tn2 Issue 1, 2014-15

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DAVID MITCHELL on THE BONE CLOCKS

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PARTY MONSTER DUBLIN FOOD GUIDE PAN PAN THEATRE STAR TREK: THE FAN FRONTIER

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CONTENTS 04 06 07 28 36 38

Jumble Uppers & Downers Homegrown Reviews Calendar Sex

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DAVID MITCHELL “In the field of literature, is postmodernism a dodo?”

PARTY MONSTER

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“There is no such thing anymore of the young kid coming from Idaho with $300 in his pocket and a dream to make it big in NYC. NYC is now filled with rich kids who don’t know the meaning of suffering.”

HAVE IT YOUR WAY

15 EDITORIAL TEAM Meadhbh McGrath Matthew Mulligan Lola Boorman Alice Wilson Stephen Moloney Olen Bajarias Sarah Lennon Galavan Sorcha Gannon Daniel Scott Kathleen Girvan Eoin Moore Eavan Gaffney Tara Joshi Eoin Lynskey Heather Keane Matthew Malone Ciara Forristal Emma Boylan Aoibheann Schwartz Michael O’Hanrahan

PRINTED BY Grehan Printers

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Olen Bajarias styles looks from up-and-coming NCAD designers CIara Diana Lennon and Jenny Hartnett.

DUBLIN FOOD GUIDE Here’s your guide to the best bars, lunch spots, vegetarian foods and deserts in Dublin.

FAN FRONTIERS Eoin Moore delves into the heart of Irish Trekkie culture. Vulcans and uniforms aside, there wasn’t much to distinguish the event from a standard night out.

PAN PAN THEATRE “Americanitis was the whole notion of discovery and whole notion of anxiety about making work”

PHOTO ESSAY Jerusalem, Cairo, Quito and New York through the lens of Rebecca Hetzer

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QUINNQUISITION

PHOTO BY AOIBHEANN SCHWARTZ

ROASTED BROWN

Roasted Brown sits above Filmbase in Temple Bar. It’s all glass and metal and wood, mismatched tables and huge windows.

When I order an espresso, the barista tells me that they roast their own beans, and excitedly describes the different options. I ask for a cake to go with the coffee, and at once a triangle of fudgy brownie is handed to me. I try to wait, but it smells too good, and it tastes even better. The sea salt scattered on top finely counters the richness of the gooey cake. Then my espresso comes.

This is juicy, fruity and complex. Acidity and sweetness balance perfectly, with no hint of bitterness. It’s impossibly syrupy and every sip leaves me with the taste of berries. The other offerings in Roasted Brown are great too. Probably. I might find out if I ever manage to order anything but the espresso with a side of brownie.

Zoe Quinn is the developer behind 2013’s Depression Quest. On August 16, her ex-boyfriend wrote an extensive blog claiming that she had cheated on him with multiple figures in games journalism, in order to boost the publicity of her game. Misogynistic slander was then directed at Quinn. Some journalists responded by decrying the entire gaming public as misogynistic. As things grew more fiery, forums began removing discussion centred around Quinn.

This led to the development of a conspiracy theory, of large scale review manipulating in a nepotistic gaming industry. As things grew more chaotic and charged, the one discussion - worthy topic at the heart of the matter — how personal relationships between developers and critics might undermine journalistic integrity — was lost in a flurry of mud-slinging, doxxes, and death threats.

We’re left in a confused, angry, and unfortunately very familiar situation. Be it Dickwolves or DRM, controversial issues in the video game community almost inevitably come to a head in absolute clusterfucks such as this. Nothing is resolved, real people are hurt, and the gaming community looks that little bit more immature and ridiculous. The speed at which these things get out of hand is perhaps related to gaming’s uniquely vocal online community. It’s sad that the outcome of this is so regularly such harmful, pointless escalation.

WORDS BY EOIN MOORE

ATOMS AND APPLES EILIS O’CONNELL, 2013

This piece was commissioned in commemoration of physicist Ernest Walton, an alumnus and fellow of Trinity who, with John Cockcroft in 193 2, first split the atom successfully at Cambridge. It was the scientist’s minimal and pared back approach in his own drawings which influenced O’Connell’s own design, whilst the spheres represent an integral element in Walton and Cockcroft’s scientific breakthrough. It is surrounded by apple trees which reference Walton’s private life and his interest in growing fruit trees. Appropriately situated beside the physics lab, this piece of seemingly gravity defying polished stainless steel disrupts and enlivens the arguably bleak landscape that is the east end of campus.

PHOTO AND WORDS BY STEPHEN MOLONEY

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VIDEODROME

WORDS BY LEONIDAS CONSTANTINIDES

Before 2004 Britney Spears’ videos showcased either a wide-eyed girl-next-door, or a sultry, in your face temptress trying to escape those bubblegum roots. Toxic marked the glorious moment when Britney realised that she could Before 2004 Britney Spears’ videos showcased either a wide-eyed girl-next-door, or a sultry, in your face temptress trying to escape those bubblegum roots. Toxic marked the glorious moment when Britney realised that she could play both those roles: naughty and nice. Conceptualised by Spears herself, the video sees the singer go from a coy air hostess whose entire act is laced with innuendo (oops, she spilt champagne over that guy’s crotch), to a blackhaired killer who titillatingly pours poison into the mouth of her cheating boyfriend. And this is without mentioning her brief transformation into a redhead, cruising around a futuristic Paris to steal a poison vial from Toxic Industries (we see what you did there), accidentally setting off the security lasers and thus having to perform some incredibly intricate dance moves to escape. Perhaps the most iconic part of the video remains the intermittent cuts to Britney naked, covered in diamonds. Indeed, that particular sparkling scene combined with the homicide plot meant that MTV moved the video to its late-night programming. Still voted amongst the sexiest, best music videos of the 2000s, Toxic is when Britney was firmly anointed with her now-eternal crown of pop princess.

WORDS BY TARA JOSHI

SALÒ

1976 Pier Paulo Pasolini “Nothing is more contagious than evil.”

Pedophilia, misogyny, rape, coprophagia, filicide — Salò has it all. Based on the infamous 120 Days of Sodom, written by the Marquis de Sade whilst he was imprisoned in the Bastille shortly before the French Revolution, the film’s setting is transposed to 1943 Italy, just after Mussolini’s fall. Here, four fascist libertines carry out an agenda of sadism against nine girls and nine boys in three stages: the Circles of Mania, Shit, and Blood, structured as a perversion of Dante’s Inferno. The tone of the film is one of overwhelming disgust, affording no humanity to those in power, and, even more disturbingly, little more to the victims, making for a harrowing objectification of its characters. The film was highly contentious upon its release and is still censored in some countries.

Martin Scorsese and Simone de Beauvoir are among those who have defended the artistic value of this orgy of rape, torture, and murder, which acts as a political allegory of 20th century dictatorships and a cinematic demonstration of the extreme violence and excessive power perpetrated by such systems. Aside from the ritualised atrocities carried out against eighteen children the film is without a plot to contextualise its relentless graphic content, which is at times unwatchable and always degrading. Salò’s grand statement? Life is a banquet of shit.

WORDS BY SORCHA GANNON

FRONT SQUARE FASHION

LITERARY MILESTONES September 22, 1598 Ben Jonson is indicated for manslaughter.

DECLAN MCGOVERN SF Sociology and Social Policy We spotted Declan reading on one of the benches outside the Arts Block. When asked about whose style inspires him, he named Zeus, the gods of Greek mythology and Karl Marx, upon whom he models his beard and hair.

WORDS BY OLEN BAJARIAS PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL O’HANRAHAN

On this day in 1598, playwright Ben Jonson was arrested for manslaughter after killing an actor in a duel. The actor was Gabriel Spenser, a noted member of Philip Henslowe’s Admiral’s Men playing company, with whom Jonson himself had been affiliated. Jonson pleaded guilty, but claimed “benefit of clergy”, and as a result was tried by the more lenient ecclesiastical courts. It is said that it was his ability to read and write that ultimately saved him. He narrowly escaped hanging, and was released after a short imprisonment. In the same year, having now dramatically parted ways with the Admiral’s Men, Jonson approached their rival company, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, with a new play. Every Man in his Humour, which would go on to be considered one of Jonson’s best works, was performed for the first time by a cast led by none other than William Shakespeare, a prominent shareholder in the company.

The immediate success of Every Man in his Humour solidified Jonson’s reputation as a leading dramatist of his time, while posterity ranks him, among the playwrights James I’s reign, as second only to Shakespeare.

WORDS BY EAVAN GAFFNEY

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MAC x Rocky Horror: Damn it,

Anna Wintour’s flip phone: Anna Wintour has no need for your future tech — she is the future.

Best face forward:

Ariana Grande allegedly insists that photographers “shoot only from the left side of her face”, according to an Australian newspaper that had their photoshoot cancelled after they failed to heed her request. She even sent security after their photographer to delete the photos they dared to take from the right.

Girl knows her angles.

Janet! To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, MAC are releasing a limited edition range including glitter pots, lipsticks and false eyelashes. One glimpse will have you shivering with antici... pation. In stores October 2.

David Fincher x James Ellroy:

Old pals Fincher and Ellroy are currently rumoured to be in talks with HBO to develop a hard-boiled 1950s neo-noir series set in Los Angeles. While nothing has officially been announced yet, HBO could probably do with another high-profile gritty crime drama for awards season, so this project could move ahead quickly.

Pigeons on dates: After beginning

as an April Fool’s joke, Mediatonic’s Hatoful Boyfriend has blossomed into an “incredibly engrossing” cult hit, in which you play as the only human attending St Pigeonation’s Institute, a prestigious academy for birds, and choose which pigeon you fancy for a feathery fling.

Below-the-knee bling: as seen on the Bey’s knees.

Beard merkins: In this season’s make-

over episode, Tyra Banks and her Next Top Model team glued a wig onto a guy’s face (yeah, they have guys on this show now), and called it a “beard weave”. These are dark times.

Bold lips: At New York Fashion Week, it

was all about plain lip balm, as seen on the runways of Prabal Gurung, Alexander Wang and Jason Wu. NARS makeup artist Diane Kendal explained, “This season, it just doesn’t feel relevant to do a lipstick.”

RIP, iPod Classic: Last week, Apple unceremoniously killed off its longest-serving device, which helped the company to surge ahead of the competition back in 2001 and is perhaps responsible for Apple’s success today.

Farewell, click-wheel.

Something fishy: Following the NFL

domestic violence scandal, Nev Schulman decided it would be appropriate to respond with a selfie to improve his #personalbrand. The Catfish host propped his groceries against the doors to take the photo, in which he holds his chest and declares the elevator “abuse free”.

Turns out, Schulman was himself kicked out of college in 2006 for punching a woman in the face.

WORDS BY MEADHBH MCGRATH 06

Westport surf-pop outfit Me and My Dog have been making waves on the Irish independent scene for a while now. Their folksy, engrossing debut EP Three Songs About Me and My Dog was followed by an absorbing split cassette tape, Delphi, released in conjunction with garage-rock hellraisers (and fellow westerners) Oh Boland on the lively Dublin label Popical Island. This endearingly callow four-piece have gone from strength to strength since their first gig in an underground opticians over a year ago. From their captivatingly carefree aesthetic, to the surreal ingenuity of their promotional photoshops, to the hilarious ‘accidental fans’ that occasionally appear on social media (people have been known to tag the band in photos of themselves with their dogs), it’s hard not to fall for this band’s singular charm.

They’re practicing for a gig in Galway when I meet them at The Pop Inn, the delectable new Popical Island venue on Little Britain Street. Luke Healy, frontman and snapback enthusiast, describes their sound as “garden variety indie pop with a self-loathing edge” or “gone off bubblegum”. They’re visibly delighted to be sharing rehearsal space with the Popical Island family, whom they’re all “crazy big fans” of: “It’s weird to

HOM EGR OWN just be playing gigs with them all the time now, I guess” says Healy. “We really forced our way in” jokes Tim O’Reilly, drummer.

Healy flippantly maintains they “got (their) foot in the door and just kept kicking”.

They’ve been compared in the press to surfrock luminaries like The Beach Boys, a comparison that isn’t entirely unfounded. Their songs could elegantly soundtrack a coastal bike ride, idle Saturday cans or a skittish dog charging towards the sea. Healy’s jaunty vocals are kept buoyant by the playful shimmying of guitarist Josh Noone. Breezy melodies stay anchored by the durable pulse of their rhythm section (O’Reilly and bassist Austen Smith). Lyrically, Healy mostly deals with the sort of Gen-Y ennui that would grate were it not tactfully insulated with such engaging instrumentation.Their sound is best distilled on Delphi earworms ‘Better Than I Thought’ and ‘The Scenic Route’, where ferociously catchy riffs fuse effortlessly with thundering percussion; all ferried along by lyrics that are shrewd, unpretentious and often insightful.

They launched, or rather, as Noone quips, “tried to launch” Delphi in The Pop Inn with Oh Boland at the beginning of the summer. Unfortunately, the gig was shut down early (“probably one of the low points in our playing career”) due to the ostensible absence of a ‘dancehall licence’ (which is just as puzzling as you’d imagine). When asked about the incident they’re somewhat reticent: “It was pretty vague. I think it all boiled down to a miscommunication”. It hasn’t hampered their progress, however.If anything, they seem more energised by what they see as a minor setback. The question of “what’s next?” is greeted with an orchestra of nervous laughter. They’re currently “taking a really long time to write stuff ”, but have “lots of gigs coming up”.

They also seem giddy about the prospect of the ‘Hard Working Class Heroes Five-ASide’ (seemingly the brainchild of notable Dublin-based electronic group Meltybrains).

O’Reilly jokes that he’s been “practicing all summer...I’ve barely touched a drumkit but I’ve been on the pitch twice a week”.

Me and My Dog play the Hard Working Class Heroes festival over the weekend of the Oct 2-4..

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY EOIN LYNSKEY

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Phooto Courtesy: Nikki Barrow at Hodder & Stoughton

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STOP THE CLOCK David Mitchell speaks to Tom Godfrey about Twitter, metalife and the experimental novel

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avid Mitchell is an author who needs no introduction — or he would be, if it wasn’t necessary to follow his name with “Cloud Atlas, not Peep Show”. Listening to him, you can’t help feeling that this case of mistaken identity rather works in his favour: “My privacy is really important to me.

Anonymity is a terrible thing to lose, and we are in a culture that cherishes and holds as an achievement the losing of your anonymity, getting your name out there, becoming someone known. You need to be careful what you wish for.”

Social media is an area Mitchell seems to have been cajoled into, but he has made it his own. In July, The Right Sort, a “long short story” written in tweets, whet the appetites of those fans eagerly awaiting his latest novel, The Bone Clocks. But we shouldn’t start expecting any kind of regular Twitter activity — for Mitchell, Twitter presents an artistic opportunity rather than a platform to discuss his everyday life. “I enjoyed the challenge of writing a story for Twitter, I liked how it forces you to think in different ways about narrative because you are moving through a landscape very quickly, like looking through a narrow train window as opposed to reading a page of text where you are looking down upon it like a balloonist might.”

Twitter’s unforgiving character limit is not the first linguistic obstacle Mitchell has wrestled with in his fiction; his last novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010), deals expertly with the many difficulties posed by a language barrier. When asked whether his experiences living in Japan had affected his use of language he replies, “In a way, not learning the language maybe had a greater influence than learning the language.

I’m still only really intermediate and so I still do struggle to express the finer points of what I want to say, as does Jacob [de Zoet], as does Jason in Black Swan Green (2006), as do a lot of my characters. They are more verbal inside their heads than they are outside, their thoughts are more eloquent than their speech, and miscommunication, non-communication — you could even apply this to the translation of The Reason I Jump — the inability to communicate rather than the ability is one of my archetypal themes, and being in Japan did that theme no harm, and probably helped it to bloom.”

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The Reason I Jump (2007) is Naoki Higashida’s account of growing up with severe autism, written when he was a teenager with the use of an alphabet board. Moving and enlightening, it was translated from Japanese into English by Mitchell and his wife Keiko Yoshida, who have a son with autism. The project was therefore a personal one, as well as a public service that has opened a unique document up to the English-speaking world.

Now Mitchell is working on a new book with Higashida, at least two years from publication at the moment, on the subject of writing, how we understand smells, and autism in adulthood: “I think it will be a different book to The Reason I Jump, but still quite a valid one, and hopefully a unique one, and hopefully an original book as well in what we discuss.”

All of Mitchell’s novels to date deal with the problems that can arise due to miscommunication or the inability to communicate.

The Bone Clocks demonstrates this most obviously in its third section, which discusses the Iraq War and relentlessly offers up views and explanations that contradict each other; everyone is at cross purposes, and being “on the same side” is not the same as being on the same page. War is shown to thrive through miscommunication, whether deliberate or accidental.

The Bone Clocks takes as its main character Holly Sykes, with each section examining, often through the eyes of others, different stages of her life. The novel is populated, however, with immortal characters: the Anchorites who prey on psychic children in order to stay alive, and the Horologists, who find themselves reincarnated after each death. Mitchell’s fans will spot an old favourite, one Dr Marinus from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, and Mitchell himself has described The Bone Clocks as the second book in the Marinus trilogy. The doctor is a difficult character to describe as Mitchell demonstrated himself: “I just

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verbally outlined my ideas for Marinus years ago — when I was writing Black Swan Green actually — to my brother, and it was this look of engrossed fascination on my brother’s face which said, ‘Oh you’ve got to do that one day, you’ve got to write that!’

And that was the spark that really made me want to have a go, he’s — or she, depending on which lifetime he or she is on – a kind of maximum character, right now she’s a she, so I’ll call her she, although actually in a little thing I’m doing now, quite a small thing, he’s a he again, oh no, he’s a she!” Having settled on a pronoun, Mitchell continues, “She’s a kind of maximum character, she’s as old, older than the modern era, she goes back to late antiquity, I think I have her starting off in the 6th century, something like that, and she has seen history and all those years and all these lifetimes, well, that fascinates me. What’s the psychology of involuntary immortality? What would you do if you knew you would be coming back again and again and again, what if your metalife made Groundhog Day look minute and inconsequential in comparison? What would that do to you? What would that do to your sense of ethics? What would you care about? Could you bring yourself to love? Knowing that whatever you love you will outlast many many many lifetimes over? Wouldn’t you be lonely, at least until you meet other people of your kind? Would you try to meet them? What would be the meaning of your metalife?” Marinus is amusing, intelligent, grumpy-but-good, and her ability to be anyone, at any time, makes her appeal to a writer like Mitchell obvious.

Mortality is a theme that has always been present in Mitchell’s work, notably in Cloud Atlas but also present in his debut novel Ghostwritten, part of which is narrated by an immortal, incorporeal consciousness. It is telling, then, that the main character of The Bone Clocks is mortal; by focusing on Holly, rather than the immortal heroes and villains, Mitchell is asking,

“To what degree are our lives, as bone clocks, as ordinary mortals, conditioned by the fact that regardless of our religious beliefs we know that we are going to die? And unless you have a deep conviction, and deep belief in reincarnation, which I don’t, then to what degree does that define our one life?” After a book like Cloud Atlas, in which the same birthmark appears in different eras and texts, and events replay themselves across time, you could be forgiven for assuming that Mitchell has some kind of spiritual or religious agenda, but as the novels keep coming it becomes clear that any agenda is purely literary.

Towards the beginning of his career, Mitchell thought that the experimental novel was “a smart thing to do and a clever thing to be”, and certainly discussions about the unusual structures of his books mark his works as innovative on, at very least, a formal level; now, however, he is more concerned with the magic of writing: “Ultimately, I think, the magic is actually something very simple, you write a character that the reader can identify with and care for, and then frighten the reader that bad things will be happening to the character, and make them care. This principle is at play... well, you can see it in Chaucer, and you can see it in Game of Thrones. Experimental novels which dispense

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WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU KNEW YOU WOULD BE COMING BACK AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN, WHAT IF YOUR METALIFE MADE GROUNDHOG DAY LOOK MINUTE AND INCONSEQUENTIAL IN COMPARISON?

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with that principle, well, you have to be very careful before you jettison that fundamental glue between the world you have made and the reader that you want to spend time in that world.”

Often described as a postmodern author, you will find Mitchell’s quotes on the back of Italo Calvino novels, and references to Jorge Luis Borges in his own works. To describe him this way, however, is to focus on his themes and structures while ignoring the very human aspect of his work, and his desire to write books that will thrill and captivate the reader, rather than draw attention to the artificiality of fiction. In answer to his own question, “In the field of literature, is postmodernism a dodo?” he almost tentatively replies that, “As an influence, as a colour in the paintbox, postmodernism is there, but as a dominant force it may have spent itself. Ultimately, I feel that postmodernism attacks the bond between reader and text, and if as a reader you catch sight of the writer smirking in the shadows, saying ‘This isn’t real, this is a text, this is a book’, then the illusion is punctured and this big beautiful shimmering bubble of fiction, where the text you are reading is more real than the room you are reading it in, is dissolved, and that lovely, primal reading experience you had as a kid when you were first read a story is dispelled.”

WORDS BY TOM GODFREY

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ADDICTED TO GLAMOUR Stephen Moloney speaks to notorious Club Kid Michael Alig about his post-prison art portfolio, youth culture and New York as the centre of art and excess.

M

ichael Alig has been free from prison for four months. Having been sent away 17 years ago for the manslaughter, mutilation, and subsequent disposal of one time friend Angel Melendez over a drug debt, he has re-entered a starkly different world to that which he left. Leading up to this, Alig earned a reputation as the golden child at the centre of the Club Kids. Along with the likes of James St. James, Gitsie, “Freeze” Riggs and Superstar DJ Keoki, they transformed the New York party scene through extravagance and excess in both dress-sense and drug-taking.

Crowds flocked to the parties Alig threw — be they in a club, subway carriage, or McDonald’s — simply to witness and be a part of this experience. The exploits of the Club Kids have been documented in the 2003 commercial flop and cult favourite Party Monster, starring Macaulay Culkin, and the 1998 Shockumentary featuring interviews with Alig and others, which were recorded after the killing but before he was sentenced. Now living in the Bronx, he paints and is slowly adjusting to a somewhat quieter existence.

Having moved between several institutions whilst incarcerated, it was during this time that Alig first put brush to canvas: “Freeze suggested it might help stave off the incredible boredom. I had never painted before and it took a few years to sort of learn how to make something that was halfway presentable.”

Although his work — which features portraits of Alig himself, obviously, alongside the likes of Amanda Lepore, Leigh Bowery, Clara the Carefree Chicken and Ketamine vials — has not yet been critically received; yet it appears to not be without interest or, at the very least, intrigue. Undoubtedly a presentation of his work to date will accumulate an audience of fans both past and present; those who once idolised and followed his troupe and the newly infatuated younger generations who draw on his image and eccentricity for their own self-expression, venerating through their loyal social media following. It may be difficult for just about anybody not to be fascinated by this figure who acquired fame, notoriety and ultimately a prison sentence for his hedonism and excess.

Vague on details, he mentions an exhibition of his work as being very much on the horizon and that he has been embargoed by galleries from selling pieces in order to keep them “new and fresh for the show”, slated for sometime in the late autumn. Such an exhibition might be seen as a sort of homecoming for Alig, whose return to New York was relatively subdued. He says it

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will be his first major event since his release and “one that I will be allowed to stay out late at, I think!” Such abstemiousness is a long way from the hectic life he once led, where nights would inevitably roll into days and on again into nights, sustained by a line, needle or pipe.

Given the narcotic-fueled experiences that Alig has amassed — and miraculously survived— it is perhaps unsurprising to learn that his paintings are largely or indeed “completely influenced by the drugs of the times”, a life of hedonism once lived and those who shared in this life with him. If his time on the party circuit was during the “glory days” of drugs and clubbing, he seems unconvinced that such a moment could ever be relived: “I don’t think it could ever happen again. Everyone is always saying ‘things are not the way they used to be’ — well, no, they’re not but they’re not supposed to be. In the 70s we didn’t want to live like we did in the 50s and today it should be no different.” However, perhaps Alig has not yet come to realise since being released just how disturbingly banal recreational drug use has become today and is more of a cultural reality than a cultural statement.

Alig goes on to muse on the role that hard partying plays in art creation. Rather recklessly, he suggests a pseudo-proviso that “drugs and booze and creativity go hand-in-hand because they allow a person to become uninhibited… more of who they truly are. It is why nightclubs are so important, as they provide forums where new ideas can be expressed in an uninhibited environment… like little laboratories where new concepts are brainstormed over booze and drugs.” The alternative, a world without nightclubs, would see “the music and fashion industries suffer and stagnate”, he claims.

With Alig back in New York for the first time in 17 years, the city has undoubtedly changed. For one, he says, although it will remain an important component of the art world, it is no longer the centre of the zeitgeist that it once was in the 1980s and 90s, when it was both home and studio to epoch-defining figures such as Basquiat, Haring and Warhol. Alig seems keenly and rightly aware that this dulled shine is the result of an increasingly connected, diffuse and globalised art world, “It’s not that NYC is no longer fabulous or the centre of it all. It’s that there is no centre of it all anymore because of the internet and instant this and that.

A scene cannot develop because it is now assimilated instantly by the masses.” His point is valid. Today, myriad digital social platforms facilitate the consumption and dissemination of cultural objects and events without the need for referencing a specific geo-political place, opening up traditional art centres like New York.

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THE WHOLE POINT OF GOING OUT DRESSED IN A CERTAIN WAY WAS TO MAKE A STATEMENT, WHICH IS SORT OF WHAT PERFORMANCE ART IS. YOU GO OUT DRESSED AS AN ACCIDENT VICTIM AND IT LOOKS FUNNY, BUT IT IS ALSO MAKING A COMMENT ON THE VOYEURISM OF AMERICAN CULTURE.

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Alig, who first moved to New York from Indiana to study at Fordham before dropping out, reckons it’s also not as supportive to young creatives as it once was, “There is no such thing anymore of the young kid coming from Idaho with $300 in his pocket and a dream to make it big in NYC. You have to have a lot of money to live here and generally people with a lot of money are not great artists because they have not suffered. NYC is now filled with rich kids who don’t know the meaning of suffering.”

Is it reasonable to consider Alig and the Club Kids’ after hours antics as a form of art in itself ? There was certainly an element of performance to them which could be recognised as an effort to raise society’s consciousness about aspects of American culture. Alig says, “The whole point of going out dressed in a certain way was to make a statement, which is sort of what performance art is. You go out dressed as an accident victim and it looks funny, but it is also making a comment on the voyeurism of American culture — the way we stop looking at things that shock us.

We went out dressed as little children in diapers and it satirised the American obsession with youth and never wanting to grow up. We were satirising the notion of fame and the idea that some are more deserving than others.”

Looking at Alig now, this compulsion to satirise has never went away. Airbrushed beyond recognition on the Twilightinspired cover of his upcoming EP What’s In, he looks like the generous result of a face swap between himself, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, both of whom are at least 20 years Alig’s junior. Perhaps this itself is his comment

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on “selfie culture” and the unrealistic ideals typically pursued. Judging by the teaser released on Soundcloud, the music itself has definite youth appeal if the lyrics are to be believed (“I know what the kids all like”), sounding like something released by a Lady Gaga Fame-era drag impersonator or a runner up from RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Attesting to this, it is critical to remember that this cohort garnered press coverage, media appearances and renown by virtue of just being, albeit being in an unrelentingly high, loud and elaborately costumed manner. Indeed, Alig — inadvertently, depending on which side of the defense one stands — went a step further, galvanising his notoriety. One may find it difficult to pinpoint exactly where, if anywhere at all, the Club Kids’ talent legitimately lay. But in many respects this simply preempts today’s culture whereby fame, even for a mere fifteen minutes, is always seen as within reach regardless of the means and measures employed to achieve it, and which so often border on desperation.

In terms of lessons learned whilst behind bars, Alig says “there’s something about spending five years in solitary confinement that will teach you how to become patient.

Everyone notices it about me now, they’re saying things like ‘oh my God, you’re actually listening to what I’m saying and not trying to constantly butt in and talk over me!’ When I went to prison I was an extremely self-centered person… seriously, it’s a wonder anyone was ever my friend. I was such a monster.”

WORDS BY STEPHEN MOLONEY

Have it your way

The clothes used in this shoot are products of play. In the case of designers Ciara Lennon and Jenny Hartnett, to play is to search for alternatives: it is to insist, for instance, in the possibility of combining different textiles, like denim with leather or latex with plastic. The title of this shoot, Have It Your Way, is an invitation to play. It is a defunct slogan by Burger King and a recovered call to resist convention.

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Styling: Olen Bajarias Clothes: Ciara Diana Lennon and Jenny Hartnett Photography: Daragh Soden Models: James Ireland and Rebecca Courtney 19

Dublin Food and Drink Guide

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VEGETARIAN

EATERIES

1. Cornucopia, Wicklow Street, Dublin 2 Cornucopia is the Mecca of vegetarian Dublin. Their breakfast including scrambled tofu and veggie sausages could convert the most stubborn carnivore, with fixed or pick’n’mix options averaging at €9.

8. Chipper @ Super Miss Sue Open until 12pm weekdays and 3am weekends, library or party goers are sure to be well fed on exceedingly fresh fish and chips. A top pick is the fish finger butty, served on springy sourdough and slathered in mushy peas (€9).

2. Blazing Salads, Drury Street, Dublin 2 A vegetarian deli featuring a vegan salad bar, hot food and cakes. Since Beyonce and Jay-Z’s 22 day vegan challenge, their tofu pizza (€3.95) sells out fast.

9. Fumbally Wholesome, delicious, inventive food is on offer — a mixture of organically sourced Irish, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern influences with a daily changing specials board of soups (€5), sandwiches (the knock-out pulled porchetta is €6) and snacks.

3. Umi Falafel, Dame Street, Dublin 2 Falafel, hummus and halloumi cheese pittas available to go, plus a scrumptious meal deal for €7.50 before 5pm.

4. Govinda’s, Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1 Run by Hare Krishna, Govinda’s offers comfort food with an eastern twist at €8.50 for a medium plate with rice and veg.

SWEET 5. Murphy’s Ice Cream, Wicklow Street, Dublin 2 From humble roots in Dingle, the Murphy brothers’ ice cream parlour offers the retro classic, caramelised brown bread, as well as more unusual flavours including gin, sea salt and marmalade.

10. Brother Hubbard Enjoy the succulent spiced pulled pork sandwich (€10.90) — rightfully named The Best Sandwich in Dublin — with a vibrant salad in the uncluttered, Scandinavian-inspired café, or get it to go from next door’s Little Brother for €7. Also not-tomiss: the homemade granola (served with berry and rose compote), 3FE coffee and delicious hot chocolate.

11. Oxmantown For those who appreciate a well-constructed sandwich, this place is hard to beat. The sourdough bread is excellent, as are the perfectly combined selection of fillings — the ham and cheese will have you swiftly making another visit.

6. Cake Cafe, Pleasants Place, Dublin 8 Just at the back of Daintree on Camden Street, the Cake Cafe team are famous for their glorious cakes — such as the classic Victoria sponge — and their cosy surroundings.

12. Little Ass A stone’s throw from College, the burritos on offer here come with a wide range of delicious fillings, including a mashed sweet potato option that stands toe to toe with the most succulent of meats. €5.50 for a student burrito, with a lot of extras available for no additional cost.

7. Queen of Tarts, Cow’s Lane (Off Dame Street), Dublin 2 Behind the borderline cheeky name, QoT offers tarts, both sweet and savory. Their decadent walnut brownies are worth a mention, as is the New York raspberry baked cheesecake — the owners trained as pastry chefs in NYC so it’s the real deal at €4.95.

13. Crackbird The menu is especially suited for groups sharing, particularly the divine buttermilk fried chicken (€9.95) and potato salad (€3.95). It’s 2-for-1 on half chickens with a student card, and there are similar deals at their equally lo-fi sister restaurants: BEAR steakhouse and grill, Jo’burger, and Skinflint pizzeria.

BARS 14. Drury Buildings Serving a great selection of wines and a few nice craft beers, its their rejuvenating versions of classic cocktails which are not to be missed. Though not cheap (cocktails range from €10-12), it’s ideal for a post-essay treat.

15. Garage Bar Garage Bar greets its guest with empty oil barrels for furniture, a sawdust strewn floor, and the promise of atmospheric reggae until the early hours. This no-nonsense bar offers good drink deals (a Havana Club and ginger beer is only €5), and a guaranteed chilled out time.

16. Bernard Shaw A staple of student watering, the Bernard Shaw offers a superb venue for a lazy session, with an excellent selection of craft beers and abundant drinks promos. The Big Blue Bus, purveyors of some of Dublin’s best pizzas, is parked out the back so you don’t even have to leave the building when those munchies hit.

COMPILED BY DAN SCOTT and KATHLEEN GIRVAN ILLUSTRATED BY ALICE WILSON

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TO BOLDLY GO Games Editor Eoin Moore boards the USS Cuchulain and discusses the evolving Trekkie fan culture in Ireland and beyond…

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UBLIN COMIC CON was a massive celebration of nerdiness. The National Show Centre in Swords was packed with fans hoping to show off their impressive costumes, check out props from famous shows and movies, or simply have a good time with like-minded nerds. However, there was also something undeniably commercial to the proceedings. For every display from a classic Sci-Fi film there was a stall selling comics or posters. The heavily advertised celebrity guests spent hours charging up to 20 euro for an autograph and a quick photo. While there is nothing inherently wrong with these more monetised aspects of nerd culture, their abundance seemed to mark a significant change. As nerd interests have grown more acceptable and more lucrative in Ireland, and events like Dublin Comic Con have grown larger, they have also grown more impersonal.

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Amidst this slew of merchandise and self-promotion, a Klingon named Frank was standing beside a complex looking video game, in which multiple players worked to control the same spaceship.

Frank explained that he was there to advertise the USS Cuchulain, the Irish branch of Star Fleet International, the world’s largest Star Trek fan club collective. Two weeks later, the club was to have a meeting in a privately booked room in the Teacher’s Club. 50 crew members of the USS Cuchulain, arrayed in Star Fleet uniforms and pointed ears, congregated in the cosy back room for a truly unique display of fan devotion and community.

“It’s nothing unique in one respect because there have always been social groups,” says Fleet Captain Alan O’Shea. “But the unique aspect for the Cuchulain is that we are a Cuchulain family, and we like to treat our club as a family.” O’Shea’s first Star Trek convention was Timewarp 2 in Malahide, 1995: “The impression I had of the people attending there left a lasting mark. It was fabulous.” His forming of the USS Cuchulain was an attempt to continue Star Trek convention culture in Ireland. “Before we started this, there was a gap of maybe 15 years before there was anything like this for fans of Star Trek, or even sci-fi, apart from the conventions. There were no actual groups coming together. I found that there was a gap for Star Trek in Ireland. Now that the reboot movies have come out I thought it was an opportune time to revitalise the love of the fandom.” In the one and a half years since the group has been set up, it has grown from its 5 initial members to

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IT’S A SUPERFICIAL CHANGE THAT I’VE MADE, BUT THE FUNNY THING IS THAT PEOPLE JUST PREFER TO PLAY WITH THEIR FAVOURITE SHIPS FROM THE SHOW. THEY LIKE TO SEE THE ENTERPRISE ON THE SCREEN AS THEY’RE FLYING ABOUT. IT’S KIND OF A ROLE PLAYING OPPORTUNITY

Perhaps as a result of this smaller scale, the event was a very different entity to the standard comic or sci-fi convention.

Removed from the bustle and mass of the convention set-up, the Cuchulain meet-up had a more intimate and social atmosphere.

For some of the members — many of whom had been fans of the show decades ago, some of whom were born years after The Next Generation first aired — it served as a way to meet up with friends that had been made through a love of the series. Vulcans and uniforms aside, there wasn’t much to distinguish the event from a standard night out. O’Shea describes his club as a “social extension of the convention. What this club has enabled us to do is create a mere snapshot in miniature of that world and bring it to a more regular basis while we wait for the bigger events to come along. It’s more social: you get to know people and have more interaction with people.”

But it can’t be denied that the show still pervaded every aspect of the gathering. Active members were denoted various Star Fleet ranks. The trivia competition was lengthy and intense. Time was dedicated to celebrating the group’s achievements, including a special video announcement of the USS Cuchulain’s upgrade from a Saber to a Nova class starship, with accompanying champagne.

Taking up almost half of the area was Artemis: Spaceship Bridge Simulator, the game which had been advertised at Dublin Comic Con. Artemis simulates the experience of serving as a Star Trek crewmember. Five players on individual computers perform specific tasks on the same ship while a sixth player — without a computer — fulfils the role of the Captain, giving commands to the other five players while relying on them to relay vital information back. The result is a unique, daunting, and somewhat chaotic video game experience.

A mod of the game designed by club member Jon East was being played at the meet-up. “I’m not a game designer or anything like that,” East explains. “I have an interest in Star Trek and I play games.” The original game, designed by Thomas Robertson, was heavily inspired by Star Trek but includes no direct references to it, so that Robertson could sell the game commercially. East’s mod replaces the names, skins, and details of the in-game ships with those of the original show. “It’s a superficial change that I’ve made, but the funny thing is that people just prefer to play with their favourite ships from the show. They like to see the Enterprise

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60 active members, across the country.

on the screen as they’re flying about. It’s kind of a role playing opportunity; it’s just more fun that way.”

The specialised roles required of people playing Artemis and the limited information they are given would seem to be a deterrent, but East sees this as being central to the reason for the game’s existence. “The point of the game is that all of the stations have to gel together. We want to get people playing and interacting with each other. You need to tell things to the captain in an audible voice so that the rest of the bridge can hear you.” By making interaction a fundamental gameplay mechanic, the game breaks down barriers and encourages real socialisation. In this way, the game fulfils a similar role to the club itself.

What we were trying to do was to get people out of the woodwork,” continues East, referring to both the meet-up and the game. “Star Trek used to be super popular. It still gets giant events in the UK and Germany and the US have the big Las Vegas and California shows, but here we just don’t have the population for that. Our costs are the same to organise an event, but with a tenth of the potential attendees. That’s a major problem if you’re trying to run an event.” Because of these obstacles, nights like these offer a way to provide for the Star Trek fanbase, but at the same time they appear to be more than just the convention experience in miniature. With their smaller scale, they offer something more authentically personal and involving. “You could get five laptops together to play Star Trek Online, for instance, and you could do that at home,” says East. “But the thing is you should be working together, getting to know your team. You want people to return and enjoy themselves together, and that’s what’s different about Artemis as a game.”

Captain O’Shea has high hopes for the club’s future. “As I see it the world is our oyster for the USS Cuchulain. We’ve been so lucky over the last year and a half; it’s just gone to prove that there is a need for that social gathering – that space to explore the fandom in this way. I see this as a vehicle to take us forward to where we need to be in the future.” May they live long and prosper.

WORDS AND PHOTO BY EOIN MOORE

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POST-SCRIPT Theatre Editor Heather Keane speaks to Gavin Quinn of Pan Pan Theatre about his innovative new production at this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival.

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an Pan Theatre have been invigorating the Irish and global theatre scenes for over twenty years now, since co-directors Aedín Cosgrove and Gavin Quinn met studying Drama at Trinity College Dublin. A glance at their production history will offer up titles of what may seem like familiar plays: Mac-Beth 7, The Playboy of the Western World (in Mandarin), and on-stage performances of Samuel Beckett’s radio plays, All That Fall and Embers. Anyone who has been fortunate enough to experience any of these pieces will know that “familiar” is not at all how these performances feel.

“Americanitis” is a nickname for the now mostly-discounted medical diagnosis of neurasthenia, a more or less made-up mental illness that had late nineteenth-century Americans fearing the end of civilisation. The depletion of one’s “nervous energy” brought on by modern society and the fast pace of American life was said to result in agitation, anxiety, and neuralgia. It’s also the term Pan Pan have adopted for the compositional motif of their newest work, Americanitis Presents The Seagull and Other Birds. The production is a post-dramatic reimagining of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull which incorporates a concise rewrite of the much-loved comedy along with commissioned works from Irish writers.

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“We started off with the idea of the show being Americanitis and it evolved into Americanitis Presents The Seagull and Other Birds,” Quinn explains. “Americanitis was the whole notion of discovery and whole notion of anxiety about making work, so that linked into the idea of [Chekhov’s] Konstantin whose anxiety is to make new work.” Pan Pan’s version of Konstantin is as a disabled son of a demanding mother, trying to express himself through dramatic writing. “He has to write but he’s trying to write in a new form so it’s that battle of idealism, that battle of trying to generate new work and the difficulty of that, really. It’s hard to describe it as being an aesthetic, it’s more to do with allowing yourself to change things, to do things differently. It’s almost like a reminder — and it becomes then a catalyst — to keep pushing things out while still trying to make new work.”

Pan Pan are so fervently committed to constant growth that each performance throughout the play’s opening run at this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival will be a different experience, each day seeing the inclusion of a different commissioned work within the overall composition. At the beginning of each show, the audience will be greeted with an introduction explaining who each night’s insert has been written by, and a title sheet will be held up by the cast as the piece begins. Some involve ballet, one is a rework of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, most weave into Trigorin rapping about life as a celebrity author while the cast half-dance, half-stomp to Zebra Katz’s Ima Read. “It’s a robust concept; so you can change the text, alter content… [Changing the commission every night] is an experiment to see whether that actually keeps the show alive and keeps the performance awake.”

Pan Pan have been conducting open rehearsals for The Seagull and Other Birds, a decision which fits within their trend of inclusivity and which also adds to the evolutionary process of Americanitis, providing constant feedback from the public’s reaction to the performances. When paying a visit to one of these sessions, what is likely to strike a spectator is how spontaneous each action feels. The impromptu atmosphere never belies the long span of preparation that has come before.

Americanitis began in the 2012 Dublin Theatre Festival, as an InDevelopment piece, and has been rehearsed intermittently since then. Pan Pan are one of a few Irish companies who have the privilege of enough funding to carry out these large-scale projects that are reared over a long period of time and expanded globally.

“It’s a long process but it always takes about two years to make a new

With Americanitis, Pan Pan are looking back while moving forward, and the project will continue to grow in the future: “Because this is a very big project, because it’s also a project we do in China,” — Space Moon Culture Company are in the middle of their run of a Chinese co-production of The Seagull and Other Birds as part of the 2014 Beijing Fringe Festival — “I think this is something we might not repeat but it might be a development for making a very open kind of theatre-making, and theatre shows. There are no rules, you know? You just keep readjusting your own, adjusting the rules that you make… The idea is that both shows will merge eventually and be one kind of strange, east meets west show using Chekhov as the spine. It’ll be an interesting experiment to put both shows together, if there’s a festival big enough!”

PAN PAN ARE SO FERVENTLY COMMITTED TO CONSTANT GROWTH THAT EACH PERFORMANCE THROUGHOUT THE PLAY’S OPENING RUN AT THIS YEAR’S DUBLIN THEATRE FESTIVAL WILL BE A DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE FOR THE AUDIENCE

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piece, really. You need time to allow the concept to wash over you and to make the right choices.”

Americanitis Presents The Seagull and Other Birds runs at Project Arts Centre September 25 – October 5 as part of Dublin Theatre Festival.

A co-production runs at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing as part of the Beijing Fringe Festival.

WORDS BY HEATHER KEANE PHOTOS BY MATTHEW MULLIGAN

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GREEN BEARDS Ranelagh Village

Green Beards has taken the juicing trend currently exploding in London to Ranelagh, just left of Beechwood Luas stop. Juices here are cold pressed — a different approach to the centrifugal technology that might be gathering dust on your mum’s kitchen counter. It introduces less air into the fruit/ veg by using a hydraulic “press” preventing oxidation of vitamins as well as giving more flavour. Juices are ready to go in a fridge with other delicacies on sale such as homemade almond milk and young thai coconut water, cracked fresh from the shell while you wait.

The pretty glass bottles are yours for keeps and perfect for quick fix vases and pen holders, though returning them on your next purchase will get you a 20 cent discount. Northern Lights is the perfect liaison into vegetable juices with apple alongside spinach, cucumber and kale.

Superfood packed smoothies made to

order are all amazing in their own right, with Heaven on Earth (cacao nibs, banana, dates, oats, almond milk) being perfect for a liquid breakfast on the go. A one and three-day cleanse package is also available for those aspiring to detox. GB don’t just serve up tasty, guilt-free drinks without the mess. Friendly staff (note: beanie hats as part of the uniform), and a minimal, chilled fit-out with stools makes it vital for a post hangover flush.

WORDS BY DAN SCOTT PHOTOS BYAOIBHEANN SCHWARTZ

STAPLE FOODS Temple Bar

Staple Foods is a new(ish) casual dining restaurant, sharing its space with Crowbar and the Button Factory in Temple Bar. Offering up healthy food ranging from beetroot juices to coleslaw without the mayo, they have meat, vegetarian and vegan meals available. My favourite vegetarian and I got there at 5pm, hoping to sample their dinner menu. The décor is a mismatch of dark wood furniture and leather armchairs, with the main feature of the restaurant being the well-stocked bar. It turned out that the dinner menu was offered for a few weeks but it interfered with the bar. It was a shame they had not answered the phone or responded on Twitter, as had we known dinner was in fact no longer on offer, we would have gone earlier for lunch and presumably

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experienced more of an atmosphere.

We placed the last orders from the lunch menu; my partner had a quinoa salad, while I had falafel with coleslaw, both priced at a €7.50. I also had a carrot juice (€5), intrigued by the juice cleanses on offer. The juice was presumably nutritious, but tasted solely and strongly of lime. The food arrived quickly, was brightly coloured and looked very fresh. My partner’s quinoa salad consisted of beetroot, chick peas and peppers on a bed of baby salad leaves.

As often happens with vegetarian food, we could not identify all the different components of the salad, but she

enjoyed the massive portion nonetheless.

My meal consisted of three turmeric yellow falafel balls on a bed of shredded root vegetables and salad leaves, topped with a dollop of hummus. The hummus was delicious, but I found the rest of the meal had just one very fragrant taste that we were both unable to identify, perhaps it was celeriac.

Whatever it was, I could not finish the meal and was left surprisingly disappointed. The prioritizing of the bar over dinner offerings -strange for health conscious foodies -- along with the confusion over this information and the hit and miss quality of the food, left me wondering what all the fuss is about, but I would be happy to be proved wrong.

WORDS BY KERRY BRENNAN PHOTOS BY MICHAEL O’ HANRAHAN

THE COSMOPOLITANS Amazon/YouTube

Having become the self-appointed chronicler of the “urban haute bourgeoisie” in films such as Metropolitan and The Last Days of Disco, Whit Stillman’s first foray into television with The Cosmopolitans follows its cinematic predecessors in a similar vein.

More atmospheric than plot-driven, the show charts the lives of idle American expatriates Jimmy (Adam Brody), Hal (Jordan Rountree) and Aubrey (Carrie MacLemore) as they attempt to navigate the two opposing worlds and identities in which they live, and the one which refuses to leave them behind.

Thinking of themselves as Parisians, the expats admire all things French and denigrate all things American, which provides an irony and humour when they encounter individuals and experiences which further confound and obfuscate their perceptions of Parisian and American life. A beautiful woman at a soirée is automatically assumed to be French to such an extent that Jimmy cannot fathom that her hometown of Vancouver is outside France. The earnestness of this exchange highlights the irony and obliviousness of the expats’ situation but also the gap between reality and one’s sense of perception.

OUTLANDER Starz

Based on Diana Gabaldon’s book series, this new drama from Battlestar Galactica showrunner Ron Moore follows Claire Randall, a spirited war nurse, who time-travels from 1945 to 1743 Scotland. The slow-burning pilot follows her and her husband Frank on holiday to “reconnect” after being separated during the war, allowing the show to do some valuable character work before Claire falls through time. After listening to plenty of illuminating historical anecdotes and some heavy-handed foreshadowing from a tea leaf reader, Claire finds herself in the 18th century, where Frank’s villainous ancestor (played by the same actor) immediately attempts to rape her.

She is rescued by a band of Scottish soldiers, and the show quickly establishes an intriguing love triangle between Claire, Frank, and one of the Highlanders, a roguish hunk named Jamie.

While it would have been easy to cast Frank as a boring or neglectful husband, he is portrayed as caring and devoted, making it difficult for the audience to root for her to abandon him.

On the other hand, the series employs the deafening sound of a crackling fire to convey Claire and Jamie’s sexual chemistry at every opportunity, so we all know where this is going.

Despite edging into Scottish Tourist Board territory in the opening credits, the Highlands scenery is beautiful, and the show refuses

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Stillman nods at the romanticised expatriate experience of Parisian living cultivated by Fitzgerald and Hemingway (with Hemingway’s great-granddaughter Dree Hemingway included amongst the cast) and subtly deco nstructs the quasimythical sense of glamour which has been emulated in the succeeding generations.

The protagonists’ idleness, pedanticism and frivolity serve only to highlight the loneliness of expats drifting between two worlds, devoid of any apparent purpose.

Although Amazon has only commissioned the pilot, this standalone and well-crafted episode highlights its potential as a sharp and intelligent comedy of manners, which hopefully will not be Stillman’s last.

The pilot of The Cosmopolitans can be seen on Amazon.com or Youtube.

WORDS BY CIARA FORRISTAL

to be pigeonholed as a romance by introducing a large cast in the following episodes, which deal with medical mystery-solving, gender dynamics and political intrigue. By defying genre categorisation, and by offering a captivating, fully-realised heroine, Moore has created a rich, compelling world that slowly but seductively lures you in.

WORDS BY MEADHBH MCGRATH

A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES Scott Frank

Adapted from Lawrence Block’s bestselling crime novels, A Walk Among the Tombstones stars Liam Neeson as Matt Scudder, an ex-NYPD cop turned unlicensed private detective and recovering alcoholic. One of his friends from AA leads him to Kenny, a heroin trafficker whose wife has been kidnapped and murdered, and Scudder soon becomes entangled in the search for two serial killers who target the wives and children of wealthy drug dealers. Despite an excellent performance from Neeson, whose character’s dry sense of humour makes him thoroughly likeable, the film is undermined

by Scudder’s implausible sidekick, a homeless teenager named TJ (Brian “Astro” Bradley, a former American X Factor contestant). Like many serial killer films, A Walk Among the Tombstones portrays its urban environment as a doom-laden hellscape, with dilapidated streets and perpetual rainfall. The film is set in 1999, amidst the pre-millennial tension of the Y2K scare, and throughout the film various ads and newspaper headlines yell,

“Are you Y2K ready?” and “GUNS ON RISE”.

A brilliant scene follows the killers through the mundane task of making breakfast at home, and one of them muses, while reading the newspaper, “People are afraid of all the wrong things.” Scudder is himself suspicious of mobile phones and computers, and does his research in the New York Public Library, a far more visually striking setting than if he were at home on a PC. The suspense of the climactic cemetery scene is sadly undone

by the jarring overuse of freeze frames, intercut with a character reading the Twelve Steps of AA. The finale, a tense showdown in a basement, is genuinely compelling, despite its predictability. Scudder is an intriguing lead, and hopefully this dark, engaging film will leave behind his teenage assistant and grow into a film series.

It’s a shame that the film is let down by its pacing. Too much time is allocated to reestablishing that the characters are indeed shallow and two dimensional, leading to a rushed third act featuring deus-ex-machina at odds with the overarching mythological narrative the film tries to present.

combined with the overt symbolism (there is a very clear association between the concept of “star” and the celestial bodies), there are shades of Medieval allegory at work as Cronenberg and screenwriter Bruce Wagner expose the seedy underbelly of modern celebrity culture.

These characters are not remotely believable and neither are they meant to be — indeed,

WORDS BY SARAH LENNON GALAVAN

WORDS BY MEADHBH MCGRATH

MAPS TO THE STARS David Cronenberg

“We tried to have fun with horror. The critics got it.” In a throwaway line from a minor character, David Cronenberg perfectly encapsulates the pitch black Hollywood satire that is Maps to the Stars, and the polarising reaction it is sure to prompt. Stuffed to the brim with the tropiest of horror tropes (think ghostly children, overly dramatic musical cues and lots of fake blood) and countless nods to an audience steeped in Hollywood lore: this is camp of the highest order.

The film centres around a ragtag band of Tinseltown archetypes, united by leitmotif of Paul Eluard’s poem Liberté. Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore, looking for all the world like a 55-year old Lindsay Lohan in Hervé Leger bandage dress) is the daughter of a deceased Joan Crawfordesque cult icon, haunted figuratively and literally by her mother’s sexual abuse. John Cusack’s Stafford Weiss is a new age guru with a “swaggy” teen heartthrob for a son.

Jerome Fontana (Robert Pattinson) is an actor/limo driver who encounters unstable burn victim Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) but can’t quite stay away. As their lives intertwine, a devastating tale of secrets, incest and madness unfolds and it is as gloriously soapy as that sentence implies.

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THE LEFTOVERS Sky Atlantic

Based on Tom Perrotta’s novel of the same name, The Leftovers is a new drama series from HBO set three years after a global Rapture. With 2% of the world’s population gone without atrace, the show follows the citizens of a small American town and their attempts to deal with loss and a fundamentally changed society.

The principal character is Police Chief Kevin Garvey —portrayed

by Justin Theroux — from whose perspective we see the changes brought about by the Rapture, such as the creation of a cult called

NEVER CATCH ME

Flying Lotus (Feat. Kendrick Lamar)

the Guilty Remnant. Its members (including Kevin’s wife, Laurie) stalk potential recruits, refuse to speak, wear all white, and picket memorials for the departed to emphasize that the world can never be the same. They are often violently attacked as people who have lost family members are incensed by their insensitivity. The clashes between the two sides unveil the deep-seated frustration and brokenness of both.

Despite how gripping this premise sounds on paper, the end product is rather mediocre. The show’s unrelentingly dark tone is overpowering while the vast majority of the characters are unsympathetic. The one exception, and the show’s saving grace, is Christopher Eccleston’s fantastic performance as Reverend Matt Jamison. The third episode focuses exclusively on him and is easily more compelling than the opening two episodes combined. Jamison is at his wit’s end, trying to cope with financial worries, taking care of his paralysed wife, and publishing a magazine that denounces those taken in the Rapture. Furthermore, he has to come to terms with his buried rage towards God for not taking him in the Rapture. Jamison elicits real sympathy and fascination, and it is the precarious line between bearing his overpowering burdens and snapping under the weight of them that is truly tantalising viewing.Unfortunately aside from Eccleston’s character, The Leftovers often feels too bombastic and lacks a clear sense of purpose beyond wallowing and brooding for as long as possible. Aside from the interesting premise, the show’s dour tone simply overwhelms any other aspects that might have raised its quality.

The Leftovers will air on Sky Atlantic on September 16 at 9pm.

WORDS BY EMMA BOYLAN

MINIPOPS 67 [1202] [SOURCE FIELD MIX] Aphex Twin

Experimental pioneer Steven Ellison has garnered much (warranted) praise for his daring work under the “Flying Lotus” moniker.

This new track features the unflappable Kendrick Lamar, whose appearance here is inspired; his breakneck flow interweaves with Ellison’s audacious, genre-defying production to create a dizzying sonic tapestry. A solitary piano line serves as the crisp backbone that (barely) holds the other chaotic elements in place. It’s a jazzy, fire-breathing cavalcade of a track, one that should sufficiently sate your appetite until the full release of You’re Dead! on October 7.

Any approach to the first track from electronic trailblazer Richard D James in thirteen years is likely to be fraught with nervous anticipation. Its superficial dissonance makes for a jarring first listen, but patience is rewarded. The track unravels to reveal the sort of carefully crafted soundscape you’d expect from this genre stalwart. Heavily modified vocal samples and jumpy percussion create a robust frame for the track to maneuver within. Vivid pianos flicker around its edges, palpable but never invasive. Only James could make something this disordered sound so coherent.

WORDS BY EOIN LYNSKEY

WORDS BY EOIN LYNSKEY

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GOODNESS Banks

Although Goddess is Banks’ debut album, her alluring voice is already widely recognised. Banks’ sound had long been intriguing to wellestablished DJs such as Kaytranada and Snakehips, and it was the Snakehips version of her single Warm Water that propelled her into the alternative-pop world.

Describing her own music as “dark bluish black with… fire and heart”, she has a Lana Del Rey broodiness and certain resonances of The Weeknd. Heartbreak, desire and fragmented relationships are recurrent themes on the record.

The lyrics are intensely intimate, possessing a frail vulnerability.

The beats are slow and pulsating.

by an ethereal music video.

Midway through the album, Banks’ sultry voice begins to lose its mystique due to lack of variety.

Eighteen tracks of synth-pop can be dizzying to listen to straight through, and so many accounts of heartbreak verges on pathetic. Many of her tracks are enhanced when she collaborates with other artists: the best renditions of Drowning are the remixes by Love Thy Brother and Lido. Banks herself promotes those versions that add something different “but keep the soul of the song”.

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs features on Bedroom Wall, a track on the deluxe edition of Goddess.

This enchanting and atmospheric lovesong makes purchasing the deluxe edition worthwhile.

Although officially released in September, Banks has been teasing out singles from the album over the summer. Released earlier this year, the titular track Goddess showcases Banks’ girly, rhapsodic voice crooning over a rich, sonorous bassline. This Is What It Feels Like is a transgressive, slinky pop tune accompanied

Goddess is out now on Harvest Records. Have a listen to track Drowing on tn2’s September Spotify playlist, available at tn2magazine.ie WORDS BY BRIDGET KELLIHER

THIS IS ALL YOURS ALT-J

“There are people who were really into us when we started but don’t think we’re cool any more,” AltJ’s keyboard-player Gus UngerHamilton recently admitted.

With expectations high after their acclaimed debut and former guitarist Gwil Sainsbury’s departure earlier this year, there was bound to be trepidation regarding their next release. But it seemed with their second album, This Is All Yours, the now three-piece had taken these concerns into their stride, first releasing the impressively strange and ambitious single Hunger of the Pine, in all its Miley Cyrus sampling glory. But on first listen the album doesn’t quite live up to that track’s excellence, in spite of a glitchy, melodic intro that oddly recalls Enya.

Structured around the Japanese forest of Nara and the idea of living freely, there are lots of sweeping, alien sounds on the album, but at times things can get somewhat overblown with little in the way of

memorable hooks — the woodwind interlude of Garden of England seems particularly self-indulgent (if comical). After the subtlesexiness of Tessellate, there is a grotesque clumsiness to lyrics like Every Other Freckle’s “I want to turn you inside out / and lick you like a crisp packet”, while slowburner Warm Foothills is quite forgettable. But when they’re good, there’s no denying it: The Gospel of John Hurt is an epic, boasting their exquisite proclivity to perfectly syncopated beats and unusual melodies. Bloodfood Pt.ii is gorgeously realised with its rich swathes of brass, strings and piano, and lyrical references to Fitzpleasure.

Closing track Leaving Nara glimmers pleasantly too, but that’s the problem: overall it’s a pleasant enough listen, but — as was perhaps always going to be the case — This Is All Yours lacks the captivating lustre of their debut.

Alt-J play the 3Arena September 27.

WORDS BY TARA JOSHI

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HISTORY OF THE RAIN Niall Williams

Niall Williams’ latest novel has earned him a place on the Man-Booker prize long-list. To say that it’s well deserved is to risk considerable understatement. History of the Rain is marvellous; an absolute wonder of potent, heart-wrought narrative assembled in astonishing, sparkling prose. Ruth Swain is nineteen and bedbound in county Clare. In an attic-room, underneath a sky-light streaming with rain that never ends she is writing a history of poetry and tragedy, of aspiration and failure, of Ireland and of her family.

Guided by the three thousand, nine-hundred and fifty eight books he has left her, she carves out the story of her poet father, of the ancestors who bequeathed to him the “Impossible Standard” he could never meet, and of her own beautiful, lost twin brother.

As a character, Ruth herself constitutes one of Williams’ biggest achievements in this novel. The eloquence, soulfulness and unfailing wit of her narrating voice sets her up as a master-storyteller, giving full vent to Williams’ own obvious skill as a wordsmith, all the while steadily building the poignant

J

Howard Jacobson Man Booker veteran Howard Jacobson has earned himself a place on this year’s short-list with his disturbing dystopian fiction, J. The novel, which has been noted as an unexpected foray by the author into the genre, is marketed as being “talked about in the same breath as Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World.”

A newcomer to this genre, Jacobson’s world building is much more subtle than the scifi, dystopic tone of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Jacobson’s J is set in a world which, at first, represents more an off-kilter southern England in the 90s than an estranged and unreconcilable future. This is Jacobson’s main feat: the superficial familiarity which his fictional world affords the reader.

But this familiarity is never allowed to establish itself fully; Jacobson’s spun out, perpetuating prose slowing introduces sinister discrepancies, weaving together a pervasive ominous tone through which the novel is filtered. While authoritarian elements are present they are presented as disquietingly optional (books are “not banned, just not available”). Situated in the aftermath of some calamitous world event, referred to as “WHAT HAPPENED, IF IT HAPPENED”, the novel meditates on mankind’s collective and controlled memory, what happens to a population

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under the enforced strain of moral rigidity, and the emptiness and chaos which ensues once the “enemy” is irreversibly eradicated.

J is about what might have happened, about the instability of truth. Its title itself being not the letter “J” but its negation, the character struck out by two harsh lines: erasure. J is a striking work of fiction, one which resonates unsettlingly in the possibilities of today’s reality. Jacobson’s prose operates like a web, spouting off in numerous, successive and binary metaphors culminating in an eclectic whole. His writing retains his characteristic humour, albeit in its blackest form. It remains to be seen whether Jacobson’s intriguing mesh of fiction and politics will weigh in with Orwell and Huxley’s genre defining oeuvres. In terms of its place in the dystopian canon, Jacobson approach is far more low-key and, in this way, somewhat removed from the iconic worlds created in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World. Yet his response is more localised, and a far more intricate study of the psychological responses human-kind adopts when faced with catastrophe, a complexity which, perhaps, Orwell and Huxley sacrificed in lieu of a broader political narrative.

Intriguingy and disturbing, Jacobson may be onto his second Booker win.

WORDS BY LOLA BOORMAN

image of a loss-ridden girl facing up to her own mortality, by writing meaning into the past. This is a story about storytelling, and in Ruth Williams creates an ideal vessel for this exploration.

There’s a lot to be said for the actual storytelling exhibited by Williams through Ruth here also.

History of the Rain is so deftly told, so well-woven that as a reader you feel you are being carried along by it, nudged in the right direction by timely hints and reveals. While every precisely crafted sentence demands attention, all are subsumed into an ebb and flow of narrative development that seems to mirror the story’s central metaphor: the river. Such moments of unity between form and content lend a sense of timelessness and universality, despite the absolute specificity of time and place in the story; all the traits of a work built to endure. The polish, depth and completeness of History of the Rain makes it a singular achievement in fiction, but beyond this it is a love-letter to the art of storytelling, a self-reflexive testament to the value of books, and in itself a deeply affecting read.

WORDS BY EAVAN GAFFNEY

THE CHILDREN ACT Ian McEwan

THE BONE CLOCKS David Mitchell

As newspapers are filled with the story of a British couple arrested for taking their son from a hospital to seek medical treatment in Spain, we wonder, who should be held responsible for the sick child: his parents, his doctors, or the law? Ian McEwan addresses these same questions in his thirteenth novel, The Children Act. Fiona Maye is an esteemed High Court judge in the Family Division, whose husband of 35 years tells her in the opening pages that he intends to pursue an affair with a younger woman. The breakdown of their marriage, and their attempts to resolve it, weave in and out of the central narrative, and provide the most painfully realistic and engaging moments in the novel. The same night that her husband storms off, she has to decide whether or not to order a blood transfusion for a critically ill 17-year-old Adam, a Jehovah’s Witness. McEwan is an avowed atheist, yet he choreographs the child’s case to be legally and morally thorny, presenting the surgeon as haughty and condescending, and acknowledging that the boy is just three months shy of 18, when he will gain the right to make his own healthcare choices. The crisp, compulsively readable first half revolves around the interactions between the childless, faithless heroine and the devout boy. Fiona is an elegantly drawn, believable character, yet Adam remains an undeveloped, sporadic presence. The novel seems to lose the run of itself following her judgement, becoming convoluted with a series of highly improbable plot developments. The Children Act reads like a short story forced into a novel, and these plot twists may be a lazy attempt to introduce dramatic tension into an otherwise beautifully subtle story. McEwan has acknowledged that the closing pages of the novel include an explicit homage to The Dead, James Joyce’s finest short story, yet this ending won’t stay with you into the night.

David Mitchell’s latest offering is staggering in scope. It spans continents, decades, and genres, but never loses sight of the individual.

It draws attention to the difference that can often be found between the official and the personal history, and the people that make up globally important events.

In The Bone Clocks Mitchell focuses on what are referred to as “small-scale” tragedies, a problematic phrase that the novel addresses, against a backdrop of global disaster. Mitchell is relentless in his exposure of the pain that can come from love, whether romantic, platonic, or familial. Missing children fill the pages of the novel, due to the actions of the Anchorites, a cult of immortals who prolong their lives by “decanting” the souls of psychically-inclined children. While this is played out on a grand scale, our attention is directed towards those people who have been left to cope with the devastation of a missing child, without even a body to provide closure.

The Bone Clocks, as well as being a stand-alone book, manages to link all of Mitchell’s previous novels, and reworks our understanding of various characters and scenes. Thus, it runs the risk of only appealing to diehard fans, but Mitchell avoids this trap by making us empathise his new characters, rather than relying on familiar faces. At times you will feel that you cannot possibly read fast enough, and Mitchell demonstrates his consummate skill as a storyteller, manipulating the pace of the narrative expertly.

One character says, “A book can’t be a half-fantasy any more than a woman can be half-pregnant,” and here Mitchell pokes fun at his own literary inclinations; The Bone Clocks is a fantasy novel, but it is at its best when it deals with the consequences of the fantastical for ordinary humans. Although you may feel tempted to rush through it, resist the urge: it will be another four years before we see a new Mitchell novel, and you’ll miss it when it’s over

WORDS BY MEADHBH MCGRATH

WORDS BY TOM GODFREY

AT SEA

Just The Lads

Those familiar with Just The Lad’s work (The Last Post, Handle With Care) will immediately feel at home with At Sea, their second stint at the Dublin Fringe Festival. Inspiration taken from Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea is clear throughout the devised production, hinted through small design elements as well as in obvious sections of dialogue. Directed by Darren Sinnott and Liadain Kaminska, At Sea delves into the mind of Roger, an old fisherman who tries to hold back the tide of dementia; clinging on to his slippery memories to reveal the youthful man he feels inside.

Peter Corboy tackles the difficult role of Roger with brilliance, immediately drawing the audience into his fragile world — despite wearing an oversized papier-mache head throughout the beginning of the production. His mesmerising physicality perfectly captures every quirk of his character’s age, moving between the shaking and fragile to the able and energetic, leaving the audience exhausted along with him. Corboy creates genuinely heartbreaking moments which punctuate the performance, particularly with his increasing frustration when faced with questions about his name and where he is. Cameron McCauley and Anna Clifford also provide entertaining cameos in addition to live music to add to the often unsettling performances on electric guitar and cello, often hinting at the confusion in Roger’s mind.

The company have openly discussed the inspiration of their own encounters with dementia and it is this familiarity which makes the production feel so personal. There is great poignancy in this production, but great humour too; ensuring that the mood is kept buoyant and does not drag. The final musical number, too, ensures that the show ends on a high note, showcasing the youth that Roger really feels inside.

A bittersweet production that leaves you moved, but smiling.

WORDS BY GRACE NUTTALL

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revealed, flooding the space with light as well as forging a link between nature, culture and time either side of the gallery walls. It illuminates a central row of sculptures created out of appropriated objects including a barrister’s wig, shark skin, the right and left lobes of a human skull suspended from a clothes hanger, and culminates in a battered and chipped wooden door mounted on the east wall. Many of the materials employed are rich – gold leaf, sterling and Italian alabaster – but their treatment is anything but ostentatious. A standout work is Paper Mountain which sees nine sheets of cast paper roughly layered and sculpted, creating a cross section of a mountainous landscape that is devoid of time or place.

Meanwhile, the flanking walls are punctuated by large, vivid photographs of the brilliant Connemara landscape taken by Cross, placed alongside decidedly bleaker images. Each one acts as an evocative portal into a different world from which the visitor is far removed, but transported to, by the act of looking, a testament to the sensory power of her photographs. These pictures also serve to temper the surreal sculptures which they surround. While the sculptural element of the show may appear complex and challenging at times, this photographic component adds an extra element of accessibility and balance to the exhibition as a whole.

VIEW

Dorothy Cross

Autumn is a time of light turning to darkness: of decline, decay, stillness and liminality. View, a showing of new work from Dorothy Cross staged

by Kerlin Gallery, is therefore a fitting exhibition to lead us by the hand into the season. The mood within the space is one of contemplation and transience, with the visitor being moved to examine the effects of the passage of time on being. The work on display is deeply concerned with materiality and, by extension, sustenance, entropy, transformation and intervention. Abstract as all of this may sound, the show is hugely accessible. It is relatively compact, meaning visitors should not feel overwhelmed or daunted by the range of ideas being put forward.

The gallery’s normally concealed west facing window has been

View will run alongside a separate major commission at Lismore Castle Arts in County Waterford, and in November the artist will present a personal selection of works from the National Collection to go on display at IMMA. A visit to View should serve as the starting point for what appears to be a hectic Autumn for one of Ireland’s most lauded contemporary artists.

View runs until October 18 at Kerlin Gallery, Anne’s Lane. Photo courtesy of the artist and Kerlin Gallery WORDS BY STEPHEN MOLONEY

RESERVOIR Alice Maher

Often it is not what is displayed in the gallery that can offer the deepest insights into the consciousness and processes of the artist. Ephemera, such as their journals and sketchbooks, can afford us - the spectator - a more intimate view of their world, and can act as an extension of an exhibition, installation or performance.

Far from being a marginal exercise, these personal, reflexive documents enrich meanings, illuminate ideas and link the private and public actions of the artist.

Reservoir by Alice Maher, published by Roads, is a collation of the artist’s previously unreleased sketchbooks between 1986 and 2012, and is a demonstration of all of the above. Selected works between 1992 and 2012 also feature in the volume, helping to reveal and complete the trajectory from an initial abstract thought to a final finished piece. Maher’s work, which appears in collections at IMMA, the Centre Pompidou and New York’s Met, has explored ideas of identity, transformation, memory, and myth across a wide range of media.

Progressing through what is a beautifully finished volume, the reader quickly realises that they are sharing in a deeply personal process; each page is alive with ideas as they swirl, ebb and flow. One can only imagine the depth of meaning and revelation for the artist that may be behind a simple line drawing or brief note scribbled, meaning which the reader can only begin to grasp; they are witness to a vigorous thrashing out of creative logic, reason and methodology. Like much of the artist’s exhibited works, the contents of the book are highly dynamic. As Maher writes in her introduction, “the reservoir should be always full but never still”. The book itself has a similar depth and fluidity that will keep the reader engaged and fascinated throughout.

WORDS BY STEPHEN MOLONEY

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The outdoor basement spaces of Merrion Square will come alive for Culture Night with Downstairs Dublin, a series of pop-up events curated by The Irish Times, including papier mache art installations, Ireland’s Smallest Cinema, a fashion show, The Science Gallery’s Dine in the Dark, classical music performances and free books from the Library Lottery. Casino Marino are offering tours of their “small house”, a quietly monumental 18th-century neo-classical gem.

Although it looks like one storey from a distance, the building actually has three, with sixteen rooms spread throughout, decorated with ornate, geometric-patterned parquet floors and beautifully restored stucco work. Independent Irish publishers Lilliput Press will be welcoming visitors into their publishing house in Stoneybatter to read, chat, and explore

CULTURE NIGHT

SEPTEMBER 25-28

WORDS BY EOIN MOORE

The Tokyo Games Show, Japan’s most prominent video game expo, kicks off on September 18. The five day press show will showcase some of the most hotly anticipated Japanese titles to come out over the next year.

Among the officially announced titles are Bloodborne, From Software’s follow-up to the punishing, critically acclaimed Dark Souls series; the fifth instalment of Hideo Kojima’s legendary Metal Gear Solid series; and the long-awaited Persona 5, the newest entry in Atlus’ groundbreaking RPG/Dating Sim series.

Some Western releases will also be making an appearance, with Microsoft’s Xbox One’s booth featuring the intriguingly imbalanced multiplayer title Evolve and the delightfully kinetic Sunset Overdrive. However, in spite of this increased Western influence, no PC-exclusive titles will be on display, given Japan’s resolute preference of consoles. TGS should prove to be not only a major Japanese event, but also a massive online one. Hype has already been raised by the Persona 5 and Metal Gear Solid 5 teaser trailers, and should continue to build until the wave of updates and announcements begins this Thursday.

TOKYO GAME SHOW

SEPTEMBER SEPTEMBER 19 18-21

As festival season swings into full force, the biggest and the best in Irish and global theatre will be occupying twenty spaces around town, and filling them with worldclass productions as part of the 2014 Dublin Theatre Festival, running September 25 – October 12 . Those keen on Irish drama might look to the world premiere of new writing from Mark O’Rowe, one of the country’s most exciting playwrights, and an alternative in black comedy to the likes of Martin or John Michael McDonagh.

Our Few and Evil Days promises to leave a lasting impression on its audience, as O’Rowe’s work up to this point has been relentlessly unsettling. If you’re looking to extend your comfort zone, Australia’s Back to Back Theatre are bringing their globally acclaimed Ganesh versus the Third Reich to Ireland for the first time.

This meta-theatrical spectacle is performed by a group of actors with disabilites and tells the story of the elephant-headed god Ganesh, “travelling through Nazi Germany to reclaim the Swastika, an ancient Hindu symbol”.

DUBLIN THEATRE FESTIVAL

WORDS BY TARA JOSHI

October 2-4. Weekend tickets: €45, day tickets: €20. See: www.hwch.net.

Sponsored by HMV Ireland, Hard Working Class Heroes is an independent annual showcase for new music as well as a technology conference for digital start-ups (in partnership with the NDRC). For most people, though, this three day festival will be all about catching up-and-coming artists in what is being widely touted as a “golden age” for Irish music. With 104 acts playing across seven Dublin venues (Meeting House Square should be particularly lovely), this is set to be an exciting weekend for anyone with an interest in Ireland’s burgeoning music scene. The fantastic line-up includes the likes of tn2 favourites Cloud Castle Lake, CLU, Meltybrains?, Princess, SPIES, Me and my Dog and Liza Flume to name but a few.

HARD WORKING CLASS HEROES

SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 25 2-4 OCTOBER 12

WORDS BY MEADHBH MCGRATH

Karl Burke, an Irish artist concerned with perceptions of space and time, will present a multi-channel sound installation and performance in the Joinery, a notfor-profit art gallery set to close at the end of this year. Burke is known for his site-responsive works, and this work is no different, made for and from the physical space of the gallery, encouraging an interplay with the environment and asserting the viewer’s role in constructing the surroundings. Across the river, No. 15 Usher’s Island, the setting for James Joyce’s literary masterpiece The Dead, will be handprinting the Centenary edition of the story on handmade paper using a Victorian press. The project has long been a dream for restorer Brendan Kilty, and this edition will have a life specification of 400 years, with the owner’s name printed with ash from the last fire lit in the house in 1892.

their books.

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WORDS BY SARAH LENNON GALAVAN

The IFI’s Stranger than Fiction festival (2528 September) showcases the best in Irish and international documentary filmmaking.

With many screenings featuring Q&A session with the film’s directors, it’s a fascinating insight into the process of shaping a non-fictional cinematic narrative and what drives the motivated men and women behind the camera. This year’s line up sees an exciting mix of political and cultural subjects, with an special focus on film and television. For the politically minded we’d recommend The Act of Killing producer Andre Singler’s Night Will Fall (27 September) which traces the unique history of footage captured during the liberation of the concentration camps. Receiving its international premiere, Des Doyle’s Showrunners (28 September) delves into the world of television showrunner with interviews from the likes of Joss Whedon.

Tickets for all screenings €10.20.

STRANGER THAN FICTION

WORDS BY HEATHER KEANE

Something a bit more light-hearted should be found in an adaptation of The Way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers, a picture book maker whose work is ineffably lovely. This non-verbal performance will use puppetry to convey its story and its focus on design makes this piece of children’s theatre appealing to all ages. Nicola Gunn will provide adult theatre with a playful edge in her participatory performance of Hello my name is, an event exploring the basics of human communication.

Check out page __ for an interview with Gavin Quinn of Pan Pan Theatre about their upcoming production, Americanitis Presents A Seagull and Other Birds, which goes up as part of the Festival.

WORDS BY CIARA FORRISTAL

The Affair premieres on 12 October on Showtime

Whilst Showtime’s The Affair seems fairly selfexplanatory — in that it charts the extramarital affair of novelist Noah (Dominic West) and waitress Alison (Ruth Wilson) — the tale itself is anything but simple. Their budding and eventual all-consuming desire conflicts not only with ideas of class and tradition, but threatens to unhinge the lovers’ psychological stability, especially in the aftermath of a mysterious and unrevealed crime. Told from the perspectives of both Noah and Alison as they recount their illicit liaison, the quest for an objective truth is plagued by shifting paradigms and dark undertones, all set against the seemingly idyllic beach resort of Montauk.

This show promises to be both enthralling and intriguing with fine performances from West and Wilson.

THE AFFAIR

OCTOBER 12

CHAINS, WHIPS AND CELERY STICKS

With a sex club rumoured to be opening in Dublin next month, one might have visions of wild debauchery, sumptuous lingerie and a medley of meticulously groomed genitalia. Last summer, I attended a sex club in San Francisco, which turned out to be immensely different from my expectations.

What kind of people go to a sex club? At first, I entertained all sorts of romantic notions — the rooms would be elegantly lit, with luxurious period furniture, upon which we would find super sexy people doing super sexy things to each other. I dreamily imagined us walking in repressed and unworldly, and walking out enlightened. I was immediately brought back to reality once we got inside, as we were greeted by the jaded volunteer staff members, who sleepwalked us through the rules of the club, handed us the contract agreements to sign, and brusquely requested our $25 admission fee, cash only.

The rules were pretty straightforward: no touching without consent, no aggressive cruising, no sleeping, no cameras or mobile phones, and no alcohol. BDSM was popular, and the club provided various bondage chairs and frames, as well as a cage. Scattered around the “play areas” were volunteers with glazed eyes, looking deeply unimpressed, either with their jobs or with being left out of the fun. To be honest, I doubted whether anyone was having any fun. I considered public, group sex to be one of the last remaining sexual taboos, and had expected to find myself surrounded by people in the throes of passion, like I’d seen in the unabashedly explicit film Shortbus (2006). Instead, there were grungy sofas on which a few blobby couples half-heartedly went at it, or quietly jerked each other off to the strains of nondescript “scene music”. We figured we should get involved, so got in the queue for the spanking horse. Although sex clubs usually encourage voyeurism, we were met with disapproving looks from the staff and patrons, and ended up spending our wait time staring at the incongruous LED dance floor, upon which exactly no one danced.

The promised “munchies” were presented on an almost absurdly banal buffet table, featuring an assortment of celery sticks (something I seldom associate with sex or nudity), along with flasks of coffee and tea. The “ambiance” over at the snack table was farcical when

contrasted with the main dungeon and play areas — here, one of my friends bumped into a lecturer from his course, and enjoyed a ludicrously normal conversation with him and his wife, both in their underwear. As most of the attendees were in polyamorous or open relationships, respect and communication are crucial here, but the whole process seemed like a lot more work than I had expected — the communication is so thorough it becomes tedious, and people describe their relationship boundaries in such explicit detail that the spontaneity seems to perish. While this was a bit of a vibe-killer for the club, it was inspiring to see partners being so open and trusting of each other.

I wondered if the problem had been aesthetic, and whether more decadent, sophisticated sex clubs were the solution. I spoke to an English girl named Claire about Torture Garden, “the world’s biggest fetish club”, where she attended a Valentine’s Ball with roughly 2,000 attendees. These parties focus more on spectacle, with a lavish cabaret performance, and although you hand in your phone at the door, there are photographers about the club to take glamour shots of the crowd. At £70 a ticket, the audience is largely composed of wealthy Londoners. Torture Garden enforces a very strict dress code, and it’s common for people to be turned away if their look isn’t sexy enough. Their website asserts, “we don’t want just anybody at our events,” and by leaving it up to the people at the door to determine someone’s sexiness or unsexiness, it’s clear that Torture Garden are more interested in crafting an exclusive, “cutting edge” aesthetic than providing a fun, welcoming atmosphere. In this way, it’s at the other end of the scale: the Citadel, for all its body and sex positivity, ended up being deeply unsexy, while the Torture Garden privileges sexual spectacle to such a degree it’s more like paying for really good seats at the theatre. Neither club matches my ideas of what or how a sex club should be, and it remains to be seen how the Dublin club will negotiate the middle ground between mundanity and spectacle.

WORDS BY MEADHBH MCGRATH ILLUSTRATIONS BY GRAHAM HAUGHT WWW.GRAHAMHAUGHT.COM

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