Here are some images from the Lee River Swim, which Evelyn and I participated in yesterday here in Cork. The water was very cold. And it was raining. But we made it…
Thanks to Tina, I now have a little slide show of the swim. Muchas gracias, darling.
Sitting outside Hi-B pub, brilliant sunshine, guy playing “Time of Your Life” on acoustic guitar to right of me, old men perched on bench to my left, young women, shoppers, couples, mom pushing two kids, solitary people walking. It’s with an effort I sit down, let go, be here now. Now he’s singing a song I don’t recognize but sounds like Oasis. A man hawking the paper in sing-songy voice, Echo! Echo! Echo! Competing, blending in with singer’s song. Now singer goes into “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen. My scalp’s getting sunburned, the sun hot on my scalp. Shadow on page as I write. He’s okay, the singer, not great, a scratchy tenor voice, cheap guitar, solid strumming. But nothing fancy. Basic guitar chords, no fancier or better than he should be on a Tuesday afternoon on Oliver Plunkett St., downtown Cork. My disorientation is utter and complete, as if I’ve a sign on my back, my forehead.
Perhaps just to talk to someone and break the spell. But I can’t, or don’t want to. Earlier I slammed into a woman crossing the busy intersection, streaming with people. She stared at me. I said sorry and moved on.
The singer’s paused now, smoking a cig. Pennies and 5-cent pieces scattered on the ground. I want to like him, not like him. The sun goes in and out of some light, shallow clouds. The Echo man calls again, again, again. The singer leans down to grab a bottle of water out of his guitar case, puts it back, leans again to pick out some coins. Begins singing again.
Both John and I have become addicted to the Irish newspapers, of which there are seemingly endless varieties. The one I’ve purchased for two days in a row is a large tabloid-style rag called Daily Irish Mail, and there’s a large banner across the top that says WHY PAY €1.70 FOR THE INDEPENDENT? (The Mail is 70 cents).
The news — not only what’s considered news, but how it’s reported — is enormously fascinating. There’s an ongoing story that typically consumes the front page regarding a murder trial that’s winding down. The case itself appears similar to the Lacy Peterson case from California several years ago. A woman disappeared, and was later found murdered. Her husband had been having an affair. His alibi is impossible to confirm, his story unraveling. New revelations from the testimony, along with pictorials and featurettes, come out every day.
Another ongoing story is Posh Spice’s invasion of Los Angeles and American culture. The consensus seems to be that she’s an older, more vulgar Paris Hilton, but they can’t get enough of her. Today there’s a photo spread featuring enlarged images of unsightly sagging flesh on her calves.
Speaking of Paris, yesterday there was an entire spread devoted to her out walking her dog in L.A.
Yet another ‘feature’ was on an aging Wonderbra model who had a baby and got her boobs back. Complete with pictures, of course.
If this sounds like tabloid journalism, it is. But mixed in with it are actual news stories about finance, politics, sports, etc. There are more strait-laced publications, but even these seem to place the emphasis on sensationalism and story-telling rather than the traditional ‘who what when where why’ type news piece.
In a way, I like it. I like the way it plays with notions of truth and language. Opinions are seldom kept out of news items. Facts are gotten to later than sooner. It’s somehow less insidious than American news’ parroting of company lines, such as the recent effort to brand every strain of Iraqi resistance/insurgency as ‘Al Qaeda.’
Susan, Jack, Evelyn, Jessica, and I stop for lunch
Across from our lunch spot…
View from Dun Aengus
Evelyn inspired by her favorite place
Connor and Steve enjoy the view
John, Jack, Jessica, and Cameron perched on a cliff
My new home on the island
Seacht Teampall…
or the “Seven Churches,” ruins of a monastary / graveyard
Everyone poet has airplane poems — the poems you write gazing out the window, musing on the strangeness of travel, taking in huge cloud formations and sectors of land and ocean. It occurs to me that this is its own genre; I’d like to do some sort of issue of these, with a code of honor that you can only submit poems that were written while in flight. They should be printed in an in-flight magazine, so people can only read them while flying, too… Without further ado, here are some of those I wrote on the plane ride to Europe.
And so I did commit
crimes against the immaculate.
Stuff stuck in our teeth,
time traveling somewhere
over Jackson.
Your tongue was skittish.
It’s worlds we’re creating,
trying to create. Curtains drawn
over first class.
If it rains get in it.
Squint at page as light
slants through cabin. Captain says
storms coming, fasten seatbelt
signs on.
The famous sky was gone.
It just has to happen.
The answer is obvious to everyone
except you. Don’t bang your head
against it. Amidst turbulence,
dinner is served.
I walk backwards into the sun.
Just the work – no feeling of
reward, completeness, the last
cloud falls into
the catcher’s mitt.
A feud unites
Math and myth.
What have you
lost on planes? Pens, lighters,
money, pillow, precious
minutes? They’re coming
around now with
something to sell.
Hordes of tenacious seconds turn to years.
Sometimes receiving precedes
gift, punch line
joke. Airplane
light, cloud light, book
light, dream light.
Italicized lines from James Galvin’s X.
Here are some pictures from the first week since leaving Slovenia — I’ll post the rest of the Aran images later.
My first real pint of Guinness in London
Evelyn and Beth fresh off the plane
Steve gives directions to the confused travelers
First night, ready to fall asleep at the pub
Waiting for the ferry to cross to the Arans
The boatride over
This is where I spent the night Thursday, on Inishmor, the largest of the Aran Islands. The school group had come for a few hours and it just didn’t seem long enough for me, so I found a cheap hostel and spent the night. After I’d checked in I just rode around on my rented bike for several hours, taking pictures and sitting and looking at the incredible stone walls and ocean scenery, like the above. Later, at the pub, I fell in with some locals and discovered that the island drug dealer, Spoons, had been gone for a week or so, nobody knew where, so there was no pot available (not that I wanted any, but it was good to know). A Scottish guy who actually looked vaguely like Mike Myers (reminding me, of course, of So I Married an Axe Murderer) came back to the hostel with us to drink American whiskey and got even more pissed than he already had been, then (I suspect) discovered my bike lying out back and availed himself of it to ride home. At least, it was not there next morning when I woke up.
This being an island, the guys at the rental place didn’t seem too concerned about it when I came back empty-handed. Next came an epic journey involving a ferry ride, a bus into Galway, a longer bus back to Cork, finally a city bus back to our dorm. I was so wiped all I could do was crash in my room and sleep…
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