same real table in my real body, but that doesn’t make this any less disconcerting. This is a Danish family’s kitchen. This is a shop in Lincoln Place. This is an entirely new world. This is The Doghouse.

The Doghouse is the creation of Mads Damsbo and Johan Knattrup Jensen, described as both a film installation and a “First-Person Experience”. The Doghouse seats its audience of five around a dinner table, and each individual witnesses a family meal play out from the perspective of a different family member.

This is accomplished using the Oculus Rift, an originally Kickstarter-backed virtual reality headset, now owned by Facebook. While Johan has a background in film and Mads has experience in film and digital media, this is the first time either has worked with virtual reality. Mads says that working with the Rift was a very appealing prospect: “It’s so new, but so accessible, and everyone can start working with it. So it was very tempting to do something with film and the Oculus.” Johan describes the experience as an exciting change from what he is used to: “It’s like going into a medium as a child. You’re looking at it for the first time; you’re so interested in what it can do.”

The Doghouse was made with a cast of five actors, each taking turns wearing a set of cameras and microphones to record the entire 18 minute scene from their own perspective.

“So we just replaced the actors’ eyes with

cameras and replaced the actors’ ears with microphones and recorded that,” explains Mads. “You step into that point of view.”

Johan had to engage with his cast on an extremely intimate level: “There was no normal monitor that I could look in, so I had to wear the Oculus Rift goggles. It felt like I was looking through the eyes of the actor. We did the whole scene over 40 times in order to get it right for each of the characters; after a while it sort of felt like I was living in the fiction. It was scary and fascinating at the same time.” One particular story highlights the strange link Johan had to his actors throughout the filming process: “I would say something to Mads while he was standing in front of the actor — which could have been a grown woman — and he would look in the eyes of the actress and talk to me, and I would look at him through her eyes and talk to him.

We had a conversation through this human being. So the actress became completely like a medium, like she didn’t exist, or like she was an empty shell of a body that I had possessed in a way.”

BeAnotherLab are an international collective dedicated to performing artistic and scientific experiments with virtual reality. In their most famous experiment a man and a woman faced each other wearing an Oculus Rift and a camera, so that the man saw from the woman’s perspective and vice versa. Their other experiments in perspective swapping have allowed wheelchair users to see through the eyes of able-bodied people and a mother to see through the eyes of her daughter. Their stated goal is “to create a context for these technologies under the premises of empathy, human bonding and an increased awareness of the other”.

Mads sees The Doghouse as achieving a similar end: “It’s about learning who other people are. I think there’s a lot of empathy to be learned in stepping into someone else, understanding their input into the world. And that’s essentially what we’re doing, we’re replacing your eyes with someone else’s.”

How this technology is used is of fundamental importance to BeAnotherLab: “We believe one of the strengths of our project is that while you have a unique and hopefully transformative experience through the system, you also take the gear off at the end and are face to face with the person you were just embodying. At this point the relationship between both of you has been shifted and there is the opportunity to build on that in real life.

Other experiences in virtual reality, while impressive, may still be lacking in this fundamental aspect and could ultimately leave us more disconnected and isolated

“He would look in the eyes of the actress and talk to me, and I would look at him through her eyes and talk to him. We had a conversation through this human being.” as a result.” Johan expresses a similar sentiment, seeing virtual reality as being beneficial through its contrast to reality: “There is this naval link between reality and fiction, in a way. When you take off the goggles you’re kind of still in The Doghouse, but what you have to do is deliberately cut off your own string to the fictional world. I think there’s something really healthy about that. You have to break out of the fantasy and say ‘I wanna be in reality!’”

BeAnotherLab plan on continuing their research over the coming years: “We have a busy year ahead of us as we build partnerships and run experiments in the field. In addition we are also researching possible applications in learning and healthcare, among many other possibilities that are arising.” The Doghouse team seems less certain about the future.

Johan says: “We never had any grand thoughts about the technology, about the possibilities we were exploring. We were just fooling around in a way, having

fun and trying stuff out. I’m also working within traditional cinema for the screen which I really like as well, but I want to do more art projects that can work around the language of cinema.” Mads seemed unsure as to whether the future of entertainment lies in devices like the Oculus Rift: “We’re seeing a lot more experiments with technology that will change the way we perceive storytelling or our cinema experience, so let’s keep going with it and see what happens. I don’t think we’re going to see Oculus Rift cinemas or that type of thing. Because in many ways the Oculus Rift is quite a selfish thing; it’s all about closing yourself off from the world. I have some doubts about whether or not this will be the actual ‘future’ of anything, but it will definitely push the envelope of what can be done.” However virtual reality tech develops, as a tool for both scientists and artists, these projects indicate the startling potential that these devices have, giving the barest hints at what might possibly be on the horizon.

WORDS BY EOIN MOORE

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Red is the Warmest Colour.

Periods have for centuries been pushed to the margins of societies and hidden from view. Menstrala turns this on its head, forcing the private experience of menstruation into the public medium of art. he mention of period art provokes mixed reactions, all usually followed by an awkward pause and a necessary confirmation that we are indeed referring to menstruation art rather than a vague moment in art history. One may question whether it is simply talk of periods in the public sphere or the idea of using menstrual blood as an artistic medium that arouses shock, nervous laughter and, in some cases, outright disgust. Perhaps one of the last remaining taboos in our culture, a global assortment of artists and activists have been working to reclaim and invert the shame associated with menstruation since second wave feminism over fifty years ago. However, the general public remains shielded from the bloody reality of periods through the aid of a clinical blue substance (that looks more like toilet bleach) in feminine hygiene advertising, of which artist Ingrid Berthon-Moine claims is “not so female friendly after all”. This is just one area where periods are denied a public appearance, even when they’re the star of their own show.

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In 1972, Judy Chicago’s Menstruation Bathroom exhibited one of the first period art installations, a collection of used sanitary pads amidst a pristine, effeminately decorated bathroom. She explored the relationship between hygiene, space and menstruation, voicing a social commentary on the fact that periods must be hidden away from public spaces at all costs, to the point where the bathroom has become an almost gendered sphere. Fast forward forty years and period art has become a tool to force vaginal blood into the public space of the gallery whether it’s welcomed or not. The movement, “Menstrala”, coined by artist Vanessa Tiegs, confronts us with blood beyond the bathroom in all the places it’s typically not supposed to be. Between artists who spend the entirety of their 5 day period bleeding on canvases and artists who use their blood as body paint, there is period art that is quietly brilliant without being overt. Berthon Moine’s 2009 installation Red is the Colour (pictured) transforms period shame into glamour as she brings us literally face to face with the phenomenon by putting period blood in perhaps one of the most subversive of locations: the mouth.

“Red is The Colour is a series of 12 portraits of women wearing their menstrual blood as lipstick,” Moine explains. “These represent the 12 months of the year and act as a calendar. The composition is uniform and carefully follows the guidelines of ID photographs for passports but blown up to human size. A woman’s period is a passport which signals the most intimate individual journey towards feminine maturity. The photographs

are taken at the subject’s eye level and they directly gaze at the viewer, allowing the viewer an intimate study of each portrait and at the same time, feeling the gaze of the other portraits. Putting the images on two rows reinforces the power these women have on the viewer and pose the question, ‘Whose turn is it to be embarrassed now?’”

Similarly, Filipino artist and actress nominated for a feminist porn award, May Ling Su, dismantles the preconception of periods as being unhygienic and something that must be concealed from certain spaces by bridging the gap between menstruation and sexuality in her 2010 piece On My Period. Reclaiming the traditionally period free space of the beach while fiercely posing for a camera, she embraces her stance as a seductress using her blood to make tribal-esque patterns and designs on her naked body. Su claims to have had a positive relationship with her periods since she began menstruating, noting it was something she even looked forward to. When asked what she would say to someone who would consider period art “gross”, she retorts “Gross? You didn’t think so when you were a fetus. What do you think you were swimming in while you were in the womb?”

Although many critics cite period art as a gimmick or purely for shock value, they miss the point — it is precisely the idea that menstrual blood is conceived as shocking in the first place that prompts these women to do what they are doing. The invisibility of menstrual blood in both historic and contemporary visual cultures borders on the absurd if we consider the saturation of blood we are subjected to through the violence in mainstream Hollywood action films, gaming and avant-garde cinema alike. Or if we are to group menstruation in with other “gross” forms of biological waste as so many insist on doing, how about considering the double standard created via the cultural acceptability of semen through the exposure of millions of daily visitors to porn sites that glorify the male waste product of reproduction?

However, the absence of periods in the public sphere hasn’t always been the case if we look beyond the West. Whilst researching the origins of make-up, Moine found out that ancient Australian tribes such as the Dieri venerated female blood by applying it to the lips to signal the onset of menstruation, thus making the period the first form of lipstick. As Moine notes of Red is the Colour, “Each woman is identified with the

A woman’s period is a passport which signals the most intimate individual journey towards feminine maturity. name of a lipstick commonly found at beauty counters. It creates an ironic link with the beauty industry and underlines that the semiotics used in naming lipsticks may, inadvertently be related to menstruation. By creating an intimacy that is frightening and that we would rather not share, the images challenge our fears and exploit our unconscious and perverse fascination for the abject.”

The conceptual diversity of period art also spans across the sociopolitical with artists such as South African lgbt+ activist Zanele Muholi using her blood to make beautifully intricate, symmetrical designs in her 2011 collection Isiilumo Siyaluma (Period Pains) which she used as social commentary to describe the atrocities faced by the queer community in her country. “I continue to bleed each time I read about rampant curative rapes in my ‘democratic’ South Africa. I bleed every time queer bodies are violated and refused citizenship due to gender expression and sexual orientation within the African continent […] I bleed because our human rights are ripped.” The cornerstone of Muholi’s work is a political catalyst that translates emotional pain into art through menstruation. If one of the marks of any great work of art is to generate a dialogue about convention, then Menstrala certainly fits the bill.

WORDS BY HANNAH AMADEUS HARTE PHOTOS COURTESY INGRID BERTHON-MOINE

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till marriage do us part.

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ra Sachs is a New York-based filmmaker whose past films include Forty Shades of Blue (2005), Married Life (2007), and recent festival hit Keep the Lights On (2012).

His latest release, Love Is Strange, is the touching story of husbands Ben and George who, after losing their primary source of income due to workplace discrimination, must rely on the hospitality — and couch cushions — of their friends and family while they undertake that most Herculean of tasks: flat hunting in New York City. Sachs spoke with tn2 about the messages of the film, the processes behind it, and a potential move to Broadway (please, culture gods, let this be a thing).

Love Is Strange is a subtly poignant drama, with tensions building between characters in close quarters and familiar, everyday struggles made manifest on screen. The drama is made all the more effective by a knowing sense of humour that often emerges to either cut or underline these tensions.

The screenplay was deftly co-written by Sachs and his longtime writing partner, Mauricio Zacharias. Regarding their process, Sachs explains: “As co-writers, we share an interest in a certain kind of movie, and we’re very similar in how we look at life, and how we talk very often about our families and people we know. We share the stories of our lives and we make movies out of them. Not that the film is autobiographical, but every character is based on someone or some event that we witnessed in our own lives, and I think we bring that curiosity about how people behave to our writing.”

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This is, certainly, a film set on observing people in different configurations, and how they interact when thrown out of their own (or injected into each other’s) routines and living situations. Accommodation, both in the practical housing sense and in the social sense of adapting and adjusting,

becomes a major theme throughout the story. Sachs describes his perspective and inspiration coming into this film: “For me, I’m 49 years old, I’m a middle-aged person, and the film is very much about the perspective I have. I feel very much connected to the Marisa Tomei character, because I’m hopefully somewhere in the middle; I can watch my parents and also observe my children, knowing that the future is not forever, but remembering the innocence of being younger. I think that’s really what the film is trying to talk about. [We] developed the characters of Ben and George, in a lot of ways, looking at our parents, who are coming to a certain point in their lives where the future is not as wide open as it used to be, and trying to be gentle and understanding at what that might entail.” Through this multigenerational structure, Sachs believes, the audience is given multiple points of access and relatability to the film’s emotional centre, and that “people connect to this film out of recognition of their own relationships in it”.

Besides discussing the script and the themes, it should also be said that Love Is Strange is a film that manages to take these mundane routines and minor annoyances, and shoot them in a way that makes them look beautiful. Why take this visual approach to the material? Sachs explains, “I worked with a cinematographer who is from Greece [Christos Voudouris], and one of the things we talked about was trying to make a film that was romantic about the city of New York whilst also being very intimate. It has that cross between being, as you said, beautiful, but also very familiar. I lived in New York for 25 years, so I thought it was something I had to offer. We talked a lot about Woody Allen’s films, particularly Hannah and Her Sisters, Husbands and Wives, Manhattan, which were kind of romantic odes to the city of New York but also presented a kind of intimate portrait of life here.”

people connect to this film out of recognition of their own relationships in it.

One of the most intimate details to be found in Love Is Strange is the constant question of finances. Characters in this film discuss their savings, housing prices, and money woes openly and frankly, in a way that is rare to see on film but feels honest to these economic realities; these real-life sources of drama for most viewers. Sachs discusses his reasoning behind this theme, and how it is tied to questions of identity: “To me, at the centres of most novels are questions of love and money. They are the two places where drama can always be found in all of our lives. They’re both very significant: how we love and how we exist, financially. So for me, a character cannot be presented that you don’t recognise on some level.

What are the economic parameters of that character’s life, and how does that influence his or her decisions?”

Asked about what other themes were crucial to the story Sachs wished to tell, he reflects: “One thing that we thought about a lot was the question of education, in a broad sense. Asking what we teach each other and our children, both within the structure of schooling as well as within the structure of a family. There’s a letter in the middle of the film that the character George reads, that he addresses to the parents of the children at the school from which he had been fired, and it’s really asking ‘What do we teach our children?’ and ‘What is important to us?’ and ‘What about courage to be honest and true to yourselves?’.”

One of the most talked-about elements of the film, particularly in the pre-release buzz in Ireland, has been its depiction of the harmful role the clergy can play in institutions such as the Catholic school system, where old regulations and ideas of morality have not necessarily evolved at an adequate speed to reduce their negative impact on LGBT families and members of the church. The central plot point of the movie, in fact, revolves around how “religiously justified” employment policies dismantle the life that Ben and George spent 39 years building together. Still, despite exposing these hypocrisies and harshness, the film treats Christianity with a fair touch; George’s faith and commitment to the religion does not waver, despite its crueler effects. Sachs talks about finding this balance in the depiction of the church, observing: “I try to be democratic in my empathy, and try to understand that everyone is struggling with their own relationship with themselves and also to a system [...] I think the Catholic church is a fascinating, complex, contradictory, troubling institution which, as a storyteller, I try my best to understand.”

Despite being an NY-centric romance, Love Is Strange is a film that comes across with a particular urgency for audiences in Ireland. With the marriage referendum only a few months away, supporters of LGBT rights are pinning their hopes on marriage equality as a sign of advanced acceptance. While equality is certainly a human right deserved by all couples, this film suggests that there are still forces which, as long as they remain in place, will have the power to upset these hard-won protections. Sachs describes himself as a “humanist filmmaker”, and the deeply human themes of his film could not have come at a better time.

WORDS BY REBECCA ALTER PHOTOS COURTESY JEONG PARK

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An Acquired Taste

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n NBC’s Hannibal, all eyes are on the food. Hannibal Lecter is many things — a psychiatrist, a gourmet chef, an opera fan… and a cannibalistic serial killer. Spanish chef José Andrés serves as the show’s culinary consultant, but it’s Janice Poon, a Toronto-based artist and author, who is responsible for crafting the immaculate dishes Hannibal feeds his guests. For each episode, Poon not only has to prepare lavish meals that look appetising on screen and can be eaten by the actors, but she has to do so using ingredients that look as if they could once have been the flesh of his human victims. Viewers are both tempted by Hannibal’s mouth-watering masterworks, and disgusted by the gruesome awareness of what they really are.

Each dish is interwoven into the storyline of the episode, meaning Poon’s role goes well beyond set dressing. On her blog, Feeding Hannibal, Poon documents the delightful challenges of tracking down fake brains and lung substitutes, and shares recipes for her readers to cook-along with Dr. Lecter and create their own “Hannidinners”. Currently in the middle of shooting season 3, as well as putting together a Hannibal cookbook, Poon speaks to tn2 about fish guts, setting the mood, and presenting the mind of a serial killer on a plate.

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Can you tell me a little bit about your background and how you become involved in food styling?

I’m a painter and sculptor and six years ago I started writing novels. I had done a bit of food styling when I was art director of Epicure magazine and was the food stylist for Nero Wolfe, a TV series about a detective who loved gourmet food and orchids.

How did you find yourself working on Hannibal?

The production heard about me and phoned out of the blue to offer me the job. I was struggling with rewrites of my third novel and thought the break would be good for me. Three years later, I‘m still food styling for Hannibal and haven’t touched my novel.

Are you a carnivore? Are you ever shocked or grossed out by what you have to prepare?

I enjoy all kinds of food and there is very little I find gross. I’m fascinated more than repulsed. Gutting dozens of trout for a scene in Episode 8 last year was pretty disgusting though. My entire kitchen table was covered in fish entrails.

Can you talk me through your sketchin and preparation process after you’ve read a script?

I skim the script so I understand the tone of the episode then I pull out the food scenes. I often know what meals are coming because of conversations I’ve had with Bryan Fuller (our brilliant head writer) a few days prior. Then I think about what dishes will

enhance the scene and the mood of the scene. I sketch it out and email it to Bryan and if he likes it, I go ahead.

Food is almost like another character on Hannibal. Do you try to craft the meals to reflect the victims, or to further the audience’s understanding of Hannibal?

This is exactly what I am trying to do with the food — give the viewer more information about Hannibal’s frame of mind or a silent message he is giving to his guest.

Does Mads Mikkelsen like working with the food?

Mads is marvelous with the food. He has natural cooking skills and handles the kitchen equipment like a pro. And he has a lot of input when we discuss how Hannibal will handle specific people ingredients in the cooking scenes.

SKETCH COURTESY JANICE POON/FEEDING HANNIBAL

Do you think Hannibal has anything to say about eating? Has it changed how you look at eating or cooking?

Hannibal is defined and motivated by what he eats, the way he eats it and how he serves it. He only eats “the rude” but not before refining them through his gourmet cooking. Whenever I’ve had a particularly grizzly ingredient sourcing experience — like going on the kill floor of an abattoir, I think I’ll become a vegetarian. Then I smell a steak grilling or a duck barbecuing and I’m Carnivore Rising again.

In season 3, Hannibal has fled to Italy. Will we see a lot of Italian cuisine this season? Are you working with any overarching symbolism or metaphors this season?

Yes, there will be marvelous Italian dishes — but also French favorites and some Asian delights. [...] We are still in the middle of shooting Season 3 but I would say pheasant and escargot are going to be very hot menu items after Hannibal airs [later this] year.

What are your most memorable or challenging dishes?

Are there any you can talk about from season 3 that you’re particularly excited about?

The most challenging dish was probably the Kholodets of Episode 11 last year. Anchovies swimming in a mobius strip in the gelatin above a headcheese. Yikes!

There are a lot of diabolically delicious dishes being served up in Season 3 but the one I like best so far (that I can tell you about) is a wing carved from ham that is made by curing an arm in salt and herbs.

Hannibal will return to Sky Atlantic this summer, and the Hannibal Cookbook is scheduled for release in spring 2016.

WORDS BY MEADHBH MCGRATH PHOTOS BY VICTORIA WALSH/FEEDING HANNIBAL

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Photos by Luke Fallon.

EVIEWS

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CUCUMBER Channel 4

BANANA E4 Sixteen years after his seminal success Queer as Folk, Russell T Davies has created Banana and Cucumber, two original drama series exploring the trials and tribulations of gay men living in the 21st century. Never one to shy away from graphic depictions of sexuality, Banana and Cucumber, from their titles alone (taken from terms employed by sexologists for distinguishing the strengths of penile erection) promise a frank and allencompassing depiction that continues to push the boundaries of television.

Cucumber follows the midlife meltdown of Henry (Vincent Franklin) whose life seems to be trudging along in typical middleclass suburban domesticity. Stifled by the stagnation in his life and the undercurrent of tension in his long-term relationship with partner Lance, with whom he has never been physically intimate, Henry’s life changes following a particularly disastrous date night. Not only does Henry receive a marriage proposal, but he also becomes embroiled in an attempted threesome and

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implicated in a death, each of which mark a turning point for Henry who decides to embark on a voyage of self-discovery. This is in fact, aided and abetted by nineteenyear-old Dean, whom Henry has befriended at the office and his roommate Freddie, the latter is a blonde Adonis for whom Henry is willing to recklessly abandon a life that for so long he believed worth maintaining.

While the characters are at times unlikeable, they remain identifiable, and, more importantly credible, a far cry from the clichéd cardboard cutouts they could have easily become in less capable hands.

Whilst Cucumber follows a narrative arch, its counterpart Banana is a series of eight stand-alone vignettes exploring the lives of people whom Henry has met, namely twenty-somethings who depict the multifaceted lives of those within the LGBT community. Refreshingly Banana does not limit the stories of young gays, bisexuals and lesbians to their coming out experience, and highlights the neuroses and struggles

that both young and old experience in the sexual minefield of modern life, be it unrequited love, premature ejaculation and fear of commitment. Although the shows are stand alone, they are also interlinked, with scenes from one show being seen from an alternative perspective in the other, which highlights simultaneously the differences and similarities of the LGBT community’s experience in modern society, be it as a middle-aged man or a millennial.

Although both shows are light-hearted in their approach, they touch upon serious issues of intimacy, sexuality and alienation, such as mixed and lost messages in an age of instant connection and rapid communication, that at times can be devoid of any human intimacy.

Cucumber can be seen on Channel 4 on Thursdays at 9pm and Banana can be seen on E4 on Thursdays at 10pm.

WORDS BY CIARA FORRISTAL

SUCKER Charli XCX

Back with her third full-length album, Charli XCX has channelled Kim Wilde on Sucker, her latest offering of thirteen pissed off anthems to get your heart racing.

Combining messy, abrasive synths with a 1980’s anthemic gleam and the snotty strut of Britpop, this really does make for quite an exhilarating listen, albeit losing its momentum somewhat towards the album’s second half. Nevertheless, when it hits the mark by throwing a barrage of slick hooks and violent melodies in your direction, all is forgiven, in part because her musical kicks are hard enough to induce memory loss. Tracks such as the feral but uplifting Break Up, or Gold Coins lay testament to that fact by pummelling you into submission with minimalistic guitar lines, decorated with merciless collages of earsplitting electronica.

There are moments that lag somewhat, when she essentially remakes her own hit singles from the earlier half of the album, i.e. Boom Clap and Break the Rules. However, by in large, Sucker is ripe with ideas that are addictive, modernized versions of songs by the likes of the B-52s, Ian Drury and the Blockheads, or Joy Division, only given the music festival makeover. It is very good pastiche that knows how to present classic pop songwriting without seeming unoriginal. When it succeeds, it can be quite spectacular and you can forgive her for ripping off tracks such as Teenage Dirtbag, or Falling in Love With You, purely because she puts her own distinct stamp on them.

She is, at the end of the day, a gifted thief and this undeniably adds to her image as a badass of pop.

WORDS BY MICHAEL LANIGAN

VULNICURA Bjork

Bjork’s eighth album Vulnicura wasn’t meant to be heard until later this year, but after leaking à la Madonna’s Rebel Heart, it has had a rushed digital release. In spite of this, the production on the album excels, mixing auras that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Studio Ghibli movie with glitchy harsh interjections, running the gauntlet of the abilities of Bjork’s co-producer and FKA Twigs’ mixing artist Arca. The vocals aren’t hidden behind layers of haze but instead are crisp and full, rising above the cacophony and commanding your attention.

Bjork’s unending ability to induce seemingly cold, scientific lyrics with a voice that transforms them into the most human of wishes shines on Vulnicura, as the repeated refrain of the album opener Stonemilker is one of synchronising feelings and mutual coordinates. In this way the songs feel like an extension of her last album Biophilia, with its focus on celestial bodies and thousand year old crystals. Where that record maintained a certain distance however, the lyrics here are Bjork at her most personal. That’s the real draw: the focus on a relationship falling apart.

History of Touches is a track which presents Bjork as a collector, knowing that her time with her partner is coming to a close and filing away “every single touch” and “every single fuck” to keep safe against the oncoming storm of the breakup. The end may not ever come though, the relationship might continue but run out of things to collect — delicate, tiny emotions lost within the massive landscape of distance and silence between two people afraid to jump. The emotional honesty mustered to explore this crumbling relationship is huge, and it’s a refreshingly human achievement by an artist often presented as an otherworldly Icelandic goddess.

WORDS BY MATTHEW MULLIGAN

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LOVE IS STRANGE Ira Sachs

What happens when old, ecclesiastical notions of “morality” are held up and imposed in a world where they can cause great damage to the happiness and wellbeing of families and individuals? How do we define our domestic spaces, and how can we learn to adapt to someone else’s? What can a teenage boy learn from the old dude crashing on his bottom bunk?

And which is more frightening: living in separation from the one you love, living surrounded by loved ones, or (shudder) moving to Poughkeepsie? By the merit of its ensemble performances and radiant overall composition, the story of husbands Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina), and the force field of good intentioned friends and family that surround them, is a romance quite literally for the ages; it is multigenerational by design.

After nearly 40 years together, Ben and George are finally able to marry.

Upon the wake of their happy nuptials, George loses his position as a music teacher. Financial woes force the couple to sell their home and rely on the generosity of their friends and

Ava DuVernay’s masterful film chronicles the three-month period in 1965 when the civil rights movement organised a campaign for nondiscriminatory voter registration law. Beginning with the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King’s acceptance speech of the Nobel Peace Prize, the film details the struggle to complete the march from Selma, Alabama to the Capitol in Montgomery. Driven by a forceful and nuanced performance

by David Oyelowo as Dr King, Selma captures the entirety of the scene at the battle for voting rights: from the grand speeches and momentous political bartering, to the grief of the innocently slain and the reality of life determined by a system of institutionalised racism. The film strikes a balance between the deeply emotional and the astutely strategic motivations of King, then-President

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families while they are left homeless.

Ira Sachs’ achingly gentle drama Love Is Strange is a film comprised of small moments — the quotidian stuff of household routine and real estate struggles — that prompts some very large questions. On a date to the symphony, Ben asks for George’s opinion on a violinist’s

SELMA

Ava DuVernay

performance. George thought she milked it, saying, “When the piece is that romantic, there’s no need to embellish”. From the simple piano score to the restrained performances to the small human scale of the story, that is the key to Love Is Strange.

WORDS BY REBECCA ALTER

Lyndon B Johnson, and all members of the civil rights movement, making it utterly engrossing. Rather than relying on gratuitous violent images, the raw emotion in this film is derived from the delicate character developments, most notably, in the compelling scene between Coretta Scott King and her husband when she confronts him with a taped recording of his infidelities.

Never preachy or self-righteous, Selma is affirmed by the passionate clarity and blazing conviction of its story.

The film is at times harrowing, the honest depiction of each blow, each scream, each death, culminating in the audience’s confrontation with the sheer police brutality and cowardice that is powerfully resonant in today’s global reality.

WORDS BY COURTNEY DAILEY

JUPITER ASCENDING Andy and Lana Wachowski There are perhaps no two actors with more goodwill between them than Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum, stars (and star-crossed lovers) of the Wachowskis’ latest mega-scale scifi caper, Jupiter Ascending. Even so, the two might be the least interesting factors in this totally effing bonkers space opera, playing earthbound, toilet-scrubbing space-princess Jupiter Jones and half-albino wolfman-mercenary Caine Wise. They act as serviceable leads in a plot of birthright, kidnapping, derringdo, and strong Oedipal overtones.

Throw in Eddie Redmayne whisperyelling his way through his role as the villainous eldest sibling of a greedy, ancient dynasty, and the plot plays like Lannisters In Space.

As expected, the Wachowskis are trying to explore some Big Ideas here, to varying success. Standard-issue is their indictment of consumerism.

More interestingly is the film’s conjuring up of a fantastical genetic

Grim Fandango is set in the 8th Underworld, a vision of the afterlife inspired by Mexican folklore with a film noir twist. The protagonist, Manny Calavera, is a lost soul working to pay off his spiritual debt so that he might achieve eternal rest. His job as a grim reaper, or “travel agent”, brings him into contact with a beautiful (skeletal) woman and a sinister conspiracy.

Grim Fandango Remastered attempts to restore and improve upon the critically lauded 1998 video game.

The game’s aesthetic, blending imagery from the Mexican Day of the Dead and countless classic films and detective fiction, is rejuvenated in the remastered edition. While the background artwork is simply re-rendered at higher resolutions, the character models have been completely redesigned at a new level of fidelity. Although this leads to a jarring contrast at times between the 3D models and their environments,

case for reincarnation. But forget character, plot, and even meaning.

Jupiter Ascending is a movie engineered for fun and thrills, and on those levels, it mostly works. The film’s main action centrepiece happens early on and involves a sweeping chase that weaves through the Chicago skyline.

It is a wildly successful sequence of special effects choreography, and the effect on the viewer is deliriously stomach-dropping.

For all the film’s flaws and convolutions, let’s raise a glass of Abrasax Youth Serum to Andy and

GRIM FANDANGO REMASTERED XBox One/PC

Lana Wachowski, nerd saviours, for making an ambitious original-concept blockbuster in this dystopian age of the threequel. Even when the jokes don’t land or the scenes start to drag, Jupiter Ascending is a visually impressive space fairytale that’s plenty of fun.

It is also the only movie you will see this year where a shirtless Channing Tatum stops up a battle wound with a menstrual pad and redefines action hero masculinity right then and there.

Swoon.

WORDS BY REBECCA ALTER

overall it emphasises the game’s sharp, cartoony style. The score has also been entirely re-recorded in crisp clarity by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Gameplay-wise, the adjustments are also minor, amounting to a replacement of the original’s unwieldy control scheme with a far more functional point-and-click mechanic.

In spite of its minimal changes, Grim Fandango Remastered is still a great achievement. The original game fared poorly commercially, even though it is now considered a quintessential part of the adventure game canon; original copies are hard to come by, and running those copies on modern PCs necessitates the use of fan-made emulators. The remastered edition makes a game which could have faded into obscurity accessible once again, which is a commendable feat in and of itself.

WORDS BY EOIN MOORE

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THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN Paula Hawkins

With her debut novel The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins grabs the reader’s attention and holds it until the end. Lives are intersecting, overlapping and filled with jealousy and betrayal. The story is told from three perspectives: Anna, the housewife who is not who she appears to be; Rachel, the young woman with a history of blackouts; and Megan, the glamourous wife with plenty of secrets. Rachel is “the girl on the train” in question. Unbeknownst to her landlady, Rachel has lost her job as a result of alcoholism but continues to commute twice a day on the train to London. With each journey she must pass the home of her ex-husband Tom, his new wife Anna, and their baby. Rachel also spots along her route another happy couple living near her old home whom she has named (without their awareness) “Jess” and “Jason”. On her daily commute she imagines the idyllic life they must have. This all changes in a split second as lies, deception, extramarital affairs and violence begin to unravel supposedly perfect lives.

The Girl on the Train has an excellent plot twist and certainly keeps the reader intrigued as the chaotic events of the novel unfold. The story develops slowly; it took at least three chapters for any major events to take place. The characters, while deliberately wrought as unlikeable, lacked the depth necessary to make their worst qualities feel worth engaging with. However, Hawkins weaves a story of lies and deception together with great skill. It has been dubbed the next Gone Girl, which is perhaps an unfair comparison. Hawkins aspires towards breakneck thrills and achieves them to some degree, but her debut falls just short.

WORDS BY ANDREA REYNELL

THE FIRST BAD MAN Miranda July

The First Bad Man is an exploration of violent sexual fantasy and the complications and chaos of human relationships as mediated by socially awkward, middle-aged office worker Cheryl. Cheryl is the kind of woman who skips dinnerware and eats straight from the same pan every night — no need to wash it afterwards. She sleeps in her car to avoid interacting with the kindly homeless man who cares for her garden.

She has remained in her bosses’ good books by turning their non-profit into a profitmaker, marketing their women’s self-defence videos as fitness regimes. Her life is disrupted when their twenty year old daughter moves into her house while purportedly searching for modelling jobs. Cleo is a gorgeous, self-proclaimed misogynist who never bathes and treats Cheryl with a level of cruelty that bemuses her. Their relationship builds with strange intensity as they manifest their frustrations in role-playing the company’s old self-defence tapes. Meanwhile, Cheryl searches for Kubelko Bondy, an old soul she meets in the bodies of various babies. Kubelko rightfully belongs to her, yet helplessly continues being born to the wrong people instead of Cheryl.

July’s debut illustrates that sex is about more than sex, and love, as a separate entity, emerges in various forms. Its cynical approach to modern society lends poignancy to occasional moments of tender sincerity. Cheryl is a spectacularly unique narrator and July dives into her voice without reserve. Her oddness disturbs most where it begins to feel uncomfortably familiar. Readers might want to brace themselves, but The First Bad Man makes for a tremendously weird and wonderful read.

WORDS BY ELIZABETH MOHEN

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A VOODOO FREE PHENOMENON

The artist himself then invites us to witness a candid and self-conscious storytelling monologue through the main 28-minute film, A Voodoo Free Phenomenon, where he describes his experience of the winter solstice at Newgrange behind a green washed colour palette. There is satisfying visual continuity between the miseen-scene and the sculptures which gives way to an entrancingly slowpaced scene in which the camera prudently navigates its way through a cluster of ambiguous bronze artefacts.

A final extreme close-up shot of a microphone acts as a mediator between the artist and the viewer.

Project Arts Centre

The Project Arts Centre installation space has been fully revamped and is refreshingly unrecognisable for Gary Pheelan’s A Voodoo Free Phenomenon. Entering the exhibit feels like walking into a virtual reality simulator reminiscent of a game of Qazar. A garish, radioactive green wall, hosting a gilded vintage radio and one of Pheelan’s trademark microphones leads the viewer through the dark where we are presented with two screens, two identical golden sculptures both entitled Ethereal Assemblage, and the first focal point of the installation. A nine-minute hypnotic video work where movement through rotation plays a central focus revolves between primitive computer graphics and a series of animations, signalling that nothing is fixed amidst the flux of culture. The same animation reveals a panoramic view of the inner workings of what appears to be a

microchip and is offset by a thoughtprovoking cartoon box which makes its constantly shifting claims through writing on its protruding corner: “free from symbols/politics/institutions/ history/future/tension/controversy/ c u l t u r e/ l a n g u a g e/ i n v e n t i o n …”

Pheelan thus begs the question: can we encounter objects or artefacts devoid of cultural constructions?

LIPPY

A Voodoo Free Phenomenon runs until April 9 at Project Arts Centre.

WORDS BY HANNAH HARTE

dance, figures in white crime scene suits draw the outlines of the dead women. However, continuing the reverse narrative, the four women then emerge from the suits. The identity of these characters is not fixed. From here some fascinating and heavy themes are touched on — the last supper, hunger, the angelic female — however they are never allowed to take flight. Instead, the play references Beckett’s Not I with its final scene — a large projection of only a woman’s mouth written by “cameo playwright” Mark O’Halloran.

The Abbey Lippy is told backwards. We begin at the end — even after the end — with a post-show Q&A from director Bush Moukarzel and actor David Heap. Immediately, the play is selfaware. Its allegiance is not to the telling of a story but to the question of how to tell it, if it can be told at all.

The story deals with the real-life suicide pact of four women from Leixlip. At the turn of the millennium, three sisters and their elderly aunt barred the doors to their house and starved themselves to death. Heap plays a lip-reader, however, the practice of lip-reading is shown to be an inexact art when a disingenuous Moukarzel (playing himself ) requests to be interpreted. The Q&A morphs into an exhibition of echoing voices, framing the misinterpretation and misrepresentation that pervades much of the play. We cannot know why these women acted in the way they did, so co-directors Kidd and Moukarzel

The intersection of meaning, making and knowledge production through the digital age with ancient culture marks the overarching conceptual theme of the installation, albeit this is not made consistently clear across the exhibits, the relationship between the works remains open to interpretation.

do not attempt to represent them, but rather the futility of doing so.

Accordingly, when we fast forward (or rewind) to the women on stage, the experience is confounding and chaotic. In a hauntingly monastic

Yet the subject matter of Lippy does not share the sparsity of Beckett. The staging, lighting, acting, musical effects, multi-directional narrative are all ambitious and very clever, only they obscure the women who inspired the play. This may well be the intention, however for a story with so much potential, to keep returning to the pointlessness of it all seems like a missed opportunity.

Lippy runs at The Abbey on the Peacock stage until February 14.

WORDS BY TADGH HEALY

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WORDS BY STEPHEN MOLONEY

ROADKILL will launch on February 12 at 6pm. Primal Architecture runs until March 1. Both at Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Military Road, Dublin 8.

Coinciding with IMMA’s ongoing exhibition Primal Architecture, ROADKILL will see an evening of live performance, installation, video and music take over the gallery as an extension of the show. It will also mark the launch of the exhibition publication which includes unique illustrations, installation images and several newly commissioned essays.

On the night, explorations of themes such as framing, duality, structure, sexuality and appropriation will be realised through collage, remix and disruption by a set of multi-disciplinary artists.

Highlights include an alternative guided tour of the exhibition by Ciarán O’Keefe’s alter ego Smilin’ Kanker and a temporary, interactive installation by Elaine Leader, whilst DJ Przem SHREM Zając changes tracks for the evening.

WORDS BY JEROME MOCKETT

In desperate need of a winter hit of Edinburgh Fringe-style cutting edge theatre and arts? Of course you are! Collaborations Festival at the Smock Alley Theatre aims to provide just that. This “festival of ideas” presents a selection of Ireland’s most exciting performance groups with material ranging from Harder, Faster, More, a play examining porn and its consumption, to self-styled “anti-poet” Stephen McDermott’s musing on the value of words in 21st century. Punter’s tip? Dinosaurs — reflections on the complex history of Dublin’s gay scene — and As Seen on the Radio, a lighthearted comedy revolving around two eccentric hosts of an isolated rural radio station.

Tickets €6/8/10/12.

WORDS BY TARA JOSHI

As part of an incredible upcoming lineup of themed nights — there’s the Jungle Book Party and the Space Jam Party too — Discotekken continue to satisfy niche enough audiences with this tribute to the late queen of 90s R&B, Aaliyah. Rather than showing the unauthorised biopic of her life, there will instead be a screening of Romeo Must Die (a modern, gangster/ kung-fu take on the Shakespeare, starring the singer alongside Jet Li). With snack boxes from the Open Door Supper Club, sweet tunes from the RnB Club and some exquisitely titled We Need A [Resolution] Cocktails, this looks set to be an excellent night. You may not have been around to appreciate Aaliyah the first time, but sure age ain’t nothin’ but a number: this is your chance to soak up those Timbaland vibes.

DISCOTEKKEN AALIYAH TRIBUTE

WORDS BY EMMA BOYLAN

The latest debut show from Netflix seems to be the polar opposite of House of Cards. Created by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt tells the story of a woman liberated from a doomsday cult after living in an underground bunker for 15 years.

Portrayed by Ellie Kemper (Erin from the US Office), Kimmy arrives in New York to have a fresh start. Anchored by her sunny — and unbreakable — disposition, she tries to navigate her new life, which includes finding a friend in her roommate, becoming employed as a babysitter, and learning about the modern world she has been shut away from. Promising a lightness of touch and delightful temperament, her adventures should prove to be a charming addition to Netflix’s catalogue.

UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT

ROADKILL/ PRIMAL ARCHITECTURE

COLLABORATIONS FESTIVAL

MARCH 6

FEBRUARY FEBRUARY FEBRUARY 12-MARCH 1 18-MARCH 7 27

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FEBRUARY 14-28

WORDS BY KATHLEEN GIRVANY

Celebrate the Year of the Sheep at the Dublin Chinese New Year festival which returns for the eighth time to showcase Chinese culture and heritage with a line up of fun, inclusive and Oriental inspired events this month. For those looking to explore their inner Ken Hom, there is a tour of the Asian market on Drury St (February 20, 5.30pm — to book contact evap@asiamarket.ie) where one can learn where to find and how to use the basic ingredients in authentic Chinese cuisine.

Several Chinese restaurants across the city are offering “Lunar Feasts” for the duration of the festival, set-price menus at great value. Wicklow Street’s Ka Shing has a special lunch menu (12-3.30pm) and an Early Bird (before 6.30pm). Koh on Jervis St has a one-off signature dish, a Connemara Hill Lamb Massaman Curry, which comes with a complimentary beer if you mention the Year of the Sheep when ordering.

DUBLIN CHINESE NEW YEAR

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Tickets: €9/€8.

WORDS BY LOLA BOORMAN

Running from February 20 to 22 at the IFI Plastik Festival is Ireland’s “first festival devoted entirely to artistics working with the moving image”. The three-day programme of film screenings, artist discussions, and installations explores the relationship of the moving image to language, history and narrative and serves to showcase a plethora of innovative artists on the subject, including James Richards, Ben Russell, Pauline Boudry and others. Having already premiered in Cork and Galway earlier in the month, Plastik Festival is set to provoke and entice the film goer, art enthusiast, and theorist alike. Our pick is The African Twin Towers playing on February 22 at 6pm which explores conflicting methods of narrating 9/11.

PLASTIK FESTIVAL

FEBRUARY 20-22

WORDS BYELIZABETH MOHEN

March 3 welcomes in the long-awaited release of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant, the first novel published by the literary superstar in ten years. Ishiguro has said the delay between novels was never intended, but that his wife examined the first draft of his work in progress and let him know it wouldn’t do.

He then started over from scratch, and positive reviews seem to indicate it was a solid decision. Like his last novel, the Booker Prize-nominated Never Let Me Go, The Buried Giant is dystopian fiction, described by Ishiguro as focusing on “lost memories, love, revenge and war”.

Praised by Publishers’ Weekly as “easy to read but difficult to forget”, the novel is expected to prove a warmly received addition to Ishiguro’s beloved backlist.

ISHIGURO BOOK RELEASE

MARCH 3

WORDS BY EOIN MOORE

Games these days are big, cinematic, sexy affairs with explosions and lights and all sorts. You’d almost forget the thousands of less sexy man-hours that go into making them. The late-night edits, the myriad 1s and 0s, the gladiatorial games fought in the luminous blue-and-orange world that exists behind our computer screens.

(I know very little about programming.)

Games Fleadh, Ireland’s largest computer and console games programming festival for students, is a celebration of all the people who make that magic, literal magic, happen. The main event is a game design competition themed around “Endless Runner” as well as RoboCode, a Java scripting game in which coders try to build the best battletank. Aside from these events, there are numerous talks from video game design professionals as well as video game tournaments for the less coding-literate. (Woo!)

GAMES FLEADH

MARCH 11

I

was the last of my straight friends to lose my virginity — to prove I was a man — and it took until I got to college.

Virginity is something that means different things to different people, but as a straight man, it always meant vaginal sex to me. Growing up, it seemed like it was natural that the cool kids were the guys who had had sex, and it’s only really in hindsight that I realise that sex didn’t make them cool, I did. Most estimates say that the average age for a man to lose his virginity is between 16 and 17, so at 19 I felt I may as well have been 40. I had a few friends who hadn’t lost it either, and we would list celebrities we liked — Jarvis Cocker, Damon Albarn, Morrissey — who hadn’t lost their virginity until they were much older, or for whom sex was unimportant.

It made us feel better, and as a virgin I certainly benefitted from having a close group of friends who were in the same boat.

College is a place where it is taken for granted that you will get rid of this burden, if you haven’t already.

I never told anyone I didn’t trust. I was embarrassed about it and I was convinced it was immediately obvious in everything I did or said. In school, I could make excuses for myself: it was an all boys school, and even if I had had the chance, adults were always watching. In fact, talking to people who lost their virginity at this time, these were the pressures that accompanied the act. These were not the problems that I had. These practical concerns would probably have become relevant if it weren’t for the fact that I was very shy around girls, and I’m sure some of this came from the fact that, as I got older, I was still a virgin. I remember hearing a story during my first term at Trinity about a girl who broke up with a guy as soon as she found out he had never had sex, and it seemed to make perfect, depressing sense to me.

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Starting college and knowing that the practical obstacles had largely gone now, was no relief to me because at this point, I was beyond nervous, I was terrified. “What if I don’t know what to do? I mean, I know what to do, but can I do it? What if she laughs at me? What if she tells people?” The burden of virginity is something a lot of young people feel: a gay friend of mine, Connor, said that, “It did get to a point where I was in a (crappy) relationship and felt ready, but the other guy didn’t want the

virgin territory responsibility of taking my virginity. I became very frustrated that I hadn’t lost my virginity, not because of peer pressure or societal expectation, but more because I felt none of my relationships could progress with this hanging over them.”

While in some ways I found the initial college experience liberating, a chance to perhaps not look like the awkward virgin I felt myself to be, college is also a place where it is taken for granted that you will get rid of this burden, if you haven’t already. Sex columns like this one, while so good for discussing a variety of different experiences, seemed not to represent my own experience, and even rubbed it in. Aidan, for example, thought that, “Because sex is taken as a given to be something that everyone is regularly taking part in and everyone is totally cool with, not being on that same wavelength distinctly separates you from the herd. Lecturers joke about sex, condoms are handed out in society gift bags… It’s not that I begrudge that this positive outlook on sex has become the norm. It’s just that what for most people is a positive thing is this reminder of how I’m different from those people. I remember a tutor once made a comment that ‘It’d be hard to find a virgin in Trinity’. I wasn’t upset by it really, it’s just that immediately following that I was suddenly hyper-aware of how non-normal I was.” I think that is what it comes down to: feeling non-normal. I remember talking to a friend of mine, and a couple of his friends had very recently lost their virginities; they made a joke in front of him about sex, and then they fist bumped each other and told my friend he wouldn’t get it, he wasn’t in “the club”. All this was right in front of a girl he fancied. College is full of jokes about sex, and virginity, and some are more harmful than others.

When it finally happened for me, as well as being delighted I was having sex at last, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief that I was no longer the butt of other people’s jokes. My insecurities about my masculinity were not suddenly gone, but I did feel like I had something less to worry about. It wasn’t a physical change at all, but a mental one, and I feel that if virginity were a subject that could be approached without feelings of shame or humiliation, some of the emotional pressure that surrounds the issue would be removed.

WORDS BY ANONYMOUS ILLUSTRATION BY HENRY PETRIDES WITCH-ISLAND-ILLUSTRATION.TUMBLR. COM

Photo by Luke Fallon.

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