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DANNY BOY by Alex Towers
issue 4 6 December 2011
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EDITORIAL & CONTENTS
MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF:
4TH TIME ROUND Alex Towers
December 6 2011
Sentence of the Issue: “This helps position Bush as the instructive, Appolonian artist, with a panoply of experiences to call on while as a narrator, her talent remains as spellbinding as virgin snow” -Nicholas Maltby, 50 Words For Snow Review, page 23 Special Thanks: F. Scott Schafer at Patricia McMahon USA Inc. for
the cover image, Vice Magazine, Complex Magazine, Clíona de Paor, Gale Wilson, Eoin Rafferty, GQ & Nathaniel Goldburg (for the John Cho images). Correction: In Issue 3 the review of The Marriage Plot was written by Róisín Lacey-McCormac not Nicholas Maltby.
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4: THE OPENERS
All the usual suspects are present with aliens, Rembrandt, castles, craft beer, television shows, Trinity Street Style and a chance to win a copy of The Guard on blu-ray.
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hristmas is coming. While the notion of a Christmas themed issue may be something the editors of other publications gleefully indulge in, it isn’t something I have much time for. It’s not that I hate Christmas. I just think that Tn2 Magazine should be one of those few last refuges to not be completely infected with tinsel and cheer. That said some seasonality did manage to worm its way into this issue. Alongside the regular interviews with “cool bands only ten people have heard of” (as our Communications Officer Ronan Costello recently remarked with a clear touch of jealousy) we have publishers, actors, writers, singers, butchers, fish-mongers, artists and even a conductor. But if you’ve finished Tn2 Magazine and are searching for further distraction from exams, essays and the prospect of having to go home to your family for the holidays I’d recommend some television. Christmas is the perfect time to catch up with all the various series you’ve been neglecting before the new seasons come out in 2012. In this issue for instance we interview Danny McBride of Eastbound & Down (a show I can wholeheartedly recommend) while elsewhere John Cho talks about his stint on 30 Rock and wanting to star in Mad Men. We also have an interview with the people who do the music for the trailers for the series Downton Abbey. To paraphrase the dearly departed Ol’ Dirty Bastard “we give it to you raw with no trivia.” All the usual Tn2 hallmarks are also here. There is the ever-increasingly filthy sex diary, which manages to be sort of Christmas-themed this issue in that it involves someone having sex in the cold. Elsewhere in the reviews section we preview all the new releases in the cinema and tell you which albums you should ask for a loan of after giving them as presents. Our columnist Karl also manages to sort of embrace the season, as he rips into the way every other magazine draws up “best of lists” this time of year. This will be the last Tn2 Magazine of 2011 but hopefully we’ll be back in 2012 with some truly wonderful stuff. For instance what other publication in the world would dare to reference a Julian Fellowes drama and a Wu Tang Clan lyric in the same paragraph? Merry Christmas and enjoy the issue.
6: TENDING THE FIRE Annelise Berghenti and Atalanta Copeman-Papas visit the new Dublin offices of the Dalkey Archive Press to talk to founder John O’Brien
8: SELLING SANCTUARY Keith Grehan talks to Brian Oblivion about the cult following of his aptly titled band Cults
9: THE FRESH MINCE OF DUB-LIN Aaron Devine and Clare Kealey investigate the benefits of eating local food by talking to some producers.
10: THE PIPES, THE PIPES ARE CALLING... Alex Towers talks to Danny McBride about Eastbound & Down
12: TWISTED SISTERS Michael Barry chats to Eric Cardona of Twin Sister
13: TITLED ARCS Róisín Lacey-McCormac looks at public art installations in Dublin
14: DIRECTING INSPECTORS Henry Longden talks to Jimmy Fay ahead of his new collaboration with Roddy Doyle The Government Inspector
15: I CHO CHO CHOOSE YOU Alex Towers talks to Harold & Kumar star John Cho about race, Star Trek and milfs
16: THE COVERS OF RECORDS Eamonn Bell interviews the conductor of Scala & Kolancy Brothers about the groups runaway success
17: PURSER & O Patrick Reevell talks to Michael Purser abour his new book while Alex Towers interviews Roisin O
18: FILTH & CHIPS A seasonal sex diary and Clare Kealey’s Fish & Chips recipie
19: REVIEWS All the latest reviews, including Hugo, The Thing, The China Siuchuan, Assassins Creed & Kate Bush
25: HOW TO/ GUILTY PLEASURES Paddy Gillett saddles up with Trinity’s Horse Racing Society while Gheorghe Rusu explains why we should stop worrying and love Kevin Smith’s bombs
26: THE LIST IS AN ABSOLUTE BAD This week Karl McDonald writes about the concept of end-of-year, best-of lists in The Chaff
Editor: Alex Towers Games Editor: Andy Kavanagh Art Editor: Rosa Abbott Deputy Games Editor: Neil Fitzpatrick Deputy Art Editor: Róisín Lacey-McCormac Music Editor: Michael Barry Books & Literature Editor: Patrick Reevell Music Editor: Gheorghe Rusu Deputy Books & Literature Editor: Annelise Berghenti Online Editor: Keith Grehan Copy Editor: Sinead Nugent Socities Editor: Cormac Cassidy Fashion Editor: Stephen Moloney Theatre Editor: Henry Longden Deputy Fashion Editor: Hannah Little Deputy Theatre Editor: Liza Cox Film Editor: Robert O’ Reilly TV Editor: Laura McLoughlin Deputy Film Editor: Nicholas Maltby Deputy TV Editor: Emma Jayne Corcoran Food & Drinks Editor: Clare Kealey Design: Gearóid O’Rourke & Martin McKenna Food & Drinks Editor: Aaron Devine Staff Photographer: Atalanta Copeman-Papas
OPENERS
THINGS TO DO IN DUBLIN #4
LOVE LIKE A SUNSET ART IN D U BLIN
LIVE- M USIC
Bitches With Wolves, The Sugar Club, Thursday 8th: T h e wopping club pop of Bitches with Wolves is brought to the Sugar Club on the 8th with tickets at €10. Duran Duran, The O2, Tuesday 20th: That corporate rock train station The O2 will host all the 80’s majesty of Duran Duran on the 20th with tickets at €44.50. Lisa Hannigan, Vicar Street, Thursday 22nd: For those wanting something more intimate, Lisa Hannigan promises a great gig in vicar street for €25. THE ATRE On the Batter, The Complex, December 6-17th: Anthony Golding delivers a dark comedy based in a world where success is measured by how much you can push others down. Tickets are a steal at €10-€12. COMEDY Dead Cat Bounce, Vicar Street, Friday 22nd. After taking their name from an obscure economic term for a economy that has a false start, this comedy group should provide enough laughs to make you forget about the recession, at least untill the new year.
Landscape with the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, (1647) by Rembrandt van Ryn, The National Gallery of Ireland While landscapes and genre subjects were regarded lowly within the Renaissance tradition of art, artists of these subjects thrived in the Low Countries, a fact which was in part due to the fact that Catholicism didn’t have a stronghold in these predominantly Protestant regions. In this painting, the Holy Family are seen in the foreground, Joseph having received a warning that Herod the Great was searching for the infant Jesus in order to kill him. However, the religious subject matter is secondary to Rembrandt’s exquisite depiction of a dramatic landscape scene. While the Italians invented perspective, the Northern painters are credited for their invention of the oil technique, something which is reflected in this painting. While there is a strong sense of perspectival depth here, the emphasis is on the modulations of colour and tone and how they contribute to the sense of atmosphere.
I WISH I COULD BUY ME A SPACESHIP FILM The marketing of 2009’s sci-fi thriller
District 9 shunned traditional methods of film publicity and instead focussed on including the public in its advertising campaign. Rather than attempt to seduce the audience by including ratings on the poster and catchy critics’ compliments, Sony Pictures generated hype around the release of the film rather than the film itself. The posters mimicked the apartheid-style billboards that appear throughout the film. District 9’s advertising campaign featured stickers, posters and banners banded across public places – creating, in this example, ‘For Humans Only’ bus stops. The slogan ‘For Humans Only’ creates an illusion of public inclusion, and then people are directed towards a website, where visitors were confronted with a fictional newsreader updating the public on news bulletins, and regulations regarding human to alien interaction. The film itself has achieved critical success and cult status, to which much is owed to its inventive, captivating and inspired marketing campaign. Jash Ash 4
Rembrandt uses a limited palette but still evokes a harmonious sense of balance wherein the handling of colour contributes to the structuring of the composition in the absence of any concrete structuring devices: the scene is bisected diagonally by a broad sweep of dark foliage so that the emerging light from the upper left corner is nicely balanced by the light emitted from the fire in the left foreground. This balance is also reflected in the mood and something that strikes me is how the sinister feeling of vastness evoked by the dark and extensive natural woodland setting is equaled by the intimacy of the family scene in the foreground: the threatening landscape is seen to shelter the Holy Family in a protective embrace. Róisín Lacey-McCormac
TN2MAGAZINE.IE COMPE TITION Would you like a copy
of the hilarious black comedy The Guard with Brendan Gleeson on DVD and with a digital download of the soundtrack by Calexico? Of course you would. Who wouldn’t?All you have to do to enter is email the correct answer to the question below to tn2@trinitynews.ie. Who plays Special Agent Wendell Pierce in The Guard? 1) Don Chealde 2) Don Draper 3) Don Conroy ONLINE tn2magazine.ie has all sorts of new and exciting content this week including reviews of all the Christmas films, music, restaurants, art exhibits, games and expanded versions of the interviews you find in these pages. T WIT TER: Follow us at @tn2magazine for more updates of online content, online versions of Tn2 Magazine, exclusive content and competition giveaways. Also occasional smack-talk with @universitytimes.
OPENERS
WHAT WE ARE WATCHING TRINITY STREET STYLE T V Gheorghe Rusu – It’s Always Sunny in
Philadelphia. Already in its seventh season, this show is finally finding its footing. I don’t know what makes this one so special but it’s bringing unprecedentedly consistent laughs. It’s not very clever, but it’s probably the funniest thing on TV right now, and one of the few to still treasure slapstick. Liza Cox - Dr Who. I’ve been watching a lot of Dr Who of late (I say that as if it’s unusual for me. I’m very fond of Dr Who). It’s taken me a while to come around to Matt Smith as the Doctor, I’ve come to quite like him, though. Robert O’Reilly – American Horror Story I’m currently enjoying the new TV series American Horror Story which is a bit like Twin Peaks mixed with The Amityville Horror. Although the show is completely absurd and frequently outrageous and over the top, it’s hard not keep on watching ... and watching ... and watching ... Aaron Devine - Breaking Bad. This gripping show, now just finished its fourth series in the US, deals with the fascinating journey of Walter (Malcolm in the Middle’s Bryan Cranston) as he swaps his mundane existence as a high-school chemistry teacher for life as a crystal meth manufacturer/dealer. Mixing enthralling plot twists and sharp Coen Brothers-style black humour, Breaking Bad features some of the best acting on TV by far. What a travesty that it hasn’t been picked up by a major channel this side of the pond. It’s more addictive than meth. Compiled by Laura McLoughlin
I CAPTURE THE CASTLE
GAME S Here at Tn2 Magazine we are committed to keeping you in the
loop on what’s hip and current so even us aging hipsters can be ‘downwith-the-kids’. However, it’s nice to gaze lovingly into the past to a time when flash games were simple and offensive. Today we pay homage to a true flash classic: Defend Your Castle. If you’ve never played Defend Your Castle, firstly congratulations on discovering a way to survive with your head in the sand of social networks, secondly, allow me to break it down for you: you must (surprise, surprise) defend your castle from hoards of reoccurrung little stick-men. It’s that simple. There are some upgrades available if you need a little more depth but honestly there’s nothing as cathartic as dropping some little shit to his death for ragging on your castle. Free to play online, also available on Wii and iOs if you’ve got the cash: http:// w w w. a l b i n o blacksheep.com/ g a m e s /c a s t l e . Andy Kavanagh
FASHION Isabella Davey, SF Art History and Classics, was
snapped on campus wearing a Kooples piece for this issue. The skirt is accompanied by a vintage jacket and scarf, an Acne sweater, and a shirt by way of her mum’s wardrobe. Her boots were found and nabbed from the streets of her native Sydney, Australia. Bella describes the main difference between style in Dublin and style at home as people’s aversion around here to really going ‘all out’ with a look. Australians are not afraid to go “gung-ho”, be it head-to-toe Halston, or “as clean-cut as a celibate Swede”. As well as being inspired by an Aussie attitude to supporting local designers, Bella favours designer and vintage over the high street any day calling it “a continuous regurgitation of their competitors”. Dedicated to the high-end cause, Bella has been know to last for weeks on kidney beans alone if it means being able to buy something worthwhile. Stephen Moloney
DUNGARVAN BREWING COMPANY’S HELVICK GOLD DRINKS After the recession hit, brothers-in-law Tom Dalton
and Cormac O’Dwyer lost their jobs like so many others. However they took this setback on the chin and used it instead as an opportunity. And thank god they did, because now, as a result, we have the privilege of tasting their wonderful craft beers. One of these is the Helvick Gold, a delicious blonde ale that’s complex but easy to drink. Using cascade hops more typical of craft breweries in the US, there is a distinct citrus flavour that adds to its fruity aroma. Like the rest of the Dungarvan range, this ale is unfiltered meaning it is bottle-conditioned for extra quality and contains a delicious yeast sediment. As Tom says, “It’s how beer has always been made”, and employing this method means no extra gases are injected after brewing. Great with spicy food or on its own, Helvick Gold is on special offer for TCD students at Probus Wines on Fenian Street. Aaron Devine
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BOOKS
FOSTER THE LETTERS Annelise Berghenti interviews John O’Brien, founder of the Dalkey Archive Press about the publisher’s future. Photographs by Atalanta Copeman-Papas
J
ohn O’Brien set up the literary magazine Review of Contemporary Fiction in Chicago in 1984. The aim was to cover the work of writers he felt weren’t being given the attention they deserved. From this grew Dalkey Archive Press, a publishing house devoted to publishing the type of works that the Review was championing - by writers such as Gilbert Sorrentino, Nicholas Mosley, and Douglas Woolf. Recently, Mr. O’Brien opened up a Dublin office of the Press. As he is in the recovery phase of a series of major operations, the offices are in his home, and a hospital bed sits in the corner. When I first heard this, I imagined this would be a lot stranger than it actually was, but as Mr O’Brien is so passionate and driven about the Press and the literature it publishes it’s clear that he isn’t going to let little things like “a series of major operations” get in the way. Can you give an idea of the kind of books Dalkey Archive Press publishes? I’ve had the luxury, if you will, of publishing what I love. The question then becomes “what do you love and why?” and that’s when an articulate answer becomes difficult. I’ve a close friend who is a publisher at a small house in Paris and his house (POL) is very similar in tastes to Dalkey’s. His view is that others should figure out what the taste is, not the publisher. All I can say is that I approach each book on its own: I am not “looking” for qualities that will fit our list. My choices can wind up surprising people... I’ve no idea what exactly a “Dalkey book” is except, as I’ve said, a book I love: people get frustrated by this answer. I like fiction that eludes me, characters that elude me. Think of Hemingway: you know it’s Hemingway from the very first sentence. Hemingway appears quite simple to many critics. He is anything but that. He is one of the most complex writers I’ve read, which is why one can always find new things in his writing. You’re opening a new branch of Dalkey 6
Archive Press in Dublin. What’s your plan for the Dublin office? What do you envisage as the future for Dalkey Archive Press? I started the Press almost thirty years ago on the principle that it was non-commercial and wanted it to function outside of or despite the marketplace. Dalkey is driven by its nonprofit, charitable mission rather than by sales or profit. I think that our publishing list speaks for itself: it contains some of the finest literary works of the past century, in my view. And this literature is “protected” in a way that a museum protects its collections. The great issue for Dalkey right now is what to do when I am no longer around. The simple answer to this is two-fold. The first is to establish a permanent alliance with a very good academic institution that will ensure the Press’s future and that believes that such a press could be of value to both students and faculty. The second is to establish an endowment that will be what “protects the protector.” Money, as well as the proper use of it, ultimately determines whether any arts organization will survive and be all that it can be. We currently have an individual donor who is leaving her estate to the Press in order to establish a series of books named in honour of her parents, as well as creating a few fellowships. One day I hope that most of the books that we publish will belong to named series that have been established by such individuals.
“DALKEY ARCHIVE WAS MY ATTEMPT TO SAY “HERE ARE THE WRITERS PEOPLE SHOULD BE READING”
As to Dublin: my ambition is that Dublin will be the center of our future operations, even though, as an international publisher, we need to maintain a strong presence in both the United States and England. We best serve our writers and readers by making our books available everywhere possible. But as a homebase, there is no other city I can think of that is so hospitable to literature as is Dublin, as is Ireland in general. Perhaps a small test of this is: try finding any other capital in the world in which so many taxi drivers can recite passages from such authors as Joyce, Beckett, Yeats, and Flann O’Brien. Can you talk a little about the mission of the Press and why it’s so vital that the Press continues to grow and produce books, and the importance of Context and the Review of Contemporary Fiction alongside this? Dalkey Archive was my attempt to say “here are the writers people should be reading,” writers who were very, very interesting but who were being ignored, and it was also an emphatic statement about the importance to view literature, especially contemporary literature, from an international perspective. In essence, the Review was my throwing down the gauntlet, to the publicising industry, the media, and to academia. Finally, it was also a way to create an international community of sorts of readers and scholars who were
“GOOD WRITERS ARE A STRANGE BREED. THEY WRITE BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO, THEY’RE COMPELLED TO” interested in the kind of fiction the Review was championing, readers who were underserved. Context was then started in the 1990s to serve younger readers, primarily college students who were hungry to find out about “the other literature” that wasn’t being talked about in the classroom or in The New York Times. I wanted it to be a publication that would have been of great help to me when I was in that same age range. I majored in literature in college, and that meant American and British literature. So, not only was world literature ignored, but so too was much of contemporary literature. I wanted Context to quite literally create a “context” for this age group so that it would have a reading guide to world literature. These two publications indicate the
strange (and I think wonderful) nature of Dalkey Archive and what it has been up to: publish the literature, but then create the criticism for the reception of this literature. Unlike most publishers, Dalkey does not measure its success based upon sales; it measures success based upon reading and creating an environment for this reading. What makes a “good” writer? Are the works you receive for the press still as innovative as they were when you first started it? Good writers are a strange breed. They write because they have to write, they’re compelled to write, and in many ways they don’t have a choice what they will write or how they will write it. If there were a simple formula for how to write a best-seller, everyone would be doing so. Popular fiction isn’t easy to write, and a writer can’t fake it; I’ve known many good writers who have tried to jump over and write a “popular” novel. They can’t really do it because their vision, their style, their entire sense of the use of language get in the way: it’s not what they know how to do. As in any other period, serious writers create their own paths. Sometimes those paths meet with commercial success, but usually they don’t. For most writers I know and work with, “success” is defined as writing the book they believe in and then knowing they
did. Oftentimes, this puts them on the outside and they have to settle for a relatively small readership, at least for a very long time. I am one of those who believes a writer’s only concern should be with his or her art. As to how to pay the rent and heating bill, that’s another question. If you sacrifice your art, you’re lost. The writers I know well are ones who do what they do: they are neither trying to write in an “experimental” or groundbreaking way, nor are they trying to make a fortune: they are trying to write great books. What keeps you passionate about the Press and the literature you publish? It’s hard for me to say what keeps me energized about what I do... I love what I do and there seems to be no end to new challenges. I travel to many countries in search of good writers, many of whom are not even recognized in their own countries. Finding these writers, and then publishing them, gives me great pleasure. Having their work come into English is also a way to bring them to the attention of the rest of the world because of the place that the English language now occupies in the world. It’s not unlike the pleasure I found when, much younger, I would discover books in used bookshops that I’d never heard of, but now I publish such books and make them available to others. I cannot think of a better way of spending my life. 7
M USIC
DRINKING THE KOOL AID
C
Keith Grehan talks to Brian Oblivion about his band Cults’s current rise to recognition
ults are fast becoming one of the most talked about bands from across the Atlantic, formed 2010 in Manhattan when Brain Oblivion and Madeline Follin met while studying film in NYU. They began writing indie pop songs that they shared with friends through Bandcamp. Their first self-titled EP was quickly picked up on by music bloggers and Pitchfork, elevating the pair to notoriety overnight. But with the release of the Cults 7’’ EP, there was very little information available on the pair, not least because Cults is next to impossible to Google without ending up in the endless mire of Jonestown massacre pages and Tom Cruise interviews. But guitarist Brian Oblivian was happy to elucidate on the band’s early lack of information, despite being woken by my 3am phone call. “It was pretty funny watching people panic. They want to know the story straight away, have everything presented in a pretty little package,” he tells me groggily “we let it run because I think you should be able to dig a song without a sales pitch. We didn’t try to put ourselves out there actively. We made that EP in my house, we didn’t really have much to talk about to the press.” But having gone from releasing music for friends on Bandcamp to becoming one of the most talked about bands around must have had an effect? “Well from an outside perspective it’s like we put three songs up, exploded and signed to a label, but in reality we’ve been on tour for three years, we started off playing coffee shops and pizza parlors,” Oblivion explains “we were just lucky enough to keep moving upwards. People seem to think that a band has to quit their jobs, borrow money off parents and go on the road for years to be
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authentic. Today a band without a webpage is like a movie without cinema, only the dinosaurs of music are afraid as they’ve been doing the same things for years, there’s no barrier of entry to the global village anymore.”
“I HATE IT WHEN EVERY SONG ON AN ALBUM SOUNDS THE SAME...THAT’S JUST TRENDY BULLSHIT” As a band billed as an internet sensation, I wanted to know do the arrangement of songs in an album make a difference to the feel of the music? “I don’t know, I believe in the album still. Some friends of ours in bands think records don’t matter and want to release everything digitally.” But surely there’s something quite cool about that concept of a stream of consciousness work ethic? ‘We wrote 23 songs for an 11 track album, when picking which ones to include we said ‘Hey! Lets choose the 11 songs that sound totally different to each other,” Oblivion explains “I hate when every song on an album sounds the same as the one before it. That’s just trendy bullshit; people want everything from a band so why limit yourself to one sound? Look at Arcade Fire, it all sounds totally the same!” But going from NYU students to suddenly touring around the world, surely this must interfere with their desire for anonymity? “Film school teaches you how to tell a story, we always write music first and lyrics second; you
get the right kind of vibe when it all comes together,” Oblivion says “I felt great about leaving NYU when the band took off, I asked my professors for advice and they all said ‘Get the fuck out and take a chance, you can always come back to school.’ It was fun but I didn’t see the end goal; you can study for your entire life.” With a background in film would the band ever direct their own music documentary? ‘That’s basically what inspired the band, I wanted to make a music documentary set on a road trip about non-traditional religious music,” Oblivion explains, “we found some awesome stuff that fueled a fascination with the absurd. We grew up in the suburbs where everyone’s got money and your parents are all trying to be New Age, doing yoga and getting into homeopathy, it’s all a load of shit. Heaven’s Gate (The site of a mass suicide of 39 members of a UFO religion in 1997) happened about 5 minutes from my house.” On the surface, Cult’s sound is uplifting and melodic, but the lyrics hide much darker content, not to mention the samples taken from interviews with cult members from the 60’s on “Go Outside”. But is this influence amplified by any musical genres or bands? ‘There’s a weird lyrical quality from Madeline’s high school fascination with punk, The Addicts, Roy Orbison, people who write these songs are always kind of tragic. “ Oblivian says “As much as we like it I don’t feel a lyrical kinship with the 60s, we just write silly lyrics but that’s okay. In regards the whole Cults thing and Charles Manson, his music is just really cool, uncharacteristically eccentric and forward thinking for that time. We have somewhat of a voyeuristic obsession with obscene lifestyles, that’s preferable to a normal boring life. What’s bad for you is what’s interesting.”
FOOD
COMING HOME TO EAT Clare Kealey and Aaron Devine examine the benefits of local cusine and talk to Fergal Feeney of Feeney’s Fish and John Doyle of Doyle Bros.
A
s belts have been tightening over the last couple of years, the once rampant organic food movement is being replaced by a new phenomenon of eating locally. Perhaps due to a loss of faith in global capitalism, people are now looking more intently at where their food comes from, a trend that is encouraging to say the least. After all, as well as environmental benefits, there are huge advantages for the local economy, and therefore the global economy, in eating locally. These advantages are all shared by you the consumer, your local supplier, and the farmer. Someone who feels the benefits of this rediscovered respect for local produce is Fergal Feeney of Feeney’s Fish, a fishmongers in Rathfarnham. He is clear about the economic advantages to shopping locally rather than at supermarkets: “It really makes a difference both for me and the local businesses that surround me. Making a better turnover means I can spend my money on local businesses and help support them. It allows profits to be kept within the community.” He sells his fish within 24 hours of being caught, and it is all very affordable. “Another benefit to shopping locally is that you shop on a need basis, which saves you a lot of money. There is a lot of research into people throwing away as much as
“PEOPLE ARE BEGINNING TO REALISE THAT WE SELL QUALITY THAT’S TRACEABLE, ALL IRISH AND CHEAPER”
30% of what they buy in supermarkets. Buying local means you eat that night what you bought that day.” Cutting costs and carbon emissions Shopping in supermarkets will often mean eating imported food. There is extensive research into the impractical and downright ridiculous lengths food exporters and importers go. For example, $70,000 worth of Californian pistachios travel to Italy via New York each year, while California then imports $50,000 of Italian pistachios. Readers from the U.K. may notice supermarkets like Sainsbury’s and Waitrose are often well-stocked with New Zealand lamb. This makes little sense when some of the best quality lamb in the world is produced here on these islands. Every product that isn’t from close to home has to be transported from a farm or production site, to a factory or processors, to a distribution centre, to an airport, to another airport, to another distribution centre, to a supermarket. However, some supermarkets like Lidl use meat from Irish farms. This is certainly a step in the right direction in terms of the environment, but it is still a failure for the local economy. Moreover, in order for all these large supermarket stores all over the country to be well stocked, the company will be buying in bulk, and will therefore be looking for a lower wholesale price. The farmers they use will then also have to reduce costs, in turn diminishing the quality of their meat. You get what you pay for, as the saying goes. Buying meat from local shops is a more transparent affair. They will almost always work with small farms a short distance away. Even if it’s not “organic”, small farms handle their produce more sympathetically than large factory farms, simply down to the fact that smaller farms are more manageable. Doyle Bros., a family butchers on Pearse Street, gets its lamb from its own farm just up the road in Kildare. Not only does this mean they’re working more sustainably, but it also means the meat arrives instore much quicker,
“IT REALLY MAKES A DIFFERENCE BOTH FOR ME AND THE LOCAL BUSINESSES THAT SURROUND ME” so it will therefore be fresher for the customer. John, who has worked at the shop (opened by his father) since 1962, says it takes around “an hour and a half” between slaughter and delivery to the shop. Such is the quality and freshness of their produce, Doyle Bros. supply meat to many restaurants and a catering college. Although they felt the recessionary hit like everyone else, John has noticed “it’s coming back at this stage.” Like at Feeney’s Fish, he believes “people are beginning to realize that we sell quality. It’s traceable, all Irish and it’s cheaper.” Most people think the supermarkets offer the best prices overall. “That’s a misconception”, John insists. “They’ve got the odd thing that’s on special, but generally speaking we’re cheaper.” Local for local’s sake In Dublin’s urban sprawl, we quickly forget that we can be part of a smaller community. Through knowing you and your needs, local shops will be able to provide personal service unavailable in supermarkets. Fergal Feeney is proud to know many customers on first name basis, and John Doyle happily tells us his regulars say that his shop “is more like a community centre than a butchers”. And therein lies the key: we must recognise the difference between a truanting international corporation that contributes nothing to the local economy and small local business who share their fate with the local community. To support them is to support yourself: http://bit.ly/bCcMDw 9
INTERVIE W
10
GOIN’ DOWN Alex Towers interviews Danny McBride about his hit HBO show Eastbound & Down
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anny McBride loves Percy Pigs. He developed a taste for the pink foam-based candies last year while shooting his comedy Your Highness in Northern Ireland. Now, back in Ireland and in a suite at the Clarence Hotel, he has asked his personal assistant to pick him up a bag. But when the bag is delivered, McBride arches his eyebrow. “These are not Percy Pigs,” he announces in his distinctive Texan accent. “Sure they are,” his assistant responds. McBride composes himself slightly “These are not Percy Pigs,” he repeats. “These are Reversy Percy’s”. “They are the same thing,” the assistant answers shrugging. “They are not the same thing,” McBride shoots back “There is gummy where there should be foam and foam where there should be gummy.” “Just try them,” the assistant says with all the amused patience of a doting mother, “I’m sure you’ll like them”. As McBride places a Reversy Percy into his mouth the room (full of gathered journalists and publicists) hold its breath. It’s hard to tell if McBride is joking. If his deadpan demands for sweets are just put on. But as he slowly chews while keeping his narrowed eyes focused on the assistant, I realise this is what has made him so successful. McBride possesses an uncanny ability to inject hilarity in situations that shouldn’t be funny at all. It’s a skill he’s honed across two seasons of Eastbound & Down, a show now in its third season that remains one of the funniest things on television. While Parks & Recreation gets increasingly bogged down in overly sentimental relationships and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia gives increasingly to over the top zaniness, Eastbound & Down remains a beacon of original dark comedy. It’s the story of Kenny Powers, a burned out major league baseball player whose career crumbled in a heap of steroids and screaming matches. Returning to his despised hometown, he’s forced to take a job teaching at his old middle school. Although not the most original of premises, Eastbound & Down separates itself from other comedies by escalating the pitch-black tragic undercurrent that HBO affords. While the show might have a scene with a ridiculous cameo by Will Ferrell (who also produces), the next might have Kenny forlornly injecting himself with steroids while a Trentemøller song plays. Although the second series relocated to Mexico, the dark comedy was taken to further, almost disturbing levels before ending on one of the subtlest rug-pulled-outfrom-under-you moments of television ever produced. I won’t give it away, so will just say it involves a door being held open for someone and the Kurt Vile song “He’s Alright”. But the idea of centering a whole series on a childish lout like Kenny Powers was something that wasn’t exactly new. “It really came
to my attention when the British version of The Office came to America” McBride tells me, “We’d never really seen that kind of thing before. Here’s this despicable buffoon of a character that you should hate. But then when he doesn’t get the promotion you feel so sorry for him. I’ve always loved comedy that teeters on the edge of tragedy and that is what we always try and do with Eastbound & Down. We want to really walk that line between making it very dark, dirty and foul but at the same time there’s heartbreak there.” This isn’t the first time McBride has played the anti-hero either. He got his start in 2006 with The Foot Fist Way, a low budget fauxdocumentary about a sociopathic Kung Fu instructor which he wrote with his college friends Jody Hill and Ben Best (who also work on Eastbound & Down). “I moved to LA in 1999 after film school. I was just waiting tables and then a couple of us decided to try and make
“I THINK COMEDY IS REFLECTING WHAT IS GOING ON IN WORLD SOCIETY” something. We didn’t have a lot of money for it. We just had credit cards so we scrapped together about forty grand for it,” McBride says “What happened next was a whirlwind. The picture got out there and people started responding to it. We went from literally having nothing to getting phone calls from Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow saying they wanted to work with us. It was a surreal time. When we were making it we just were thinking how we were going to pay off the debt.” But with the success of people like Ricky Gervais and Will Ferrell, there is a visible shift from the slick, winking, gag filled and laugh track-heavy humor of things like Friends, to much darker, situation based comedy featuring socially stunted, ego-driven man-children. “I’m sure to some extent it represents what is happening in world society,” McBride explains. “American culture is not as innocent as it was when I grew up and I think you see that in the characters on screen now. There are a lot of characters who should grow up. I think that is a result of the outlook on Americans today. I think that comedy in a weird way is a reflection of that. You’re always kind of poking fun at yourself and your country and I think that all that stuff comes into play.” Currently McBride is coming off the failure of his pet project Your Highness. A strange combination of fantasy epic and stoner
comedy that saw McBride and his friend David Gordon Green fly a little to close to the sun. After a critical thrashing and disappointing box office McBride is licking his wounds and returning to HBO for the final series of Eastbound & Down. “I think the landscape is really changing at the moment. Film in America is a really tricky place now,” he says gravely, “the only films that are surefire successes are tent pole movies that are remakes, reboots or sequels.” Finances also clearly play a role in limiting creative expression. “So much emphasis is put on everyone seeing the film on the opening weekend,” McBride explains. “It’s a tricky place to play. But the best movie is not often the movie that everyone goes to see that weekend. The financial climate of the film industry doesn’t necessarily understand that.” The good people at HBO clearly understand and are creating a place for people to make authentic, no holds barred television. “With TV you can take more risks than film,” McBride admits, “I feel like TV is doing what movies were doing in the 70s. If you want to find more dramatic, character based stuff you find that in TV. You can take more risks and I think that, in that way, TV is rivalling film for the stories you can tell.” But what sort of risks can we expect from the upcoming third season of Eastbound & Down? “With the last season you find out that Kenny is going to be a dad and that he is also going to get one final shot at the majors,” McBride says, getting excited again, “the next season is going to try and end his story by having him make one last run for glory while trying to balance being a dad,” A plotline that seems to distinctly mirror McBride’s own life. “We are aiming to finish it with the third season, like Ricky Gervais’s The Office” he continues, A lot of shows in America at the moment just go on too long with seasons of 24 episodes, which means you can tune in and out of, you don’t have to see every episode. We really wanted to make something compact where you want to see every episode. It was Eastbound & Down that pushed my career over the edge though. Now if I go to a bar for a drink I have to wear a hat or guys with mullets assault me all night.” As McBride chews the incorrect Percy Pig, you can see the twinkle in his eye. He doesn’t care about the sweet being incorrect, but decided to pretend to be on the brink of throwing a scene anyway purely to amuse. This is what he does best. Plays exaggerated versions of tragically childish characters faced with a world they feel has wronged them somehow. With the final season of Eastbound & Down coming, I hope he can find some sort of expression for his comedy in the future. As he swallows the final morsel of candied pig, he nods solemnly at the assistant in mock-approval before uttering a line that made the whole room laugh: “That’ll do pig. That’ll do”. 11
M USIC
COLOUR YOUR LIFE Michael Barry talks to Eric Cardona, the singer/guitarist of Twin Sister following the release of their album In Heaven
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espite their occasional referencing of some of the most moaned about aspects of modern twee culture (promotional photos shot in faded pastels, the wearing of faded pastels, the advocation of general haziness as a lifestyle choice), Twin Sister are, musically, a considerably more stimulating prospect than appearances would have you believe. Led by Lookbookbait singer Andrea Estella, the band chiefly works due to a combination of a tight disco rhythm section with the breathy chanson vocals of a negligent babysitter on the phone to her boyfriend. They independently released two EPs of perfectly effective drone pop, Color My Life and Vampires with Dreaming Kids, before their stellar debut album In Heaven came out on Domino Records earlier this year. That LP contained some elements of their earlier work but was altogether a much sharper affair. Twin Sister’s singer-guitarist Eric Cardona explains that the differences between the album and the two EPs are possibly less the result of a concerted attempt at change as opposed to a new sense of discipline. “It was pretty natural. We were very giddy and excited. We set this deadline for ourselves, which was very unlike us. We just wanted to try out a different approach I guess. Looking back I think the record would have benefited from a bit more time but the four months we allotted we were very busy and we kept ourselves pretty focused, for the most part. We were all living in a big house together so it got a little crazy sometimes but it was good fun.” Given how layered the Twin Sister sound is, it might be expected that the songs come about in a similarly complex fashion. Eric 12
mentions that despite the density involved the band have fairly orthodox techniques when it comes to composing. “I think it depends on the song. For this record there’s a lot of mixture throughout it. There are songs that are six or seven years old. There are some songs that we wrote a week before they were recorded. Most times the songs will begin with a garage band demo, or an acoustic vocal melody or something like that. So it didn’t change that much.”
“WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO BECOME TWO OR THREE DIFFERENT BANDS” The band seem to have very set ideas about their overall image, and take a very hands-on approach to the visual side of things. For example, Andrea did the art direction for their impressive swamp geisha themed promo for “Kimmi in a Rice Field”, and designs most of their album sleeves. Eric asserts that this involvement is partly a conscious attempt at maintaining control over their image, but also due to their general interest in other forms of media. “I think we’re very conscious of and interested in the visual aspects of it. Andrea’s a very visual person and she was a visual artist before a musical one, and Bryan our drummer co-directed that music video. We hope to take it even more seriously in the future.” One of the most appealing aspects of the
band is their comparatively respectful attitude toward the disproportionately reviled blog trends that they are frequently filed under and have gained exposure from, and they are willing to ignore the “what does that even mean” aspects of labels like chillwave given their potential usefulness. “Well, we are a chillwave band! We are blog rock, we are chillwave. It’s just something to make it easy for people.” Twin Sister have, of course, also benefited from the granting of the mantle of alt sex symbol to Andrea. Despite this, Eric is ambivalent about the effect that this particular type of exposure has had on the band, as well as the possible latent misogyny behind the way women in indie culture are reported about in general. “She has a lot to offer besides music. She loves looking certain ways and making certain things visually that she puts online all the time. She’s certainly a very strong personality, so I could see the attraction. But she definitely gets lumped in with a bunch of other female artists. I don’t really know how I feel about that as I know Andrea so well and I don’t know these other women.” The band’s main challenge for the future seems to be to continue to distill the distinct interests and influences of its individual members, while maintaining a cohesive sound. “We’re going to have to become two or three different bands. Live, it’s very easy and fun to be a rock band, with the drums and the guitars and stuff, but we have so many interests in other kinds of music. I’m looking forward to the future. I mean, we’re definitely not afraid to push it. Dev has very exotic influences, as well as the rest of us, and it’s starting to show in some of the newer material.”
ART
IN DIFFERENT SPACES Róisín Lacey-McCormac looks at Public Art in Dublin and talks to Aaron Copeland ublic art, by its very nature, is often difficult to recognize as it is, generally speaking, very embedded within the urban landscape. But given that our mission here at Tn2 Magazine is to foster cultural awareness, I took to the streets to examine the standout pieces within walking distance of Trinity. The term ‘public art’ refers to a type of art that is typically commissioned or created for the explicit purpose of display within the public realm. The different forces that interact in order to make this happen include city councils, artists, curators and, while the programme encourages artists to engage with community; it simultaneously engages the public to connect with their urban environment in a new way. Additionally, a lot of public art these days is funded by the 1% art scheme which, since it was first put into practice in Philadelphia in 1959, is implemented in many cities throughout the world to this day. The scheme requires that, on average, 1% of all building costs be set aside towards the commissioning of works of public art and it involves the interaction between a city’s authorities and the developer of the public space where the building is being constructed. This offers a counterbalance to the unsavoury cityscapes in which rapid growth and development has taken place. On O’Connell Street, it’s difficult not to notice Oisín Kelly’s larger than life size statue of Jim Larkin located just opposite the GPO. The sculptor has abandoned conventional naturalistic methods of sculpting in favor of an expressionistic and emotionally-charged handling of this great leader and activist as he addresses the crowds. Next up is the Spire, a work that requires little introduction. While many people have criticized the decision to commission this piece- never mind its maintenance costs- it is a significant work in the context of the international art world as it is the tallest work of public art in the world. ‘Me Jewel and Darlin’’ is located further on up O’Connell Street and is an example of ‘found art’, a concept first introduced by one of the pioneers of modern art, Marcel Duchamp, in the early 20th century. The artist, Seán Lynch, has selected everyday objects and, through placing these objects in a display case, has given them a new meaning. The objects selected are meant to reflect both
historical and contemporary events in the city and currently displays a fragment from the headlights of Sean Fitzpatrick’s BMW, of Anglo Irish Bank, hinting at the fallen glory of the former chairman. Further north, Julian Opie’s animated LED installation , ‘Suzanne Walking in a Leather Skirt’, is located at the Hugh Lane on Parnell Square North. Most will be familiar with Opie’s work from the album cover of Blur: The Best Of. While moving LED installations are commonly used in traffic diversions, here Opie transforms this common element of everyday life into an artistic work by transposing a stylized portrait onto it, thus turning this everyday object into a form of high-art in the Pop Art tradition. Walking along the Liffey towards the O2, Tony O’Malley’s ‘Universal Links on Human Rights’ is located opposite Busáras. It’s an iconic piece that consists of welded chains encasing a burning flame. The piece represents jails around the world holding victims of oppressive government regimes and the flame commemorates the struggles of those victims. Rachel Joynt is an artist whose arena is specifically that of site-specific public art and her pieces can be seen throughout the city. ‘Freeflow’, by the artist, was commissioned by the Dublin Dockland Development Authority, and is a series of 900 ‘bubbles’ embedded in the pavement along the Liffey approaching the O2 from Custom House Quay. These pieces measure about the size of a hand and within them are encased representations of fish. The ‘bubbles’ are lit from inside, giving them an aquamarine tint that radiates from underfoot in the darkness. While the series shows how the artist has interacted with the site, they are also decorative and give this stretch of the river a much more pleasing aspect. It’s difficult to measure the impact of this
type of art in terms of how much of it is absorbed by the public but it does make you think about the alternatives in terms of the types of messages which are transmitted though the medium of public space, something which founding member of ‘Upstart’, Aaron Copeland, is keen to address. ‘Upstart’ took off back in February to coincide with the general elections, when Copeland rallied artists and members of the public alike to design posters to be placed in the public arena, in locations where election posters would otherwise be placed. In doing so, the initiative contrastingly highlighted the way we are confronted with political and commercial messages in these locations everyday. Motivated to “take advertising out of public space in order to make it more pleasurable”, ‘Upstart’ also tested the extent to which members of the public can actively express themselves in their own environment, given that a project such as this would likely provoke opposition from the more conservative public groupsone particular poster comes to mind in which the phrase “Due to foreseen circumstances, we regret to inform you that Ireland is closed” is printed in capital letters against a bright yellow background. Copeland tells me, however, that the general public were surprisingly tolerant: “ actually, it was never intended to be cheeky and is actually perfectly legal”- an encouraging example of democracy at work, and definitely one to watch. Outside of what is presented to us through conventional galleries, Dublin has an incredible amount to offer artistically and the various initiatives implemented by both local and municipal authorities and individuals in a time of economic recession attests to the significant role of visual culture in cultivating our sense of civic and national identity. 13
THE ATRE
JUVENAL HUMOUR Henry Longden talks to Jimmy Fay about his upcoming collaboration with Roddy Doyle on an adaptation of The Goverment Inspector
his year’s Abbey Christmas Special is Nikolai Gogol’s classic The Government Inspector. Director Jimmy Fay once again teams up with Roddy Doyle to give us a contemporary Irish angle on a play about corruption, stupidity and greed. I talked to the director about tackling Russian Drama, the creative process and the political relevance of 19th Century Russia. Gogol’s masterpiece of 1836 trivialises the prevalence of corruption in the Russian provinces. 18 months ago Roddy Doyle and Aideen Howard (Abbey Literary Director) spotted an opportunity to use the play’s derisive elements during a period of Irish political embarrassment. Central to the play is the town’s reaction to the news that the authorities are arriving incognito, in order to evaluate how the Mayor is using the Governments resources. The unfolding events can either be used as a farcical comedy or political spoof, as the resemblances with post-IMF Ireland are fortified; the plays choice makes perfect sense. “Roddy’s made a really good satire which is an easy word to say but much harder to do,” explains Jimmy Fay, “Using all the corruption, greed and brown envelopes...he’s used the text and sort of distorted it. He’s done an amazing dialogue driven play and made it modern which is what was needed.” To adapt the language is a great task, but to keep the play true to its original is perhaps harder. Not wanting to dishonour the source, how does a director combine the two seemingly disparate pieces? “To understand Gogol we had to look at what he did, he tried to create a world that was not a million miles away from where we are now. The easy thing to do is stage it as Monty Python, [however] you want the comedy but try and find the right
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balance with tragedy.” Theatre goers should expect a play that promises to be hilarious but poignant, Jimmy reveals, “We want people to come in and have a good time, but we want to kind of disturb them. There’s something sad at the core of it – which is true of all Gogol’s work.” Vladimir Nabokov once said, ‘None but an Irishman should ever try tackling Gogol’ a comment that highlights the rich literary connection between Ireland and Russia. It’s
“IT FEELS VITAL RATHER THAN ANY OLD CLASSIC...THIS SHOULD DRAW BLOOD” often been explained why Russian drama works well with the Irish public; but the interest may be reciprocated. The language, humour and introspection certainly seem to suit the play to an Irish adaptation. “I think he [Nabokov} is referring to stuff like Flann O’Brien and James Joyce and it’s their use of language. Gogol put a lot of characters in who you don’t necessarily see but you hear about. People represent things...they’re in a weird quirky town – I think his use of language is very Irish”. Although the humour is in the original, it’s still a great struggle for any adapter to get past the raw translation. Roddy Doyle’s take on the language will give it a new dimension that will hopefully reflect what Nabokov was proclaiming. Jimmy makes his case for why this adaptation will stand out, “I’ve read English
adaptations of the play and I’ve found them quite dry. I quite liked David Harrowers that was on recently at The Young Vic in London, but even in that one he condenses the language – whereas I think Gogol’s quite rich. Roddy’s found a balance- you don’t want to overdo it.” While ascertaining that this production can be seen as a satirical look at the political culture, I ask what in particular gives it relevance now. “People have really suffered here over the last couple of years – from idiotic mistakes. Also corruptions quite rife ...we saw the take down in The Presidential election, when Sean Gallagher said ‘envelope’ on TV and everybody laughed. That’s what took him down. So people are quite alive to it at the moment.” It seems clear that the extensive research that has gone into the production over the last year has not only been aimed at revealing links between Irish and Russian politics. The creative process has focused on creating a balance between a masterpiece and its current resonances with political corruption in a country reacting to an outside authority. The play is not only significant here and now, but it does have a certain sting to it. Jimmy elucidates how the play should be taken: “Politics is local – isn’t it? People take different things, I think it reflects politics everywhere, because I think it’s a very political play, but I do think there are very pointed things for Ireland. It’s a classic play, so people use it for different reasons. It feels vital rather than any old classic. It’s really poignant – this should draw blood... people will laugh, and laugh, and laugh and then, BANG, they’ll be really shocked at what they’ve seen – I really want that moment.” The Government Inspector runs at The Abbey until 28th January. Tickets €15- €23 (Student Concession). www.fringefest.com.
FILM
THE CHOSEN ONE Alex Towers talks to John Cho ahead of the release of his new film A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas
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s monikers go, “The MILF Guy” is probably one of the worst to be saddled with. But in 1999 when John Cho signed on for a small role in an American teen-sex comedy called American Pie, he didn’t think that his contribution to would really go noticed. The film wasn’t really expected to get much attention anyway. Of course the film in question took $235 million at the box office and launched a series that is currently on its ninth entry. More importantly however, it meant that the term “MILF” entered the popular lexicon and it was John Cho’s throwaway cameo that put it there. “I was known as the MILF guy” Cho tells me somewhat resentfully, “and I really wasn’t happy with that”. While desperately attempting to hide the reason for his new fame from his conservative Korean parents, he was however able to use the American Pie series to graduate from a series of small supporting roles in films like Bowfinger and American Beauty to his first lead role alongside Kal Penn in 2004’s Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. Although on its face the film appeared to be a typical stoner comedy, the film’s subversion of racial stereotypes (and a pre-How I Met Your Mother Neil Patrick Harris playing a demented version of himself ) elevated it to a much wider recognition and was followed by a sequel in 2008 and a further, Christmas-themed sequel that is hitting cinemas currently. Although the marketing for the first Harold & Kumar movie labeled Cho as “the Asian Guy from American Pie”, in the years since he has pushed his career beyond such simple classifications. “I really disliked the campaign for the first movie” Cho says, “it wasn’t my choice. We talked so much about race while we were promoting that movie it sometimes felt all we were doing was justifying having a Korean and an Indian on screen. But touring for the third one has been a relief. We just don’t have to talk about it as much and when
we do it’s in a different way”. While Cho has clearly come very far from being “the Asian guy”, surely he still faces limitations due to his race? “There are clear restrictions” he admits “but it is trickier than it seems. It’s something you’re aware of and something you have to not think about while being aware of it. But then again the life of any artist, particularly actors, is fraught with insecurity, so it’s really the cousin of another problem. But it’s different and as open-minded as people are, and people are becoming much more open minded in this town, your face is your face and honestly people never really forget your race in that way”. However Cho did get the opportunity to
“AS OPEN-MINDED AS PEOPLE ARE...YOUR FACE IS YOUR FACE” land a major role in a Hollywood blockbuster when J.J Abrams cast him as Hikaru Sulu in his reimagining of Star Trek in 2009, a rare critically and commercially successful film which reportedly has a sequel in the works. “There is one in the works,” Cho reveals, “but I can’t really say much”. Is there anywhere you would like to take the Sulu character? “As far as Sulu goes I wouldn’t want to even start annoying them about what to do with him” he says. “The writers are very good at their job so I’ll leave it to them.” Away from exploring the galaxy and his adventures with Kumar, Cho has always maintained an interest in theatre. After graduating from Berkeley he became involved with the East West Players and worked on plays by Edward Sakamoto and Eujioon Kim as well as playing Laertes in a Singapore Repertory Theatre production of Hamlet. “I’ve been away from theatre for a long time and it’s really a
product of living in L.A” Cho admits disappointedly, “ It’s been tough to find the right piece but it is something that I want to return to, it’s just more complicated with a family. Although I recently returned to Laertes for a reading with the radically talented Chiwetel Ejiofor as Hamlet and Stephen Frears directing. There was a theatre company in L.A considering putting it on and we spent a few days in a workshop reading it through. It really reignited the desire”. Cho has also played roles on television shows such as How I Met Your Mother and Flash Forward, but would there be any others he might be interested in? “However illogical I would love to be on Mad Men. Also Breaking Bad. They are my two favorites at the moment”. But his recent appearance in 30 Rock as a friendly Canadian meth-dealer must have been daunting given the cast and rapidfire jokes? “Alec Baldwin is intimidating. His dimensions are that of a bear. A very threatening bear. But he was so funny. The snap, crackle pop dialogue is so fast, I had to have it so memorized and so tight for it to work”. Next on Cho’s slate is a remake of Total Recall with Colin Farrell (“an enormous project, the principal pleasure being working with Colin”) and a return to ‘The MILF guy” with American Reunion (“the writers of Harold & Kumar are doing this one so I returned for them”). However he is keen to emphasise how proud he is of his most well known creation’s latest venture. “This one is a traditional Christmas movie. I think Harold and Kumar are sweet fellows and that is why the vulgarity works so well,” he tells me. “I was afraid the first movie was a hoax. That I would arrive on set and someone would throw a bucket of ice on me. It was so unusual to have two Asians in the lead. I didn’t think we were going to make it. Then it took off and we made the second one and third one. It means I’m known as ‘That Harold guy” which is honestly a great improvement”. 15
M USIC
TWO COLOURS IN MY HEAD Eamonn Bell interviews conductor Stijn Kolancy about his musical choral group Scala & Kolancy Brothers
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ince their cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” was seen over 260 million times in cinemas, on TV and YouTube in the trailer for The Social Network, girls choir Scala have managed to break out from a broadly European support base into the US market, releasing their first international album Scala & Kolacny Brothers in the summer of this year. The eponymous brothers are the classically trained Stijn and Steven Kolacny of Belgium, who founded the group in 2002 with a purely classical remit. But the pair used their complementary skills as conductor and arranger respectively to lead the choir to a recognition they have garnered in the last couple of years with their unusual, and immensely popular cover versions. Speaking to Stijn Kolacny, the conductor of Scala, he immediately defends the contradictory idea of a classically-focused choir breaking out into the world of mainstream popular music: “We always try to convince a broader audience that a choir is not something boring. In fact, it’s exciting – both to hear and to watch.” The remit of Scala’s setlists are broader than most cover bands dare to even imagine. In the latest album, the group covers Metallica, Foo Fighters and Depeche Mode , all side by side. From where, if at all, is the unity of the album derived? “We work very consciously on achieving a pure tone,” says Stijn. “We really want people to understand every single word we sing, so that all of a sudden you can see it gives a new meaning to a song. The audience begin to listen to the lyrics again; that’s a really interesting effect.” He cites Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as a prime example. In a style like grunge where the arrangement of the band side of things can get in the way of understanding the lyrics, Scala brings a serene clarity to the poetry of a variety of different styles. The pair work hard to develop a massed sound that resembles one ‘super voice’, coloured by the distinct tone of an all-female choir. “We get a very melancholic sound from Scala,” says Stijn – and it’s clear that their eerie cover of 16
Radiohead’s “Creep” expresses that kind of sincere, dulled melancholia. Their covers are often ponderous, sometimes taken heavily under-tempo. Covering existing tracks is an art, and the process resembles viewing a work of art from literally, another perspective. Stijn elaborates: “I try not to listen too much or even at all to the original version - I try to find a new approach and not be influenced by what has happened before.”
“A CHOIR IS NOT SOMETHING BORING ...IT’S EXCITING BOTH TO HEAR AND WATCH” At any given time Scala consists of 60 or so girls chosen from a register of over 200 – a logistic challenge made more troublesome by intercontinental bookings. The girls are selected on the basis of a regular open audition process and hundreds audition. Stijn and Steven struggle to cope with the demand among young singers since the choir has seen an increased number of national engagements. It’s no surprise that so many young girls are willing to join – unlike most choirs, the members themselves are an integral part of the creative process. Explaining how the pair decide which songs to cover Stijn says: “Steven chooses most of the songs, songs that he knows and likes, but we also make a lot of demo recordings; we just try and try again. After a few weeks you can tell whether something is going to work or not: we need to have a good match with the girls and the song.” He confirms that if the girls aren’t familiar with the music, or if they view it as outdated (as Stijn claims they view The Beatles) then the effect is sub-par. “Opposites work really well, metal, gothic, punk and grunge,” says Stijn. A lot of
the fascination with Scala comes from this kind of artistic collision – the surprise at hearing such ‘grimy’ music emerging from such angelic voices is one that the Kolacny brothers relish. What does the future hold for Scala? The foothold that The Social Network brought the choir into the US market is something the choir are very grateful for. Stijn realises the challenges that the US listener poses for a group such as Scala. “It’s really important in the US market to identify with the listeners as Americans, so to speak.” Is there a hostility towards the composition of the group, as a choir – almost a church-like sound? “There’s certainly more of a choral tradition in the UK and in Germany – and that helps us a lot” answers Stijn. He recognises the important role of media, old and new alike in achieving success. The choir have had success at SXSW this year, but also have been recently featured on The Daily Show and Conan while their covers of U2’s “With Or Without You” and The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” graced our television screens in Downton Abbey’s marketing. The group are Ireland-bound with a Dublin concert is scheduled for January 14th in the Olympia. Additionally a Christmas album is being worked on- something that promises to bring their uniquely eerie resonance to a selection of yuletide classics. But Stijn maintains that Scala has to be experienced live to understand the appeal of his choir. “Though they won’t be choreographed per-se, the girls will sing a number as they are dispersed within the audience.” This kind of performance technique symbolises Scala’s approach to their form: choirs are something to be experienced at first hand – not at the distance that is prescribed by the conventions of classical music. Scala sheds the stuffy image of the choral world and brings incredibly sensitive and touching arrangements of contemporary popular music to a wide audience in a compelling way. Their success is burgeoning and Stijn and Steven (and the girls) retain their artistic vision – a vision of clarity and purity – as top priority. Expect more.
BOOKS & MUSIC
TRUE STORY
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f course I have a gringo accent, that’s quite clear” says Michael Purser in throaty, public school English, while discussing his collections of short stories published recently in aid of the Trinity Access Program. A lecturer in mathematics at Trinity for many years, Purser has spent much of his career in South America. The stories collected in these two volumes are the intentionally fictionalised memoirs of his time on that continent. To distinguish fact from fiction in these memoirs is far from easy, perhaps impossible. Purser possesses a remarkable ability to treat scenes and personages from his own experience as literary occasions and characters. Drawing on his strange and amusing, sometimes unsettling memories, he effectively re-arranges and adapts to create meaningful combinations. Even the most apparently obviously fictional tale turns out to be almost entirely based on experience. Almost every detail is found to rest on autobiography. Masks are worn, memories structured for effect. In one case, a Swedish Purser tells an anecdote to a fictive Purser which the real Purser himself in fact lived years before. This complex method of composition enriches rather than congests; the stories are cleanly done, the tone humane, clear, sometimes humorous. Purser is uninterested in direct
comparisons with Europe, uninterested in giving his own views explicitly; as he says with regard to Peru, “you must never, ever throw your weight around”. And nor does he: quickly and unpretentiously, he presents well-drawn and unfamiliar cultures. He is conscious of being an outsider, self-deprecating without being overly cautious, open to being converted but never succumbing to unexamined exoticism. It is not that Purser absents his own European reactions, but that his eye for detail acts as a counterweight- his tales are often fables, but they are rarely impositions. He writes from many perspectivesyoung men and girls, children, widows- he is, although he says often labelled a “frightfully masculine man”, anxious to understand women. These are not merely tourist tales of local colour, or the sentimental reminisces of an older gentleman: Purser writes on difficult topics- rape, underage sex, severe poverty, political repression- but does so with a compassionate pragmatism and a good-humoured scepticism that avoids moral censure. These
are also stories written to entertain- adventure stories, tales of exploration, shotgun weddings, smugglers, prophets. Guns are common, corpses are found on the road. And they are also tales of love, of mistakes, of understanding through confusion. They are told clearly, without pretension; errors occur, not all characters are equally successful, not every phrase felicitous, but they are intriguing, charming, enriching. Purser relishes the Spanish word “claro”, leaving it untranslated in his books. He speaks slowly of a wish to express the moments which had made the most impression on him, “Why? Sometimes hard to say, but maybe it’ll make an impression on somebody else too.” In this he has, I feel, succeeded. Claro. Beyond Buenos Aires and La Rosa con El Clavel- Stories of Peru and Chile are on sale now in the library shop or available on request at the Communications Office. All proceeds will go to the Trinity Access Programme, helping to widen access to Third-level education. Tn2 Magazine warmly recommends the books. Patrick Reevell
hand it’s such a great community. Going out in Dublin to see gigs has become a real highlight of living in this city”. But having changed her sound recently with the addition of Alan Tully (guitars and vocals), Darren O’Reilly (drums and vocals), and Brian Murphy (bass and unwillingly vocals) to her act, has she compromised her sound at all? “ Well when I started with the band I would just make all the songs on my own but with the run up to the album it’s been much more collaborative,” she explains, “Alan is a great musician and really bring the experience to the table that I wouldn’t have. He’s the maestro of a lot of things. But I have the final say.” Her music has been described as ‘electro
rock acoustic”, however Róisín herself has a different opinion. “It’s sort of a modern take on folk music.” She says, “I grew up with a lot of 60’s music like the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac and Joni Mitchell but I also listened to my brother’s music a lot. Things like Radiohead, Blur and the Cranberries.” But where does the sound go from here? “We just keep adding things. We added a piano player recently. The dream is to make it as big a sound as possible”. She’s also keen to get her new album out there. “Hopefully will start recording at the start of next year” she tells me, “we’ve written about nine or ten new songs that are really the next level of what we are doing and I can’t wait to get out and start gigging them.” Alex Towers
BY HER SIDE t’s pretty difficult to make an impact on the Irish music scene at the moment. Each new week seems to bring a fresh band who deserve to be seen live. It must be even harder to navigate this cornucopia of musical talent when your older brother is the lead singer of the Coronas and your mum is Mary Black. But 22 year old singer Róisín O is determined to carve out a name for herself in the troubled waters of the Irish music scene and, as I find out, isn’t daunted at all. “The sheer amount of bands in Dublin is staggering,” she tells me, “you can go out any night of the week and find a band playing a gif. It certainly makes it harder for some people as it means you have to be very good to get noticed. But on the other
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SEX
HO HO HO
BIGGER FISH TO FRY
The Girl Who Comes But Once a Year
Clare Kealey
MONDAY: I need a new dress. I don’t often ‘need’
things, but I need a new dress. The tatty one usually used for going out is starting to look like an unwashed dish towel. Too many spilt cocktails and late night accidents at Charlie’s. But with invitation to party number three in my inbox drastic action must be taken. The only highlight of the work party is never much is when Clodagh the supervisor gets pissed and tries to ride one of the warehouse lads. “Bit of rough” she calls them. But with Society party on Thursday in the GMB and then Jason’s “Feck the Halls” extravaganza I’m going to need a new dress to cover both the Christmas season and the scar on my thigh from the time Derek bit me last may. Maniac. TU ESDAY: I found the perfect dress today. But all my delight turned to shit when I left the store and saw my Ex walking hand-in-hand with his new girlfriend Katie. We never held hands. We thought it was stupid and twee. I called Rachel so we could make fun of them over coffee but she was being a bitch. She said to stop referring to Katie as his “new girlfriend” as they’d been together since May. She’s just jealous that she’s not going to ‘Feck the Halls’. She’s always had a thing for Jason. WEDNESDAY: Slept late and missed my double lecture. Staggered in to college to try and make it to the library. Gave the Ex a text asking if he wanted to grab coffee so we could “catch up”. He didn’t text back. TH U RSDAY: The society party in the GMB was a disaster. The bottle of gin was the first mistake and the 3 cans of Tuborg were the second. I spent most of the night flirting with the Society head even though I, and everyone else there, knew he had a girlfriend on erasmus. We left to get mixer for my remaining gin at about midnight. On the way back I dragged him behind the Graduate Students reading room. We started just kissing but then I put my hand down his pants and next thing he’d pulled my head down. I gave him head for a bit before he got down, pulled off my tights and climbed on top of me. But he was too drunk and was crushing me so we had sex from behind. It was too cold to enjoy it though and he came too fast. Afterwards he just murmured something about needing to get back to the party and left me to pull my tights back on. Pretty sure he didn’t wear a condom. I couldn’t face the party again so I just went home, crying and downing the gin on the way. Once I got home I noticed he had torn my new dress. FRIDAY: Woke up with a text from my Ex. Met him in Starbucks for a chat. We were flirting just like we used to. Slagged each other off a bit then caught up. When I was about to order another cup he casually mentioned he had to go and meet his fiancée for lunch and couldn’t stay long. Apparently they are getting married next September after they graduate. I managed to smile and congratulate him. After he left I got sick in the toilets. SATU RDAY: Realised I forgot to take a morning after pill. A baby is all I need. Got my sexy Santa outfit for ‘Feck the Halls’. Rachel told me everyone knew about the engagement except me. Started to feel sick again so I downed half a shoulder of gin with orange juice. The party was pretty tame. Halfway through I got a text from the Ex asking if we could meet up again and that he had really missed me. Maybe all hope wasn’t lost… 18
RECIPE
“I need a new dress to cover the scar on my thigh from the time Derek bit me last may. Maniac”
There is nothing greater than a good chipper, but sometimes it’s nice to have a go at making things for yourself. This great British classic is incredibly easy and takes no time at all (it’ll probably take the same amount of time as it does to walk your local chipper) The most important thing to remember is when frying the fish make sure the oil is extremely hot. If it’s not, you will get a soggy result that’s very very oily. However you can reuse the oil three or four times. Just make sure to remove all the crispy bits!
BEER BATTERED FISH & CHIPS
For the Batter: 110g of self-raising flour 1/2 a teaspoon of salt 500ml of beer Fish & Chips: 2 fillets of cod, hake or pollack About five large potatoes (depending on how many chips you want) 1) Make the chips first. Cut to size and place in a bowl
of cold water to take away any excess starch. Dry well.
2) Fill a large pan with oil and heat on a very high heat. 3) Sift the flour into a bowl and add the salt. 4) Make a well in the middle of the flour and slowly
pour in the beer, whisking continuously removing all the lumps. 5) Place each fish fillet in the batter and cover well. 6) Once the oil is incredibly hot (you can test this buy
Submit your anonymous sex diary at http://tinyurl.com/tn2sexdiary
dropping a chip into the pot and when it shizzles it’s done), place the fish in. Cook until golden brown. Depending on the thickness of the fish this will take about 5 minutes. The chips take the same amount of time. Serves 2.
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REVIEWS Music
Fashion
Books
Food
Games
Art
Films
Theatre
HUGO by Nicholas Maltby
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HUGO Director: Martin Scorsese n Scorsese on Scorsese by Ian Christie & David Thompson there is a delightful foreword by the British director Michael Powell. “All art is one”, he writes, “and every artist owes a duty to his art. We can’t all be masters, but we can know a master when we see him, because he has something to say to us, and sooner or later imparts it.” The first part of Powell’s remark could serve as a brief commentary on Martin Scorsese’s latest film, Hugo. After a slightly lumbering opening, during which visual splendour takes undue precedence over plot, it becomes clear that Hugo’s several narratives have been engineered to join as a grand homage to filmmaking. References to cinema history and winking quotations give Hugo the air of an elegantly footnoted critical text. Repeatedly, a kind of superior life force is assigned to film above prosaic reality: George Méliès (Ben Kingsley), former director extraordinaire, reminds both the audience and Hugo, “Happy endings only happen in the movies”. So are good movies – perhaps like all intelligent art – truer versions of reality than our everyday perceptions allow for? Does life have to be bleak to be known? Hugo, it is hardly a spoiler to reveal, ends happily. The story is a celebration of cinema’s lifeaffirming qualities - so much so, that cinema itself becomes the film’s central protagonist. Like Hugo Cabret, cinema is a fixer of broken narratives, and thus, a purveyor of cohering realities. All the viewer needs to do, Scorsese suggests, is entertain the marvel of cinematic narrative, and in turn, feel entertained. Hugo 20
is Scorsese’s way of paying tribute to an art form that has nurtured his creative powers to extraordinary ends: it is a splendid testament from an all-time master of film production. Once it establishes itself beyond visual preface, Hugo is a film in which plot is unremittingly enhanced by filmic perspective. Before the title sequence rolls, we have already seen the young Hugo (Asa Butterfield) clambering among the austere web of girders that form the enormous (unnamed) railway station he lives in. He peers from on high at the stories played out on the vast stage below him. Since his father’s death, Hugo has been practically enslaved by his uncle Claude (Ray Winstone) to act as the railway station’s Victorian chimney sweep equivalent – obliged to perform various life-threatening jobs and live in dirt-covered misery. Hugo’s only means of survival is petit theft: he slaloms through the station crowds pocketing freshly-baked croissants, bottles of milk, and, rather vitally, toys. By dismantling toys Hugo is able to assemble a pile of cogs, with which he hopes to animate an automaton that was passed from his mother to his father (Jude Law). The automaton forms the solitary material link to his parents. Snatching a clockwork mouse from George Méliès, Hugo is caught and detained by the shopkeeper. Obliged to empty his pockets, Hugo is forced to hand over a sketchbook of his father’s. The book provides a blueprint for Hugo to animate the automaton, and, he thinks, discover a vital message intended for him. The automaton is a thing of curiosity: it quickly becomes evident that Papa Georges is
in some way connected with it. More broadly, it serves as a symbol, not just for the human desire to anthropomorphise the world around us, but – more originally – our potential to do this successfully. This links the automaton to film: it serves as an embryonic device for simulating human movement. Hugo and his co-adventurer Isabelle (Chloë Moretz) – the orphan goddaughter and charge of Papa Georges – discover in their detective work the story of the first recorded film footage, the Lumière brothers’ the Arrival of a Train at a Station. Apparently (although the story is widely regarded as apocryphal), audience members fled the approaching train in fright. But in any case, film, like the automaton that precedes it, is explained as Promethean fire that marks a point in human evolution: it occupies an essential stage in the development of narrative, and thus the refinement of human consciousness. Literature (the domain of the verbose, but impressively precocious Isabelle) is a vital antecedent to film, but film is inclusive – it is a triumph of community - of many constituent parts. In terms of Hugo’s plot, the pivotal question redefines itself once the automaton has been activated. Its sketch of Méliès’ image of a spaceship lodged in the moon’s eye (from A Trip to the Moon) provides the germ of discovery that gradually blooms into knowledge of Papa Georges’s history as a celebrated filmmaker. Méliès ended up burning his equipment in a fit of despair at the First World War; his negatives were melted and re-formed as women’s shoes. So the question that Hugo and Isabelle must solve is whether or not they can re-animate Papa George’s passion for film. Scorsese’s most brilliant achievement in Hugo is not simply to have vitalised the work of Méliès, and countless other cinematic innovator, but to have given it primacy. The film’s most moving scenes are the glorious re-enactments or original footage of classic early cinema. It is Scorsese, however, who now holds now film’s Promethean fire. Nicholas Maltby
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HOMEMADE BY CLODAGH
ASSASSINS CREED: REVELATIONS
Arnotts Food Court
Developer: Ubisoft
GAME S Whoever said you can have too much
FOOD When I think of ‘homemade’ I envis-
age pretty aprons, that just-out-of-the oven smell and simply delicious food. As I walked into Clodagh McKenna’s Homemade in the landmark Arnotts department store in Dublin, I really thought things looked promising. The food court makes a pleasant first impression. Faux brickwork coupled with paintedwashed walls and lots of glass creates a dainty, welcoming restaurant. However, it soon turns into school dinner hell. As I grabbed my tray and joined the queue of shuffling customers, I couldn’t help but think I was back in the Buttery. An overpriced Buttery. I opted for the seasonal quiche with a choice of two salads and my guest (who just so happened to be a well known Irish food critic- so much so that Clodagh McKenna’s staff broke a plate at the sight of him) chose the roast of the day with roasted vegetables and ratatouille. Disappointingly, my quiche was soggy and lacked any real flavour, while my chick pea salad was mediocre. The dill cucumber salad was tasty, albeit a little too watery. The roast pork, although presented in an awfully sloppy manner was flavoursome, particularly the apple sauce accompaniment. Everything could have done with a great deal more seasoning and some oomph. In my opinion, given the standard of the food, it is overpriced. Our combined meals (the roast and quiche) cost €19.90. I was also genuinely shocked to see a glass of milk cost €1.50. When I asked if there was anything
magically special about this milk I was told it was just your run-of-the-mill Avonmore milk. Similarly, still or sparkling water and coke, 7up etc cost an astonishing €3! Despite a less than average main meal, desserts were, I must say, a real treat. The spiced Moroccan orange cake was moist and bursting with flavour. I definitely could have done with seconds. The apple tart, although presented in an incredibly squished manner (it looked like someone had stepped on it) really reflected Clodagh McKenna’s ideology of good homemade cooking. It tasted like something your mother would make. Desserts average at about €5.95 and are well worth it. Another positive about Homemade is their commitment to sourcing local and seasonal ingredients. Suppliers to the restaurant are predominately based in the greater Dublin area but also as far afield as Tipperary, Cork and Kerry. Due largely to the fact that I was dining with a food critic who was also writing a review (albeit for a publication with a much higher circulation than Tn2 Magazine) we were presented with gifts which really showcased the very best of Homemade (i.e. they were bribing us.) The goodie bags were jam-packed with chocolate biscuit cake, homemade ketchup and paté, all of which tasted truly scrumptious. It is a real pity this high standard did not reflect the rest of the restaurant’s cuisine. Clare Kealey
of a good thing clearly never played Assassins Creed: Brotherhood. Building on the legacy left behind by the astounding Assassins Creed II, Brotherhood, not least with the introduction of a solid multiplayer element, brought the series even closer to perfection than its nearperfect predecessor. Assassins Creed III might still be a little further in the distance than anyone would like, but it turns out Italianassassin Ezio Auditore has another chapter in his story to tide us over in Assassins Creed: Revelations. Our story begins in earnest with Ezio arriving in Constantinople in search of the mysterious ‘masyaf keys’; magical maguffins which will open the door to a library left behind by the first game’s leading man, Altair. The plot jumps back and forth between Ezio and Altair, each coming to terms with the ravages of age and their role in an ever-escalating struggle they do not fully understand. Their journey is heartwarming and evocative but it’s unfortunate that present-day protagonist Desmond Miles doesn’t get more of a look in, as when his story finally does shine through, it sets the stage for something potentially game-changing. Revelations doesn’t differ much from what came before in terms of gameplay. The free running is still as exhilarating as ever and Constantinople proves itself to be a rich, colourful environment in which to be exhilarated. The most interesting addition to proceedings is the hookblade, a self-explanatory device which replaces Ezios second hidden blade and allows him to throw himself past enemies, hook onto ledges and make use of Constantinople’s network of rooftop zip-lines, which are much more fun to use than you’d initially think. Just like Brotherhood before it, Revelations proves its worth as more than mere spin-off or placeholder. By tweaking and embellishing on a wildly successful formula and by concluding the tales of both Ezio and Altair, Revelations is a magnificent experience from beginning to end. The stage is set, Ubisoft. We’re ready for Assassins Creed III. Andy Kavanagh 21
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LIVE THEATRE BROADCASTING III
Dundrum Cinema & The Screen Cinema
THE THING Director: Matthijs van Heijningen FILM A remake of John Carpenter’s 1982 clas-
sic of the same name, Matthijs van Heijningen Jr’s first full-length feature film is a clichéd mess that is certainly not a patch on the original. Based on John W. Campbell’s sci-fi novella Who Goes There? the film tells of a group of scientists who discover an alien spaceship and its inter-galactic occupant deep in the Antarctic. Frozen for thousands of years in ice, the alien soon thaws out and is not looking to make any new friends among the cast members. It’s not long before the scientists figure out that the creature can imitate other life forms as well and they soon start to turn on each other as paranoia begins to take an icy grip on the group. After some lame attempts at building tension, basically by showing actors looking sternly at one another, Heijningen decides to let loose with the CGI, further dampening any hope of some much-needed suspense. Winstead (Death Proof, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) seems out of her depth all the way through and never really convinces in her role as leader, although she’s not helped by a dull script by Eric Heisserer, who is already used to churning out abysmal screenplays for the likes of Final Destination 5 and the A Nightmare on Elm Street remake. Heijningen never gives the viewer anybody that we might even remotely care about in the film, just a collection of damp squib performances all round. The director even has the nerve to take one of the best scenes from Carpenter’s original (the brilliantly tense checking for imitation-human blood test) and turns it into a search for tooth-fillings. Oh, dearie me. The measly scraps of tension that are built up throughout the movie get completely ruined by Marco Beltrami’s obnoxious score, which sounds like every horror/sci-fi soundtrack rolled into one ear-blasting monstrosity. Beltrami thinks it’s still clever to pay homage to Psycho by using high-pitched violins in a scene with a shower. If you want to watch an excellent, scary, tightly scripted sci-fi horror, look no further than Carpenter’s original, because it’s light years ahead of this. Robert O’Reilly 22
THE ATRE In 2006 Peter Gelb became General
Manager of The Metropolitan Opera House, New York. He had ideas that would stir the world of classical music and, more surprisingly broadcasting. The squabbling behind the scenes of such an elite institution may fail to stir up any emotions in you; but the consequences of his brainchild, Live Broadcasting, may have a significant effect. A combination of HD recording and satellite broadcasting has given audiences a connection with the artists in real time. Its success lies in reaching a whole new market, the best artists, musicians and productions are delivered to all those who have the motivation to get to the local cinema. The subsequent expansion to other arts has given hope to indebted art houses, but has also broke down the geographical, financial and class restrictions that patrons face. Previous attempts at recording have failed, in the case of Opera and Theatre basic equipment meant that recordings seriously lacked the personal experience; DVDs seemed to give an impersonal representation of a live performance. This has now changed. Having avoided the bandwagon long enough, the screening of The Collaborators at Dundrum gave me an excuse to judge it for myself. Although sold out at The National Theatre in London, and due to the demise of touring, this was an opportunity that would not have been afforded 2 years ago. The experience is a little strange at first; we associate a trip to the theatre as being special, an event that warrants aftershave and smart shoes. Arriving at the cinema is different, replace the gentry with children; the bar with pick ‘n’
mix and interval drinks with McDonalds and you start to get the picture. Getting past such pretences is part of the idea and in the large part makes it more enjoyable. It starts with an introductory short about the making of the play, where commentary from actors and the director is well used and gives a modern interpretation of a printed programme. What startled me immediatly was the rawness of the voices and movement, it really emphasised the amount of production that goes into Hollywood blockbusters. Minute expressions are picked up with ease; minor details (and mistakes) are hard to miss. The cameras follow the characters in a quasi-realist way, designed to represent the natural spectator’s viewpoint and reactions to critical moments, while adding aerial shots when valuable. Twenty minutes in and I had finished judging the broadcast techniques and was gripped by the play. It made me realise that what is special about theatre is not the personal interaction with the stage, but about an art form unravelling before your eyes, unperfected, intimate and raw. Once you get past the trivial symbolism, and accept that the transmission is liable to the same potential for success and failure; you open yourself up to a wealth of opportunity. A few stops on the Luas does not limit you to The Gaiety, Abbey and NCH but can deliver you to Milan, London and New York. I never expected to experience most forms of high art, due to both opportunity and lack of intent. Live Broadcasting has encouraged me to return for operas, ballets and symphonies; and I’ll probably pop up to Tesco for my interval drink. Henry Longden
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50 WORDS FOR SNOW Kate Bush
M USIC Aside from a recognition of conven-
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THE CHINA SICHUAN Ballymoss Road, Stillorgan
FOOD The China Sichuan has been the venue
for every communion, graduation, new years, ever since I can remember. I have never had a bad meal here nor could I ever fault any of its qualities. The food is outstanding, the service impeccable, the atmosphere warm and welcoming. It is quite literally the best ethnic restaurant in Dublin. The China Sichuan has been Ireland’s benchmark Chinese restaurant for two generations and has numerous awards to back this up (Recently they won Best Ethnic Restaurant in Ireland at the Food & Wine Magazine / Penfolds Wine Restaurant of the Year Awards 2011) Its location on the outskirts of Dublin (in the inauspicious surroundings of Sandyford Industrial estate) may put you off but do not fret, it is only 100 yards away from the Stillorgan Luas stop and right next to the M50. To add even more convenience to your journey, a complimentary taxi service is offered on Saturday nights to those who live within a five mile radius to get you home after a few too many (and believe me, with their extensive wine-list, you will be needing it.) The quality of food most certainly does not match the prices on the menu. The China Sichuan offers a two course lunch menu for an incredible €15 or €19.50 with a glass of wine or bottle of beer. This includes such mouthwatering dishes as cold spicy beef slices seasoned with chili & coriander as a starter and fried aubergines in ginger & garlic sauce as a main course. All dishes are served with either boiled rice or fried rice. Their Value Menu offers a two course dinner for €20 or three course for
€24.50. This is available Monday to Thursday all night and Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays between 5pm and 6.30pm. It also offers a rather excellent Sunday lunch menu, with 2 courses at €18.50 and 3 courses at 23.50 that runs from 12:30 to 4pm. The staff at the China Sichuan really transform this restaurant from an 8 to a 10, particularly Kevin, the manager. A loyal family friend, he has seen us blow out many a birthday candle and is always asking for feedback for new dishes. The restaurant is well decorated and spacious, suitable for large groups or an amazing first date. I would recommend in particular, the hot and sour soup as a starter or “Hon Yu Guozi” (Poached dumplings, in a hot & spicy red oil broth), “Loh Bah Gou” (Traditional Chinese turnip cake pieces) and anything cooked in either an XO sauce or fish fragrant sauce. If you have room for dessert, the sorbets are delightfully light and the banana fritters are deliciously sticky. There is also an extensive tea menu- I adore the white tea, it is so soothing. Finally, if you’re feeling adventurous, take a look at the “Chef’s Recommendations” section of the menu for some incredible authentic Sichuan dishes based on centuries old recipes. I have eaten the monkfish pieces in yellow bean sauce and it is to die for. I would certainly agree with the former Trinity student turned food critic Tom Doorley when he said, ‘there is something about the food at the China Sichuan that demands experimentation’. I would encourage everyone to try this restaurant. Clare Kealey
tional musical talents, clever song-writing, an impressive vocal range, and ability to produce poignant melodies, Kate Bush was characterised early in her career by her perceived zaniness. Look at her videos: in “Wuthering Heights” she’s behaving like someone recently liberated from an asylum; in “Running Up that Hill”, we have Bush prancing around wearing traditional Japanese dress. Her strangeness is a distraction; an effective means of alienating a large part of the population. Certainly, Bush has original artistic vision, but to define it as contrivance is a failure of imagination. As Bush has grown towards middle age, her album releases have become less regular. Her last, Aerial in 2005, an album which came after a twelve year creative hiatus. Aerial and now 50 Words for Snow show a marked divergence from Bush’s earlier works. While the former saw Bush achieve a more consistent sound on tracks like “Pi” and “Somewhere in Between”, one could still hear the childlike mirth and febrile moodiness that fringes most of her early records. 50 Words for Snow doesn’t purge Bush’s unique vocal cadences, but they occur fleetingly. Far clearer than before, the album reveals the emergence of a mature, almost flawlessly confident artist. Through the concept of snow, Bush explores traditional themes; but it is on love that Kate Bush finds her strongest territory. In “Misty”, the speaker builds a snowman, chanting casually: “Roll his body / Give him eyes / Make him smile for me / … I run back inside.” The snowman then enters her dreams as a lover, “melting in my hand… so cold next to me”. As his body wastes to leave branches and leaves, the remains become an unfeasible reminder of the passion he aroused in the speaker. Not only physically, but emotionally, the snowman is the invention of his lover’s. On the album’s finest track, “Snowed in at Wheeler Street” Bush’s verses collage with those of Elton John. The duo project a series of fateful encounters, intimacies variously joyous and tragic. The seven songs employ ambient instrumentation, their narrative span greater than on her other albums. This helps position Bush as the instructive, Appolonian artist, with a panoply of experiences to call on while as a narrator, her talent remains as spellbinding as virgin snow. Nicholas Maltby 23
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THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR The Abbey Theatre
THE ATRE There is much scope for comedy in
the idea of an Irish adaptation of The Government Inspector, dealing as it does with petty small-town corruption and hypocrisy. It is also particularly relevant to Ireland at the moment; notwithstanding the cultural parallels that have often been drawn between Ireland and Russia, various elements of the story (political corruption and its resulting social ills, the arrival of an external and questionable authority) beg comparison to recent events in Irish politics and economics. And given the potential to have a good laugh about it all, it’s a shame that The Government Inspector fails to match up to expectations. The play opens promisingly, with an emergency meeting of the small-town officials. The dialogue is entertaining, and there are some strong performances from a large cast of excellent comic actors, among them Don Wycherly as the Mayor, Damian Kearney as the Postmaster, and Michael Glenn Murphy as the Judge. The sheer volume of them however, and the fact the same old gags about bribery and brown envelopes are rehashed for each character, means that the actors are not given much of a chance to shine and the staging can feel turgid at times. Ciaran O’Brien’s performance as Khlestakov feels somewhat hammy, delivered in a camp, mincing SouthDublin style, and again undermines the other performances. Ultimately, one is left with an impression that The Government Inspector’s topicality is a fairly tenuous excuse for a play which is too long, and relies heavily on a fairly limited repertoire of jokes. Liza Cox
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CLEMENT & PEKOE South William Street DRINKS Winter is coming. Well actually Win-
ter is very much here. With the long nights now fully drawn in, the prospect of several 24
freezing months lingers ahead. Icy tumbles, cancelled buses and burst pipes are just some of the things we can now look forward to if this winter’s to be anything like the last. However, this new teashop on South William Street will provide a perfect pick-me-up. Purveying dozens of teas, I was spoiled for choice on my first visit. The sophisticated surroundings make for a slightly uptight atmosphere, but this was quickly dispelled by the friendly, personal service. Not all the teas I tried were to my taste, but with such a diverse range from more common options like chamomile or peppermint tea to exotic offerings such as the Pi Lo Chun, everyone is bound to find plenty they like. Customers can take a bag of tea home, or try it out at just €2 per cup. However, for those feeling less adventurous, Clement & Pekoe serves a range of freshly roasted coffee. Hyperbole aside, choosing the in-house blend will get you one of the best cups of coffee available in Dublin. Grab a loyalty card - no doubt you will be back time and time again. Aaron Devine
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THE KERLIN GALLERY Anne’s Lane, South Anne Street ART The Kerlin gal-
lery, home to some of Ireland’s most established artists, has just opened a brand new exhibition, which runs until the end of January. The exhibition is a showcase of the artists represented by the gallery, and features artists such as Elizabeth Magill, Dorothy Cross and Paul Winstanley, a painter whose photorealistic paintings I discovered for the first time at this exhibition. While the scale of the exhibition will help visitors get to know the works on a more intimate level, I felt that the presentation was slightly monotonous- many of the works were on the same small scale, arranged in the manner of a line-up. A strong feature of Magill’s work is her evocations of the sublime, in which the artist’s depictions of landscape scenes are rendered to reflect the artist’s own psychological condition. However, I felt that this didn’t really come across in the smaller works on show
at the Kerlin. Also after stealing a glimpse at the price list for the exhibition I may have compromised my balanced view and thus evaluated the merits of the works in relation to their monetary value, an indicator of the times we live in, given the commercialisation of art threatens to engulf the integrity of the discipline. This exhibition is definitely worth a visit in terms of broadening your knowledge of the contemporary art scene in Ireland. However, if you like what you see on display, I would recommend extending your visit to another gallery such as the Hugh Lane, whose permanent collection shows some of these artists’ better works. Róisín Lacey McCormac
I
EL CAMINO The Black Keys As every reviewer will happily tell you, The Black Keys just knocked another one out of the park (I’m not sure what the equivalent European sports metaphor is, so baseball will do). Not that their last album, Brothers, was exactly a treat. Like electrons observed under a light, the band contorted as all eyes watched them cross the threshold to the mainstream. Their shift to cleaner, more eclectic production made the record a shocking success. You’ve probably been bombarded with its single “Tighten Up” tens of times (hundreds if you own FIFA 11), but to me it was an overambitious disappointment, at least after a prolific career of more immediate thrashing tunes. So where Brothers lounges around in a cardigan, El Camino decides to trade the suave brandy for a crate of beer and stay out til 4am. They’re back to the stomping ground they neglected last year, aggressive as ever, running wild with fuzz pedals and so-simple-they’regenius hooks. The songwriting and musicality is peaking. Auerbach’s vocal performance on “Little Black Submarines” is probably his strongest yet: if he was a white boy aping the blues greats before, he’s certainly come into his own. This speaks perhaps to the extent of Dangermouse’s influence, who takes the reigns here as he did on Attack & Release, on which they reached a challenging crossroads of maturing songwriting, more upscale recording facilities, and the amp-on-fire sound they had made their own, woven with a tangible finesse. At just shy of 40 minutes, it’s one of The Black Keys’ shortest records, but as it ends with the words “Don’t let it be over,” one can’t help but agree. Gheorghe Rusu M USIC
How to…
GUILT Y PLE ASU RES
BET ON HORSE RACING Paddy Gillett explores Equestrianism with the Horse Racing Society couldn’t help but play the Sophister sceptic when my Fresher sister enthusiastically signed up for every society that spoke to her, let alone the Horse Racing society. This is a girl who has never once been horse racing despite living minutes away from Leopardstown. My Cheshire cat smirk soon disappeared however, when I discovered that Trinity’s Horse Racing Society was a legitimate one and have recently snapped up 1,300 other members. With eager anticipation I attended one of their events and in doing so came up with a 5-point guide to what to do when faced with going to watch the races. ONE There is no such thing as being overdressed in the horse-racing world. I thought that sporting a casual Friday look would be appropriate, but in the “New World” that is Trinity Horse Racing Society, it’s all or nothing. The more eccentric the better: monocles, pocket-watches, canes, handkerchiefs, and seemingly over-the-top moustaches are requirements for any gentlemen looking to compete in the best-dressed competition. Ladies, dress as if you’re attending some smug bitch’s wedding and you want to show the not-so-white bride up. Comparatively, the Kildare locals certainly didn’t make the effort on a dreary Wednesday as with a shrug one of them remarked – “that’s Trinity for you.” T WO Hats: They deserve their own point. While Philip Tracey’s presence was scarce I imagine that next time everyone’ll raid their mum and granny’s closets. The winner of the best dressed prize and a covetable €100 Brown Thomas voucher reaped the rewards of investing in headwear. This isn’t a gender exclusive point lads, try to co-ordinate your handkerchief with your bowler. THREE: Bring binoculars. Not only useful for watching the race but they also come in handy for “scoping out the talent” – a highlight of the day for the regular punters with so many glamorous Trinity fillies in attendance. FOU R Know your Racing Post inside out…. or flirt with a middle aged man and piggyback on his years of knowledge. Wall St. will vouch for the satisfaction you can get from betting on insider knowledge. Enjoy your pompous strut over to the bookmakers to collect your glorious winnings. On the flipside it’s also fantastic for your friends if your tips bomb and your horse waddles over the line in last place. FIVE The 5.20 Trinity Beginners Chase, the big one. A now established highlight of the Trinity racing calendar. Even the shallowest of pockets felt the urge to take a punt on this prestigious race. It became evident to me that to truly experience the infectious excitement of horse racing you should place at least one bet. Whether you pick your champion by the funniest name or because the jockey sounds familiar and therefore by proxy he must be good, watching horses run in circles is great craic when you’re cheering on “Mr Jiggelo” or “Saucey Susie”. Auditor Jack Cantillon’s fine hosting, a ridiculous amount of spot prizes and a gumball challenge kept the crowd of 130+ entertained throughout the day at Punchestown. Top marks for this society and my first expierience of horse racing.
“There is no such thing as being overdressed in the horse racing world...and the more eccentric the better”
THE FILMS OF KEVIN SMITH by Gheorghe Rusu e all know how this column works by now, you pick and summarise a subject it’s embarrassing to enjoy, point out its generally perceived flaws, then either offer new redeeming features or justify the flaws as something of genuine worth. That’s the tried and tested skeleton, so why deviate? As it happens, Kevin Smith lends himself so congruously to this formula, it’s a sin and a surprise to have left it this long without a piece on him. Smith is the indie filmmaker who in 1994 sells his comic books and maxes out his credit cards to make the strikingly lo-fi Clerks, noted for its sex-preoccupied script, lack of budget, and tangible wit. Jay and Silent Bob are born. Miramax buys it, our humble hero is debt free and has studio backing. He rides the post-Sundance praise-train for a year til he does Mallrats. Most realise that his Tarantino-esquely natural dialogue is just 20-somethings talking about farting and genitals and that Clerks is mediocrity lent credence by a modest genesis. Some fans hang on. He produces several more films. They range from pretty bad to pretty okay. Nobody complains. So having failed to represent and voice slacker youth, now he represents a conglomeration of niche, candidly horny, stoner directors whose films make just about enough money to explain why they get made. If this conglomeration existed, Smith would be their voice, if only because he has the loudest voice. And voice is both his redeeming feature and enjoyable flaw. The man has a divine gift for talking shite. He’s crass, he’s juvenile, he can be an idiot, but boy is he hilarious. He toes the line between being laughed-with and laughed-at with intense self-awareness and goodnatured ignorance. You can see it in the words of the characters he writes, but you can see it even better in his Q&As and podcasts - both of which he’s turned into viable cash-cows. He’s clearly an attention and money whore, but (or because) he’s also insecure. Self-deprecation laces his every move. Add this to his penchant for talking about funny things on the internet and his everyman attitude and access to showbiz (anecdotes of what a bunch of weirdos Prince, Tim Burton and the guy who produced Wild Wild West are), and it makes him as relatable as a millionaire can get. You get the sense that he’s just a Good Guy having a Good Time. And if he wants to document his ramblings for me to entertain myself with, fuck it, let him make his terrible movies. 25
The Chaff
SOUNDS SO SOULFUL, DON’T YOU AGREE? Karl McDonald
S
omething strange happens in December in the world of music criticism. As if by tacit agreement between the industry and the media, labels switch their focus towards Christmas present albums, primarily in the form of repackaged hits collections by artists that children remember their parents listening to in the car. In the vacuum, media outlets, both print and internet, race to put out their end of year lists, relatively confident that no-one would be insane enough to release an acclaimworthy album after their deadline. It’s the same with films too, to an extent, but films have generally already made their cinema money by the time it gets to ordering them in direct competition with rivals. There are a lot of different functions to the end of year list. First and foremost, obviously, it is a cynical ploy to sell copies or get hits. Everyone knows what their favourite albums of the year are and, in all likelihood, they are familiar with the concept of taste, which basically dictates in this context that it’s possible and not necessarily wrong for someone else to have different favourite albums. People forget that though. They roll on to comments sections worldwide armed with wide-eyed disbelief. How could a sane person think Lana Del Rey is better than Katy B? Is it not the most obvious thing in the world that Drake’s indefensible caddish self-pity on Take Care is inferior to Kanye’s throwing-paint-at-a-canvas pop culture collage on Watch The Throne? How could someone be so stupid as to actually like Fleet Foxes? The ‘best’ album is a topic on which every music fan has an opinion, and it’s easy shooting for the critics. You could put literally anything in any order on an end of year list and people are still going to disagree with it with the fire of a frontier preacher on the pulpit. It’s wrong to think that the media does it in bad faith, though. It is precisely because it’s impossible to have a right answer that they are important. An end of year album list is an argument-provoker, yes, and a handy guide for those who haven’t been keeping up, yes, but it’s also one of the most important critical statements a publication can make. In ten or twenty years’ time, there won’t be a lot that people remember about a magazine in a given year, but where they positioned certain albums is something that stops being just a part of the magazine itself. It becomes part of the discourse. If other 26
“The days of the big music magazine as the prophet on the hill imparting taste to the unschooled masses are over”
publications agree? You have critical consensus on something approximating an objective album of the year. If they don’t? Well that’s what’s different about you compared to everyone else. In 1983, Rolling Stone overlooked Michael Jackson’s Thriller, which sold a million copies a week at the peak of its popularity, for REM’s Murmur, a debut record by four college radio-sounding nerds from Georgia. It’s hard to underestimate how important that was for REM. The implication is that the critics working for Rolling Stone, having earned the respect and belief of their readers, wanted to tell them something important: you might not have heard this record, but it’s better than the ones you have. Get it. Now, since emerging from the primal haze of the pre-internet age, things have become a little different when it comes to these lists. The days of the big music magazine (Rolling Stone, NME) as the prophet on the hill imparting taste to the unschooled masses with a limited record-buying budget are, understandably, over. People have more music and they have access to more criticism. There are review score aggregators on the internet that you can use to find the most broadly acclaimed records. Is there still a point to grand critical statements like these lists, as more than just attention grabbers? Probably. The circumstances are different, but the reasons are the same. Topping end of year lists in ‘serious’ as well as just ‘popular’ music press last year made Kanye the ‘artist’ he wanted to be rather than the chart-chasing, drug-taking, misguided idiot/genius everyone else saw him as. And putting Florence, Arctic Monkeys, Watch The Throne and Coldplay in their top ten against general critical consensus let everyone know that Q is still a magazine for people who want their taste confirmed. If there’s no right answer anyway (and there isn’t), then the statements these lists make become, if anything, more interesting. And the real best album of the year? It’s Danny Brown, XXX. Anyone who says different is wrong. If you’re looking for more of Karl, why not download his podcast, Them’s The Vagaries? It would make his day: http://themsthevagaries. tumblr.com/
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CHOOSE YOUR HAUSPARTY EVERY WEDNESDAY DJ STE-V-SOMETHING FLIES IN FROM FABRIC LONDON & THE MADHOUSE DJs WILL KEEP THE BEATS PUMPING ALL NIGHT THE BEST IN HOUSE/ELECTRO & POP 27