tn2 issue 2, 2015-2016

OCTOBER 2015

Exploring sight and sound with experimental audio-visual artists CLU

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CONTENTS 04 06 07 26 32 34

JUMBLE SEX HOMEGROWN REVIEWS CALENDAR STAFF PICKS

EDITORIAL TEAM EOIN MOORE SORCHA GANNON SARAH MOREL HANNAH HARTE MEGAN BURNS JOHN TIERNEY RACHEL GRAHAM CONOR SCULLY RACHEL CUNNINGHAM ANNA GORDON NICHOLAS KENNY BUD MCLOUGHLIN TANYA SHEEHAN MICHAEL MULLOOLY Finnán Tobin Josh Kenny Elizabeth Rochford Oisín Vince Coulter J. Finbar Lynch Leonard Buckley MUBASHIR SULTAN Helen Fee Huda Awan EAVAN MCLOUGHLIN Claire Dowling Orla King Emily Smith

WOMEN IN FILM “The more vocal we are, the more noise we make, the more chance we have of creating change within the industry.”

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CLU “Art isn’t linear, it’s circular.

Through the internet people can now draw creative influence from any sort of time or place.”

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THE GOLDEN BOUGH “21st century fashion has been obsessed with looking back to move forward.”

14 THE MASTER PLAYWRIGHT tn2 looks at the legacy of Brian Friel, who passed away this month.

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FRESH INK “The best of modern animation tackles issues that range from middle-aged ennui to subjective morality”

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POP-UP CULTURE “The beauty of pop-up restaurants is that they make the Irish eating and drinking scene more eclectictic”

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ILLUSTRATION

DESIGN BY MIKE DOLAN, KELLY CONLON, UNA HARTY, JOHN TIERNEY & EOIN MOORE

This month’s original art is illustrative work by Harriet Bruce.

PRINTED BY Grehan Printers

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INTRODUCING: DISCO HALAL

IN THE GAME On October 2nd Microsoft announced their acquirement of middleware developer Havok, creator of flexible physics software and services for digital media developers, from the Intel Corporation. Founded in 1998 by Hugh Reynolds and Steven Collins of the Computer Science department in Trinity College, the company was purchased by Intel in 2007, reputedly for a figure in the region of $110 million.

Their software has been used in notable video game franchises such as Halo, Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Saints Row, Destiny, Shadow of Mordor and the Last of Us, and in film franchises including James Bond, Harry Potter and the Matrix. Following the Microsoft buyout, a representative for Havok stated that “Microsoft’s acquisition of Havok continues our tradition of empowering developers by providing them with the tools to unleash their creativity to the world […] We will continue to innovate for the benefit of development partners.”

WORDS BY NICHOLAS KENNY

Disco Halal is an unexpectedly clever play on words: while “halal” describes that which is permissible in Islam, it also means “space” or “cosmos” in Hebrew. This is a conscious move - the label features producers and singers from a variety of traditions and backgrounds, ranging from the Middle East to Europe. It distributes from Oye Records in Berlin.

Disco Halal is an “edit label” - that is, it specializes in unearthing forgotten Middle Eastern records and touching them up to resemble more closely Western house music, while retaining a flair distinct of their geographic origin. The vinyl-only label, founded this March, has had just two releases, the prosaically named Disco Halal Vol. 1 and Disco Halal Vol. 2. The first of these was a 12” single, while the second was an EP. The standout track from the first record was Tel Aviv producer Autarkic’s edit of Palgey Mayim, a stripped-back number built around a Vangelis sample from the Blade Runner soundtrack.. Disco Halal Vol. 3 is out this Sunday, and judging by the preview snippets uploaded to their Soundcloud account it looks set to be their best yet.

WORDS BY FINNÁN TOIBIN

PUBLIC SPACE: LOVER’S LANE

Anna Doran’s Lover’s Lane is part of the “Love the Lanes” initiative by Dublin City Council, in conjunction with the Temple Bar Company, to revitalise the backstreets of Dublin City centre. At first the entrance to the lane, in front of the Clarence Hotel and next to The New Theatre, looks like any regular alleyway. Not for long: as you enter the lane, the first thing that is visible is the arrangement of vertical stripes in pinks and reds with hearts placed sporadically over it. The words “Love Lane” sits firmly in place, crowned with a small number “8” tile laying on its side to create the infinity symbol, setting the atmosphere for the entire piece. Tiles are placed on the wall with quotes from music, poetry, and also from Dublin residents; some giving anecdotes, and others with increasingly hilarious chat up lines. A balance of sincerity and humour pervades the mural.

The wall has changed drastically since it was first set up, it is now slowly accumulating graffiti written by members of the public. What looks like deterioration is really part of the natural evolution of public art; as individuals write real love declarations on the mural they inadvertently add meaning to the piece. A particularly beautiful addition is ‘love yourself ’, hiding amongst the other sentiments. The mural shows the power and value of love to people of all walks of life.

WORDS BY ANNA KOHANOFF PHOTO BY SARAH MOREL

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GLOBE-TASTING: KATHMANDU KITCHEN

Kathmandu Kitchen, on the corner of Dame’s Street and George’s Street, is a homely Nepalese and Indian restaurant. The décor is mismatched and there are welcome details such as fresh flowers on the table, water flavoured with mint leaves, and after-eights with the receipt. The restaurant offers 2 generous courses, a coffee, and complimentary poppadoms with dip for only €9.99 . There is a sizeable variety of dishes for meat-eaters and vegetarians alike, with an entirely different menu for Mon-Wed and Thu-Fri. However, some dishes can be relatively spicy, even if not marked as spicy, on the menu so make sure to check with the server. One of the menu’s highlights was the “Aloo Chap”, a heady concoction of mashed potato infused with ginger and cumin, dipped in batter and deep fried ideal hangover food. A trip to Kathmandu Kitchen will leave you feeling snug and content, and perhaps more importantly, still comfortably full by the time your sixth hour in the Ussher rolls around.

FRONT SQUARE FASHION

Colm Higgins, SF TSM English and Drama Studies What’s your inspiration behind this look?

I wanted to reconcile conflicting identities in an outward expression of me-ness.

Do you mind if i quote you on that? *laughs* I guess so.

Scarf & Jacket - Camden Markets, Shoes - China Blue, Trousers Retro (George’s Street Arcade), Jumper - TK Maxx

WORDS BY CLAIRE NI CHEALLAIGH PHOTO BY HELEN FEE

WORDS BY JOHN TIERNEY PHOTO BY HUDA AWAN

DUBLIN IN FILM: 32A

By means of a clever double entendre, the title of writer/director Marian Quinn’s film 32A alludes to both the specificity and universality of her 2007 directorial debut. The story of 13-year old Maeve Brennan hits all the beats of the female coming of age narrative friendship, drama, the first stirring of romance with local heartthrob Brian Power and the purchase of the eponymous bra. However, it’s also a profoundly Dublin story, as Maeve and her friends navigate not only the trials and tribulations of adolescence but the 1970s Northside suburbia serviced by the 32A bus.

Shot primarily on location, Maeve’s world is often comfortably familiar: she rides her bike to Dollymount strand, stays out late with boys in St Anne’s Park, and has a meeting of some importance under the Clerys clock. Yet the perpetual presence of the Catholic Church and its morality, from the habited nuns who rule the school with an iron fist to the shame and secrecy surrounding her friend Ruth’s relationship with her absent father, suggests an atmosphere far removed from today’s vibrant and modern city. 32A is ultimately a small story and Maeve an everygirl, but the film’s true worth lies in its ability to reanimate a Dublin known only through faded photographs.

WORDS BY SARAH LENNON GALAVAN

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Panty Peddling If you had asked me what I thought of the sex industry this time last year, I’d have answered with an emotionally motivated sentiment of disgust.

A mixture of contemptuous anger for the buyers of sexual services and their relationship to female sexuality as a disposable commodity, laced with a righteous sense of pity and condolence for the victimised sellers of an economic manifestation of male power over women’s bodies. This is indicative of a “sex negative” stance, a contradictory feminist breed.

After meeting sex workers and hearing about the industry from their intelligent perspectives and experiences, I became aware of the extent of diversity and nuance in the black market allure of sex work, not all of which involves sexual contact (camming, phone sex, domme work), contrary to the implications of the field’s title. My particular niche is panty-selling.

I had heard that one could purchase a variety of used panties from vending machines which peppered the streets of Tokyo, and kept this nugget of absurd trivia nestled at the back of my mind until last month. After toying with the politics of such an endeavour, I decided to experiment with my own variant of marketing my laundry to an anonymous cohort of aromaamorous men. My reasoning process went something like this: Pros: All entrepreneurial ventures must consider the feasibility of their potential profit margins. If I buy a 5-pack of thongs from Pennys for €3 (60c each), and sell each pair for €30, essentially I will be stackin’ significant paper! My laundry load will be lighter. I get to choose my “work” hours, consisting of sending packages twice a week and posting ads on reddit’s pantyselling forum. I can spend the 20 hours a week that I would have been waiting tables on any activity that takes my fancy. There is nothing more empowering than being one’s own boss. It is more ethical selling my underwear than working in retail and contributing to a corporation which is reliant on sweatshops, outsourcing and cheap labour to produce its goods for the consumption-crazy west. My work lacks alienation; I am not renting myself out to employers and obediently selling a company’s product on their terms.

Cons: The idea of someone sniffing my dirty underwear is gross.

Regarding the cons, initially, I would have thought of my customers as perverted sexual deviants who engage in a demeaning desire that is easier to laugh about than consider seriously.

On secondary examination of this bias, a quote from radical sex-positive

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feminist academic Gayle Rubin illuminates the hypocrisy of my previous stance: “Popular culture is permeated with the idea that erotic variety is dangerous, unhealthy, depraved and a menace to everyone from small children to national security”.

Lest we forget that the pathologising of seemingly deviant sexualities is the same ideology that makes homosexuality illegal in 79 countries, with punishments that range from public lashes, prison time, and the death penalty. After the marriage equality referendum, a wave of liberal self-congratulatory back-patting inflated the ego of the nation, which is now seen as a country to be proud of regarding its tolerance of diverse sexualities. The fact that it is still taboo to fetishise feet, engage in certain varieties of BDSM, have group or public sex, charge money for genuinely non-coercive, consensual sexual encounters or enjoy sniffing panties highlights that rather than becoming more accepting of a rainbow array of sexualities, we have simply opened the authoritative gate to the garden of sexual purity, ushered in the gays, and slammed it shut again, leaving those who engage in anything other than monogamous, legally sanctioned and normatively accepted sexual preferences outside under an unsavoury grey cloud of imposed shame and stigma. Sexual liberation is about dismantling the gate. This idea became the main incentive for my work, so it’s not just about money anymore - I want to discursively engage people on the matter by being open about what I do.

So I decided that rather than just sending my panties to anonymous customers, I would meet with them in person to decipher if there is a panty-sniffing “type”. There certainly is not. My clients vary from bankers in suits, working class stay-at-home dads, lecturers, disabled clients, and even Trinity students. Some make special requests for period stained panties or panties I have worn to the gym. They are usually polite, nervous and embarrassed, often assuring me that they are “just a normal guy”. So far in my experience, a victim/predator relationship that is so often envisioned and represented under the guise of sex work is absent. It has given me invaluable insight insofar as having shed any sense of judgement regarding other people’s sexualities: as long as things are consensual, never yuck another person’s yum.

WORDS BY AMADEUS HARTE ILLUSTRATION BY LEONARD BUCKLEY

“I played instruments - drums, piano, guitar, saxophone - and then I began to write music on piano. It was nothing complex, kind of repetitive film score stuff, and then one day I woke up and decided that this was something I could put all my energy into.” Aran O’Grady is a fourth-year student in the Royal Irish Academy of Music, studying composition, and is also the arranger for Trinity Orchestra.

An arranger is someone who adapts or reworks a composition for particular voices or instruments or for another style of performance.

Trinity Orchestra have recently been challenging pre-conceived notions of what an orchestra can and should play; since 2012, they’ve played music by Daft Punk, Pink Floyd, Gorillaz and, most recently, Sufjan Stevens. The arranger is an invisible yet invaluable part of this process, as he takes music played by a band of four or five and makes it playable for a whole orchestra.

O’Grady cites film score composers, such as Hans Zimmer, Thomas Newman and Ennio Morricone as influences: “Apart from the household names of classical music, I was pretty ignorant.” While a lot of O’Grady’s friends in the Academy of Music would have grown up playing and listening to classical music, he did not. He sees this as a benefit: “I think that has helped me in not discriminating between genres of music.” With his background more in electronic and atmospheric film scores, but his training in classical, O’Grady says that, for him, “it’s all about trying to find a happy medium between the two.”

When asked how he got into arranging, he said that “in second year, I was asked to arrange some pieces for a wedding and once I became good at

HOM EGR OWN it, I decided that I wanted to do something for Trinity Orchestra.” The first pieces that O’Grady arranged for Trinity Orchestra were taken from the music of Sufjan Stevens: “Sufjan Stevens was a go-to for me because it is so orchestral anyway, it was straight-forward to rearrange.” Speaking of the Orchestra’s upcoming slot at Metropolis, O’Grady says: “we wanted to do something more upbeat, something that you could dance to. So we made a big list and whittled it down to about three or four, ran it by the organisers of Metropolis, and they wanted LCD Soundsystem.”

In terms of the difficulties he faced, O’Grady said that “with LCD, the song choice was limited.

James Murphy’s voice is so iconic and songs like Losing my Edge couldn’t really be done because the vocals are more spoken and not lyrical, it’s just a slow build-up”. But other tracks such as I Can Change, Dance Yrself Clean and Someone Great, he explains, “have driving basslines and cool melodies”, which allows him to use different sections of the orchestra to play them. Because LCD’s music has its roots in 80s dance, O’Grady says he has been able to add little homages to the musical styles of that era. He also thinks that “there has always been something so expansive about LCD Soundsystem’s music which allows it to translate very well into an orchestral piece.”

Speaking more generally about the difficulties of re-arranging contemporary music, O’Grady explains that “a lot of Rock songs can be in A major or E major, which are not good for

orchestral colouring”. He also takes all of the electric guitar out of the songs because “with its six strings, the electric guitar can cover the whole texture of an orchestra and be extremely intrusive”. O’Grady would sum up his style as an arranger as “trying to be as true as you can to the original, while also staying innovative.”

It seems that the greatest challenge for any arranger is how to change the way the song is being played without taking away from the character of the piece or the emotions it invokes.

Trinity Orchestra as a whole are unique in their approach to classical music and their performances have become very popular; a video of their 2012 rendition of Daft Punk has close to a million views on Youtube. O’Grady hopes that people seeing their favourite music being played by “strange” instruments, such as the bassoon, will make them want to start to play them. As for O’Grady himself, after some “respite”, he would like to continue arranging, possibly as part of a collaborative unit, doing something “niche and unique”. O’Grady ended the interview by promising a surprise for everyone during their set at Metropolis, saying “it might seem a bit obvious, but it’s going to be meta and I think people will enjoy it.”

Trinity Orchestra will be playing the music of LCD Soundsystem at 3:30pm on Sunday on the Main Stage at Metropolis and O’Grady hosts a radio show called Modern Sounds at 11:30am on Mondays on 103.2 Dublin City FM.

WORDS BY JOSH KENNY PHOTO BY EAVAN MCLOUGHLIN

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WOMEN’S VOICES Conor Scully and Rachel Graham speak to Irish women in film about the Dublin Feminist Film Festival, the WIFT organisation, and the issues that surround women in the industry today.

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committee member of the Irish branch of WIFT, says that “challenges for actresses in the business are apparent in the sad fact that last year only 12% of lead roles in Hollywood movies were female ones.” In Ireland, the situation is not much better. Healion comments: “I recently read a Film Ireland article that said only 13% of Irish (funded) films are written by women, so we seem to be in the same predicament as the rest of the world.” O’Brien believes there is “a fair amount of discontent and frustration” amongst women in Irish cinema, having experienced this at panel discussions held by WIFT, but points out that there isn’t enough data about the Irish industry to ascertain the details of the situation with regard to gender equality: “Women in Film and TV Ireland aims to gather this homegrown data, but we need certain bodies to be aware of gender to achieve this: for example, by having boxes on applications and forms we can establish where funding goes and who is hired, genderwise.”

The statistics show that, in mainstream cinema, women simply aren’t as prevalent as men, both in front of and behind the camera. Karla Healion, director of the Feminist Film Festival, points out that only about 5% of directors of big-budget films are female, while Kathy Rose O’Brien,

Pat Murphy, whose documentary Tana Bana was recently released at the IFI, has this to say: “There are far too few women making films. Over the last 30 years we have seen an increase in women producers, editors and designers, but still very few directors and even less cinematographers.

There is nothing inherently anti-women in filmmaking: there is nothing in the process that women cannot do. Current practice is so entrenched in sexism that men think this situation is the norm.” It’s not all negative - Cara Holmes, editor and founder of Holmes-Made Films, reminds us that “there is such a vibrant scene at the moment, and so many people

t the end of October, the second annual Dublin Feminist Film Festival will take place. The festival showcases the work of female directors, both past and present, in an area in which they have historically been underrepresented. This September, the international organisation Women in Film and Television (WIFT), which aims to support women in the industry by campaigning around issues like equal pay and providing a mutually supportive networking platform, launched in Dublin. How necessary are such measures in the context of increased recognition of issues around gender and sexism in the media and across the arts? To find out, we spoke to four women currently active in the Irish film-making scene.

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“Men are so often thought of as cultural producers, while women are either objects or consumers of culture.” doing really interesting work”, but also wishes that women were more active in the industry: “As a cinema-goer, the majority of Irish films I see are written by men, and female characters are often weaker, written as secondary support characters.”

Holmes and Healion both think that addressing this balance is hugely important, for various reasons. Healion explains why it is important to have women behind the camera specifically: “Men are so often thought of as cultural producers, while women are either objects or consumers of culture. Everything in film is mediated and that’s what gives filmmakers such a wonderful power and opportunity, so we owe it to the world to hear and see narratives that are chosen and portrayed by women. There’s also been research done that tells us that when a woman (anyone who identifies as a woman) is in a principal role behind the camera, it’s much more likely that women will be hired in other roles.” Holmes believes that this in turn will lead to better representation on screen: “The more women working in features, the more complex female characters we’ll see on screen, and the more chance we have of looking at the world from a different perspective. Not that every female writer will want to write about women’s issues or feminist themes, but there will certainly be more varied and diverse ways of telling a story in film.”

Documentary filmmaking is an area in which women seem to be relatively more successful. Recently, there have been numerous wellreceived documentaries made by Irish women, including One Million Dubliners, Aoife Kelleher’s portrait of Glasnevin Cemetery, and Dearbhla Glynn’s The Value of Women in the Congo, which screened

at the IFI Documentary Festival in September, where there was also a panel discussion exploring the prevalence of women in the documentary scene. Both Murphy and Holmes have worked on documentaries, and Holmes believes it is “a healthy, mixed and vibrant area of film to work in, in which there are tonnes of talented women.” When asked why women might be drawn to documentaries, Healion points out that it is “often a fundamentally socially conscious medium”, which might make it an environment more sensitive to gender issues. Documentary is, by nature, more realistic than mainstream cinema, and features less of the stereotyping that women often receive in blockbuster films.

“In documentary there is no script, we hear and see the real deal. We love good stories, and sometimes in fiction films, great stories can be diluted either through the storytelling, writing, or acting. There are so many elements and layers to have to deal with in making features,” says Holmes. She thinks that although the showcasing of female stories in documentaries is a good thing, filmmakers “need to start looking outside the traditional (friendly, generic, non-challenging) story and open up to everyday reality of life. I personally want to see more LGBT stories on screen, more people with disabilities included. True, solid stories that we can all relate to.”

Despite the challenges that women face, according to Healion, there is “an appetite in Ireland for supporting and celebrating women in film, and we have some incredible women working in the industry. There are strands celebrating women in film at most big festivals, and plenty of practitioners who are pushing boundaries, and academics who are asking questions. It’s a fascinating time for women in the arts.” One specific area that needs improvement if gender equality is to be reached in the industry is funding. Holmes says: “Accessing funding is a main priority for everyone in the industry. This is not unique to women, but I feel within the Irish context, we have to prove ourselves more. We need the funding and training bodies to encourage and embrace new voices, particularly the voices of women of all ages. Support and funding can’t all be based on audience numbers and ticket sales if we are to allow bold and original talent on screen. The BFI (British Film Institute) in the UK has a three ticks policy when allocating funding. Their Film Fund has

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set up a list of criteria, in relation to ethnicity, disability, gender, sexual orientation and socio-economic status, that productions applying for funding need to meet. This is all in an effort to improve diversity within the film and TV industries, and it would be positive for the Irish film board to make similar moves. The more people who are funded (women/ men/non-binary), the more we will hear and see diverse voices in film narrative and documentary.”

This funding problem leads to an entrenchment of sexist culture within the industry, according to Murphy. “There is a staggering lack of self-questioning within funding bodies and this perpetuates a really unhealthy, backwards regime. Most directors these days are film school graduates. Half of these graduates are women who go on to have considerable success with short films on the festival circuit and beyond.

Yet when you look at who gets to make features, the women’s names drop off the radar. Some of this is down the culture of male bonding.

Guys like to work with guys. And that’s all very well if they are using their own money: they have the right to spend it as they wish. Where it becomes problematic is if state funds - taxpayers’ money - is being used to perpetuate a culture of inequality.”

The Feminist Film Festival, and the launch of WIFT Ireland, are indicative of efforts within the industry to effect positive change. When asked about the potential of WIFT, committee member O’Brien says: “The international organisation has a lot of momentum behind it from powerful, vocal members who talk about equal pay, rights and how to specifically mentor women who may not have access to leading figures in the industry, due to their sex or lack of membership to the boys’ club that the industry can be.” Murphy believes that “there is a huge opportunity for WIFT to extend its concerns beyond issues of funding, to generate debate around representation and the kind of films women want to make. There is such a positive vibe around with regard to women and cinema right now. I feel that the situation is urgent, yes, but at the same time, a kind of critical mass has been reached and I am expecting to see big changes in the near future.”

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“There is an appetite in Ireland for supporting women in film, and we have some incredible women working in the industry.”

The Feminist Film Festival is a prime example of how women can support each other in Irish cinema. All of the films programmed are directed by women, in contrast to most festivals, where, according to Healion, “the vast majority of films will be written, directed, produced and edited by men.” Murphy thinks “the festival could have a wonderful role in not only promoting new and vibrant forms of feminist cinema, but in highlighting important filmmakers from the past.” She also believes that festivals in general could be used as a means to explore the varied roles that women have played in cinema, saying there “could be seasons around the work of women editors, producers, designers and so on.” Holmes is interested in the Festival as a platform to continue “creating a bigger, more inclusive scene” and is looking forward to “getting out and talking to other women in the industry.” She is optimistic about the future: “The more vocal we are, the more noise we make, the more chance we have of creating change within the industry.”

WORDS BY CONOR SCULLY AND RACHEL GRAHAM STILLS FROM SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY, ONE MILLION DUBLINERS, AND TANA BANA

LIGHT AND SOUND: An Interview with CLU

LIGHT AND SOUND Finnán Tobin talks to CLU, the video and audio duo of Sean Cooley and Kevin Freeney, in advance of their upcoming gig in Metropolis.

“I don’t think CLU will ever be a finished project, and I actually pride myself in saying that. We’re not called Solution. We’re called CLU for a very specific reason.”

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“I

don’t think CLU will ever be a finished project, and I actually pride myself in saying that. We’re not called Solution. We’re called CLU for a very specific reason.” For the uninitiated, CLU are a Dublin based audio-visual act. That is, rather than either of these two elements taking a backseat in the project, both aspects of their show receive equal focus, in what can only be described as a symbiotic relationship. The act is comprised of Sean Cooley, who handles the music and vocals, while Kevin Freeney creates accompanying visuals live and onstage. The two met through a mutual acquaintance over three years ago, as Sean recalls: “We have a mutual friend called Kyle McDonald, and he showed me what he was up to with Kev. Kev was videotaping Kyle doing a painting and then using his program to add stuff to it and datawash it, just really messing it up. I saw that, and I was like ‘this is really good’, and I thought that it would really suit what I was doing.” It did however take a while for their relationship to actually get off the ground. It all started with Sean sending Kevin a facebook message, and a friend request that initially wasn’t accepted. Sean laughs: “He wouldn’t add me at first, he didn’t know who I was!”

Although the guys see themselves as striving towards creating a timeless musical experience, their project is one very much grounded in its contemporary twenty-first century moment, and it’s fitting their partnership began over Facebook. The pair are completely aware of the resource for inspiration that the internet can prove, as Kevin explains: “Art isn’t linear, it’s circular. Through the internet people can now draw creative influence from any sort of time or place. So I guess where we are, we definitely try to start talking about the internet as a system that we are very interested in for gathering influences from loads of different sources and bringing them together.” Musically speaking, Sean draws on a ream of

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sources, working with sounds that would sound familiar in trap-styled hip hop, vintage computer games and contemporary dance music, blending them all together seamlessly to create something that sounds unique.

Kevin’s visuals are equally arresting, presenting as they do a hypnotic and organic wall of colours, shapes, and images that add a whole new layer to what would otherwise be a mostly static show. It’s rare that you’re given a chance to watch music itself, to see it actually visualised before you, and Kevin offers just that.

The duo are keen to push perceptions of what an electronic music act can be. Their music is multi-purpose; it’s not so much “dance music” as it is music that you can dance to. It is refreshing to see an electronic act also pushing boundaries in terms of performance space, and as Kevin explains, CLU are equally at home in a grimy nightclub, an art gallery, or a festival field. On the evening of this interview they are to play Trinity College’s own Science Gallery. It’s a seemingly unconventional venue for an unconventional act. The duo actively try to build their live act around the space they’re playing in. Kevin explains: “every space has pros and cons. Some places, their function is to support a good sound system. You know, they might have a sound system in a venue that you wouldn’t get in a gallery.” Referring to the Science Gallery, he continues: “I suppose the best thing for me tonight, with a gallery like this, is that it would have a lot of visual tech that you might not get in a nightclub.” Their willingness, even desire, to adapt to the spaces around them is admirable. Sean describes in-depth, the fantastical sounding rig they had for their Dublin Fringe Festival show: “A concave kind of circular object, with glass honeycomb pieces on it, so that the visuals were refracted - or is it reflected? I’m getting words wrong, but like, it was just… You’d never see that in the Button Factory. Ever like.” He trails off in his own excitement. Kevin chimes in:

“Art isn’t linear, it’s circular. Through the internet people can now draw creative influence from any sort of time or place.”

“When we started we didn’t know what we needed. Now we can go into a space and we’re like oh, we can figure this out.” “Yeah”, Sean says, “we can fuck with a space if we want to.”

Kevin is quick to point out, that whatever about venues, the most vital aspects of the show are the audience and the audience’s attitude. “The most important thing for us is actually people - people that are open to developing an idea and open to taking on an experience.” Oft-associated with electronic music culture, the duo are ambivalent about drugs. Speaking on the subject, Sean says: “I do not make music to enhance someone when they’re fucked on drugs. That was never the thing. I remember somebody came up to me at Body and Soul and it really pissed me off, because they were just like ‘Oh yeah, I wish I was a bit more out of it’ and all that. It is still club music, and I’m not telling people that they should or shouldn’t do drugs or whatever, but everything has a time and a place”. Kevin gives his opinion: “I don’t feel that anybody is doing us a disservice by turning up fucked at our shows, but everyone needs to be educated, responsible, and fully aware of the drugs that they are doing. A lot of problems come from people not being responsible and taking too much to get the most out of a really short amount of time.”

Both Kevin and Sean see Ireland’s licensing laws as a definite problem rather than pacing themselves to “survive” the night, people get to a club, and because they’re going to get turfed out in a couple of hours time, they try to get as much drink into themselves as possible. “That’s when things get messy”, Sean claims. Thankfully, however, the duo don’t necessarily see the future of Dublin’s electronic music scene as being confined to the nightclub environment. Kevin sees there being huge potential in new, smaller festivals like The Beatyard, and Metropolis (where they will be

playing). He also expresses admiration for the DIY attitudes of people into the scene. “It’s going to find life at after-parties, people are going to do things themselves, they’re going to DIY it and be very clever with it. They’re going to do things for their friends. That’s why we did early shows, we did them for our friends more than anything”. CLU are an act exemplary of this ethos: they’re committed to their craft, innovative, and aren’t confined by any feeling that they should be following any route in particular.

It’s been just over a year since the act last put out an EP, Gems, but they don’t feel the pressure to release new music for the sake of it. The duo impress that they want there to be a stronger narrative on their next release than they perhaps had on their last, as Sean explains: “On the new EP I’ve focussed on not using a million sounds. With the last EP, there were loads of textures, and it was quite deep that way - all the instruments in the songs were different. The new EP is going to be more fluid. There’s the same synthesizers, over and over again. I kind of went through them, and said, ‘Have I heard this before? No. That’s in the good pile. Have I heard drums like this before? No. In the good pile.’” Sean has been working in this way for the last year, looking for stuff that gives him the feeling of “I’ve never heard this before.” He continues: “I’ve just been cataloguing all these sounds that I think are fresh, and building a four or five track EP that has them all in it. It’s going to be a fluid fucking EP. So that’s what I’ve been doing a the moment. As well as working at the live set.”

Kevin explains that a narrative does not always have to be thematic or emotive, and that sometimes it can be very abstract. “A lot of it could be very much about drawing attention to the technology or the machines that we’re using as much as anything else.” Sean goes on: “I like the way that Nicolaas Jaar plays things, where he’s just not genre bound - at all. He’s just like, I can do folk, or I can do whatever the fuck I want. I wouldn’t go as far as he does, I’m not going to do folk!” He laughs at this, before continuing: “I like the idea though of not being grounded in anything, so I can just be like ‘OK, I’m feeling like I just want to make some banging 4/4 stuff, or I want to make something chill.’”

Their future plans sound wonderfully ambitious - there’s talk of an accompanying computer game to go with their next release, and a diversification of their live efforts. Whatever direction CLU go, it’s exhilarating to see them really tamper with perceptions of what an electronic music act can be. CLU are much more than just a music act, they’re a fully-formed art project, and one would hope that their innovatory attitude is something that will further inspire the Irish cultural sphere whether it be a DJ in a dark club basement or a gallery-based artist.

WORDS BY FINNÁN TOBIN PHOTOS BY MIKE O’HANRAHAN

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THE GOLDEN BOUGH

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21st century fashion has been obsessed with looking back to move forward, a move prompted by the memory machine that is the internet. These images draw upon Ireland’s celtic heritage, its ďŹ xation with nature and the movement of solar bodies, reinterpreting this moment in design history by using the clothing of a contemporary international brand. Raw edges and natural fabrics give the garments an earthy look while blank landscapes ďŹ lled with negative space give the scene a banality more closely associated with the digital world.

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CREATIVE DIRECTOR JOHN TIERNEY STYLING MEGAN BURNS PHOTOS BY KATIE O’NEILL MODELS SOPHIA ALONGE, CIARA HALEY, KATE HALEY CLOTHES COS

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fresh ink

Oisín Vince Coulter considers the rise of new animated shows Rick and Morty and Bojack Horseman in the context of current trends in television cartoons.

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t’d be a lie to say no one could have predicted the current renaissance in adult animation – twenty years ago the Simpsons offered some of the most incisive commentary about American suburbia on television – but the direction this movement has taken has been surprising.

Exemplified by Rick and Morty and Bojack Horseman, the best of modern animation tackles issues that range from middle-aged ennui to subjective morality, while always maintaining a self-awareness of the medium and the tropes that they gleefully employ. What’s surprising in this trend towards complex themes is the context that it emerged from.

After the Simpsons opened the door to adult audiences, we saw the rise of South Park and later Family Guy, who further pushed the boundaries of animation. However, the popularity of these shows did feed into a characterisation of adult animation as being mature, primarily through their willingness to feature socially unacceptable humour.

“This is what really separates these new cartoons from their contemporaries: they are happy to leave the questions they ask hanging instead of offering easy answers or cheap escapism.”

This trend can be seen in the later seasons of the Simpsons, which moved progressively away from social commentary and towards the more random irreverence of its competitors. Compounding this trend was the range of Family Guy spin-offs that proliferated in the 2000s and pointed towards the continued domination of the animation market by a very particular form of humour. What shows like South Park and Family Guy did was open the door that Bojack Horseman and Rick and Morty have walked through. Although flippantly and without much depth, the former shows did touch on a wide variety of themes. Along with the Simpsons this proved the existence of a market for adult animation, which made the experimentation of recent years possible.

with the kind of questions real people struggle with. Maybe they get away with being so heartfelt precisely because they have the cartoon veneer, a built-in mechanism that means they avoid becoming over-wrought or “too serious”.

This market, combined with the rise of Netflix and online streaming, allowed risks to be taken that would have been impossible even 20 years ago - like a show built around an anthropomorphic, alcoholic horse who struggles to find meaning in life following the cancellation of Horsin’ Around, his mediocre 90’s sitcom. Netflix didn’t need to worry about what time slot to air Bojack Horseman, or what demographic to target: they could drop it onto people’s computers and wait for the market to come to them.

And make no mistake; the defining feature of the current “animation renaissance” is how high-concept it’s willing to go. Bojack Horseman seemed set at the beginning to be little more than a well-trod critique of celebrity and Hollywood before evolving into one of the most compelling character studies on television. Somehow the characters are all-too-human, despite often being anthropomorphic animals – a fact that the show’s internal logic simply takes as a given. Rick and Morty tackles the question of how to make characters human in animation by foregrounding its Science Fiction elements - while subtly examining how human beings are changed by the things they have to witness and do. This is arguably the central theme of the show, which is explored through the contrast between its two protagonists: Morty, the naïve and inexperienced teenager and Rick, the emotionally closed-off veteran who’s suffered decades of struggle and loss.

The same is true for Rick and Morty, which Adult Swim airs online for free. In fact, Adult Swim deserve a lot of the credit for the new direction we’ve seen in animation, with shows like Moral Orel and Venture Bros’ proving that animation could handle impactful themes. The internet has also allowed for new expressions of popularity and fandom with Facebook, Twitter and Reddit giving successful shows easy feedback for their creators. While in the past, experimental shows could easily slip under the radar and face early cancellation, instant online metrics, like views on Youtube, quickly show what is and is not popular. What Rick and Morty and Bojack Horseman did with this opportunity to experiment, is explore how life is not only complex and strange, it can also be fundamentally unfair. Previous cartoons either maintained the sitcom trope of happy endings and returning to a stable tabula rasa at the end of each episode, or broke with that trope in flippant and infantile ways.

This is what really separates these new cartoons from their contemporaries: they are happy to leave the questions they ask hanging instead of offering easy answers or cheap escapism. Instead of Peter Griffin fighting an anthropomorphic chicken, we have Rick contemplating suicide because he seems incapable of forming healthy emotional connections with other people. At their heart, Bojack Horseman and Rick and Morty are both genuine in the themes they deconstruct. They are no less funny for this – after years of unending irony, it’s refreshing to have television dealing

Of course, there must be a disclaimer that only Western animation is being dealt with here; deep themes have been explored in Japanese anime for many years. Ghost in the Shell was asking what it means to be human in a computerised world on television in 2002. In fact, the growth in popularity of anime has undoubtedly played a part in introducing the idea of high-concept animation.

Both shows have now finished their second seasons, so we have a good idea of what each is trying to achieve and where they are going – although each has surprised their audience before with left-field developments.

Perhaps the wider question is what they mean for adult animation as a medium. The advent of Family Guy forced the Simpsons to evolve, but it doesn’t seem likely that Family Guy is going to suddenly start challenging its audiences to question their basic assumptions. Perhaps, it’ll be more like the eventual fate of Horsin’ Around – eclipsed by newer and smarter shows, the older generation of cartoons may just find themselves outdated. Although such a development is years away it does point towards how radically animation has changed, not only in the past decade but even in the past three years. If the release of Rick and Morty in 2013 heralded the beginning of the new trend in animation it’s frankly impossible to know where it will lead. After all, it’s that very uncertainty that makes these new shows so compelling.

WORDS BY OISíN VINCE COULTER ILLUSTRATION BY MUBASHIR SULTAN

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Brian friel

The Master Playwright 20

Elizabeth Rochford looks back on the career and legacy of one of Ireland’s most esteemed playwrights.

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ailed as “The Irish Chekhov”, Brian Friel’s recent passing marks a sad day for theatre. Born in Tyrone in 1929, Friel later moved to Glenties, Donegal, the renowned home of his fictional Ballybeg. Over a remarkable career that spanned half a century, Friel published an incredible total of 24 plays. An early success, Philadelphia, Here I Come! first premiered at the Gaiety Theatre as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1964. This year, 51 years later, the Gaiety welcomed back another Friel play, Dancing at Lughnasa, for what would be his final Festival.

Although widely regarded as one of the greatest modern Irish dramatists, Friel’s career was slow to begin. Having worked as a struggling writer for years, with some small success on stage with the likes of The Enemy Within (1962) and The Blind Mice (1963), it wasn’t until Friel moved to Minneapolis for a few weeks to work at Tyrone Guthrie’s new Guthrie Theatre that things began to click into place. It was there, watching from the eaves, that he was first given the title of “observer”, a role that Friel would play his entire life - he maintained that there are no small people and no small experiences. Through watching others at work, he developed the courage to experiment himself and, shortly after returning to Ireland, the acclaimed Philadelphia, Here I Come! was written. Often seen as a breakthrough moment in Irish theatre, the play did more than address the rather conventional topic of immigration; it split the main character, Gar O’Donnell, in two: the public and the private. This was revolutionary at a time when Irish theatre had been, to some extent, limited by the principles of representational naturalism, as inherited from playwrights such as Seán O’Casey. It was the breakthrough Friel needed to catapult him from the Dublin stage to London and New York.

As the 1960s progressed, Friel’s career grew. With the turn of the decade, his theatrical emphasis moved towards the political landscape which embroiled Ireland at the time. Freedom of the City (1973) was completed in between his two political satires, The Mundy Scheme (1969) and Volunteers (1975). Freedom of the City, however, was his most directly political play and was hugely influenced by Bloody Sunday - an event which shook both Friel and Ireland. The play particularly served as a furious response to the Widgery Report: whilst Friel had always been a committed nationalist, the blatant bias of the tribunal report scandalised him to a new level. The heightened scepticism and cynicism many now felt towards “official” documents added to Friel’s increasing scrutiny of the fallibility of memory and storytelling. His concern with the representation of experience, given the unreliability of language, was one which had influenced his work from an early stage. One of the great problems he

“Friel’s own experiences in life, particularly with the Troubles, may have indeed corroborated his rather tragic view of life.”

found with language was with translation itself, as he explores in his 1980 play, Translations. Heavily influenced by George Steiner’s work on the impossibility of translation, Friel used a considerable amount of text from Steiner’s After Babel (1975) in the play. The question both works ask is: if there is always a level of translation between language, even a shared native language, then how might we accurately interpret an inherited language such as that handed-down through colonial imposition? For Friel, as for Steiner, all “communication interprets between privacies,” highlighting the difficult problem of decoding the intricate meanings of individual language.

Although it may be said that Freedom of the City was Friel’s most overtly political play, one of his greatest cultural and political projects may be the Field Day Theatre Company which he set up in 1980 with actor Stephen Rea in Derry. Originally intended to establish a significant theatre company in Northern Ireland, it was there that Translations first premiered. The excitement surrounding the play and the Company momentarily dissipated the boundaries separating the many factions, offering people of all political and religious persuasions images of a shared national identity to reflect upon. All involved agreed on the power of arts and culture to unite a community - a vital function at a time of instability in the North. Friel’s own experiences in life, particularly with the Troubles, may have indeed corroborated his rather tragic view of life.

His work highlighted the sympathy he had for those who suffered, were confused or defeated. Although Friel’s characters are often pitifully on the brink of destruction or extinction, they are notably ordinary. It is this consideration of somewhat inconsequential things as fundamental that makes him, in some respects, a characteristic modern playwright.

Ordinary people with their messy, confused, and inadequate lives are in fact worthy of drama: one of Friel’s most quoted lines is, “My friend, confusion is not an ignoble condition”. By utilising the ordinariness of life as the substance of drama, Friel asserted himself as a remarkable modern dramatist.

First and foremost, Brian Friel was the Irish playwright. Although he wrote in a very colloquial Irish-English voice, he wrote in one which was incredibly accessible. Thus, in this way, his writing went further internationally than the likes of Tom Murphy, whose writing is slightly more idiosyncratically Irish. Friel’s lyrical language allowed him success both at home and abroad in the niche market of the Irish play. Indeed, the two overarching themes of Friel are both his remarkable kindness and his impressive business cunning. By making his plays as accessible as possible he ensured success critically and financially. His linguistic capabilities firmly established him as a central figure in the languagebased tradition of Irish theatre and it is this sharpness and prowess that will ensure he remains a landmark for Irish playwrights.

The countless moving eulogies and praise offered across Ireland and the world after Brian Friel’s passing are a testament to not just the playwright, but the man himself. As well as being a savvy businessman and a giant of theatre, repeated reference is given to Friel’s incredible generosity of heart. Following the opening night of the Lyric Theatre’s recent production of Dancing at Lughnasa at the Gaiety, Jimmy Fay, Executive Producer of the Lyric, gave a heart-wrenching eulogy to the man we will all miss. As the last theatre to work with Brian Friel, the Lyric’s immense gratitude and sadness was palpable. The tears and emotion shown by Fay and the actors alike honoured the man who not only “rescued the humanity, the spirit of a people, from the ‘wrecking ball’ of history”, but who touched so many people in theatre and beyond. It is this man, the master playwright, the man who made the local universal, the linguist who eloquently explored the theatre of language, whose legacy shall endure.

WORDS BY ELIZABETH ROCHFORD PHOTO BY MIKE BUNN

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pop-

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up culture Rachel Cunningham investigates the proven popularity of the pop-up restaurant.

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op-ups are so much more than those annoying advertisements that appear when you open a new tab on your laptop. As a type of restaurant they encourage ingenuity, creativity and spontaneity and, because they are often created in a short space of time, they tend to have a back-to-basics style that emphasises a small, clean menu with a primary focus on taste.

It is difficult to forget the hype around Tayto’s pop-up shop on Wicklow Street in March of this year, which donated half of its proceeds to the Dublin Simon Community.They provided €2 crisp sandwiches in their four classic flavours, a product so effective in its simplicity that they even opted to extend their running time.

Slightly further afield is another pop-up that has begun to establish a name for itself, the summertime seaside project that is Dillisk. On the machair of Aughrusbeg, Connemara, Galway sits a converted boat shed where parties are treated to meals concocted from ingredients that are naturally available on both land and shore. If you can’t wait until August or are in search of similar gastronomic adventures closer to home, then one of the creators, Katie Sanderson, is the person to watch out for. Vegetable lovers will be interested in her “Living Dinners” that have been known to crop up in everything from art galleries to derelict houses or what her website describes as “unconventional spaces that are twisted and turned to offer a backdrop for a once off experience”. She is also the one behind the wholefood workshops and monthly yoga brunches in the Fumbally Stables, Dublin 8.

Although not necessarily a new sensation, the popularity of pop-ups has been on the increase, as it’s an effective way for young chefs and entrepreneurs to crack the market in spite of a difficult economic climate.

For them, it provides an opportunity to showcase their talents with minimum financial risk while for us, the consumer, it means high quality and unique dining experiences. Two former DIT culinary students, Cúán Greene and Harry Colley, formed Dublin Pop Up in their final year with a philosophy of “creativity, technique and food provenance, merged to deliver a complete dining experience” in mind. Since then, not only have they collaborated with such household names as Guinness, Heineken and Lidl, but they also flew the flag for Ireland in Toronto’s “Beerlicious” festival this summer, where they gave cooking demos and designed quirky pop-ups.

Joe Macken’s now well-known Crackbird, a sister restaurant to Jo’burger, is another example of a restaurant that tentatively stepped onto the scene as a “Tweet-to-eat” pop-up. Interestingly, these places have mostly overlooked traditional methods of advertising, preferring to instead maintain a close relationship with social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter and occasionally, but not always, with the use of a website. Even the coffee scene is getting involved with Vice Coffee Inc. currently running a pop-up espresso bar in 54 Middle Abbey Street, above what was previously the Twisted Pepper (just don’t forget to ring the bell to gain entry).

Michael Martin spoke to tn2 about the founding of The Blind Pig on Repeal Day, the 4th of December, 2011. Founded by Paul Lambert, who was possibly the first recognised Irish mixologist, it is an example of how pop-ups can become a success story. The idea initially developed from his interest in 1920s cocktails; from there a prohibition-style speakeasy was brought to life that was among the first of its kind in Dublin. Having first opened its doors (albeit shrouded in secrecy) in 2010, its name stems from the police who would have turned a blind-eye to this sort of venue during prohibition. Beginning by running events every month, the huge demand for such a place became quickly apparent, as Michael explained:

“Unusual locations and interesting ingredients aside, what makes the pop-up a novel experience for the customer is the seat of heightened power it affords them.”

“We then started opening Thursday to Sunday and now we’re open seven days a week”. Aware of the limitations that a hushed-up, speakeasy inspired campaign can impose on a business, Michael claimed that “I think the path we’d chosen was probably the best path to develop a business”, attributing this slow but steady advancement to their pop-up beginnings.

“To be honest you could lose a lot of money at the start because you don’t do much advertising, it’s all word of mouth and kind of a slow burner”.

The strong theme and exciting atmosphere transforms the Blind Pig dining experience into an occasion that their customers can both participate in and enjoy. Although they have adapted to the market somewhat by providing food and wines (which wouldn’t have traditionally been available), their enduring appeal is still firmly grounded in their pop-up roots. He states that intrigue is “kind of the most powerful weapon we have ... to not know where they’re going when they’re coming in, it puts people in an excited humour and you’ve almost won over the customer before they’ve even sat down and had a cocktail.” Ultimately, he agreed that the pop-up beginning was something of a learning curve for them: “Pop-ups are great to gain experience and also to understand your market. You don’t have the same initial pressure and costs. It helps you realise whether you have the market and assess whether your product is good enough”.

The beauty of pop-up restaurants is that they make the Irish eating and drinking scene more eclectic while not requiring full-commitment from either the producer or the consumer. Unusual locations and interesting ingredients aside, what makes the pop-up a novel experience for the customer is the seat of heightened power it affords them. It is often the case that the consumer beats the critic to the dining table, meaning that the first response is generally one of word-of-mouth. The only issue is not getting too attached as they aren’t always guaranteed to stick around.

WORDS BY RACHEL CUNNINGHAM 23 PHOTOS BY Valentina Alvarez

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illustrations by Harriet Bruce harriet-bruce.tumblr.com

fashion illustration for We Are Islanders weareislanders.com

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REVIEWS HUDDLE TESTS Exit the bustling streets of Temple Bar and enter the yellow dreamscape that is Rhona Byrne’s Huddle Tests. Using the intimate space of the Temple Bar Gallery, Byrne has initiated a unique social experiment, which aims to explore group dynamics and interpersonal relations.

RHONA BYRNE ●●●○○

Visitors are asked to discard their shoes at the entrance and leave their inhibitions at the door, before moving throughout the brightly coloured space. Byrne uses a combination of sculpture, installation and drawing in the exhibition, yet her “Huddlewear” collection undoubtedly forms the centerpiece of the show.

A variety of hooded capes and peaked hats line the walls, waiting to be worn by the curious visitors. The clothes are designed to be worn by numerous people at once, with designs ranging from two-person garments to those that fit five or six people.

playground. Strangers align with one another in order to dress up in Byrne’s bizarre collection of clothing, doing away with the boundaries of personal space. With the image of clusters of people hobbling about in Huddlewear, Rhona Byrne reduces the notion of social relations to its most primitive, symbolic form.

This stark symbolism could easily be mistaken for a naïve interpretation of the mechanisms of social psychology. However, it is difficult to say whether or not this naivety was one of Byrne’s goals in the creation of Huddle Tests.

Indeed, it recalls a basic human need, that is, to feel a sense of belonging and to identify with others. In comparison to other, more traditional exhibition experiences, Rhona Byrne’s unique show relies almost completely on the interaction of the visitor. While it may appear somewhat rudimentary at first, Huddle Tests is both a provocative and entertaining way to explore human relations.

Intrigued observers from the outside world gather at the window, attempting to distinguish what exactly is going on within the sunny adult

WORDS AND PHOTO BY SARAH MOREL

PEACOCK CAFÉ ABBEY STREET ●●●●○

The Peacock Café, which is located in the Abbey Theatre and shares an entrance with the Peacock stage, has very recently opened.

In this sweet, little hideaway café, my friend and I ordered and paid at the desk before taking a place on the cosy red seats. The waitress asked me if I worked for the Abbey and, after shaking my head, I realised that we were surrounded by people who did. Across from us, there was a group of six actors who each spoke in hand movements with animated faces and sputters of laughter between each sentence. As time went on, we were graced by the presence of two more famous theatre actors who will not be named, but who sat near us. Although it may not be the usual place for students to frequent between college lectures, it is certainly ideal for anyone interested in rubbing shoulders with their favourite actors or for somewhere to relax and eat before a play. The café serves breakfast, lunch and a pre-theatre meal in the evening.

For lunch, I ordered the broccoli salad and, at €8.50, it was a very large portion. There were a few too many leaves and not enough of the other ingredients, but this was redeemed by the delicious mint flavour. My friend got the goats cheese sandwich which was enjoyable,

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apart from the beetroot. While most people don’t have a personal vendetta against beetroot, it is one of those foods that makes me really uncomfortable; I think it’s the purple fluorescent colour and the strange flavour. All of the coffees and teas are served in matching eggshell blue cups. I got an Americano for €2.50, which was rich in flavour and strong enough to perk me up. I also got a freshly baked scone and the only disappointment was that it was served with jam and butter, instead of clotted cream. As we munched away,

instrumental music of the theatre played in the background. The staff offered warm smiles and quality service, and we didn’t feel like we could overstay our welcome.

On its first set of legs, the Peacock Café is off to an excellent start and will no doubt be an alternative dining experience for actors and theatre lovers alike.

WORDS BY ANNA GORDON PHOTO BY SUSIE COAKLEY

THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION STANLEY NELSON

message of which is that an object can appear to be many different things depending on the viewer’s perspective. Staying true to this sentiment, the film never lingers on a single narrative but continuously highlights critical events that shaped the party’s messy evolution.

“We were making history, and it wasn’t nice and clean”. So says the first interviewee in Stanley Nelson’s portrait of one of the most mythologised groups in North American history, the Black Panther Party. The film opens with an animated rendition of the parable of the blind men and the elephant, the essential

Utilising extensive interviews along with a wealth of carefully arranged archival material, Nelson offers a comprehensive portrait of the party’s birth, growth and decline. Particular attention is paid to key figures and the influence their personas had, both on the membership, and on the establishment’s psyche. Hoover’s FBI and the Nixon administration are roundly

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condemned for their role in the escalation of violence within the party, as they sought explicitly to hinder the establishment of a “black messiah”. Huey Nugent, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver and Fred Hampton are each presented as fulfilling this prophecy in various ways. With limited time in which to tell their stories, the film gives us rather elementary sketches of their histories, just enough to leave us itching for more detail.

Though the testimonies of former party members are illuminating at times, the “talking heads” get too much screen-time, and the film drags a little in its less insightful moments.

Mostly, however, Nelson’s sensitive direction propels the story along at an interesting pace.

Nelson gestures towards the complicated nature of living and re-living history and politics by including nods to the various intersections that the BPP and the wider Black Power movement had with social causes of the time. A cracking soundtrack adds poignancy to a story which is still frightfully relevant; as the credits roll, Gil Scott Heron’s Winter In America plays over a reading of the party’s central aims: peace, justice, and an end to police brutality and the murder of black people.

WORDS BY RACHEL GRAHAM

THE QUEEN OF IRELAND CONOR HORGAN ●●●●○

Those involved in the making of The Queen of Ireland admit that it has been blessed with extraordinary good fortune. During production of the film, which focuses on the life and work of Rory O’Neill and his drag alterego Panti Bliss, Pantigate happened: a series of events that began with Rory’s Saturday Night Show appearance, and led to Panti’s Noble Call at the Abbey Theatre. This propelled Panti to the forefront of the Yes Equality movement, which culminated in May of this year, with the passing of the Marriage Equality referendum.

Enmeshed as the film’s protagonists have been in campaigning for gay rights, the documentary is largely shaped by the lead-up to and the results of the marriage referendum.

Panti, as the film attests, handles her leading role with grace and humor. A sharply intelligent speaker, Panti has apt replies for questions along the lines of “Are you a hetero-phobe?” and, in all of her fabulousness, she has lent the gay community much-needed confidence. In his roles as loud and proud drag queen Panti, and HIV activist, Rory stands in opposition to the shaming and silencing of non-normative identities.

The film does not completely avoid conflating the narrative of the Marriage Referendum with that of Panti Bliss and her role in its outcome.

Or equating the solution of the myriad issues that LGBTQ+ communities face with a positive outcome in the marriage referendum - an outcome which is not the “last question”, as is stated at one point. The film also raises the lack of an active and vibrant queer counterculture at the moment, in contrast to the Dublin of earlier days - before the decriminalzition

of homsexuality - where, as Rory puts it, clubbing had its basis in participation rather than consumerism. Panti, the self-proclaimed “giant cartoon woman”, undoubtedly plays court jester to Irish society, truth-saying and performing gender to undo notions of the permissible, working against the oppression she articulated so well in the Abbey Theatre last year. As Rory sums it up: if the No vote had won this year, the people wouldn’t have been dancing in the streets.

WORDS BY SORCHA GANNON

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THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS BEACH HOUSE ●●○○○

Warm analogue synthesizers, pattering drum machines, and Victoria Legrande’s bewitchingly androgynous vocals have remained at the heart of Beach House’s dreampop sound since their formation. While each of their first four records marked progressions in songwriting and production quality, the band’s latest LP Depression Cherry (released merely two months ago) seemed to be a step sideways.

Where Depression Cherry substituted waves of shoegaze guitar fuzz for the melodic hooks and swelling crescendos that made previous Beach House records so compelling, Thank Your Lucky Stars is stripped of both the songwriting strength and the stellar production of the band’s earlier output.

What’s left is pleasant at best, and dull at worst. Polite chord progressions with little compositional substance abound. Drum machines stroll monotonously through measure-long loops for minutes without changing. Unengaging synthesizer solos and instrumental choruses stand in for proper endings on more than half of the tracks. The mix is fuzzy and flat. The moments where a

distorted guitar or organ jumps out of the painfully-restrained instrumentation offer respite on such a uniformly soft-spoken record; however, they’re so few and far between that they almost seem out of place.

Still, there’s something undeniably valuable in Thank Your Lucky Stars that will, perhaps, pervade every album Beach House records: surface beauty. Legrande’s voice is as soothing

and inviting as ever, as is the bed of synthesizer and guitar arpeggios it floats above. The soulful sliding guitar riff on The Traveller, the lovely vocal melodies of Majorette, and the Chromatics-esque gloom of the record’s clear highlight All Your Yeahs, all hint at directions Beach House could go on their next album. If only they had taken the time to get there before releasing this one.

WORDS BY JOHN DARR

DOCUMENTARY 2 THE GAME ●●○○○

This is the sequel to Game’s first album which, released in 2005, really brought the West coast back after the early 2000s were dominated by East coast and Southern rap. It is the ten year anniversary of the original album this year, and while he released some disappointing records during this period, it sounds like The Game is acknowledging that there is a standard to be met for this one.

At 18 tracks, the album is overlong, and while most are certainly star-studded, the features are disappointingly fleeting. Appearances from Kendrick, Dre, Ice Cube and Q-Tip among others add little, and dilute The Game’s presence.

Diddy only comes in at the end of Standing on Ferraris, and Jelly Roll just shouts over the track Hashtag. There is nostalgic tip to many numbers, owing to mostly solid production and the decent use of samples from popular 90s HipHop songs. Step Up is a sentimental throwback to Pete Rock’s classic instrumental of the same title and On Me samples Erykah Badu’s vocals from On and On creating a fun, spacy revision that lends itself to Kendrick’s voice. Standing

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on Ferraris uses a sample from Screaming Jay Hawkins I Put a Spell on you, but fails to achieve anything close to the dynamism of previous attempts, namely Biggie’s Kick in The Door.

Although there is a refreshing lack of trap-style instrumentals, Dedicated, featuring Future, reminds listeners what is in vogue. The Game has never been particularly lyrical but the signature callousness of his delivery is present in full swing, which reminds listeners of why we (used to) like him. This is successful on 100 and the

title track which both contain a seed of urgency and truth, which is undeniably compelling.

There are a few dismal lines, for example at one point he rhymes “easy” with “easy”. On the whole this is nothing special but more ambitious than his last few albums, and bear in mind there is a second disc soon to be released.

WORDS BY SAM MARRIOTT

OEDIPUS

WAYNE JORDAN ●○○○○

Successfully updating a classic text usually requires a powerful concept to draw an audience into a fresh revision. Take Rupert Goold’s Macbeth for instance, in which Patrick Stewart is transported into a world of Soviet conspiracy, or Akira Kurosawa’s brilliant take on King Lear in the Japanese film Ran. The production of Oedipus currently running at the Abbey takes a different approach: it is set in

an indeterminate, semi-contemporary political world. It is neither here nor there.

What Wayne Jordan’s adaptation of Sophocles’ play aims to achieve is not immediately apparent. The characters wear modern dress and inhabit a space of scattered wooden chairs that at times resembles a court room. The translation is updated, sometimes clumsily and with frequent expletives. Oedipus’ name (literally translated as ‘swollen foot’) is referenced by the lead actor limping awkwardly around the stage for the entire play. The chorus sing their lines rather than speak them.

But what these “original” interpretations amount to isn’t always clear – there is no serious current political or moral message, nor is there any apparent comment on 21st century existence – Jordan seems uncertain as to what his adaptation intends to achieve . Whilst the musical score is interesting, it seems to hark back to a Christian choral tradition, thereby clashing both with the classical text and the play as a contemporary revision. There is a tepid uncertainty to the director’s decisions and seemingly an urge to innovate for innovation’s sake, with little serious thought behind it.

Barry John O’Connor is commendable as Oedipus, and contends well with having to limp as if impinged by a badly sprained ankle throughout, whilst Fiona Bell plays a convincing Jocasta. Overall, this adaptation is not particularly exciting nor challenging and, despite its thrashing attempts at originality, it offers very little of interest in its revision of Sophocles’ classic text.

Oedipus runs at the Abbey Theatre until 31st October. Tickets start from €13.

WORDS BY JEROME MOCKETT

SHIBBOLETH STACEY GREGG ●●●●●

Shib·bo·leth (noun) - a custom, principle, or belief distinguishing a particular class or group of people, especially a long-standing one regarded as outmoded or no longer important.

In this case, Stacey Gregg’s Shibboleth takes the form of a peace wall in Belfast which splits the urban landscape down the middle. Intended to maintain accord in a post-conflict city, the wall is credited with separating “themens” from “usens”. The remnants of the Troubles still linger, trickling down through the younger generations and leaving a pervading sense of aimless embitterment. As a group of construction workers are extending this “residential barrier”, they gradually begin to question its purpose.

The premiere of Shibboleth at the Abbey delivers a compelling exploration of working-class life in Belfast and the continuing struggle between “them” and “us”. The peace wall, hemmed by ‘dead-man’s-land’, stands as an ongoing reminder of the physical gap that still separates the community. For five construction workers, the task at hand is greater than just the extension of a wall, brick-by-brick, but of a divide. In order to incentivise new economic growth in a

stagnant area, we are told, the peace wall and the supposed safety it provides must be maintained.

After the slow integration of a Polish worker, problems surface with his daughter. Driven by blind alliances, the other men rally round, reiterating their rather brutal code: “Look out for the lads”. When good intentions go wrong, tragedy strikes, and violence turns inward. The audience is left wondering whether the wall, the shibboleth, does not just keep “themens” from “usens” but turns both sides on themselves.

Gregg does phenomenally well to highlight

the terrible anonymity and senselessness of the Belfast peace wall which serves as little more than a conflict buttress.

Shibboleth runs at the Abbey on the Peacock Stage until 31st October. Tickets range from €13 - €20.

WORDS BY ELIZABETH ROCHFORD

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THE BEGINNER’S GUIDE DAVEY WREDEN ●●●●○

Davey Wreden is a game reviewer’s worst nightmare. Game reviews are, by convention, lengthy and encyclopaedic, conveying the gaming experience with as much detail and accuracy as the written word will allow.

With The Stanley Parable, and now with The Beginner’s Guide, Davey Wreden has created boundary-pushing, metafictional,

impeccably crafted games, which rely on the player’s ignorance of their content to deliver the strongest possible impact. This forces the reviewer to bend and contort their words into vague statements and allusions, terrified that they’ll give away the magic trick that Wreden has now managed to pull off for the second time in a row.

And there is something undeniably magical about The Beginner’s Guide. Designed entirely

on the blocky, corridor-laden Source Engine, the environments manage to be impressively atmospheric. The worlds of The Beginner’s Guide are steeped in shadow, ranging from vast chasms to suffocating crawlspaces, each building on the thematic weight of the other.

The metafictional perspective of The Stanley Parable emerges again here, this time in the form of Wreden’s own voice, shattering the fourth wall in the opening seconds by addressing the player directly about the experience that they are about to undertake. What follows this immediate break is an hour-and-a-half long treatise on game design and artistic expression that poses a formidable question: What can the things we create tell us about who we are?

While it lacks is the scope and elaborate execution of The Stanley Parable; The Beginner’s Guide is a formidable follow-up effort from Wreden, who is fast becoming one of the most exciting figures on the independent scene.

WORDS BY EOIN MOORE

EMPIRE FOX

●●●○○ The early signs suggest that season 2 of Empire, Fox’s hip-hop tycoon drama currently airing on E4, will be a cracker. Lucious is in prison and recording music again. Cookie and Hakeem have reconciled their differences and are now teaming up against Empire to build a new company. André has been frozen out from both sides to an extent, but is sure to cause a stir later on in the season. However, the most intriguing prospect in season 2 of Empire is the changing role of Jamal.

Jamal was a fan favourite from season 1 of Empire. You can’t help but instinctively root for a guy who gets dumped in a trash can by his dad in the show’s pilot episode (via flashback) for being gay. However, judging from season 2’s first couple of episodes, it appears that showrunners Lee Daniels and Danny Strong intend on sending Jamal down a very different path this time around.

Since we last saw him, Jamal has become the interim CEO of Empire while his father, Lucious, serves out his prison sentence. This arrangement never really made any sense; Jamal is a musician, while the eldest son, André, went to college and is clearly the only son with a business head on his shoulders. Empire certainly has an air of the soap opera about it at times, being largely plot driven and inclined towards sensationalism. However nonsensical

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this decision might seem, it’s necessary to go with the flow and to accept Empire for what it is: glorious, unashamed entertainment.

Stepping into his father’s shoes, Jamal masquerades as a cold, austere businessman.

Cookie vocalises the viewer’s discomfort with this change by telling Jamal that he’s turning into his father. It’s easy to forget how clichéd this statement is when Jamal and Lucious’ exceedingly fraught relationship is taken into account.

Jamal’s desperate need to please his father, and to earn his love in spite of his sexuality, will almost certainly prove his downfall as he begins to look more and more like television’s newest anti-hero. He is a square peg trying to fit into a round hole and it will be interesting to see how much of himself he will have to sacrifice in the process as the season continues.

WORDS BY J. FINBAR LYNCH

DUBLIN SEVEN FRANKIE GAFFNEY ●●●●○

Dublin Seven reveals a razor-sharp vision of gangland existence, interwoven with intricate relationships, and reflections on a life under threat. Frankie Gaffney’s debut novel draws on his personal association with, and knowledge of, Dublin’s underworld, an understanding which adds to his realistic portrayal of the darker side of the capital’s business. An initial Shakespearian quote strikes a bold contrast with the gritty dialogue and hints at this novel’s winning asset: the inter-weaving of violenceladen gangsters and deeper moral questions.

The plot centres on Dublin teenager Shane and his ever-increasing involvement with the drug-fuelled world on his doorstep. Through new acquaintances, the enticing shimmer of financial gain, and a bloody drive to succeed, Shane becomes consumed by the alluring business of cocaine dealing. The standard tropes and themes of gangland novels are all present, including drug abuse, guns, violence, and sex. As Shane climbs the criminal rankings, his world twists, complicated by bigger risks and heightened dangers. A passionate young romance adds another element of intensity and acts as a fiery catalyst to each new challenge.

Trust and relationships evolve as a pivotal theme within the intertwined dealings, characters, and subplots centred on Shane’s race against the inevitable consequences of crime.

This story flashes by in a turbulent haze of violence and paranoia. However, striking moments of clarity pierce the drug-induced fog of muddled conscience and allow bigger issues of life, death and existence to emerge. These unexpected meditations on a life of crime show the subtle complexity of Shane’s character.

They also create a conflicting argument for the reader as this young man’s criminal actions are paradoxically linked with his compassionate innermost thoughts. Each reflection or remembrance of the past offers an alternative vision of the human qualities and lives so often forgotten in the whirlwind of head-line grabbing underworld offences.

Dublin Seven’s familiar locality sets it apart as a gangland novel for Irish readers. Gaffney also succeeds in merging the horrifying violence of drug wars with the youthful clamour for opportunity in the form of his main character.

However, to appreciate this stark portrayal of a world which pulses gently beneath the everyday world, it is vital to look beyond the rush of bloodshed and confusion to reveal that human nature, regardless of situation, remains ultimately the same.

Nov. 2-3, 2015 2015 Nov. 2-3, University Dublin,Ireland Ireland University College College Dublin, Dublin, Dublin, #FungForum #FungForum Register: http://fungforum.princeton.edu Register: General: $100 Students: $25 25% Off Groups of 10 or More Press Contact: Press Contact: fungforum@princeton.edu

fungforum@princeton.edu Speakers come from a wide array of disciplines and sectors: Speakers come from a wide array of disciplines and sectors: those working on on the the front front lines those working lines of of the the West West Africa Africa Ebola Ebolacrisis, crisis, faculty who who study study global faculty global health healthcrises, crises, members of of the the media media and and philanthropic philanthropic organizations. members organizations.

WORDS BY KATIE CURRAN

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OCT 23-26

UNTIL OCT 25

OCT 30 NOV 1

NOV 1

Gaelcon

Beyond: Irish Outsider Art

Feminist Film Festival

Vegfest

Ballsbridge Hotel, €14-€28, activities are priced separately

The Copper House Gallery, Free Entry

The New Theatre, €10 per film

F2 Centre, €8

Gaelcon, Ireland’s preeminent gaming convention, returns this October. While Dublin Comicon may be edging into the limelight, Gaelcon remains a favourite amongst nerds of all kinds and gamers of the tabletop, role-playing and card game varieties. Almost anyone interested in rolling dice and comparing stats will find something to their liking this weekend in the Ballsbridge Hotel. With tutorials for novices and tournaments for veterans, it’s certain that no matter what experience level you have, there will be something to entertain you. A huge array of RPGs and LARPs will be played, while on the wargaming side of things, there will be Warhammer 40,000 and X-Wing. In addition, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, and the Game of Thrones card game will ensure enough Blue-Eyes White Dragons and backstabbing to keep the weekend rolling.

Outsider Art, now showing at the Copper House Gallery, aims to showcase the art of those who feel marginalised by society. The exhibition displays the work of those who feel like they’re on the “outside”, be it due to mental illness, financial struggles or learning disabilities. Mediums range from paints and markers to aluminium and cardboard. Despite the title of the exhibition, the works are often brightly coloured and celebratory, with themes of love, growth and rebirth.

The home page of the second Feminist Film Festival gives us numerous reasons why its existence is necessary: women account for only 5% of directors and 10% of writers in the top grossing films of the past 20 years. Women make up less than a fifth of protagonists, and those that are portrayed are mostly young.

Realistically though, the people who feel a festival like this needs to justify itself are not the people who are going to attend.

You’ve probably already noticed it cropping up as an event on your newsfeed. Dublin’s Vegfest will be taking place on Sunday 1st November which will also be “World Vegan Day”. Open from 11am to 5pm, and featuring a range of talks and events, you don’t have to be a vegetarian or a vegan to enjoy what the festival has to offer. Book your tickets in advance to avoid disappointment and prepare yourself for a day of all things vegtastic. What’s more, a portion of this year’s proceeds will go towards the Back Into Daylight Animal Sanctuary so you can feel virtuous while you veg out.

WORDS BY BUD MCLOUGHLIN

WORDS BY CHOY-PING CLARKE-NG

Everyone else can look forward to a cracking selection of new films, screenings of older classics and panel discussions. Highlights include the Irish premiere of She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry, which documents the second wave of feminism in 1960s USA, and Jennifer Kent’s 2014 horror The Babadook. The central panel discussion is entitled “Feminist Film: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Experimental” and features a number of active female filmmakers.

Leave your fedora at home.

WORDS BY CONOR SCULLY

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WORDS BY RACHEL CUNNINGHAM

NOV 5

NOV 7 - 8

NOV 12

NOV 12-15

H&MxBalmain

Metropolis

How to Create an Innovative TV Series

Dublin Book Festival

H&Ms nationwide, prices vary

RDS, Weekend tickets €145

Galway Film Centre, Admission €20

Smock Alley Theatre, Prices vary

It’s that time of year again. For their 2015 designer collaboration, H&M have teamed up with Olivier Rousteing, head designer at the French luxury fashion house Balmain. Inspired by some of Rousteing’s biggest red carpet moments, the line includes a selection of heavily embroidered party dresses and structured blazers, as you would expect from the brand. Rousteing’s work with Balmain has become somewhat of a pop phenomenon, dressing the likes of Gigi Hadid and all of the extended Kardashian clan. It is yet to be seen whether the collection will generate the same pandemonium surrounding previous H&M collaborations with Wang and Marni. If you feel like braving the cold to get your hands on these garments first, the collection is available worldwide on the 5th of November.

Hosted by POD and Hidden Agenda, Metropolis is Dublin’s newest music festival.

The festival is spread across the RDS, and while there are a range of tastes catered for, the emphasis is mostly on dance and rap. The Shelbourne Hall stage on the Sunday is particularly strong: Jamie xx, Four Tet, Kaytranada and Floating Points are all playing and in succession. Long Beach rapper Vince Staples in the Serpentine Hall on the Saturday looks set to be a highlight, coming off the back of his standout debut album Summertime ‘06 released earlier this year. Other headliners include The Roots, Chic, and Hot Chip. Interestingly, the festival also features a number of artists sitting down for conversation - Giorgio Moroder, John Cooper Clarke and a number of the Haçienda DJs will all be speaking, rounding out one of the most highly anticipated festivals of the year.

Think you’re the next Vince Gilligan? Live in the west of Ireland? Then make your way down to Galway Film Centre on Wellpark Road on November 12th for an informative talk by producer of The Fall, Gub Neal. Between 10 AM and 1 PM, Neal will discuss the attributes that make compelling television, as well as providing an insight into how European television drama is produced. The objective of this event is to show you how to embark down that treacherous path from script to screen, looking not just at the creative process but also at the best ways to appeal to a broadcaster. There will also be limited opportunities for budding writers and producers to have a tete-a-tete with Gub Neal in the afternoon, though this requires a project that is either in development or with interest expressed from a broadcaster.

Since 2006, the Dublin Book Festival has hosted a range of events celebrating Irish writers and publishing. This year there will be panels covering topics as diverse as crime writing, poetry and the 1916 Rising. Those willing to brave the November cold can take a literary walking tour of Dublin, but for a more relaxed pace, the Smock Alley Theatre’s Banquet Hall will be transformed into a Winter Garden, with a bookshop, bean-bags and coffee. You can also catch the launch of some exciting new Irish books, including The Uninvited and Waterford Whispers News Takes Over the World.

WORDS BY JOHN TIERNEY

For more information and to book tickets, visit www.dublinbookfestival.com.

WORDS BY TANYA SHEEHAN

For more information go to screentrainingireland.ie.

WORDS BY FINNAN TOBIN WORDS BY FINBAR LYNCH

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STAFF PICKS

tn2 writers recommend a few of their lesser-known favourites.

FILM SPELLBOUND Non-fiction films often aim for truth over entertainment, but the makers of 2002’s Spellbound - not to be confused with the Hitchcock film of the same name - transcend the documentary label and succeed in making a movie that is essentially a thriller. The premise is simple: the filmmakers follow eight students as they prepare for and compete in the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee. As is common in these types of movies, a broad cross-section of “America” is examined. Participants range from a daughter of Mexican immigrants who do not speak English to a girl from Connecticut whose parents hired her a French nanny so she would be more au fait with words of French origin.

The implicit goal seems to be the portrayal of an idealised USA, in which everyone can “make it” if they work hard. This is, of course, absolute nonsense, but that’s beside the point. Quite simply, the joy of the film comes from watching incredibly intelligent kids put under incredible amounts of pressure trying to spell incredibly complicated words. One speller alone manages to spell “seguidilla”, “disclaimant”, “kookaburra”, “viand”, “apocope”, and “brunneous” before coming undone - and she’s disappointed with her performance. Spellers are made to stand up in front of a crowd with cameras pointed in their faces (the final day is broadcast on ESPN), knowing that if they say one incorrect letter - just one! - they will hear the bell that signals elimination. Nothing too complex in the set-up, but the execution is flawless, and the director is able to ratchet up the tension to unbearable amounts.

Propaganda aside, you’d be hard pressed to find a documentary more nerve-wrecking.

WORDS BY CONOR SCULLY

BOOK EEYORE HAS A HAPPY DAY There are some memories we all have that, for whatever reason, never fade. The first book I truly fell in love with was Eeyore has a Happy Day, a 14-page padded children’s book by A. A. Milne as part of his Whinnie the Pooh series. The book follows the rollercoaster of events that unfold during the course of birthday, who is a rather morose donkey. Which birthday it is isn’t specified; this is not a book full of superfluous details. Instead the primary focus is on Pooh and Piglet’s respective presents for Eeyore,the morose donkey. Pooh procures a large pot of honey for Eeyore, while Piglet gets him a shiny red balloon. Like any great tale however, tragedy befalls our band of characters; within minutes the red balloon bursts and the honey is mysteriously eaten. Handing him a scrap of red latex, Piglet tells Eeyore that here is a red balloon. “Here is a useful pot”, says Pooh, handing him his own present.

The book is irony incarnate. and at the time was the best thing I’d experienced since the Pokémon theme song. But what truly cemented the book as my very favourite was Eeyore’s reaction to his friends’ pathetic gifts: he dances for joy. Putting the balloon scraps into the pot, he proceeds to have the best birthday he’s ever had, and that attitude, that perfect attitude, is one I’ve tried to live by ever since. What a Donkey.

WORDS BY MICHAEL MULOOLY

ART AKNITOMY Emily Stoneking’s knitted anatomy studies are the most recent phenomenon to take the craft world by storm. Everything from bats and rats, to frogs and aliens, are pinned on dissection boards and pulled apart to showcase the wooly innards which hide inside.For those that find the ethics of animal dissection questionable, the variety of creatures available on Stoneking’s Etsy shop aKNITomy may provide the answer. Each animal contains all the vital organs found in the live body, and of course, all in their respective locations. The individual entrails can be poked and prodded while inside the body, providing a less-than-disgusting insight into the complex workings of animal anatomy. Stoneking doesn’t stop at mohair fauna either. As well as pig fetuses and earthworms, human studies are also available for purchase. With a human head bisection and a “neurological study in wool”, one can be assured that their scientific curiosities are satisfied in the wooliest way possible. Of course, the journey into the wonderful world of biology doesn’t necessarily have to finish on earth, as Stoneking offers an Area 51-esque alien autopsy too. Following the exhausting process of examining the natural body, the scientist is able to unpin the cuddly creations and snuggle up with them. With science that smells less like formaldehyde, and more like your favorite sweater, as Stoneking aptly puts it, a brand new use has been found for knitting. Who knew animal dissection could be so adorable?

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WORDS BY SARAH MOREL

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William NortoN House Communications Workers’ Union

Our Conference Hall can cater for

240 Theatre Style or180 Classroom Style

TECHNICAL SPEC & CAPACITIES • Conference Hall capacity Theatre Style • Conference Hall capacity Classroom Style • National Executive Boardroom • Leinster Boardroom • Munster Boardroom • Connacht Boardroom • Ulster Boardroom • Breakout Areas for various no delegates • Secluded Private Garden • Rooftop Garden • Complimentary parking for over 25 cars • Complimentary wifi • Video/Tele conference facility

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240 180 45 22 20 16 10 3

To find out more about the facilities at William Norton House, or to book your next event, please contact: Imelda Wall, Communications Workers’ Union, William Norton House, 575-577 North Circular Road, Dublin 1 E-mail: imelda@cwu.ie Tel: +353 1 866 3000 Fax: +353 1 866 3099