everything changes

trees hugging

"We cannot expect one man to heal every wound, to solve every major crisis of policy. So much of the Presidency, as they say, is a matter of waking up in the morning and trying to drink from a fire hydrant. In the quiet of the Oval Office, the noise of immediate demands can be deafening. And yet Obama has precisely the temperament to shut out the noise when necessary and concentrate on the essential. The election of Obama—a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of twenty-first-century America—would, at a stroke, reverse our country’s image abroad and refresh its spirit at home. His ascendance to the Presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting-rights acts of the nineteen-sixties and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks. At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama."

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The Jimmy Cake were astonishing. There were thirteen of them on the tiny Button Factory stage, standing three deep in places. leedy looked lovely, in a frock made for curtseying.

They played four of the best from Specter and Crown, with Red Tony (dedicated to a deceased "roaring Communist" uncle of two band members) being the stand-out. Listening to them live I realised that one of the reasons I like the music so much is its remarkable tension - it's truly melodic, but the progression holds the attention completely because the crescendos are so uplifting when they arrive.

Will have to see if I can skive off in November to get to the Vicar St gig...

I am unexpectedly getting to see my favourite 9 piece instrumental prog-rock gargantua play live tonight, which is most pleasing, especially as it look like there's no way I can make it to the November Vicar Street gig (what with directing a film and all)

am stoked

more later

in case anyone needs reminding of what the fuss is all about:

Haunted Candle

Jetta's Palace

Manifesto:
The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
by Wendell Berry


Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

My favourite 80's band - I still listen to them regularly

classic banger. but my man flat top look fuck up

Howard Linnane's Pint and a Picture show returns to Monday nights tomorrow (in Russell's of Ranelagh) with a program that includes two of my films (details below). If you make it, please say hello.

Mon 1st 7pm programme: you'll like Mondays now
We're back to Monday nights at the weekly free 'picture show' screenings at our usual venue in Ranelagh this week, but we start at an earlier time this Monday. The programme for Monday 1st September kicks off at 7pm with the usual Irish Short Films Slot starting the show but at 7.30pm we show 'Yellow Gate Women' (dir Margaretta D'Arcy (2006); running time 60 mins), a documentary about the Greenham Common Women's protest that began in the early 1980s against the siting of Cruise missiles at an airbase in England and went on for years. The film was screened at Galway Film Fleadh last year (and again this year, I believe) and it was shown a while back at the Portobello Film Festival in London and has been shown elsewhere.

The screening of the documentary will be followed by a Q&A with the director about the making of the film and about the Greenham protest at which she was present in its earliest days (which I'm old enough to remember and about which I have recently been reading a book written by former protestors - hence my interest in putting the film on, as soon as I read of it). I'm hoping it will develop into a full-blown discussion about Greenham, feminism, writing plays, filmmaking (esp documentaries), working for peace ... and whatever else occurs to the audience on the night.

Following the Q&A and any ensuing discussion we'll be screening 'Happiness' (dir Conor Horgan (2005); running time 27 mins), which involves a wide variety of people all around Ireland expressing their idea of happiness to camera. I expect this film to start screening at 9.30pm, if not earlier. We screened Conor's award-winning first short 'The Last Time' on 26th May and again more recently. His latest film 'About Beauty', a documentary about Irish artist Dorothy Cross, is being broadcast on RTE1 later on the very same night that our 'picture show' is showing 'Happiness' ie this Monday 1st (at 10.30pm or thereabouts) and will be screened at the IFI during the forthcoming 'Stranger Than Fiction' Documentary Film Festival 2008 in late September. (Conor has kindly agreed to our showing 'About Beauty' after that festival screening and will be doing a Q&A about it with us then.) The rest of our programme for this Monday night will be detailed later.
__________________

The Consuming Passions "Horses" episode can be seen online here till Sept 10th ( Ireland only)

...can be heard over on my tumblr

Am being interviewed about the Dorothy film on Lyric fm's Artzone program between 7-8 this evening.

You can listen to it live here, or it will be available here after the broadcast.

We started shooting the Fear film* at the Dublin Fashion Awards on Wednesday, where I met a face from the past - the legendary Mike Bunn. After some persuading he agreed to go on camera to talk about fear, and spoke very well indeed.

* A follow-up to Happiness. We'll be shooting another 6/7 days before the end of September, let me know if you'd like to be in it...

At the Flat Lake Festival (wellies just out of shot)